Small businesses struggling with health-care costs could gain new bargaining power with insurers, after a controversial bill passed the House, 82-32. Senate Bill 86, which passed Wednesday, Aug. 7, would broaden access to association health plans, allowing small businesses to band together when…
The debate that led to the passage of Senate Bill 290 wasn’t about alcohol. I’ve written and said this many times, as have my colleagues at Carolina Journal and The John Locke Foundation. Certain lawmakers, the Chuck McGradys, Jon Hardisters, and…
[This story has been updated with additional comments] Gov. Roy Cooper has vetoed a bill that would allow a low-performing virtual charter school to add students. Senate Bill 392 contains a provision that would lift the maximum student enrollment cap for one of…
Hubert Humphrey once said, “The ultimate moral test of any government is the way it treats three groups of its citizens. First, those in the dawn of life — our children. Second, those in the shadows of life — our needy, our sick, our handicapped. Third, those in the twilight…
North Carolina continues to see growth in homeschooling, charter schools, and private schools, a recent report from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction says. The report shows more than 80,000 additional students have chosen an educational option beyond their locally assigned district school between 2008…
In December 2018, I wrote the following: “As a general rule, the public and politicians should never view economic impact studies as anything more than an attempt by special interests to manipulate public opinion for their own benefit.” There is no better example of this than the study underwritten by the Cone…
“Economies of scale, lower administrative costs, and more coordinated care will lower overall costs and improve the quality of health care.” This is a line we typically hear when large hospital systems merge or acquire smaller practices. To many, this may seem reasonable. For example, think about a large retail…
The N.C. Alcoholic Beverage Control system — created in 1937 in the wake of the repeal of Prohibition — for the past 80-plus years has remained mostly static. But this may soon change, as lawmakers have offered several proposals to repair the broken, outdated system. …
In 2011, Thom Tillis, Phil Berger, and the Republican leadership in the N.C. General Assembly removed the 100-school school cap included in the 1996 law that authorized the creation of charter schools, which are tuition-free public schools that have more freedom than district-run public schools. Removing the cap, along with…
Texas did it in 1985. California did it in 1987. Pennsylvania did it in 1996. New Hampshire did it in 2016. Florida did it in 2019. I’m talking about states that repealed their Certificate of Need laws. CON laws were implemented by almost every state as a condition to receiving…
