Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Thursday, I laid out the case for why Obamacare should be repealed, instead of propped up and tinkered on by additional top-down, boardroom thinking. It’s clear that whatever replaces Obamacare must focus on quality and incremental local solutions, not one-size-fits-all government mandates. In this respect, the federal government’s biggest task for replacing Obamacare is to…
Our first and perhaps greatest Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, ended his Gettysburg Address by calling on his fellow Americans to rededicate themselves to the “great task” of preserving our “government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people.” I share that commitment, which is why I have always supported term limits for our…
Practically since Obamacare became law, Republicans in Congress have been promising to repeal it. The law has been consistently unpopular during that time as well. With the election of President-elect Donald Trump, it seems as though those promises and unpopularity are about to coalesce into real repeal. As the prospect of repeal becomes more and…
When it comes to Obamacare, the buzzwords on Capitol Hill this week have been “repeal” and “replace.” As for the timing of which happens when, well, it depends on who you ask. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said replace will follow “soon after” repeal. At The Heritage Foundation, we have echoed that plan. However,…
Obamacare, the left’s grand attempt to create a national government-run health care system, has failed. They promised lower health insurance premiums, but delivered higher ones. They promised more choice and competition, but delivered less. They promised continuity and better access to care, but delivered disruption and dislocation. Despite promises that people could keep their plans…
Thanks to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americans will be making a whole lot more lemonade this year, and saving money while they’re at it. On Dec. 23, the Department of Agriculture eliminated a 15-year-old ban on lemon imports from northwest Argentina, the world’s top producer of lemons. Domestic producers had long argued that Argentine…
On Tuesday, retired Gen. John Kelly, the nominee to be secretary of homeland security, went before the Senate’s Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee for his confirmation hearing. Here are the top three takeaways from that hearing. 1. The Department of Homeland Security’s management and morale are a top focus for Congress and for Kelly. Multiple…
It’s official: President-elect Donald Trump has selected David Shulkin, the Department of Veterans Affairs undersecretary for health, to be the next VA secretary. Shulkin, who has been undersecretary since July 2015, faces substantial challenges in reforming the troubled agency and restoring it to its mission of providing timely care and benefits to veterans nationwide. The…
In 1636, the first college in our nation was founded for Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae (for Truth, for Christ, and for the Church). Since then, Harvard has had a profound—and sometimes profoundly bad—impact on the American system of higher learning. With the start of a new academic semester and 381 years of history, now is…
In the coming days and weeks, Congress will work to repeal major parts of Obamacare using the budget reconciliation process. This is the same process Congress used last year to send a repeal bill to President Barack Obama’s desk. Budget reconciliation is the favored vehicle for repeal because it is not subject to a Senate…
When President-elect Donald Trump enters office on Jan. 20, he will inherit almost $20 trillion of national debt. This debt is a threat to the American economy, and its key driver—unsustainable spending—must be controlled. Come Jan. 20, the new administration should act immediately to tame the federal budget and reduce the national debt. Here are…
Observers of this week’s confirmation hearings for the post of U.S. attorney general might think it odd to see Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., rewind the clock to a single voter fraud case from the 1980s. Under persistent questioning, Sessions has had to defend his decision to prosecute a case of brazen voter fraud—something that was…
The FBI reported that the total number of homicides in 2015 was 15,696. Blacks were about 52 percent of homicide victims. That means about 8,100 black lives were ended violently, and over 90 percent of the time, the perpetrator was another black. Listening to the news media and the Black Lives Matter movement, one would…
According to President Barack Obama, the last eight years have been just swell. But his rendition of history leaves out a few important facts about the state of America following his two terms as president. In two videos, we run through 13 facts about his administration’s domestic and foreign policy record he conveniently ignores. On…
Forthcoming research by The Heritage Foundation finds that insurer competition in the Obamacare exchanges is worse than ever in 2017, with 70 percent of counties having only one or two insurers selling coverage. As shown in the map, consumers in nearly one-third of counties have no choice of insurer on their Obamacare exchange in 2017….
On Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell gave a speech in support of Obamacare proclaiming the benefits of Obamacare and cautioning against repealing and replacing the law, as Congress has promised to do. Unsurprisingly, she left out some critical details from her list of Obamacare “benefits.” Regarding insurance coverage, Burwell said: On access,…
Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address as president in 1801, deemed “equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political” one of the essential principles of our government. President-elect Donald Trump has demonstrated his intent to uphold this principle by nominating Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to serve as…
On the path to making America great again, President-elect Donald Trump will have a tremendous opportunity to reverse the steady slide away from a property rights-oriented American patent system. There are good reasons to believe a Trump administration will readily grasp this critical problem and work to revitalize the American patent regime. First, someone like…
On Jan. 5, President Barack Obama published in the Harvard Law Review a 56-page commentary expressing his personal views on criminal law and justice, entitled “The President’s Role in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform.” One glaring omission stands out: The article all but forgets the crucial need for mens rea (latin for “guilty mind”) reform to…
Last November, the American people voted for change in Washington. They elected Republican majorities to both chambers of Congress and elected a Republican president because, as a party, we pledged to fix the broken status quo of the past eight years. Reforming our dysfunctional federal government and restoring sanity to our nation’s capital starts with…