News and Views on Politics, Policy and More
This week on The Arkansas Project Podcast: "Private" option costs have gone up, again Senator Bryan King speaks out about lack of competition in the PO Milton Friedman: Four different ways to spend money Damon Wallace has a fake degree Our report on AR primary candidates … [Read more...]
I know many of you have been relying on The Arkansas Project for news and analysis of the ongoing GOP legislative primaries around the state. While I’ve been conducting interviews with candidates, my colleague Dan Greenberg over at AAI has been helping to compile a comprehensive report that highlights where candidates stand on many more policy issues. (Well, at least it highlights where candidates are willing to say they stand.) This survey was conducted by Commerce In Action. They sent a … [Read more...]
Today is April 15th, the day that federal tax filings are due. (We hope this doesn’t come as a surprise to any of you.) So this seems like the perfect time to talk about how awful taxes are in America! While today is (unfortunately) Tax Day, I want to be sure you know also know the good news about Tax Freedom Day. This is the day of the year that the nation as a whole has earned enough money to pay its total tax bill for year. A good way to think about this is that, up until Tax Freedom Day, … [Read more...]
You might recall that one of the selling points of the “private” option was market competition. Competition among insurance carriers was going to lower prices and improve the quality of services. Indeed, the actuaries who estimated the costs of the “private” option relied on the low prices that competition would create. Our insurance commissioner even explained that the high number of carriers that were participating – four! – was triggered by the “private” option. In reality, market … [Read more...]
You probably heard that on Tuesday the House, on its fifth attempt, approved funding for the Obamacare “private” option for the next fiscal year. Some “private”-option advocates think of Arkansas’s Medicaid expansion as a “brilliant approach,” but I imagine our readers know I’m disappointed that it passed. The Arkansas Project and the Advance Arkansas Institute have repeatedly warned over the last year that this program will create unpredictable costs and make the state increasingly dependent … [Read more...]
Our guest article yesterday from Rep. Joe Farrer revealed the unanticipated costs to Arkansas taxpayers of the Obamacare-Medicaid “private” option. In short, the program is already pricier than promised -- and, despite promises that it would cost state taxpayers “nothing” in the first three years, the impact looks like it’s about to blow a hole in the state budget. Jonathan Ingram of the Foundation for Government Accountability has released a new paper that outlines the budgetary problems … [Read more...]
One of the more ridiculous arguments that legislators have made in support of the Medicaid expansion “private” option (Republican legislators, in particular) is that the “private” option is a “conservative response to Obamacare.” Rep. Charlie Collins regularly makes these types of claims on his Twitter feed; Speaker Davy Carter famously said last year that “a vote for the private option is a vote against Obamacare.” The problem with these theories is that, well, Medicaid expansion is a central … [Read more...]
This week on the show: John Cooper's historic northeast Arkansas win Senator Missy Irvin says "no" to the PO Jonathan Ingram's 'private' option paper Nic's trip to Bowen law school The Daily Caller's coverage of Bowen … [Read more...]
