Making Ideas
Change the World
Creating jobs, liberating taxpayers,
empowering patients, and more…
What We Have Accomplished
Turning Ideas
into Public Policy
Health Savings Accounts
Because of the idea of Health Savings Accounts, more than 30 million people are managing some of their own health care dollars in accounts they own and control.
401(k) Plans
Because of automatic enrollment in diversified portfolios, 16 million employees are enjoying higher and safer returns.
Social Security
Because of another idea, 78 million baby boomers are able to work beyond age 65 without losing Social Security benefits.
Roth IRAs
Because of the idea of Roth IRAs, $265 billion in savings has been taxed once and will never be taxed again.
Recent Commentaries
What’s New
Reason for Our Health Care Crisis: Government
Michael Cannon argues that all of our major health care programs (Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, etc.) came into existence primarily to solve problems created by previous government interventions. And, the reason why there is a continuing push for further reform is because all the programs that are supposed to be solving problems are creating new ones. More.
David Boaz, RIP
David was the executive vice president of the Cato Institute for most of its history. He was the operating officer of the nation’s premier libertarian think tank.
“You learn the essence of libertarianism in kindergarten,” he wrote. “Don’t hit other people, don’t take their stuff, and keep your promises.”
The Inflation Tax
With 10% inflation, the average family can expect to lose 7% of its lifetime income to government.
This is the startling conclusion of a first-ever study by Laurance Kotlikoff and Alan Auerbach and their colleagues. The sources of the loss: (1) large parts of the tax code are not inflation indexed, (2) those parts that are indexed are indexed with a lag, and (3) Social Security benefits and other entitlements are also indexed with a lag. Our fiscal system is so incredibly complex that it has been impossible to measure the overall effects of inflation before now. Given the 20 largest federal/state entitlements, all administered differently by 50 states, that gives us 1,000 fiscal systems– to say nothing of all the different tax regimes. Hats off to the economists who spent several years developing the model that could give us a reliable answer. See John Goodman’s explanation of the study at Forbes.
Do You Trust your Health Insurer?
Why do employers (including government employers) and insurers mistreat enrollees with costly health care problems? When the New York Times describes the abuses, you are encouraged to believe that the blame rests with private insurance. In fact, the source of the problem is perverse incentives created by bad government policies. More.
Public Policy Research
Leveraging People,
Money and Ideas
Our Role in Tax Reform
Goodman Institute scholars Laurence Kotlikoff and Alan Auerbach were the intellectual source of the Ryan/Brady (“Better Way”) tax reform proposal. They are also the leading intellectual defenders of tax reform, drawing on the most sophisticated and accurate economic models that exist.
Our Role in Health Reform
We are witnessing a radical transformation of the U.S. health care system. Although health care is the most regulated market in our economy, we have recently witnessed massive deregulation — partly in response to the coronavirus threat. These changes were only possible because of three years of prior effort by the Trump administration. Many of the core ideas were pioneered by Goodman Institute health economists.
New Partnership: Health Care News
The Goodman Institute for Public Policy has agreed to partner with Heartland to ensure the newspaper’s survival going forward. This new partnership could not have come at a better time. Polls consistently show that healthcare is the number one issue with voters.
The Health Blog
For many years, our health care blog was the only free enterprise health policy blog on the internet. Then, when the NCPA closed its doors, the health blog stopped as well.
During this five-year hiatus no one else has come forward to claim the space. So, my colleagues and I have decided to restart the blog in connection with the Goodman Institute. We invite you and others to use this forum to share your views.
Debater Resources
Health Care Briefing With Newt Gingrich
Former Congresswoman Nan Hayworth, Newt Gingrich and I discuss healthcare in the next election and beyond. Newt and I have a mutual admiration society that goes back many years. Newt has always been an outlier among Republican politicians when it comes to the topic of health care – aggressively searching for solutions instead of avoiding the subject.
Sessions Health Care Bill:
- Creates a new optional federal health insurance tax credit that is generous, universal, portable, and the same amount for everyone regardless of income,
- Allows employers and their employees to maintain their current employer-provided health insurance tax status, if preferred,
- Creates a new “Roth” style Health Savings Account to pay for health care expenses,
- Allows employees to have a 24/7 direct primary care doctor of their choice.
- Permanently expands telehealth availability, and
- Promote price transparency and competition.
Our Scholars
Read the most recent commentaries available in the
nation’s most important news publications.
John Goodman
Larry Kotlikoff
Thomas Saving
Devon Herrick
Linda Gorman
All Experts
Testimonials
What They
Are Saying
Many years ago I read a book called Patient Power. It was… written by Musgrave and Goodman. John Goodman is… known as the Father of Health Savings Accounts.
They’ve developed innovative ideas on how to create a better health system, a less expensive health system, a health system with more access for well over two decades.
John Goodman is the leading expert on free market proposals for probably the most dysfunctional 1/6th of our economy that exists. He does a spectacular job.
Our Priorities
The Goodman Institute is doing work not done by any other organization – especially in the areas of tax, health care and entitlement policy. Without our work the nation might not have obtained tax reform. Now we need to defend it.
We work with the best scholars from around the country on the nation’s most difficult public policy problems. Our mission is to find private alternatives to government programs that aren’t working. Ideas have enormous potential to change the course of human events.
Tax
Reform
Health
Reform
Virtual
Think Tank
Our
History