What’s New @ the NCPA

Week beginning June 29, 2009

NCPA Experts Discuss Limited Purpose Banking in D.C.

NCPA President John Goodman and NCPA Senior Fellow Laurence J. Kotlikoff were featured at a Cato Institute briefing to discuss their new banking proposal. As the Obama administration contemplates a comprehensive reform of the American financial system, Goodman and Kotlikoff discussed reasons why the administration's financial strategy is deeply misguided. Goodman and Kotlikoff also outlined a new banking concept called Limited Purpose Banking - a top-to-bottom reform of the financial system - including banks, near banks, investment banks, private equity hedge funds, insurance companies, etc.  A brief description of the proposal: New Republic web site. A fuller description can be found at: Larry Kotlikoff's site.

Goodman Briefs Congress on U.S. Health Care System

NCPA President John Goodman offered expert testimony (view testimony) at an Energy & Commerce Committee hearing about health reform.  Dr. Goodman's testimony shed light on the misconception that the U.S. health care system is worse than the systems in other countries.  Dr. Goodman also provided valuable advice to the Committee on health reform, as well as a withering critique of the House Democratic health reform proposal. The panel also featured single-payer advocates Sidney Wolfe and Steffie Woolhandler - both of whom also expressed opposition to the Democratic proposal because it doesn't create a single-payer government-run health system. To view the full hearing: click here.

New Books at the NCPA Store

Enjoy these great titles at discounted prices -- free shipping too!

The First Billion is the Hardest by T. Boone Pickens

1,000 Dollars and An Idea by Sam Wyly -- Autographed

My Grandfather's Son by Clarence Thomas -- Autographed

Is Progress Speeding Up? by John Marks Templeton

Building Prosperity by Gene W. Heck

The End of Prosperity by Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore and Peter Tanous

To shop all NCPA publications, please visit http://www.ncpa.org/shop/.

NCPA Publications

The Family and Medical Leave Act costs businesses $4.8 billion due to lost productivity, according to the Employment Policy Foundation. For a breakdown of all costs associated with the Act, read a recent NCPA Brief Analysis, co-authored by NCPA Distinguished Fellow Terry Neese and research assistants Michelle Heinen and Daniel Wityk. Read "Workplace Flexibility versus Unpaid Leave."

The Social Security and Medicare deficits are on a course to engulf the entire federal budget, says NCPA Senior Policy Analyst Pamela Villarreal, in her latest Brief Analysis. Read "Social Security and Medicare Projections: 2009."

NCPA Scholars and Research in the News

Congress shouldn't fight global warming by freezing the economy, says NCPA Chairman Pete du Pont, in his latest op-ed for the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal. Read "The Big Chill."

NCPA President John Goodman appeared on FOX's "America's Newsroom" on June 9 and "Live Desk with Martha MacCallum" on June 18 to discuss Senator Kennedy's proposal for a nationalized health care system.

In the June 19 issue of Investor's Business Daily, Goodman discussed rationing by waiting in Canada and Great Britain.

Goodman was the featured guest at a symposium hosted by Success North Dallas on June 17. Goodman discussed health care reforms proposed by the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats.

An article by Goodman regarding private versus public health plans will be published in the July issue of Heartland Institute's Health Care News.

In the June 16 issue of Politics and Government (online), Goodman says Obama's health reform plan would push doctor and hospital fees and premiums so low that an estimated 120 million Americans would drop their private health insurance plan for the government program.

In the June 15 issue of Doc's Talk (blog), Goodman said that the goal of future medical policy "should be to generate a market in which doctors and hospitals compete" to improve quality and cut costs."

Goodman's "Ten Steps to a Patient-Friendly Health Care System" was featured in Vital Speeches of the Day on June 4 and in The Examiner (Washington, D.C.) on June 18.

Goodman told Fortune magazine that, because their health care costs are growing so rapidly, it's likely that most companies would dump their plans under the public option that is now included in both the Senate and House bills, and is strongly endorsed by President Obama.

An article by Goodman was featured in the issue of National Review. The article was reviewed by Chattanooga Times Free Press on June 1.

