The Heartland Institute

A debate hosted by CTIA-The Wireless Association recently brought together both sides of the ongoing net neutrality controversy, featuring a CTIA executive debating a high-profile supporter of the Federal Communications Commission proposal to strictly enforce that policy on wireless networks. In a Washington, DC debate on December ...

Legislation to be signed into law soon by Gov. Jennifer Granholm promises sweeping education reform in Michigan, but some local lawmakers say it falls short of the goal of helping schools get rid of ineffective teachers. State Sen. Patty Birkholz (R-Saugatuck Township) said she was disappointed by the failure of a bill she ...

The impending arrival of a new administration in the Commonwealth of Virginia has raised school choice advocates hopes, but they don t expect change to come quickly. Republican Governor-elect Bob McDonnell handily defeated Democrat Creigh Deeds in the November 3 general election shifting not only the party in power, but also Virginia ...

School choice could save the state of Vermont $80 million to $300 million per year, according to a study conducted by the Ethan Allen Institute, a public policy research and education group based in Concord. The report, released December 1, was compiled by the institute s Commission on Rebalancing Education Cost and Value to ...

David Anderson, Ph.D., aspires to reform K-12 education by developing and offering schooling in the for-profit sector. In 2003, Anderson, a 68-year-old retired physicist who lives in Rhode Island, launched Asora (Asynchronous, Self-paced, Online, Rigorous content, in an Assessment-based curriculum) Education Enterprises, for which he ...

Larry Downes, a fellow with the Stanford Law School Center for Internet & Society, is the author of The Laws of Disruption: Harnessing the New Forces That Govern Business and Life in the Digital Age (Basic Books 2009). In the new book, Downes outlines nine strategies for success in the emerging world of information law ...

The liberals have it all wrong. Conservatives are not lacking health reform ideas. They re drowning in them. Following the publication of Mark Pauly and John Goodman s Tax Credits for Health Insurance and Medical Savings Accounts, many right-of-center health policy analysts endorsed the principle of lump sum tax credits to subsidize ...

The following is based on remarks delivered at the 50th Anniversary Celebration of Citizens for Educational Freedom, on October 20, 2009. The Past School choice has been a high priority for Americans since the first settlers arrived here. Schools often were the first buildings erected by the colonials, supported and operated by ...

With Gov. Jim Doyle's signature on a school reform bill now dry, Wisconsin can make its case for some of the $4.5 billion President Obama is offering to improve education in the U.S. The bill Doyle signed Monday allows the state to use the results of standardized student test scores in teacher evaluations. Wisconsin was one ...

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical system touted by some advocates of reform as a model for how government-run health care could work in fact exposes deep flaws in the government-run health care model, policy experts say. Edmund Haislmaier, a health care policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC ...

With cost savings through reduction of waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicare system being offered as a key funding source for health care reform currently under consideration on Capitol Hill, eliminating this corruption could require Medicare to adopt private-sector reforms. The proposal authored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), currently ...

Illustrating the importance of wellness promotion in the debate over health care reform, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee approved a version of the health care reform bill that includes a provision allowing insurers expanded flexibility to increase premiums for individuals not meeting wellness standards ...

Labor union lobbying is playing a key role in the national debate about health care reform, as unions seek to protect the expensive, full-coverage plans many have negotiated with employers. Union leaders have pressured Congress to pass a massive expansion of the federal government s role in health coverage. Yet unions oppose ...

The Senate Finance Committee s version of health care reform as constructed by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) is being hailed as a model of bipartisan moderation after it won the vote of Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. The headline news after the 14-9 vote was not that it passed out of committee that was expected but that ...

President Barack Obama has promised that if you like the health coverage you have now, you can keep it. Medicare beneficiaries across the country, including nearly 900,000 in my home state of Wisconsin, have voiced their legitimate skepticism toward that promise. So the president took it a step further, telling seniors at a ...

As congressional Democrats work on the final version of sweeping health care legislation, it remains unclear which provisions will survive the complex bill-making process. Top aides to President Barack Obama say he may not require creation of a government-run health care system, known as the public option, as part of the final ...

In a development suggesting medical malpractice reform may help alleviate doctor shortages, a package of reforms in Missouri signed in 2005 by then-governor Matt Blunt (R-MO) to curb junk medical lawsuits has created an environment more appealing to physicians. We had widespread problems with practices recruiting before the reforms ...

With every iteration the health care " reform" proposals in Congress get worse. The Wall Street Journal calls the current Pelosi proposal the " worst bill ever." That's pretty accurate. There never has been a piece of legislation introduced in the United States Congress that is more intrusive on the lives of each and every American ...

State governments are bracing for the effects of the most-prominent congressional health care proposals, all of which would expand Medicaid and increase the burden on state funding. Sen. Max Baucus s (D-MT) plan would expand Medicaid eligibility to cover all U.S. citizens with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty ...

Rifts are emerging in the coalition of support for health care reform in the wake of a 14-9 vote by the Senate Finance Committee to send reform legislation to the Senate floor. Two studies by leading nonpartisan firms indicate President Barack Obama s health care agenda could have negative ramifications both for insurers and ...