Government Red Tape
Whether it’s layers of licensing requirements or endless red tape, government rules and regulations can stifle business. Learn how we can free up entrepreneurs.
Putting the proverbial coal in the Christmas stocking of millions of Arizonans, the state's Corporation Commission this week imposed new surcharges on utility consumers to fund compliance with its sweeping renewable energy regulations.
Have you ever tried to do cost comparisons for medical services? You do it all the time for your car, your house, food and clothes. But its not easy to find out what medical services cost before you buy. Of course, most of us aren't too concerned because we figure were not paying the bill anyway.
Despite the lineup at the trough in D.C. for bags of bailout dollars, I urge Gov. Janet Napolitano to resist seeking more federal tax money to help address Arizona's budget crisis. And I wrote her a letter telling her just that.
Many Americans wonder how Obama-care can possibly work. How can the government insure 32 million additional people and provide everybody with all the health care they need without raising the deficit or spending gobs of new money? The answer, in the minds of its creators, is IPAB, the Independent Payment Advisory Board.
As the state has faced mountains of red ink over the last few years, one of the budget casualties has been the State Parks department. Some parks have been temporarily closed to save money and permanently closing others has been debated. As the economy begins to recover, all parks that were temporarily closed have reopened, but that doesn’t mean the department is out of the woods. The real obstacle to keeping our state parks open isn’t money. It’s bureaucracy.
A new Verizon commercial shows little Susie working her lemonade stand when her father hands her a smart phone with a calculator in it. Susie’s eyes light up. She immediately uses the technology to network friends into a lemonade empire, complete with an office building behind her house.
That is American exceptionalism. With little burden from government, anyone with a good idea, a strong work ethic, and a willingness to serve others in a competitive environment has a chance to succeed.
In a happy coincidence, I saw a new World Bank study on entitlements and economic growth on the same day a lawsuit against cuts to Arizona’s Medicaid benefits was filed. The World Bank study provides evidence that while reinstatement of the Medicaid benefits might help some right away, in the long run it would likely hurt us all economically, including the people the lawsuit seeks to help.
The Los Angeles Times recently published the price based on payment type for a CT scan at eight hospitals in Southern California. As you can see, cash prices ranged from 6 to 68 percent of the average charge; and insurance prices were 48 to 84 percent of the average charge.
When the topic is protecting liberty and the headline reads, “Even in Illinois but not in Arizona,” we’re in trouble. Indeed, while even the Democrat-controlled legislature in President Obama’s adopted home state of Illinois said no to establishing an insurance exchange to facilitate the federal health care law, Arizona is moving full steam ahead with its exchange and is using more than $30 million in federal tax dollars to do so.
The radio show Main Street Out Loud led a discussion on the federal health care law and the Independent Payment Advisory Board. Host Rudi K. was joined by Diane Cohen, senior attorney for the Goldwater Institute; Dr. Byron Schlomach, Director of the Center for Economic Prosperity at the Goldwater Institute; and Dr. John Ammon, Medical Director and President of Docs 4 Patient Care (Arizona Chapter).