At a conference at the Vatican I attended some years ago, Nobel laureate Gary Becker gave the opening speech. I found what he said quite remarkable: The greatest beneficiaries of capitalism are those at the bottom of the income ladder. That’s why I favor capitalism. Were that not the case, I would not be in […]
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In Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis, Dr. John Goodman takes the Affordable Care Act to task, rejects the Obama Administration’s vision, and offers a no-nonsense approach to health care reform. Arguing that the United States should create a market for sick people, in which health plans vigorously compete to solve the problems of diabetics, asthmatics, […]
Read MoreFREE Insights and Innovations This FREE Insights introduces two innovations. First is the addition of a day-long excursion during our July and August seminars. The July program, “Faith, Political Economy, and Social Justice: Lessons from Butte, America” includes a day in Butte with experts on its history, decline, and renewal. The August seminar is “Faith, […]
Read MoreWhen is the last time you heard a liberal describe himself as a “liberal”? It’s probably been a long time. These days, those on the left are more likely to call themselves “progressives.” Writing in The New York Times, Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs said there have been two progressive eras — one in the […]
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On the very day that Steve Jobs died a new report suggests that the U.S. health care system is spending too much money on people near the end of their lives. The timing of the two events could not have been more ironic. Had Jobs been under the care of the British National Health Service […]
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From NCPA Health Alerts, September 7, 2011 There are not very many good things you can say about a deep recession. But from a researcher’s point of view, there is one silver lining. This recession has given us a natural experiment in health economics — and the results are stunning. But, first things first. Here […]
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Theodore Dalrymple, MD worked for the British Health Service for many years prior to becoming a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. In the review section of last weekend’s Wall Street Journal he wrote an article based on his British experience, “New Efficiencies in Health Care? Not Likely.” He began with this: “All […]
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Twice a week, John Goodman, president and founder of NCPA in Dallas, writes a blog. Most are on health care, but a few are wider issues. John uses a finely polished economic lens to help us see through complex and often disguised or misrepresented governmental programs. Here is a slightly abridged version of his recent […]
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I can’t think of any single act of government that creates more inequality than the lottery—at least per dollar raised and spent. Think about it. Thousands of (mostly below-average income) people buy tickets and, after the drawing, one of them becomes immensely wealthy. As far as I can tell, the single largest winner in the […]
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How can the federal government encourage low-cost, high-quality medical care? There are basically two approaches: a bottom-up, market-based approach and a top-down command-and-control approach: The former is based on competition, markets and economic incentives; the latter is based on rules, regulations, fines and penalties. The former gets the economic incentives right for all of the […]
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