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COMMENTARIES

A Manhattan Project for Covid

A Manhattan Project for Covid

Same-day, time-stamped cell-phone pictures … of negative test — tests, which were approved and supplied to everyone for free by Uncle Sam — would be required to enter the workplace, fly on an airplane plane, frequent a restaurant, enter a store, or attend a school, college, or university. If home tests weren’t perfectly precise, you’d likely need to show several days of negative test results. These requirements would be established by market players, not by government decree.

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Corporate Tax Reform that Pays for Itself

Corporate Tax Reform that Pays for Itself

Republican tax reform could have been better. An ideal reform, originally proposed by Paul Ryan would have produced a of 20.5 percent increase in the nation’s capital stock and a 6.8 percent increase in GDP. Wages would have increased by 6.3 percent for high-income workers and by 7.5 percent for low-income workers. The reasons: a highly elastic global supply of capital, which moves across borders at the first sign of a tax advantage and the inefficiency of the U.S. corporate income tax, which, as of 2014, our year of calibration, had a very high marginal, but very low average tax rate.

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Kotlikoff in the NYT: A Cheap, Simple Way to Control Covid

Kotlikoff in the NYT: A Cheap, Simple Way to Control Covid

Paper-strip tests are inexpensive and easy enough to make that Americans could test themselves every day. You would simply spit into a tube of saline solution and insert a small piece of paper embedded with a strip of protein. If you are infected with enough of the virus, the strip will change color within 15 minutes….  The price per person would be from $1 to $5 a day. The Food and Drug Administration should encourage their development and then fast track approval. 

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Short-Term Insurance Is Not The Problem. It’s The Solution

Short-Term Insurance Is Not The Problem. It’s The Solution

Democrats in Congress are trying to abolish short-term, limited-benefit insurance, but that insurance is on the rise because people want it. Democrats complain that today’s short-term plans don’t cover services people might need.  “What if you get sick and need expensive drugs?” they might ask. The answer is: you drop your short-term plan and enroll in an Obamacare plan. 

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Why We Weren’t Ready For Covid-19

Why We Weren’t Ready For Covid-19

In Chile, people can work and earn as much as they like, even while receiving social security benefits. In Singapore, Switzerland, the Netherlands and other countries, people don’t lose their private insurance coverage if they quit work or change jobs. In Chile’s unemployment system, people don’t lose income when they go back to work. Chile’s disability system, which allows people to go back to work without losing benefit checks, costs about half as much as disability programs cost in the U.S. and in Europe. 

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What’s Wrong with Trump’s Response to Covid?

What’s Wrong with Trump’s Response to Covid?

No national testing policy. A lower number of tests per capita than 27 countries. No nationwide contract-tracing system. No national smartphone App to assist contact tracing. No obligatory, let alone enforced, masking policy. No obligatory, let alone enforced social distancing policy. No nationwide random testing to determine disease prevalence. No requirement that states follow CDC reopening guidelines. No restrictions on large gatherings. And a The-Buck-Stops-There strategy that’s dumped the Covid problem on the states, forced the states to compete against one another and ended up with each state treating residents of other states as pariahs. 

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Best Biden VP Choice: Condoleezza Rice

Best Biden VP Choice: Condoleezza Rice

Secretary Rice served in President George W. Bush’s Cabinet, both as our nation’s top diplomat and before that as national security adviser. But she also served (as an intern) in the Carter administration’s State Department as well as in President George H.W. Bush’s administration. She’s a Republican, but she’s no ideologue. Consequently, she will instantly appeal to independents across the nation. 

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Herrick: States Should Ban These Lab Scams

Herrick: States Should Ban These Lab Scams

There is a new health care scam spreading across rural America that could cost you plenty. Large commercial labs like Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp do not have locations in every small town. As a result, many rural hospitals perform lab work for both their inpatients and outpatients in the local community.

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The Five Deadly Sins Of Private Health Insurance

The Five Deadly Sins Of Private Health Insurance

In health care we are not getting the benefits from competition that we receive in markets for other goods and services. The reason for that is unwise government regulation. Under the current system, We don’t allow health plans to specialize in something they are really good at. Say a plan is very good at diabetic care. If we would allow it to restrict its enrollment to diabetics and focus exclusively on their care, it would probably improve even further. Instead, we require health plans to be all things to all enrollees.

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