‘Pointless and expensive’: We don’t need the nanny state telling us what we already know

Where does it end? Congress already has passed regressive taxes on tobacco and is considering taxes on soft drinks and other sugary beverages. Now the federal government wants to get involved in policing restaurant menus to make sure they include calorie counts. This will increase the cost of restaurant meals, deter creativity and innovation, and inject government further into our lives. The nanny state seems to know no bounds.

End the Subsidy for High-Cost Health Care

The Congressional Budget Office has consistently said that, while health information technologies, prevention and disease management are worthwhile cost-cutting measures, the savings are miniscule in comparison to the overall price tag of health reform. And the huge tax increases on the rich that Congress is considering fall short in paying for reform by at least $240 billion.

The Tax Code and Health Insurance Coverage

While the favored tax treatment of health insurance has provided a stable source of health coverage for hundreds of millions of American workers over the last half century or more, it also is clear that it is leading to many of the problems that our health sector faces today. 

A New Conversation about Health Reform

February 1, 2007

Health care clearly has become a top-tier issue, with governors, presidential candidates, business and labor coalitions, and now President Bush all offering dramatic new proposals for reform.

Response to President Bush's Bold Health Reform Proposal

January 23, 2007

The president's proposal, announced in Tuesday's State of the Union Address, is a win-win-win-win.

Reforming the Tax Treatment of Employment-Based Health Insurance

June 27, 2005

Tax reform is high on the policy agenda in this session of Congress, as the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform issues its report and as Congress prepares for the debate.

Response to Cogan, Hubbard, and Kessler Article in The Wall Street Journal

We have been searching for a silver bullet to solve the problems in the health sector for decades, and John F. Cogan, et al, claim to have discovered it with their idea to provide full tax deductibility of all expenditures for health care and health insurance...

Consumer Driven Health and the Modern Family

The way we pay for health care is based on an industrial-age image of the American family that seldom applies today. Women, whether working or not, are especially hurt by this antiquated system. The underlying assumption of our system is that a man...