Economists can use their knowledge for both good and evil, and for those in government, such knowledge is often used to deceive and make government programs look less costly than they are, writes Gary Galles. This audio Mises Daily is narrated by Keith
Even before the new Congress has been seated, some emboldened progressives are pushing for votes to establish Medicare for all. Bernie Sanders argues that 70 percent of Americans favor it, so now is the time. Of course, that support plummets when people are told about its astronomical tax bill and its escalation in government control. But Sanders
Recently, I read a Los Angeles Times article that referred to high-deductible health plans as “much hated by employees.” That struck me as incongruous, since high-deductible — or catastrophic — plans are what insurance principles support. If that is true, why would employees hate them? How do insurance principles support high-deductible, or
On December 14, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled Obamacare unconstitutional because its individual mandate requiring people to have health insurance “can no longer be sustained as an exercise of Congress’s tax power,” since the tax that enforced it is now gone. Progressive leaning critics quickly called it bad jurisprudence and assured
Congress has again passed an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), only to have it vetoed again. That has given its backers yet another chance to proclaim how much they care for children and rehash attacks against President Bush, as when Lois Capps (D-CA) called it “denying vital healthcare to some of the most
Economic analysis is a powerful tool. But while powerful, it is also amoral; not inherently moral or immoral. Whatever you want to accomplish, applying accurate economic analysis to the issues can help you do it better. If the purpose is good, you can achieve more of it; however, if the purpose is to impose harm, you can achieve more of that as
Congress has again passed an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), only to have it vetoed again. That has given its backers yet another chance to proclaim how much they care for children and rehash attacks against President Bush, as when Lois Capps (D-CA) called it “denying vital healthcare to some of the most
Americans have been fighting over health insurance reform for ages. For example, 25 years ago, in 1992, over 200 congressional health care bills were introduced. Unfortunately, while the rhetoric has focused on insurance, such as how many would supposedly gain or lose insurance if some change was implemented, that has not been the real issue.
The Supreme Court has recently heard oral arguments in Michigan vs. EPA challenging regulations slashing mercury emissions from fossil-fuel power plants. However, the central issue was not, as commonly represented, preventing harm from mercury. The central issue is the use of mercury as a bait-and-switch excuse for more stringent restrictions on
Because my courses focus on public policy, I often discuss benefit-cost analyses (BCA) in them. While little discussed in public, the central idea is simply to identify and include all the relevant benefits and costs of a decision, do our best to estimate their values, then choose the option that provides the greatest net benefits. Hardly a
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The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.