Health Care Psychosis
Samuel Johnson called second marriages “the triumph of hope over experience.” The same might be said for the latest health care reform bill at the State Capitol.
For more than 20 years, crusading politicians have promised to deliver better health care to more people for less money simply by saying “make it so.” With rare exceptions, the resulting legislation exacerbates economic distortions, makes insurance impractically expensive, drives insurers out of the state, and creates worse problems than originally existed.
Stop RTD in its tracks – and fast
Colorado’s taxpayers are beginning to take note of a recent abuse of our Constitution: eminent domain law. Simply put, the Fifth Amendment gives our government the right to compensate private property owners if their land must be seized for a public works project.
Pick Your Poison with Big Government Health Care
ust as local experts were revealing their plans to “fix” what ails Colorado, a heavy-handed health care overhaul crashed on the rocks in California and Democrat presidential candidates clashed over the appropriate size of government’s health care hammer.
The Faulty Economics of Colorado's Climate Change Action Plan:A Peer Review by Benjamin Powell
With alarming rhetoric, Governor Bill Ritter unveiled his Climate Change Action Plan, an ambitious 32-page call to action outlining his goals and strategies for reducing “harmful greenhouse gas emissions,” much of which would be enacted via executive order.
Governor Ritter’s plan comes from the collaborative work of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Center for Climate Strategies (CCS), a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit mostly funded
by left-leaning environmental grant makers like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. They formed the Colorado Climate Project and established the Climate Action Panel (CAP) “to develop recommendations for actions that can be taken in Colorado by the state government, local governments, water providers, the private sector, and individuals to reduce the state’s contribution and vulnerability to a changed climate.” (Appendix A, P.1, www.coloradoclimate.org) Colorado financial contributors include Pat Stryker and Denver Water.
Press Release
Minority Reports Fault Health Care Reform Commission Process, Recommendations
Is One Government for Each Person Enough in Colorado?
Before the end of 2007, Colorado will have over 3,000 governments. That is 3,000 entities with independent decision making on public policy and tax authority. This figure is significant in that the state eclipsed 2,000 governments in 1998. A growth rate of 40% in eight years is significant enough to raise concern about the direction of government.
State Budget Scrutiny Reveals Ref C Shuffle
Two years ago, lawmakers asked for a “timeout” from the spending restrictions of the Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR) in order to allow the state budget to rebound from the recession of 2001-2002. Referendum C, approved by a narrow 52 percent to 48 percent margin, erased the tABOR spending limits for five years and permanently increased the spending caps thereafter. Voters were assured by Ref C proponents that K-12 education, colleges and universities, and health care would split the lion’s share of the resources if the measure passed. But a funny thing happened after Ref C passed. Spending on programs that rarely were identified with Ref C has grown at more than twice the rate of spending on education and health care. Now, some of the key players in convincing voters to pass Ref C are dissatisfied, and voters have cause to believe they were sold a bill of goods.
Implicit Compensation for Career Public Employees
The Colorado Division of Human Resources (DHR) conducts an annual compensation survey to support a state policy that provides competitive total compensation to ensure a qualified and competent workforce. Because this survey is significantly flawed in its estimation of retirement compensation, the comparison between private and public sector compensation is distorted. In particular, DHR substantially understaes retirement compensation for career public employees in Colorado. To indicate the magnitude of understatement, our study of PERA retirement benefits provides an historical baseline from which to evaluate retirement compensation. Improved estimates of implicit retirement compensation would allow a more realistic comparison between private and public sector compensation, and would support better decision making about allocation of scarce tax dollars for public employee compensation.
A Property Tax Increase by Any Name: The “Colorado Children’s Amendment” and Growing School Revenues
On March 12, 2007, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter proposed the “Colorado Children’s Amendment,” a plan to spend $84 million to expand preschool and kindergarten programs. To free state money to fund the programs, he proposed a mill levy rate “freeze” that would shift some of the school funding burden to local sources. On April 10, the governor revised the plan— offering tax relief to property owners in 33 school districts while creating higher property tax bills in 104 districts. The annual revenue estimate for the plan’s new version is $55 million.
What’s right with Colorado health care
What’s right with Colorado health care by Ari Armstrong We’ve heard plenty about what’s wrong with health care. Perhaps we’ve heard too much about what’s supposedly wrong from those who hope to turn sky-is-falling hysterics into political advantage.
Message to Congress and General Assembly: Government meddling undermines individual health insurance
Doesn’t it strike you as odd that we purchase life insurance, car insurance, and home insurance as individuals or families, but many of us buy health insurance through our employers? Employer-paid health insurance is neither portable nor cost effective for the insured, and it’s a constant headache for business owners.
The Train Drain: Brookings Institution on Rail Transit in America
The Brookings Institution is America’s oldest public policy think tank. Based in Washington, DC, it is well-respected and generally considered to be moderate-liberal in orientation. As American Enterprise Institute is informally considered a place for Republican office-holders to reside when out of power, so Brookings is regarded for Democratic icons.
