[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wihTejYjsjA[/youtube] First Lady Michelle Obama’s video on health care reform raises important issues about female patients who are falling through the cracks of the U.S. health care system. It’s not a perfect system, but Nina Owcharenko explains that ObamaCare would take women and the rest of the country in the wrong direction. Having to depend on politicians or faceless bureaucrats to make decisions about their care doesn’t empower women or improve their health care situations. Plus, the Obama health reform agenda isn’t what women want. A majority of female respondents …
On November 29 the people of Honduras will vote for a new president and legislature to govern their country over the next four years. The elections are now the only fair and democratic way to heal the crisis begun well before the June 28th removal of President Manuel Zelaya. Former president Zelaya, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, the Organization of American States, and many liberals in the U.S. are banking on a low, indifferent turnout. They want to prove that a climate of repression, fear, and the lack of political options is …
The House and Senate health care legislation resembles a game show more than deliberate exercise in public policy. As confusing and confused legislation language is translated into dollars and cents, how much Americans will find themselves paying for health care? It looks more and more like a giant game of chance. Not only is Congress leaving the current inequities created by the federal tax treatment of health insurance in place, it is busy creating new ones. Family Premiums. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that under the House bill, the …
After a sneak-through Saturday night vote to make Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care bill open for debate, the Senate comes back on Monday to decide how much more involvement the federal government will have over the private health care sector — one-sixth of the nation’s overall economy. With a record-breaking 2,074 pages, there are plenty of provisions in the Senate health care bill that most Americans probably aren’t aware of. Here are some of the highlights that Heritage has noted in the past week: The Senate bill breaks …
The U.S. Committee on Foreign Affairs held a hearing last week on lifting the ban on travel to Cuba, revealing the high discrepancy among congressional members over whether or not restricting Americans from traveling to Cuba will ultimately influence democratic change and enhance human rights under the Castro regime. Many representatives argued that this policy has failed at influencing democracy within the communist state and has prevented Americans from traveling where they please. Others claimed that by allowing Americans to travel to Cuba, to speak and have frequent contact between …
Speaking on education this past March, President Obama told Americans that he believes in only “one test when deciding what ideas to support with your precious tax dollars: It’s not whether an idea is liberal or conservative, but whether it works.” OK, great! Here’s something that works: the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. It’s a federal initiative that is currently giving 1,715 extremely disadvantaged children a reprieve from the infamously awful and dangerous public schools in the nation’s capital. It’s supported by many local Democrats and Republicans. Previously near-illiterate children now …
As millions of Americans spend today fervently practicing commerce, we bring you these thoughts faith, property and prosperity which first ran last year on Thanksgiving. There is much talk these days of how conservatives need “new ideas” in these troubled economic times. And as we look at our nation’s troubled landscape, there is much work that needs to be done if we are going to return economic prosperity to the country. But as we sit down to celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends and family, recalling the true story of the …
On Monday, Bob Woodson and his team of youth mentors, along with school administrators, law enforcement and government leaders, held a summit on youth violence and the success of Woodson’s Violence Free Zones. Those in attendance at the Washington, D.C. conference testified to the efficacy of Violence Free Zones, citing a 32 percent reduction in violent incidents in Milwaukee Public Schools, a reduction in car thefts of more than 60 percent around high schools in Richmond, Virginia, and in general, a reduction in violence, suspensions, and disruptions in schools. Violence …
No one knows for sure how Senator Reid’s health care bill (HR 3590) will impact any particular person or group, but this much is fairly certain: it will cause health insurance premiums to increase faster—not slower—than they would have otherwise. Even the Congressional Budget Office, Congress’s non-partisan accountants, says that premiums in the “public option” of Sen. Reid’s bill would turn out to be higher than premiums in typical private plans today. Thus, there are ways to “bend the health care cost curve” downward, but this bill does exactly the …
Thanksgiving was not formally made a federal holiday until 1941. However, it has been celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November annually since President Abraham Lincoln delivered the address below in 1863. Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at The Heritage Foundation. The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so …
