Russ Harding, Mackinac Center senior environmental analyst, discussed cap-and-trade and other energy issues in Oakland County recently, according to Reporting Michigan.
Harding told the audience that such a plan would increase energy costs for homeowners by as much as $4,000 a year and suggested a better plan could include a revenue-neutral carbon tax.
Cross-posted from State House Call.
It never ceases to amaze me how the busiest woman in Washington remains so accessible. Just this week alone, I am aware of 8-10 hours of direct Washington senior staff time devoted to Maine doctors, patients and health care professionals in reviewing the impact of the Baucus bill on Maine families and businesses.
Although the actual numbers are underreported, it’s now believed that up to one in six patients are being misdiagnosed under Britain’s government-run National Health Service.
While in most cases the misdiagnosis did not result in the patient suffering serious harm, a sizeable number of the millions of NHS patients were likely to suffer significant health problems as a result, according to figures. It was said that the number of misdiagnoses was “just the tip of the iceberg”, with many people still reluctant to report mistakes by their doctors.
“Insurance companies shouldn’t be able to discriminate!” makes for a great sound bite, but expensive insurance.
New York and a few other states have the kind of insurance regulations that President Obama and others call for. They’re called “community rating” (limits on how much an insurance company can “discriminate” by charging the sickest people more) and “guaranteed issue” (nobody can be turned down for a policy).
Medicaid is, for some states, an even bigger expense than education. That’s just one reason to try new reforms. The James Madison Institute highlights a pilot program enacted in Florida.
JMI president Bob McClure says: “Medicaid spending in Florida. It is absolutely unsustainable. … Continuing down this path, state government would not be able to fund core functions such as education and public safety without massive tax increases.”
Critics from the pro-spending, pro-government side of the ideological spectrum have famously been throwing the charge of “Astroturf” — i.e. fake “grass roots” — at the various TEA Party gatherings and town hall meetings that have been flaring up across the nation since April 15.
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has been critical of the Michigan Film Incentive since its inception in 2008. At first, the criticisms focused on the pure principle of the thing: state government has no business trying to pick corporate winners from losers in the marketplace. This time, the perceived “winner” would be moviemakers who could get cash refunds of up to 42 percent of money spent in Michigan. This also became the most generous film incentive in the country.
On Sept. 4, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial titled “The Michigan Example,” excoriating the state’s reliance on government central planning to “create” jobs, rather than undertake genuine overall business climate reform. The editorial was based in part on research published a few days earlier by myself and James Hohman.
Confidence in government breeds complacency in politics. When people think government is handling things tolerably well, they see no reason to pay much attention to politics. When confidence sinks from low to lower, grass-roots political energy spikes upward. That’s why people are now leaping off the sidelines and into TEA parties and raucous town hall meetings to protest sky-high taxes, exploding deficits and the government’s attempt to take over health care. Smart politicians can seize this opportunity by exercising an oft-neglected part of the political anatomy: the spine.
Michigan law mandates that nearly all teachers pass the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification. The state claims these tests are “criterion referenced and objective based,” but reading through some of the sample questions provided on the MTTC Web site, I wonder how “objective” these tests really are. It’s well known that universities are disproportionately staffed with men and women of the left, but it’s still startling to find blatant ideological bias in state-mandated teacher certification tests.
As the Sept. 30 deadline approaches for adopting a Fiscal Year 2009-2010 state budget, there is considerable angst among the political class about the agreement House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, which is characterized as a "cuts-only" solution to the massive gap between the amount legislators would like to spend and the amount of taxes and fees the state expects to collect (a.k.a. "the deficit").
The Mackinac Center's ongoing efforts to get public schools, municipalities and legislators to post spending online for public inspection was highlighted by WEYI-TV25 today.
More than 50 conventional public school districts now post their checkbook registers online. Three aditional districts, two charter public schools and the city of Portage all recently did the same, according to the Center's "Show Michigan The Money" project.
