Is the modern incandescent light bulb ready to retire from society and find its final resting place in the halls of the American History Museum? Politicians seem to think so, but consumer behavior indicates otherwise. According to an article in The New York Times, Despite a decade of campaigns by the government and utilities to persuade people to switch to energy-saving compact fluorescents, incandescent bulbs still occupy an estimated 90 percent of household sockets in the United States. Aside from the aesthetic and practical objections to fluorescents, old-style incandescents have …
No, it’s not a joke. It’s the finding from a new paper published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. The argument is school choice leads to more driving which results in more vehicle emissions. The abstract says, “that eliminating district-wide school choice (i.e., returning to a system with neighborhood schools only) would have significant impacts on transport modes and emissions” and the findings “underscore the need to critically evaluate transportation-related environmental and health impacts of currently proposed changes in school policy.” George Mason economist Don Boudreaux appropriately responds in …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5-BoR9hAvQ[/youtube] Dr. Norm Thurston is doing something extraordinary: he’s implementing consumer-driven health care fixes in Utah. When many employers recently started dropping health benefits the state reacted with reforms that make costs predictable for both employers and consumers. Predictability depends on accurate information for all sides. The Utah Health Exchange makes this possible. Here’s how it works: Companies choose a fixed amount to contribute toward employee health benefits. Employees contribute pretax money from their own paychecks, and they can make contributions from a spouse’s job or a second employer as well.
Heritage analyst Nina Owcharenko details what rational health care reform looks like: Congress soon will take up legislation to reform the health care system. The policies outlined by President Obama during his campaign and those proposed by Democrats in Congress would centralize control over health care in Washington. “The chief danger of this approach is that it would directly interfere in the personal health care decisions of Americans. There is a much better alternative: a system that recognizes diversity across the states and differences in individual health care needs and …
