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Budget & Tax
SNAP Trap Adds More Americans to Food Stamp Rolls
Jeff Reynolds examines the rapid growth in the number of people receiving food stamp assistance in this Heartlanderarticle. Reynolds points out roughly 14.6 percent of the total U.S. population is now receiving assistance under the SNAP program. He also discusses how SNAP and other government programs encourage dependency rather than self-sufficiency.Read more
Energy & Environment
Nevada Counties, Ranchers, and Miners Challenge Sage Grouse Settlement
Several Nevada counties joined mining and ranching groups to sue the Obama administration, challenging a 2011 settlement between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Center for Biological Diversity, and WildEarth Guardians concerning a timeline for determining whether the greater sage grouse and more than 200 other species should be placed on the Endangered Species list.Read more
Education
Joy Pullmann: 2014 Education In Review and Looking Forward to 2015
Joy Pullmann, managing editor at The Federalist and education research fellow at The Heartland Institute, discusses some of the top education policy stories of 2014 with Heather Kays, managing editor of School Reform News. Pullmann and Kays also discuss what’s to come in 2015. Read more
Telecom
Heartland Daily Podcast – Chris Casey and Paul Rosenberg: Bitcoin
Chris Casey, managing director at WindRock Wealth Management, talks with the founder of Cryptohippie and author, Paul Rosenberg, to talk about Bitcoin. Casey and Rosenberg answer the most frequently asked question regarding the virtual currency. Read more
Health Care
Obamacare Insurance Tax Will Hit State Budgets
Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, discusses looming budget problems created by the new Obamacare taxes in the 36 states that rely on private managed-care programs to provide medical services to all or some of their Medicaid recipients. Turner examines a Milliman report that studies these taxes. She notes, “The new tax is expected to raise $8 billion in 2014 and as much as $150 billion over the next 10 years, and will likely be passed along to consumers in the form of higher premiums, including for Medicaid managed care plans. The Milliman report says the tax will increase Medicaid premiums by up to 2.5 percent.” Read more
From Our Free Market Friends
Three Prescriptions for States to Improve Health Care
“Well before the advent of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the US health care system lacked many of the basic elements of consumer choice, price transparency, and efficiency enjoyed by consumers in other industries. The ACA, unfortunately, did not change this.” In this Mercatus Center paper, Matthew Mitchell, Anna Mills, and Dana Williams discuss three ways states can benefit patients by making their health care markets more competitive: They can abolish certificate-of-need laws, liberalize scope-of-practice regulations, and remove barriers to telemedicine. Read more
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