Released this past Tuesday, the important new book Why Obamacare Is Wrong for America has gotten noticed by Fox News, NPR, Town Hall, National Review, and readers nationwide, who keep it climbing up the Amazon bestseller charts. The Foundry interviewed Heritage’s Bob Moffit—one of the four co-authors—who reveals how the book came together and why it matters. The Foundry: Other laws passed in the last two years also have their critics. Why devote a whole book to just this one new law? Bob Moffit: Because the Patient Protection and Affordable …
On April 9, Nigerians head to the polls to vote in the presidential and gubernatorial elections. Since 1999, when the country returned to civilian rule, each election has been marred by violence, bribery, and allegations of fraud. Adding to the already daunting challenge is President Goodluck Jonathan’s decision to run for election, disregarding the unwritten power-sharing agreement between north and south. Jonathan assumed office last year when his predecessor, Umaru Yar’Adua, died while in office. This situation raised political tensions in Nigeria because the presidency is supposed to rotate between …
This past Wednesday marked the first anniversary of Obamacare. While advocates spent the week highlighting the new law’s effects on different groups of Americans, we’ve done the same. A review of the facts on the ground and the conclusions of Heritage research over the past year reveal the far-reaching negative consequences of the new law. Today, liberals are arguing that Obamacare helps young Americans. Although there are benefits from some provisions of the new law—for example, young adults can now stay on their parents’ health plan until age 26—young Americans …
Right now, states across the country are trying to figure out what to do in response to Obamacare and its health insurance exchange architecture. In Oklahoma, the question has gone even further as the state government debates whether or not to accept federal funding, appropriated in the Obamacare statute, to create a state information technology system for a health care exchange. In Ed Haislmaier’s recent paper, he describes this dilemma: Trying to shoehorn patient-centered, market-based reforms into the bureaucratic architecture of Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges is not a viable strategy, …
The recently released Century Foundation International Task Force report on Afghanistan titled “Afghanistan: Negotiating Peace” usefully sketches out the myriad issues surrounding the challenges of seeking an Afghan peace settlement involving the Taliban. However, the report’s call for a “neutral international facilitator” harkens back to the 1990s, when the United Nations (unsuccessfully) sought to stitch together an Afghan peace agreement between the warring mujahideen factions. The U.N. proved no match for the well-armed and Pakistani-supported Taliban, who successfully captured Kabul in 1996 and ruled Afghanistan until the U.S.-led invasion in …
Union members in Massachusetts support Senator Scott Brown (R). So it is perhaps surprising to see Massachusetts unions announcing their plans to target him for defeat. Or perhaps not. Union bosses, not union members, decide how to spend union dues. Union bosses oppose Brown’s efforts to cut government spending. So they are going to go after him—whether or not their members want their dues spent that way. This is a national problem. Union members pay 1–2 percent of their salaries in annual dues but have little say over how that …
President Obama’s hometown of Chicago is nearly 1,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. But like many other communities across the country, it is suffering the consequences of his Administration’s anti-drilling agenda. Illinois accounted for $376.2 million in shallow-water drilling expenditures over the past three years, according to an analysis by 14 oil and gas companies that spend money on vendors and subcontractors. The bulk of that money—$242.2 million—was spent in the Chicago district represented by Representative Danny Davis (D–IL). It’s fresh evidence that Obama’s anti-drilling agenda is having a …
As has been widely reported by the media, the latest 2010 U.S. Census Bureau numbers are confirming the growing number of the Hispanic population in our country. According to some estimates, this number is set to total 50.5 million Hispanics, accounting for nearly 1 in six Americans now of Hispanic stock. While Europe ages and other countries look enviably at our demographic gains, what’s particularly interesting about these numbers is less about the growth of the overall Hispanic population (that was widely predicted) – but where the Hispanic population increase …
Dr. Martha Boone doesn’t hide her displeasure with Obamacare. She was opposed to the law long before President Obama signed it one year ago and remains critical of it today. She spoke at Heritage this week about its impact on doctors. One story Boone shared shed light on the challenges government-run health care has created with her patients. She spoke of an incident involving a Medicare patient with stress incontinence, a condition that can be treated by one of two operations. The first operation takes 15 minutes, is not invasive …
The future of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (D.C. OSP) is hanging in the balance. Poison pill language hidden in the 2009 government spending bill began phasing out the program. The Obama administration, beholden to special interest education unions, stood by as the last Congress worked to phase-out the highly successful scholarship program. However, with a new congress, there is new hope for school choice. Heritage has been on the forefront of the school choice movement and has written extensively about it. Join us right now for our “Lunch with …
