August 2001 – NCPAThinkTank

Brief Analyses / Health

Would National Health Insurance Benefit Physicians?

Physicians for a National Health Program and other groups advocate a single-payer health care system as a way to improve quality and increase access to health care. The idea may be appealing to many physicians, frustrated by constraints on their medical practices that may reduce the quality of patient care. However, rather than improving the conditions physicians face under our current system of multiple payers, national health insurance would make matters worse.

Brief Analyses / Health

Sweden Edges Toward Free-Market Medicine

For decades, advocates of socialized medicine in the United States and Canada have maintained that health care systems financed by taxes and under government control are more efficient than private sector models in their ability to control costs and maintain quality of health care.

Focus Point – Ditching Foreign Aid

Is it time to admit foreign aid often does more harm than good?

Other NCPA Experts

Surplus Rancor Much Ado About Nothing

If there was ever any question why so many younger Americans tune out politics, one need not look any further than the current debate over the Social Security surplus.

Policy Reports / Taxes

Why the Capital Gains Tax Rate Should Be Zero

Proponents of cutting the capital gains tax rate cite economic studies showing increases in economic growth and realizations of gains, and even higher revenue for government. Opponents argue that a capital gains tax cut is unfair because it only benefits the rich. But neither side argues from a position of principle. The real question is: Are gains in the value of assets income like any other form of income – such as wages, dividends, rent and interest? Or are they not income?

Focus Point – P.J. O'rourke

P.J. O'rourke is back, and that's always cause for celebration. His new book, The C.E.O. of the Sofa, is consciously patterned on Oliver Wendell Holmes's popular 19th century book "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," in which O'rourke works into his musings those of other characters.

Pension Tension

The debate about Social Security's future is raging across America. President Bush's Social Security Commission has provoked a full court political attack by the Democratic Party. The debate is full of sound and fury signifying a great deal. Its outcome will affect the pocketbooks and pensions of virtually every American under 60.

Focus Point – The Precautionary Principle

A number of environmentalists citing the adage "better safe than sorry," argue the so-called precautionary principle should be used in making policy. Thus, technology shouldn't be used until it be shown it's no threat to humans or the environment. Sounds reasonable in theory, but it's disastrous in practice.

Focus Point – Capital Gains

I'm glad we have President Bush's modest tax cut and the phase out of the death tax, but is there a less fair, less productive tax than the capital gains tax? We should do away with it for both philosophical and practical reasons.

The Patients' Bill of Rights: All about Lawsuits

Is it possible to take a bad bill and a worse bill and merge them into a good bill? Not likely, but that's the task facing a conference committee when Congress returns to Washington from its August break.

Focus Point – Stem Cell Research

Did George W. Bush make the right decision on federal funding for stem cell research? Or did he make a decision calculated to completely please no one?

Focus Point – The Bush Energy Plan's Payoff

In case you wondered what the benefits of the Bush National Energy Plan would be the center for data analysis figured it out. I doubt it will shut the critics up, but then what would?

Focus Point – My TV Secret

I have a confession to make. It concerns television, and a show I like. Don't worry, it's not MTV. I haven't completely lost my mind. But some might consider this admission almost as bad.

Lessons On Liberty

School children across the country begin their annual trek back into our nation's classrooms this month. As they open up their history textbooks they are likely to read about names like Washington and Jefferson, Adams and Madison, Franklin and Paine, Trenchard and Gordon.

Focus Point – The Skeptical Environmentalist

There's a breath of fresh air in the debate over the environment from a guy named Bjorn Lomborg, the author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist."

Focus Point – "Fixing" the tax code

According to USA Today, the Bush Administration's considering overhauling or simplifying the tax code. I wish them luck, but trouble generally follows measures to "simplify" the tax code.

Focus Point – Dem Polls

I was intrigued — though not surprised — by the recent poll which reported that half of Americans surveyed couldn't come up with a single name when asked who the leader of the Democratic Party was.

H. Sterling Burnett

Reality and Climate Change Policy

To move forward, we must first decide whether there is a concrete problem that can be corrected.

Brief Analyses / Energy and Natural Resources

Saving Lives by Rejecting the Precautionary Principle

Many environmentalists, citing the adage "better safe than sorry," argue that the "precautionary principle" should govern policy making. By this, they mean that technology should not be used until or unless it can be shown to pose no threat to humans or the environment.

Yes: "Social Security Does Really Need To Be Fixed"

Today's Social Security benefits are paid for by today's payroll taxes. As the nation's population ages – with people living longer and having fewer kids – the taxes we collect will at some point no longer be enough to cover all the benefits we are promising.

Labor Law Discriminates Against Women

If one thing is certain about American society today, it's that it's not 1940 anymore. But that doesn't mean that Congress has caught on to that fact.

Focus Point – Killing SUVs

The war on SUVs continues unabated as environmentalists are working on congress to increase the gas mileage requirements for American cars.

Focus Point – So-called Patient Protection

When are unintended consequences no longer unintended? If you know bad things are going to come from supposedly beneficial actions, it seems to me we can't claim surprise.

Give 'Em Hell, George

As any governor will tell you, the very best day of the year is when the legislature packs up and heads home. Suddenly the contentiousness, the raw politics and the legislative pressure are gone, and one is tempted to raise his hands to the sky and shout, "Free at last!"