A doctor suing to overturn restrictions on patient care just won his first victory. Special Superior Court Judge Gregory McGuire on Wednesday, Nov. 20, rejected the state’s request to throw out Dr. Gajendra Singh’s case, allowing Singh to continue fighting the Certificate of Need regime…
Mecklenburg County voters rejected a plan to raise the sales tax to fund arts and parks. The quarter-cent tax would have taken the county’s rate from 7.25% to 7.5%, but 57% of voters said no. The Mecklenburg Tax Alliance,…
Recently I asked my 14-year-old son to identify the biggest problem at the public school he attends in Wake County. He didn’t hesitate to answer. “People who pay with cash or check in the lunch line,” he said. He explained that it takes longer for…
The Democratic party’s most radically progressive candidates, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have promised to impose a tax on wealth. To be clear, wealth is distinct from income. Wealth is accumulated income in the form of savings and investments and real assets such as real estate, antique or art collections,…
A year ago, Debbie Townsend still hoped she could turn things around. Her patients don’t know it, but she bleeds money filling many of their prescriptions. In a few weeks, she’ll lose the independent pharmacy she has run for the past 15 years. “We’re going out of business. [The middlemen]…
The U.S. Department of Education awarded North Carolina $10 million to bring more educationally disadvantaged students to charter schools, but state constraints on charters may make spending that money a challenge. Joseph Maimone, a member of the Charter School Advisory Board, said some charter schools may…
It’s illegal for him to treat his patients. By law, he can’t get an MRI machine because the hospital down the street already has one. Under certificate of need laws, state planners decide which medical providers can have medical equipment. In Dr. Gajendra Singh’s case, the…
With fiscal forecasts predicting the State Health Plan will go broke in four years, the N.C. treasurer is hatching new tactics to push hospitals into clear pricing. State Treasurer Dale Folwell has been fighting hospital systems for months. He planned to save the State Health…
Once again, a group of influential green groups and corporations are promoting a global climate strike. Today’s strike pushes young students to walk out of school and workers to leave work to protest the energy sources that keep us alive and thriving. Stunts…
Newly released school performance grades show reading scores have remained stagnant despite millions spent on reading interventions. The N.C. State Board of Education in its monthly meeting Wednesday, Sept. 4, released the 2018-19 Accountability and School Performance Grades report. The report…
