Still time to repeal ObamaCare. | Internet privacy advances. | Conservative academic centers face double standards. | The federal budget can be balanced. | And more ...
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April 1, 2017 |
| Now that the fake Obamacare repeal bill is out of the way, Congress has an opportunity to get health care right. By ditching the FCC's privacy rules, Congress has done internet users a favor. The primary reason that students of for-profit colleges have higher levels of debt than those of public institutions isn't that there is something wrong with the schools; rather the reason is that they don't get subsidized as much. If your academic center does progressive politics, it's probably safe; but if it dares to defend the principles of a free society, it might be in jeopardy. Instead of worrying about abortionists selling body parts, California is worried about investigative journalists doing their job. Yes, we can balance the federal budget, if we just eliminate the stuff government shouldn't be doing anyway. Brexit is an opportunity for the UK to get its regulations right. |
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Why the first GOP health care plan really failed. As Genevieve Wood writes, the bill didn’t do what it purported to do—repeal Obamacare: “Obamacare’s regulations alone were responsible for driving premiums costs up by as much as 68 percent. For example: “· The essential health benefits mandate and actuarial requirements that forced insurance plans to include coverage many Americans don’t want, don’t need, and definitely can’t afford, raised premiums nationally by over 16 percent, and in some states, over 30 percent. Adding newly uninsured people to the rolls, not surprisingly, caused an uptick in the sickness of the population in insurance markets. Nationally that drove up premiums by 4 percent, but in some states like Ohio, it contributed to a more than 35 percent hike. “· And then there is the age factor. It’s a basic fact of life that the older you are, the more health care you are going to need and consume. Insurance markets have long recognized this. But Obamacare mandated they lessen the differences older people versus younger people paid. “The result? National averages show young people will see rate increases of almost 60 to 90 percent. No wonder far fewer than needed young and healthy Americans have decided to risk paying a fine than sign up for health care. But getting rid of Obamacare’s architecture, the latest in a long line of Washington attempts to regulate our lives, was not in the GOP’s most recent repeal and replace legislation.” [The Daily Signal] See also The Heritage Foundation’s page collecting its work on repealing ObamaCare: www.heritage.org/repealing-and-replacing-obamacare
No, Congress didn’t destroy your Internet privacy. As Tom Giovanetti explains, by throwing out the Federal Communications Commission’s proposed privacy regulations, Congress has put the authority to regulate in this area back where it belongs, with the Federal Trade Commission: “As part of their crusade, [FCC Chairman Tom] Wheeler and [Gigi] Sohn went far beyond the net neutrality demands of most activist groups and completely reversed previous FCC policy by reclassifying broadband under the same regulations governing the old analog phone networks, which themselves barely exist anymore. “This ill-advised move had the effect of calling into question much of the [Federal Trade Commission]’s ability to enforce its privacy regime over broadband providers. So the FCC, not Congress, was responsible for disruptions in federal privacy protections. “Then the FCC doubled down on its mistakes by creating its own new, poorly designed privacy regulations that were inconsistent and uncoordinated with existing FTC rules and practices. And the FCC regulations focused on ISPs rather than on edge providers—i.e., companies that people interact with directly, such as Facebook—even though edge providers gather far more personal data than do ISPs. This, of course, was consistent with Wheeler’s and Sohn’s view that ISPs are somehow inherently culpable for every imagined or perceived problem in the communications industry. “The FCC’s privacy regulations also departed completely from long-established ‘opt-out’ privacy expectations and instead adopted an onerous ‘opt-in’ standard, which would completely preclude innovation and experimentation in making advertising more tailored and personalized for consumers.” [Institute for Policy Innovation]
The mismeasure of for-profit schools. Nearly 100 percent of public colleges and universities pass the gainful employment rule—promulgated by the Obama administration to ensure that colleges do not leave graduates saddled with too much debt relative to their incomes. Only 76 percent of for-profit colleges pass the rule. Does that mean for-profit colleges are giving their students a bad bargain? Actually, most, though not all, of the difference is explained by a difference in subsidies from state and local governments. Jason Deslisle and Preston Cooper find that if for-profit colleges received the same level of subsidies as public institutions and applied those funds to lowering student debt burdens, then 93 percent of for-profit schools would conform to the gainful employment rule. [American Enterprise Institute]
