Looming Legislative Session Evokes More Heartburn than Hope for K-12 Issues
Run for cover, and hold onto your wallets! The first session of the 69th Colorado General Assembly is underway. While school finance reform (and an accompanying tax increase referral) stands at the head of the line, a slew of other K-12 issues can be expected to receive consideration — everything from teacher licensure to collective bargaining and a number of bureaucratic regulations. Supporters of school choice and reform ought to buckle up for a bumpy ride!
The Obama Administration’s Illegal Health Care Taxes: an Update
There have been several developments with respect to the Obama administration’s attempt to impose the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s employer-mandate penalties and individual-mandate penalties where it has no authority to do so. Continue reading
Colorado Medicaid expansion: Denver Business Journal spreads myth of unsinsured cost-shift
Medicaid, through low doctor payment rates, increases insurance premiums. This amount is much more than the amount uninsured people increase premiums when they do not pay part of all of their medical bills. Continue reading
More Automakers Move Toward Self-Driving Cars
Lexus cautiously presented its work towards a self-driving car at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show yesterday. Audi has taken the bolder step of obtaining a Nevada license for its self-driving car. Tire maker Continental has also entered the field. Lexus (which of course is owned by Toyota) is advertising its technology as more of […]
Top 10? Yes, But ‘C’ for Colorado on Students First Policy Report Card
Not too long ago I was telling you about new information out grading Colorado schools’ performance. But how is Colorado doing in applying policies that promote an excellent, equitable and efficient education system? Today the national group Students First released its first-ever State Policy Report Cards.
How did Colorado do? Depends how you look at it. […]
Boehner Admits Mistake: Sometimes the Constitutional Course is the Wisest Politically
In a December 23 post, I pointed out that House Speaker John Boehner should not be conceding the initiative on revenue measures to the Senate and President. Doing so not only made no political sense, but it was contrary to the Constitution’s mandate that revenue bills originate in the House. Mr. Boehner now agrees that […]
Instead of expanding Medicaid ghetto, Colorado should emulate Florida’s Medicaid premium support program
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper wants to drag more low-income people into Medicaid, which is notorious for fraud, delivering lousy care, poor access. Instead of expanding this failed government dependency program, Colorado should look at Florida as an example of effective Medicaid reform. Continue reading
Land-Use Manifesto 2013
Here is the second of my statements of principles for the New Year. 1. The Property-Rights Principle: Government should not regulate land uses except to prevent trespasses or nuisances. People should be allowed to use their land in any way they see fit provided their use does not harm others (such as through air, water, […]
Medicaid expansion has hidden costs
by Linda Gorman The federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) has radically restructured federal subsidy programs for medical care. For the first time in decades, Colorado can begin bringing state expenditures in line with tax revenues by using federal money to reverse the excessive growth in its Medicaid and child health insurance programs. […]
Independence Institute’s Linda Gorman in Denver Post: Hickenlooper’s plan to finance Medicaid expansion is “reckless,” the “pie in the sky they always feed us.”
“Is our current Medicaid program so inefficient that they can magically save that much money on it?” Gorman said. “This is the pie in the sky they always feed us — that somehow, magically, we’re going to reorganize everything and save money.” Continue reading
Can We Get a Truly Comparable Picture of State Graduation Rates?
A Friday quickie for readers to chew on. Back in late November, the U.S. Department of Education released the first-ever data where we could truly compare the rates at which students in different states are graduating high school on time. Unfortunately, Colorado’s 74 percent graduation rate put us in the bottom third.
But now that we […]
A Response to Professor Seidman
Should we acknowledge that the U.S. Constitution is filled with “archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions,” and “extricat[e] ourselves from constitutional bondage” by cashiering the document? “As the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken,” argues Louis Michael Seidman, tasked with […]
