Given Newt Gingrich’s strong debate performances, many strengths, and the state of the Republican field, he may no longer be toast. (See my May 16 post Gingrich is Toast.) Speaker Gingrich is very smart, articulate, and highly knowledgeable, with extensive experience, wit, and guts. Stranger things could happen in a strange year in which the entire field has some amount of baggage. In the words of Brit Hume, “In this peculiar election cycle, who knows?”
Category Archives: Economy and government
The continuing debate on health insurance reform
My October 2011 Networks Financial Institute Policy Brief, The Continuing Debate on Health Insurance Reform, provides an overview of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) and perspective on some of its key provisions affecting health insurance. I summarize the main problems that confront U.S. health care and public and private health insurance and review the performance of private health insurance. I discuss the likely effects of the ACA, the economics of the individual mandate, implications of possible court rulings on the mandate’s constitutionality, and implementation of the ACA to date. I conclude with brief description of market-oriented alternatives to the ACA that will likely be considered if the Republicans win the 2012 presidential election, retain the House, and capture a sufficient majority in the Senate.