Focus Point – Roth MSAs
You've heard about Roth IRAs. How about Roth MSAs?
Patient Power and the Internet
The growth of the Internet and the vast amount of information it makes available are dramatically changing health care and medicine. As many as 100 million people in the United States now have access to the Internet, and that number is expected to grow by 50 percent over the next few years. Health information is some of the most popular content on the Internet.
MSAs for Everyone, Part II
Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) are usually associated with large deductibles. For example, under a federal pilot program, in order for employers and their employees to make tax-free deposits to MSA accounts, patients must incur $1,550 or more in expenses before the insurance kicks in. All the expenses below the deductible are to be paid from the MSA or directly out of pocket. Once the deductible is satisfied, the insurance acts like any other health plan.
MSAs for Everyone, Part I
Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) give patients direct ownership of and control over a portion of their health care dollars. They have two main advantages. First, when people spend their own health care dollars, they become more careful and prudent consumers of care than when they spend other people's dollars. The result is lower health care costs and better value for the money spent. Second, when patients pay the bills, doctors and other providers are more likely to act as the patients' agents rather than as agents of a third-party payer. The result is care that better meets the patients' needs.
NCPA Says Social Security Trustees Report Poses Danger Of Complacency
Responding to the new report by the Social Security trustees that the Social Security trust fund has an additional three years of solvency, the NCPA warned today against using this news as an excuse to delay needed reforms.
Focus Point – Big Spending Republicans
The political trend that's pained me most over the past few years has been the inability of Congressional Republicans to stick to the promises of 1994. I've given examples before. Now, Investor's Business Daily is the latest to run the numbers.
Controlling Guns, Destroying Freedom
Is Clinton lying in the war of words over gun control? That depends on what the meaning of the word 'is,' is.
Focus Point – Real Campaign Reform
President Clinton is wrong about Bradley Smith. Clinton nominated Smith — reluctantly — to the Federal Election Commission. Republicans and Democrats each nominate three people to the commission. Smith's a Republican who, Clinton says, hates campaign reform.
NCPA to Feature ABC's John Stossel Discussing the Media's Crisis Mentality
What are the real risks in modern life? Why does the media hype unrealistic fears? And why does the public fall for it?
What's At Stake In Election 2000
As we enter the 21st Century, the nation is living with aging institutions that are not designed for the information age.
Focus Point – A Gun to Their Head
The Clinton administration may be crowing about its settlement with Smith and Wesson, but there's nothing to be proud of.
Focus Point – Taxing the Net
The battle to keep Internet commerce tax free won a small victory last week when a Blue Ribbon Commission voted to extend the moratorium on Internet taxes until 2006.
One Florida Shows Difficulty of Finding the Middle Ground
As the saying goes "No good deed goes unpunished."
Clear Away the Smoke Surround the Presidential Candidates' Environmental Records
I dread this election year more than usual because through "false advertising" radical environmentalists have a chance of putting one of their own in the White House.
Focus Point – Political Stereotyping
By now, I'm used to stereotyping and name-calling in politics. What I'll never get used to is using issues like race and religion to pit one group of Americans against another for votes.
Focus Point – Really Helping the Uninsured
Every year the federal governments "spends" about $125 billion in tax subsidies (read: Your Money) encouraging people to buy private health insurance. But the number of uninsured is 44 million and growing. How come? Because the subsidies actually cause people to decline insurance.
NCPA's Goodman: Decade Worth Of NCPA Research Pays Off With End Of Social Security Earnings Test
The following statement was released by National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPASM) President John C. Goodman, commenting on the U.S. Senate's vote to repeal the earnings test for Social Security benefits.
Focus Point – Teacher Strikes
Did you read about the Los Angeles teachers union's call for a strike? When you hear the facts, you'll know why school choice is inevitable.
The End of the Sales Tax?
The commission studying Internet taxation has been hearing two starkly different scenarios of our future with e-commerce. On the one hand, the word is that taxing Internet commerce will kill the goose just as it begins to lay golden eggs. On the other hand, there are predictions that state and local government revenue bases will dry up unless Internet sales are subject to the same taxes that apply to traditional bricks-and-mortar businesses.
Focus Point – Gas Prices
Before you lose sleep over rising gasoline prices, a few facts.
NCPA's du Pont: Internet Will Help Kill Sales Tax
The real question before the advisory commission on electronic commerce is not whether or how to apply state and local sales taxes to online commerce, but whether the sales tax can or should survive in an Internet world.
NCPA's Burnett Available to Discuss Recent Developments in Suits Against Gun Manufacturers
H. Sterling Burnett, senior policy analyst for the National Center for Policy Analysis, is available to discuss the recent deal between the government and fire-arm manufacturer Smith & Wesson and reports that Glock is also pursuing a deal.
Focus Point – The Conservative Shift
The big news from Super Tuesday was presidential politics. More interesting to me were the fortunes of the many initiatives on the California ballot.
Taxing the Internet
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify before the Commission today on the issue of Internet taxation. Whatever this Commission decides to do will unquestionably shape the debate for years to come. You are to be congratulated for the thorough job you and the other members are doing in this important area.
Focus Point – Wasting Money in School
President Clinton wants another $8.5 billion in new federal education spending. But years of studies have showed with painful clarity that spending has gone up as student performance has gone down.