NCPA Senior Fellow Devon Herrick told Investor's Business Daily that the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) deviates from common sense when it argues that if we expand coverage to the uninsured, the net economic benefit will exceed the cost. His comment also appeared in Yahoo! Finance. Read "Is Health Reform a Cost or Economic Investment?"

In the June 21 issue of Investment News, Herrick stated that policymakers' concentration on home care makes sense from the perspective of comfort and cost.

In an article to be published in the July issue of Heartland Institute's Health Care News, Herrick is quoted, "One of the main reasons health insurance premiums are skyrocketing further and further upward [in New York] is that thousands of young, healthy New Yorkers are deciding to drop health coverage altogether because of the extreme cost involved to maintain it."

In a second article to be published in the July issue of Heartland Institute's Health Care News, Herrick is quoted, "Special interests for providers and advocates for specific diseases and treatments convince lawmakers certain benefits should be covered by all insurance policies, and the only way these special interests can foist their services upon consumers is if the state-mandated plans are protected from interstate competition."

In a third article to be published in the July issue of Heartland Institute's Health Care News, Herrick is quoted, "The health care industry is composed of 750,000 physicians in addition to tens of thousands of hospitals and clinics, labs, etc. The individual providers that make up the health care industry have no incentive to reduce their billed charges, because they are not competing on price. Moreover, the so-called health care industry representatives have no authority to force the individual providers to do so."

Herrick was quoted in the June 16 issue of Investor's Business Daily, ""Being uninsured is a transitory state, since most uninsured Americans are only without coverage for a short time."

Herrick was interviewed by KRLD-AM (Dallas-Ft Worth) June 4 to discuss the lifestyle tax, a tax on unhealthy products.

A 2007 Heartland Institute article by Herrick, regarding tips on how to stick with the doctor's advice and let him know everything that he needs to know, was cited in a June 11 article by Associated Content. Read "Talk to Your Doctor: Dangerous Secrets."

NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett, along with NCPA Chairman Pete du Pont and Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Iain Murray, briefed members of Congress on a recent NCPA global warming study. The briefing was covered by CSPAN. Burnett was interviewed by WFLA-AM (Tampa Bay) regarding these "no regrets" policies, and the study was cited by the San Antonio Business Journal, Washington Energy Services, GlobalWarming Awareness Blog, Oil and Gas Journal, and ClimateWire.  Read the study "Ten Cool Global Warming Policies."

An article by Burnett was featured in The Examiner (Washington, D.C.) on June 18.

Burnett was a guest on The Ron Smith Show on June 10 to discuss the Cash for Clunkers Bill that passed in the House.

Burnett's recent Brief Analysis, "Removing the Political Shortage of Water," appeared online at the Gwinnette Gazette on June 12 and at GOP Alaska on June 15.

A 2006 study by Burnett regarding gun control was cited in a San Angelo Standard Times article on June 7.

NCPA Senior Fellow Pamela Villarreal told The Oakland Tribune that now is the time for graduates to get a savings plan under way because they can afford to take losses at this age.

NCPA Distinguished Fellow Bob McTeer was a guest on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on June 16.

NCPA Distinguished Fellow Terry Neese's recent NCPA Brief Analysis, "Workplace Flexibility versus Unpaid Leave" was cited by Olympia Business Watch and Hudson Valley Press online.

Neese was interviewed by KQV News (Pittsburgh) on June 2 regarding her effort to allow small businesses to band together, even across state lines to form healthcare co-ops or associations.

Consumer Driven Health Care Website

The NCPA's consumer driven health care website provides the latest, most comprehensive information and research about consumer directed health reforms.  The site also features the weekly Health Policy Digest and the recently-launched SPN Medicaid Exchange, a joint project of the NCPA and the State Policy Network, and John Goodman's Health Care Blog.  Visitors can also add comments to blog postings.  Visit the NCPA's CDHC website.

NCPA Online

The NCPA's Daily Policy Digest, a daily public policy newsletter that has over 7,000 readers, is now available as an RSS feed.  Click here to subscribe to the RSS feed.