The Heartland Institute

New data show 13.5 million people are now covered by consumer-driven health plans offering Health Savings Accounts, a sharp increase from the previous year. According to the annual census released in May by America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), HSA-based plans have increased 18 percent over last year. But people who choose ...

The State of Wyoming is working on a formal agreement with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to trade environmentally sensitive lands for lands rich in minerals, oil, and natural gas resources. The BLM and the Wyoming Office of State Land and Investments (OSLI) are putting together a memorandum that would lay out ground ...

Under an order adopted unanimously by the Federal Communications Commission, all cable companies with hybrid, digital-analog systems must continue carrying stations' analog signals until Dec. 12, 2012, after which the rule will sunset. The so-called “viewability” order was released June 12. The decision to extend the rule for an ...

Ohio is cutting its ties with the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, a group of state and local air pollution control officials that routinely champions environmental activist claims and controversial U.S. Environmental Protection Agency restrictions. Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Scott Nally announced his ...

Change.org recently dropped two education reform groups from its list of clientele soon after one posted a petition challenging the Chicago Teacher’s Union on the popular progressive website. Change.org officials told Stand for Children and StudentsFirst their contracts were terminated due to pressure from the site’s supporters ...

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). While the individual mandate was upheld as a “tax,” the law’s Medicaid expansion has been partly rejected. Before the Court’s ruling, PPACA required states to expand Medicaid eligibility to all individuals whose ...

The benefits from additional monetary stimulus by central banks in advanced economies are shrinking while the risks are likely growing, said Jaime Caruana, general manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Central banks have been highly successful in driving down long-term interest rates, but the success can create ...

Members of Congress write to the National Governors' Association urging them not to implement health care exchanges. ...

Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia has requested a federal inquiry into the practice known as SWAT-ting, after several conservative bloggers reported they were victims of it. Chambliss has asked the Department of Justice to determine whether federal laws were broken by perpetrators of SWAT-ting hoaxes. According to Chambliss’ letter ...

The American Medical Association has voted to recommend taxes on sugar-sweetened sodas be used to combat obesity. But the policy statement adopted by the AMA’s House of Delegates did not recommend outright support for taxing sugar-sweetened beverages. The action came at the AMA’s annual meeting in late June in Chicago. Supporters ...

This document from the Arkansas Department of Education gives data about the debt load of Arkansas school districts as it stood by June 2012. School district debt and local property tax rates increased steadily over the previous five years. It now stands at approximately $3.6 billion, nearly two-thirds of what the state spends ...

Honolulu County has joined Hawaii’s three other counties in enacting a ban on plastic shopping bags, making Hawaii the first state with a total ban on plastic shopping bags. The Honolulu County Council approved the ban in April. Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle, who also acts as the county executive, initially held back his support ...

The Los Angeles City Council voted 13 to 1 to ban plastic grocery bags, making the City of Angels the largest in the nation to enact such a ban. In wake of the May 23 vote, consumers will soon have to use reusable bags or purchase paper bags for 10 cents each. The ban will be phased in during the next 16 months. Los ...

Many people believe spending more on education will improve student learning, but “the data offer precious little support for the theory,” conclude Eric Hanushek, Paul Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann in a Harvard University study. They plotted test-score gains against increments in spending in every U.S. state between 1990 and ...

Consumer Power Report: To Implement Or Not to Implement July 2, 2012 Welcome to the Consumer Power Report. How states answer the question they face in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling – “To implement, or not to implement” – may well determine whether President Barack Obama’s law has to survive an additional major legal ...

A little-known but common practice among school districts has them hiring investigators to follow kids home, snap pictures and video, trace parents’ license plates, and follow their cars around in unmarked vehicles. Sometimes, these investigations land parents in jail. Why? Residency fraud. It is illegal for many families to pick ...

The confluence of fiscal policy changes scheduled to occur at the end of 2012 – sometimes referred to as the “fiscal cliff” – poses serious challenges for policy makers. One area of disagreement is the increase in tax rates for high-income taxpayers resulting in part due to the sunset of elements of the 2001 and 2003 tax ...

Executive Summary In May 2009 Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson signed several statutes into law (first proposed by his predecessor, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius) that defined a new Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and a timetable for implementation. The legislation transformed a previously voluntary goal into a mandate. The following year ...

This report from California Common Sense cites three main factors contributing to the city’s bankruptcy: The housing bust and financial collapse decimated the city’s property tax (and related) revenues. This problem was made worse by a skyrocketing home foreclosure rate. The real estate bubble encouraged large spending increases ...

Public colleges and universities are remarkably poor at providing students and taxpayers transparent, objective measures of their worth even as tuition has grown three times the rate of inflation in the past three decades, according to a new report evaluating all 50 states. Half of students in two-year state colleges do not ...