The Heartland Institute

This Obamacare thing is not going as well as some had hoped. Democratic senators, at a caucus meeting with White House officials, expressed concerns on Thursday about how the Obama administration was carrying out the health care law they adopted three years ago. Democrats in both houses of Congress said some members of ...

Last week, the Arkansas legislature finally approved the Medicaid waiver request that makes up their appeal for a “private option” within President Barack Obama’s Medicaid expansion: After three tense days, an initially-failed vote in the state House, and an unexpected amendment in the Senate, the Arkansas legislature has ...

Today is the big day for the Arkansas Medicaid reform , and states across the country will be paying attention to what’s done in the legislature there. The plan failed to capture the supermajority needed to come out of the state House, where it came in six votes short of the 75 necessary for passage. The actual legislation ...

The Arkansas House Education Committee voted to have an interim committee study a school voucher bill rather than pass it directly. At a large rally at the state capitol on the day of the vote, organized by Arkansas Parents for School Choice, attendees sported bright yellow and blue t-shirts. Bill sponsor Rep. Randy Alexander ...

The Arkansas legislature rejected a proposed renewable power mandate when House Bill 1390, the Arkansas Distributed Generation Act, failed to make it out of a joint committee on energy on April 3. With former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director James Woolsey and former Colorado Gov. Mark Ritter scheduled to testify in ...

Joe Beach, a young Michigan dad and avid hunter, has no regrets about taking automotive technology courses while attending Petoskey High School. After high school, Beach received a full scholarship to Northwestern Michigan College, a community college. He graduated with eight certifications in automotive work. “I have dyslexia ...

So it turns out the whole Arkansas Medicaid expansion alternative is looking more and more like one big April Fool’s joke, and one in poor taste to boot. The restrictions indicated by the administration’s newly released rule on the subject illustrate the problems. What’s inside it? Unfortunately, a lot of buzzkilling. A ...

James Capretta makes an argument on the Medicaid strategy states ought to use that is worth considering and warns against accepting the Arkansas deal without knowing what’s in it: The GOP governors engaged in these direct negotiations with the White House are playing a loser’s game, and throwing away a historic opportunity ...

A new deal struck by Arkansas with the Obama administration suggests officials in other states in favor of Medicaid expansion may be able to negotiate a better deal for both low-income people and state taxpayers. Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe has negotiated an alternative to the standard Medicaid expansion offered by the federal ...

An exhaustive study by the United States Geological Survey has uncovered no groundwater contamination from natural-gas drilling in the energy-rich Fayetteville Shale in Arkansas. No Significant Effects Found The United States Geological Survey (USGS) report, Shallow Groundwater Quality and Geochemistry in the Fayetteville Shale Gas ...

Problem HB 1390, the Arkansas Distributed Generation Act, requires utilities to buy electricity from renewable energy sources at fixed above-market rates set by the Arkansas Public Service Commission or another regulatory authority and then socializes the higher costs among all ratepayers. According to the most recent data from the ...

The news that Arkansas’ Medicaid expansion had been approved by the feds is huge, largely because it’s not a Medicaid expansion at all. Arkansas will start the eligibility for entering the federally run health insurance exchange at 0% of the federal poverty level – meaning every newly eligible Arkansan in the pool of people ...

Democratic Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe is responding to Republican pressure in his state by moving forward with an interesting method of expanding coverage -- one which essentially embraces the Obamacare Medicaid expansion without expanding Medicaid. Beebe is instead going to shift the state's Medicaid population to the health ...

The U.S. Geological Survey has published the results of a study regarding water quality in Arkansas near natural gas fracking sites. The USGS analyzed water samples from 127 wells near fracking sites and found no evidence of fracking pollution. While anti-energy activists launch unfounded, irresponsible allegations that natural ...

An exhaustive study by the United States Geological Survey uncovered no groundwater contamination from natural-gas drilling in the energy-rich Fayetteville Shale in Arkansas. ...

Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe has embarked on an effort to reform the way his state pays for health care through a new initiative intended to rein in runaway costs by rewarding doctors with financial incentives to provide more efficient care. But in order to get there, his approach may incentivize rationing of health care. In ...

As Congress decides whether to allow the national capital gains tax rate to increase at the beginning of next year, states across the country are debating whether to change their own capital gains taxes. These are taxes paid by individuals and corporations on their capital gains, or profits realized when investors sell a capital ...

The United States has the highest corporate tax rate among the 34 nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) in addition to being one of the few nations still using a “worldwide system.” These are two reasons the United States is in dire need of fundamental corporate tax reform. Under the ...

A bipartisan group of seven governors petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to waive its ethanol fuel mandate until corn prices recede. Rising Prices Hurt States The governors of Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Texas petitioned EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to issue the waiver ...

Since the 2006–07 financial crisis the Federal Reserve has taken several steps to stimulate the economy and unfreeze credit markets, which had ground to a halt after the bursting of the housing bubble. The Federal Reserve launched its current monetary strategy in 2007, lowering the federal funds rate from 5.25 percent to effectively ...