Academic centers for me but not for thee. John Hood on what happened when James Otteson tried to create an academic center at Wake Forest University devoted to studying “how societies can best promote human welfare and happiness”: “As befitting a seeker after classical wisdom, Otteson decided to call the project the Eudaimonia Institute, after a Greek term that translates as ‘human flourishing.’ He gained the assistance of supportive Wake Forest colleagues from such disciplines as medicine, economics, religion, philosophy, languages and communication. He secured the support of his administration at the business school. And he secured funding for the project from private donations that included $3.69 million from the Charles Koch Foundation. “Shortly after the Eudaimonia Institute launched last year, left-wing activists at Wake Forest decided to try to kill it. […] “After an ‘investigation’ that consisted largely of recycling conspiracy theories, members of Wake Forest’s Faculty Senate recommended not only that the university refuse the Koch Foundation grant for the Eudaimonia Institute but also that Otteson be required to get specific permission from campus regulators before engaging in his daily work as a university professor.” Meanwhile, just down the road in Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina’s “law school has housed the Center for Civil Rights since 2001. According to its own institutional history, the center has ‘pursued an aggressive social justice agenda combining litigation, scholarly research, and grassroots activism.’ Among other projects, the center has sued other divisions of state government to compel changes in policy and even represented Moral Monday demonstrators who were arrested for violating the rules of the Legislative Building during their protests against Republican policies.” [DailyAdvance.com]
Investigative journalism for me but not for thee. On Tuesday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced that David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress would be charged with violating California’s laws against recording private conversations. The recordings in question were made as part of Daleiden and Merritt’s expose of Planned Parenthood’s harvesting of body parts from aborted babies for sale. Daleiden and Merritt released 10 such videos in 2015. Kevin Theriot writes: “In the past, investigative journalists have been lauded for their work. They were applauded when they uncovered the Watergate scandal. No one has batted an eye at the many undercover investigations run by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. In fact, animal rights organizations in California have uncovered animal abuse by becoming employed and secretly filming conditions at farms and slaughterhouses. But the state hasn’t charged them with 15 felonies.” [The Daily Signal]
Room to cut. The Congressional Budget Office projects that without any changes in federal law, the federal government will spend another $10 trillion above what its revenues will be for the next ten years. In 2027, annual interest on national debt will be $768 billion—52 percent of the federal government’s discretionary budget for that year. What can be done? The Heritage Foundation has put out a plan called “Blueprint for Balance,” that cuts spending by $10 trillion over the ten years, and balances the budget within seven years. The plan details and explains all of its proposed cuts. The cuts target programs that benefit particular interests rather than the public generally, activities that can be done better by the private sector, and programs that are duplicative or wasteful. The Heritage budget calls for eliminating such things as crop insurance programs, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, renewable energy research, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Obamacare, the Davis-Bacon wage premium paid for federal construction projects, funding for the Paris Climate Change Agreement, grants to Amtrak, and the Federal Transit Administration. [The Heritage Foundation]
Making the most of Brexit means not taking the easy route on EU rules. This week, UK Prime Minister Theresa May sent notice to the European Council that Britain will end its membership in the European Union. Ted Bromund writes that Brexit is an opportunity to redo Britain’s regulatory structure, an opportunity that will be lost if the government seeks to simply incorporate EU rules into British law: “I make no predictions about the ways that robotics, artificial intelligence and the Internet will change government, work and leisure over the coming decades, I suspect the changes will be slower than some enthusiasts imagine. But the changes will come, and they are likely, over time, to be comparable in scale to the industrial revolution. And Britain is likely to be as affected by them as any nation, because it is already dominated by the service sector and generates a great deal of intellectual property. It therefore has a lot to gain from getting its rules more or less right. […] “Leaving the EU offers the incalculably valuable opportunity of a do-over on the entire administrative and regulatory structure of Britain, an opportunity that a successful democracy almost never gets. Taking the amending road threatens to ensure that Brexit means Brexit—but that it might also mean only Brexit. In other words, it means that the do-over may be limited. “In the end, I doubt this approach will work. The May government has persistently sought to avoid the parliamentary road during the Brexit process, and persistently been forced back to it by legal challenges. This, of course, is the ultimate irony of Brexit: the defenders of parliamentary sovereignty have sought to avoid Parliament, while its detractors—who have no problem with handing over powers to Brussels—pretend to pose as its defenders. […] “Taking the road of the Henry VIII powers is politically appealing, but it is likely to meet legal challenges and to run afoul of the problem that a simple rewrite of the EU’s rules will not be so simple. After all, this is the EU we’re talking about here. The government’s reported intention to reclaim control of its territorial waters—which were not lost solely as a result of the Common Fisheries Policy—hints at the reality that, once Britain starts to unpick its relationship with the EU, it will be forced into a root and branch reconsideration, whether this is politically convenient or not. And in the end, that is the only way to get the best outcome out of Brexit.” [The National Interest]
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