Tag: Guest contributors
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Governance Nightmare: Integrating Hospitals and HMOs
by James C. Sherlock Del. Sally Hudson, D-Charlottesville, has introduced a terrific piece of legislation, HB 1731. The bill tackles for the first time an increasing threat to competition, cost, availability, consumer choice and quality of health care in Virginia — the vertically integrated carrier. The combination of hospitals and insurance carriers has captured the…
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Lawmakers Coddling Hospital Monopolies
by Jim Sherlock My last essay, “Runaway Costs and Hospital Monopolies,” discussed the fact that Virginians who get their health insurance at work and through the Affordable Care Act website pay the highest premiums in the country. We traced those costs to a number of sources, including the Certificate of Public Need (COPN), Virginia Department…
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Runaway Costs and Hospital Monopolies
by James C. Sherlock Healthcare costs are crowding out other spending by citizens and governments. All Virginians know this. Few understand, though, that their elected leaders in Richmond, who are recipients of huge campaign contributions from hospital interests, bear a significant share of the blame and some are actively working to increase costs further. Virginia…
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Early-Release-For-Murderers Bill Advances
A Virginia Senate committee voted Friday 9-to-5 (largely along party lines) to make many murderers eligible for release when they reach age 50. SB 624 effectively reinstates parole for many long-time inmates, even though the Virginia legislature abolished parole in 1995. The bill also guts Virginia’s three-strikes law, which required life without parole for offenders…
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Will Middle-Aged Killers Get Early Release?
by Hans Bader A Virginia bill, SB 624, would make middle-aged murderers and rapists eligible for “geriatric release.” It would do so even though “geriatric” is precisely about being old. It is defined in the dictionary as “old, elderly,” or “relating to, or appropriate for elderly people.” Under SB 624, a prison inmate would be eligible for…
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Virginia Death Tax Would Be Fairly Narrow
by Hans Bader A few days ago, I wrote about legislation to reinstate Virginia’s estate tax. The Tax Foundation has informed me that the tax contained in the bill would affect fewer households than in most of the states that still have an estate tax. (Most states no longer have an estate tax at all).…
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How to Cripple Small Business with One Easy Law
by Hans Bader Anti-discrimination legislation under consideration by the Virginia state Senate would shrink the value of the state’s economy and fundamentally alter its business climate. The “Virginia Values Act,” introduced by Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, would subject even small businesses to unlimited compensatory and punitive damages in discrimination lawsuits and order businesses to pay…
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HB 1200: Another Small Business Shakedown
by Hans Bader Right now, if you employ five or fewer workers in Virginia, you aren’t subject to most state restrictions on who you can hire. And if you have fewer than 15 employees, you usually can’t be forced to pay a worker’s lawyer much at all if the worker sues you. That would change…
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Death Tax Proposed for Virginia
by Hans Bader Lawmakers in both houses of Virginia’s legislature have proposed an estate tax. That’s a tax on what residents own at the time of their death. The proposed tax, set at hefty rates not seen since the 1970s, would affect the inheritances of many middle-class people. Virginia had an estate tax until July…
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New Bill Would Mandate Release of Old Murderers
by Hans Bader A proposed law would require Virginia prisons to release many murderers when they reach age 60 or 65, even if prison officials know they are dangerous. Under a bill proposed Friday by Del. Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, parole officials would be stripped of their authority to block such inmates’ release. Right now, Virginia’s…
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Northam Proposes Releasing Middle-Aged Murderers
by Hans Bader Virginia’s governor wants to make most murderers eligible for parole when they reach age 50. You’d never know that from reading the news stories written by liberal reporters. They say Democratic Governor Ralph Northam wants to help “elderly” inmates. But that’s contradicted by the governor’s own website. Under his plan, it says,…
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Non-Competes a Barrier to Economic Mobility
by Schuyler VanValkenburg Milton Friedman wrote in “Free to Choose” that “economic freedom is an essential prerequisite for political freedom.” But here in Virginia, the people who most need economic freedom and the political self-actualization that comes with it are the people whose economic freedom is most constrained. Let me illustrate with two realistic examples.…
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California Too Conservative for Some Virginia Dems
by Hans Bader To some Americans, staunchly progressive California may seem too liberal. But not to Virginia’s Democratic legislators. They’re proposing legislation that would make Virginia more liberal than California. That includes letting murderers vote while in prison, and letting them be paroled even if a court has sentenced them to life without parole. Virginia…
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Virginia Likely to Impose Excessive Minimum Wage
by Hans Bader It doesn’t make sense to ban jobs that pay a living wage, just because an employer can’t afford to pay a still higher wage. But that is what a $15 minimum wage does in regions where living costs and wages are low. There are cheap regions to live in where $11 an…
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Want to Help Workers Work? Keep Virginia’s Right-to-Work Law
by Chris Braunlich Are a majority of Democratic candidates for the Virginia General Assembly “anti-worker?” Based on their response to a Virginia Chamber of Commerce survey, it would seem that way. General Assembly candidates were surveyed on whether they would support Virginia’s Right To Work (RTW) laws. Republicans were unanimously supportive. Democrats were almost equally…