The Heartland Institute

Vermont is on a path to become the first state in the nation to have a government-run health care monopoly, as a result of a health care bill signed Democrat by Gov. Peter Shumlin in May. ‘A Plan to Plan’ The new law creates a five-member board at an estimated cost of $1.3 million with unprecedented powers over health ...

Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) has signed into law a $40.1 billion budget that includes the largest tax hike in the state’s history. The challenge was to craft a balanced biennial budget plugging a deficit of approximately $3.3 billion. The budget plan Malloy signed into law went a step further and anticipates a $1 billion ...

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts could cut more than a billion dollars from its annual education spending without measurably affecting the performance of public schools, according to a study by the Beacon Hill Institute. This finding in “Why Massachusetts Should Spend Less on Education” is the result of an econometric analysis ...

Illinois lawmakers have placed a huge bet on gambling to boost the state’s economy. It’s a bet the chairman of the Illinois Gaming Board calls “garbage.” Lawmakers at the end of May passed legislation that covers more than 400 pages and more than triples the amount of casino gambling now allowed in the state. Among other ...

Workers around the nation envy Connecticut state employees, according to their lead negotiator. Daniel Livingston, chief negotiator for the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC), said other unions want to learn how to imitate their success in negotiating with Gov. Dannel Malloy (D). Livingston told a meeting of state ...

The Wisconsin Supreme Court delivered a resounding humiliation to a state judge by overturning her ruling invalidating restrictions on collective bargaining powers for unionized government workers, said Maureen Martin, senior fellow for legal affairs at The Heartland Institute. Meanwhile, unions have sued in federal court over the ...

Education reform became a defining issue in several state legislatures this session. Newly elected Republican governors, including Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Rick Scott in Florida, and John Kasich in Ohio, explicitly linked school reforms to their states fiscal health. Legislatures across the nation passed a variety of reform bills ...

Ohio Governor John Kasich has taken on a daunting challenge within the first few months of his tenure: a major reform of the state s Medicaid system. More than 2.1 million Ohioans, or about one in five, are currently on Medicaid. With nearly $1 in every $3 the state spends going toward the program, Medicaid is the single ...

Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, states are required to create a health insurance exchange. While these exchanges must be submitted for approval from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the agency has not yet promulgated rules for the exchanges or made clear what specific types of exchanges ...

American Indian Public Charter School, officially the top school in California, wants to expand, but local authorities are standing in the way. The Oakland middle school, which serves more than 400 students on two campuses, routinely beats its inner-city peers on state tests, and its attendance record hovers around 99 percent ...

The University of Connecticut Health Center malpractice account is underfunded with only enough money to cover one-third of the estimated claims against the state-owned hospital. Two years ago, this underfunding would have been illegal. The state required the health center to deposit money in the account on an actuarial basis ...

Louisiana s Republican Governor, Bobby Jindal, has announced his state will not create a health insurance exchange mandated by the Patient Protection and Accountable Care Act. Confirming an earlier report in Health Care News , Gov. Jindal s press office released a statement on the anniversary of Obamacare s passage indicating the ...

States tax revenues finished strong in 2010, continuing a trend toward gradual fiscal recovery, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government s latest State Revenue Report. State tax revenues grew by 7.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to the fourth quarter of 2009, according to Rockefeller Institute research ...

After years of deficit financing, California is hurtling toward bankruptcy. Yet in the midst of the budget turmoil, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has just negotiated yet another Rolls-Royce contract with one of the biggest beneficiaries of state government: the prison guards' union. The deal was so friendly that even the state's mainstream ...

As the battle over Obamacare shifts to the courthouses and the statehouses, lawmakers in one state, Idaho, have implemented some measures to stop implementation of the federal health care law. Last year Idaho became the second state to enact the Health Care Freedom Act, which signaled opposition to the federal mandate that ...

This fall, Utah parents will have more clarity about how their child s school performs, thanks to a new school grading system Gov. Gary Herbert (R) signed into law. SB 59 assigns a letter grade to schools based on student performance on a range of academic achievement measures. Modeled after Florida s decade-old grading scale ...

Ohio has become one of the first states to adopt statewide teacher pay-for-performance. But backers of the reform now say they worry unions objecting to a new law s provisions eliminating most collective bargaining privileges for public employees could scuttle the merit pay plan before it starts. Gov. John Kasich (R) signed into ...

Louisiana is the most recent state to seek a waiver from the medical loss ratio (MLR) requirements in President Obama s health care law from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The MLR is the amount of the premiums spent directly on medical costs. Under Obamacare, individuals and those in small group markets ...

North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat, vetoed a measure which would have filled a major budget shortfall by requiring teachers and state employees to pay a monthly premium for their health insurance plan for the first time. North Carolina s State Health Plan for Teachers and State Employees faces a $515 million budget ...

National surveys show that most students report cheating at some point during their school careers. The Internet makes one form of cheating easier since essays can be purchased and, if necessary, adapted for common high school assignments and college applications. High school students in prestigious Advanced Placement and International ...