Every so often I find signs that charity care is not yet dead. For example, the Injured Riders Foundation gives financial and other support to people (usually young adults without insurance) who are injured while snowboarding, skateboarding or otherwise engaged in “action sports.”
Michigan median household incomes grew by 1.7 percent, according to a release today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Adjusted for inflation, Michigan incomes fell by 2.4 percent. Overall, the national median household income decreased by 1.3 percent.
Unlike much economic news in the past decade, a number of other states are sharing in the downturn. Big states like Florida and California did especially poorly, pulling the national average down. Michigan ranked 47th in growth, beating Indiana, Montana and Florida. Twenty-seven states had lower real median household incomes than in the year before.
The Citizen Patriot reported that Mike Sharp, president of the Jackson Commercial Contractors Association, urged the school board to adopt the policy so that local contractors can help the district pass a $16.6 million bond issue in November. The money would be used for major building renovation and upgrades.
What’s been working at keeping insurance premiums under control? Nothing that’s being discussed in Washington these days.
StateHouseCall contributor Merrill Matthews, along with Ray Ramthum, laid out some numbers in an op-ed published by Investors’ Business Daily.
The site Health Care Horse Race reports that there are 564 amendments to the Senate Finance bill. Read here for an assessment of the good, the bad and the ugly. Or at least the bad and the ugly. I haven’t seen anything good yet.
Cross-posted from State House Call.
Perhaps the most odious part of any health reform is the requirement that you buy health insurance.
Anthony Gregory, a research analyst at the Independent Institute, says there are several reasons why a mandate may be unconstitutional.
There is of course the Tenth Amendment, which we’ve discussed on this site before. But there’s also the right to privacy, the Fourth Amendment (secure in your papers and house), the Fifth Amendment (self-incrimination) and the Thirteenth Amendment (involuntary servitude).
Data released last Friday by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that for the second month this year, Michigan was burdened with an unemployment rate exceeding that of Puerto Rico. Michigan’s rate was 15.2 percent while Puerto Rico’s stood at 15.1 percent.
In an ongoing debate in the Los Angeles Times with Larry McNeely, Michael F. Cannon makes a point that ought to be heard more often: “Democrats in Congress are taxing workers to pay off insurance companies. Democratic Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) just proposed $774 billion in subsidies for private insurers. (Somehow, that’s supposed to be more moderate than House Democrats’ $773 billion in subsidies.)”
The Home School Legal Defense Association has offered several criticisms of H.R. 3200.
As a group, home-schooling families are small in number, but they are used to being politically active. Add a few more groups to the mix and you have some powerful opposition to a government takeover of health care, whether through a “public option” or merely increased regulation.
The Chicago Tribune has a feel-good story that is also a bit creepy.
Lilly Jaffe is a girl who lives in suburban Chicago. She has been treated since infancy for Type I diabetes, which requires injections to deliver insulin. Recently, however, researchers discovered that she has a rare condition that could in fact be treated by oral medication.
The Washington Supreme Court has struck down a law in that state meant to curb the number of medical malpractice lawsuits.
As an AP account put it, “The state Supreme Court has unanimously thrown out a 2006 law that requires an injured patient to get a certificate of merit from an expert before they can sue for medical malpractice.”
How many people are without insurance in your state, and can they afford it? The Georgia Public Policy Foundation breaks out the numbers for Georgia, and provides a link to a nifty data tool that provides some answers — or at least estimates from the Census Bureau.
Reviews roll in for the Baucus version of health reform, released yesterday.
Michael F. Cannon of the Cato Institute divides the outline into good, bad and ugly. The good is that the plan takes a step toward regional or national sales of health insurance and calls for co-ops rather than an outright government corporation that sells insurance. The bad is composed of Medicaid expansion, cuts to Medicare Advantage, and an employer mandate. The ugly includes a “heavily punitive individual mandate” and new regulations that may — the language of the outline is unclear — require changes to what people already have in insurance. (So much for “if you like your insurance you can keep it.”)
