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From John C. Goodman's testimony to Congress on April 2, 2009 Making health insurance portable:If you have insurance that meets your needs, you should be able to keep it and …

Although national health insurance has considerable support within the medical profession, the degree to which patient empowerment, individual choice, competition, and market incentives are being consciously and successfully used to solve health care problems is far more extensive than is commonly realized.

Our Commitment to Privacy The NCPA is committed to protecting your privacy throughout the organization. This notice supplements our Online Privacy Policy and describes our practices for safeguarding personal information …

Congress should consider carefully the high costs of carbon offset schemes, and the problems of measuring and verifying reductions of greenhouse gas emissions under such systems, before including similar programs in domestic greenhouse-gas legislation.

To our knowledge, the Oregon Health Plan is the first government health care program anywhere in the world that has drawn up a formal procedure for rationing.

If the government limits carbon emissions now through taxes or direct caps, it is taxing the poor today to benefit wealthier future generations. 

The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation Internship Program was established to develop the next generation of liberty-minded leaders and entrepreneurs. The project assignments cover fascinating areas including policy research, leadership …

NCPA Projects In Action Tax and Retirement Policy Reform Distinguished Fellow Robert D. McTeer, Jr., has been a leader in promoting pro-growth reforms as the NCPA spokesperson on economic and …

Small business employees are much less likely to have access to employer-sponsored health coverage than the employees of larger firms.

Banker greed and Wall Street are blamed, but government policies over the last 25 years are the root cause of the current financial crisis.

Congress is debating an economic stimulus package that would substantially increase federal spending, but may not speed recovery from the current recession.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates that less than 40 percent of the proposed infrastructure spending in the stimulus bill will be spent within two years. 

The one expenditure that a lot of people assume they have little or no control over is health care costs. Yet, a little common sense and a healthy dose of consumerism can reward savvy shoppers with significant savings without sacrificing care.

Rather than a one- or two-year stimulus package, we should be looking for permanent
fiscal changes that turn the economy around in a lasting way.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that only 7% of the stimulus spending in the House-passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (approx. $358 billion of the total) will be spent this year. By the end of 2010, only 38% will be spent. And by the end of 2011 only 67% will be spent. Including both tax cuts and stimulus checks, only one fifth of the total package will be spent in 2009.

Policy experts expect the next administration to make major changes in the way the federal government measures poverty. The current poverty standard is an outmoded, 40-year-old measure that is adjusted each year for inflation. It does not account for all of a family's income or living expenses. Many poverty experts support changing the poverty standard. But how should that be done?

Since its inception in 1970, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been criticized for imposing large costs on businesses while producing only minimal improvements in workplace safety. OSHA is now required to show that the benefits of a proposed regulation outweigh the costs of complying with it. However, OSHA’s cost-benefit analysis is often flawed.

Europe is undergoing two major transitions. On the demographic front, many European countries are undergoing rapid population aging as their Baby Boom generations enter retirement, senior citizens live longer and fertility rates remain well below the population replacement level. On the economic front, 15 European countries have adopted the euro as a common currency, eliminating the ability to use monetary policy to achieve country-specific economic goals. Both transitions will place tremendous, conflicting pressures on the domestic national budgets of European countries.

Since January 2008, 401(k) account balances have dropped up to 25 percent, on average, leaving millions of workers and retirees worried about the future of their retirement savings. Congress and President-elect Obama are considering changes to 401(k)s and other retirement accounts in response to the market turmoil. Which proposals are good ideas to improve retirement savings, and which would make matters worse?

President-elect Obama has appointed Jeanne Lambrew as Deputy Director of the newly formed White House Office for Health Reform. In this position, Dr. Lambrew will be a major force in shaping health care policy for the Obama Administration. Foreshadowing the national policy debate to come about the Obama Administration's health policy, NCPA President John C. Goodman recently debated the pros and cons of various health care reform options with Dr. Lambrew.

The market for medical care does not work like other markets. Providers typically do not disclose prices prior to treatment because they do not compete for patients based on price. Payments are usually not made by patients themselves but by third parties – employers, insurance companies or government. And the amounts paid are not really market-clearing prices; they are "reimbursement" rates negotiated with bureaucratic institutions and networks. Furthermore, when providers do not compete on price, they usually do not compete on quality either. In fact, in a very real sense, doctors and hospitals are not competing for patients at all – at least not in the way normal businesses compete in markets.

How large is the federal government's debt? The figure most likely to be reported in newspapers is the debt held by the public. This measure currently stands at $6.3 trillion and is rising. However, the debt held by the public tells only a small part of the story. How should the government account for the predicted shortfalls of Social Security and Medicare? Officially, they are considered government "obligations," but not "liabilities" or "debts." The reason: retirees and workers do not have a contractual right to the benefits they expect to receive.

Should the government control healthcare? Does it really pay to save for retirement? Is Michael Moore right about the U.S. healthcare system? Issues raised at NCPA can now be debated live at Helium.com.

The threat of drug-resistant bacteria infecting schoolchildren has been scaring parents
across America, after a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
made national headlines.  However, public health officials are cautioning parents not to overreact.

Up to a point, government spending on public goods – such as national defense and protection of property – can raise the economic growth rate. However, as government spending rises, the tendency is to increase spending on nonproductive income transfers – such as subsidy and welfare programs. Research indicates that the high levels of taxation required to pay for such income transfers inhibit economic growth, whereas lower taxes can raise the rate of economic growth.

The most important domestic policy problem this country faces is health care. The most important component of that problem is Medicare. Forecasts by every federal agency that produces such simulations – the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Social Security/Medicare Trustees, the General Accounting Office (GAO) – show that we are on a dangerous and unsustainable path. Indeed, the question is not: Will reform take place? The question is: How painful will reform have to be?