Commentary

Business & Economics

Rising Regulatory Burdens, Declining Health Outcomes

Tweaks do not turn bad regulatory proposals into good ones. Yet, with only minor modifications, Congress is once again considering the CREATES Act (Creating and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples Act of 2017), and its close cousin, the FAST Act (Fair Access for Safe and Timely Generics Act of ...
California

California’s ‘Free’ Health Care Won’t Come Cheap

(Note: After the column went to print, SB 562 passed the State Senate on June 1 by a vote of 23 to 14.) Democrats in California’s state Senate spent Thursday hemming and hawing over Senate Bill 562, the Healthy California Act. When this column went to print, the Democratic caucus ...
Commentary

Why Trump Is Right To Cut Federal Education Spending

President Trump’s proposed cuts to the federal education budget have elicited the usual howls of dismay and condemnation from the education establishment. Yet, drill down into the actual cuts and there are a lot of good reasons to put these programs on the chopping block. Take, for example, the 21st ...
California

Sally Pipes on Single Payer Vote

SAN FRANCISCO – Pacific Research Institute President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy Sally C. Pipes today issued the following statement in response to the State Senate’s passage of single-payer health care legislation (Senate Bill 562): “Lawmakers today voted to move forward a $400 billion-a-year single-payer ...
Commentary

Obamacare’s Newfound Popularity Could Prove Fleeting

Recent polling indicates that “Support for Obamacare [is] at [an] all-time high,” as a recent headline put it. But there’s a catch. The healthcare law’s popularity depends on how the polls are worded. That’s not surprising — few people fully understand what Obamacare actually does. Once they learn, support plummets. ...
California

LAUSD Election, New Data Provide Momentum For Charter Schools

Los Angeles Unified recently experienced a huge earthquake – a political seismic shift – when school board candidates supportive of charter schools defeated incumbents backed by the powerful local teachers union. And in a one-two punch, new research shows that charter schools are improving the achievement of the predominantly minority ...
Commentary

Medicaid’s Cracked Halo

President Trump’s recent 2018 budget proposal, which includes roughly $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next decade, has led to howls of outrage from Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said last week that the cuts would “carry a staggering human cost.” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. has ...
Business & Economics

Step One: Recognize The Public Pension Crisis

As Milton Friedman famously noted, there are four ways to spend money; the fourth being spending somebody else’s money on somebody else. And, when people spend money this way, they tend to disregard both the costs and the outcomes. Simply put, people spend such money unwisely. Not only, as Milton ...
Business & Economics

Pensions: The Case For Defined Contribution Retirement Plans

Three problems, exemplified by the crises afflicting the public pension systems in Houston and Dallas, plague state and local pension systems across the country. First, state and local governments have only contributed 88 percent of the required annual contributions into their public pension funds between 2001 and 2015. In total, ...
Commentary

Nothing To CBO Here

Today, the Congressional Budget Office released its report on the American Health Care Act, which passed the House earlier this month. The agency projected that the bill would increase the number of uninsured Americans by 23 million in 2026, relative to Obamacare. But the CBO’s projections are just that — ...
Business & Economics

Rising Regulatory Burdens, Declining Health Outcomes

Tweaks do not turn bad regulatory proposals into good ones. Yet, with only minor modifications, Congress is once again considering the CREATES Act (Creating and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples Act of 2017), and its close cousin, the FAST Act (Fair Access for Safe and Timely Generics Act of ...
California

California’s ‘Free’ Health Care Won’t Come Cheap

(Note: After the column went to print, SB 562 passed the State Senate on June 1 by a vote of 23 to 14.) Democrats in California’s state Senate spent Thursday hemming and hawing over Senate Bill 562, the Healthy California Act. When this column went to print, the Democratic caucus ...
Commentary

Why Trump Is Right To Cut Federal Education Spending

President Trump’s proposed cuts to the federal education budget have elicited the usual howls of dismay and condemnation from the education establishment. Yet, drill down into the actual cuts and there are a lot of good reasons to put these programs on the chopping block. Take, for example, the 21st ...
California

Sally Pipes on Single Payer Vote

SAN FRANCISCO – Pacific Research Institute President, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy Sally C. Pipes today issued the following statement in response to the State Senate’s passage of single-payer health care legislation (Senate Bill 562): “Lawmakers today voted to move forward a $400 billion-a-year single-payer ...
Commentary

Obamacare’s Newfound Popularity Could Prove Fleeting

Recent polling indicates that “Support for Obamacare [is] at [an] all-time high,” as a recent headline put it. But there’s a catch. The healthcare law’s popularity depends on how the polls are worded. That’s not surprising — few people fully understand what Obamacare actually does. Once they learn, support plummets. ...
California

LAUSD Election, New Data Provide Momentum For Charter Schools

Los Angeles Unified recently experienced a huge earthquake – a political seismic shift – when school board candidates supportive of charter schools defeated incumbents backed by the powerful local teachers union. And in a one-two punch, new research shows that charter schools are improving the achievement of the predominantly minority ...
Commentary

Medicaid’s Cracked Halo

President Trump’s recent 2018 budget proposal, which includes roughly $800 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next decade, has led to howls of outrage from Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said last week that the cuts would “carry a staggering human cost.” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. has ...
Business & Economics

Step One: Recognize The Public Pension Crisis

As Milton Friedman famously noted, there are four ways to spend money; the fourth being spending somebody else’s money on somebody else. And, when people spend money this way, they tend to disregard both the costs and the outcomes. Simply put, people spend such money unwisely. Not only, as Milton ...
Business & Economics

Pensions: The Case For Defined Contribution Retirement Plans

Three problems, exemplified by the crises afflicting the public pension systems in Houston and Dallas, plague state and local pension systems across the country. First, state and local governments have only contributed 88 percent of the required annual contributions into their public pension funds between 2001 and 2015. In total, ...
Commentary

Nothing To CBO Here

Today, the Congressional Budget Office released its report on the American Health Care Act, which passed the House earlier this month. The agency projected that the bill would increase the number of uninsured Americans by 23 million in 2026, relative to Obamacare. But the CBO’s projections are just that — ...
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