American workers live longer each decade but they continue to retire early. They often begin receiving Social Security benefits, quit working and stop contributing to national output well before age 65. Reversing these trends must be an important objective when designing long-term reforms to balance revenues and expenditures on elderly entitlements.
Drug courts are judicially supervised programs that provide long-term treatment and other services to nonviolent drug law offenders. Cases can be referred to drug courts in lieu of or in addition to traditional criminal punishment, such as incarceration or probation.
The Greeks have always been trendsetters for the West. Washington has repudiated two centuries of U.S. fiscal prudence as prescribed by the Founding Fathers in favor of the modern Greek model of debt, dependency, devaluation and default. Prospects for restraining runaway U.S. debt are even poorer than they appear.
All over the developed world, countries are facing an extremely unpleasant budgetary reality: Per capita health care spending is growing at twice the rate of growth of per capita income.
Tuition voucher programs attempt to improve academic performance through school choice. Vouchers pay a set amount to schools chosen by the students' families. Programs can be federally funded (like the D.C. Opportunities Scholarship Program), funded by local government (such as the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program) or privately funded.
Investment firms include private equity funds (which raise capital to invest in start-ups or existing businesses) and hedge funds (investment funds that specialize in certain investments such as debt instruments, stocks or derivatives). They are typically not organized as public corporations, with stocks traded on an exchange, but as partnerships.
The regulatory reform bill currently before Congress will supposedly impose financial reregulation, reversing the alleged deregulation of the past 30 years. What deregulation? Can anyone point to the removal of a particular legal or regulatory barrier in the last two decades as a cause of the recent financial crisis? If so, will the new legislation restore this barrier?
In order to prevent a one-fifth drop in the fees physicians receive under Medicare, Congress is proposing another in a series of temporary fixes. The American Medical Association (AMA) engaged in an expensive lobbying campaign to implement the so-called "doc fix" for Medicare Part B, but Congress is unlikely to permanently solve the problem.
More people are likely to turn to the emergency room for their health care and they are likely to do so more frequently under the new health reform legislation. This finding is surprising because an oft repeated argument for insuring the uninsured is that it will allow people to seek less costly and more accessible care elsewhere.
Millions of Americans are saving for retirement in 401(k)s and Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). These accounts allow people to invest pretax dollars, but require them to pay taxes on their deposits and accumulated earnings at the time of withdrawal. By contrast, a Roth account allows people to deposit after-tax dollars, but withdraw the accumulated balances tax-free.
Among the provisions of the recently enacted health law is a new federal program for long-term care. A variation of a proposal the Urban Institute dubbed "Medicare Part E," proponents say it is a sound insurance program paid for by the premiums of voluntary participants – claims that were once also made about Medicare.
Under the new health care law, most U.S. residents will be required to have health insurance by 2014. About 32 million additional people are expected to enroll in some type of health plan. Evidence suggests that insured people consume twice as much medical care as uninsured people, other things being equal. This means that 32 million people will try to double their consumption of medical care. Yet, who will provide that care?
In October 2008 Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. The act created a $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) aimed at preventing a meltdown of the banking system. Some TARP funds were subsequently used for purposes outside the financial industry, but most were used to purchase preferred stock in banks to shore up bank capital as a buffer against bad assets.
Each year, foreign governments and investors increase their holdings of U.S. debt. In effect, they are lending the United States money to finance its excess of imports over exports. However, continued excessive deficits could make U.S. trading partners reluctant to continue the process. Reluctance to buy or efforts to sell dollar holdings by foreign investors would cause U.S. equities to decline, interest rates to spike and the dollar to plunge.
The landmark health reform law signed by President Obama will require small businesses to provide health insurance to their employees. This burden will be offset by a tax credit for each employee covered. However, the credit is arbitrarily reduced as firms grow, penalizing employers that hire more workers or increase their salaries. Thus, the credit may discourage firms from hiring more workers or higher-paid workers.
On the campaign trail in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama announced a plan to create five million new "green collar" jobs. Since becoming president, he has repeatedly touted his support for green jobs; for instance, in his 2010 State of the Union address and Earth Day remarks on April 22, 2010. In addition, recent stimulus legislation and appropriations bills have contained provisions to subsidize or promote green job creation.
The new health care law will substantially increase the tax burden of high-income workers and small businesses over the next few years. Those tax increases could be piled on top of other tax increases on the labor and investment income of high-income earners. The tax hikes will reduce the capital stock and discourage small business job creation – the opposite of what is needed to grow the economy.
Restricted to two letter-size pages, a Health Care Brief Analysis summarizes some aspect or aspects of health care policy such as HSAs, health insurance reform, and retail medicine, presenting points …
The use of nuclear power to generate electricity is growing worldwide. More than 100 nuclear power plants are under construction or in various stages of planning, and many existing plants are expanding.
Tuition voucher programs attempt to improve academic performance through school choice. Vouchers pay a set amount to schools chosen by the students' families. Some programs are federally funded (like the D.C. Opportunities Scholarship Program), funded by local government (such as the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program) or privately funded.
Restricted to two letter?size pages, a Health Care Brief Analysis summarizes some aspect or aspects of health care policy such as HSAs, health insurance reform, and retail medicine, presenting points …
While Congress has been debating health reform, employers have been creating new consumer-driven health care (CDHC) plans. In fact, CDHC plans are the only type of health insurance that has been shown to reliably change patient and doctor behavior in ways that lower costs and improve the quality of care.
Both the House and Senate health reform bills would establish exchanges offering people health insurance policies. Low-income individuals and families who did not have employer-provided health insurance and obtained coverage through an exchange would be eligible for subsidies. In both bills, the subsidies phase out with income, although the specific numbers differ.
Both the House and Senate versions of the health care bill, as well as the Obama administration's "compromise" proposal, offer large subsidies to encourage low- and middle-income individuals and households to purchase health insurance from private insurers through a government-supervised health insurance exchange.
Capitalism and democracy are both known to improve the quality of life. But which is more effective in promoting social welfare? Three typical measures of social welfare are health, education and disease prevention. Poor countries generally rank lower than developed countries on these social metrics, but better public policies can improve them.