John C. Goodman

It seems like only yesterday that the $15 minimum wage was high on the agenda of every self-respecting progressive politician, including Hillary Clinton in her presidential campaign. The “Fight for 15” was successful in several states and even went statewide in New York and California. So why aren’t we hearing more about the idea these days? It may be because labor markets are working, just like textbook economics say they should. More

Two years ago, 81 think tanks and grass roots organizations signed onto Health Care Choices, a comprehensive reform of the health care system. This was a huge accomplishment – since the conservative think tanks had been at odds over health policy for almost three decades.

The most important innovation in our approach is this: We should begin by saying Obamacare has made health insurance unaffordable and the best doctors and hospitals inaccessible. In other words, we should go right to the heart of what the other side promised and didn’t deliver; and then pledge to do what they didn’t do by empowering individuals and letting markets work.

In most places the state employee health plan is one of the largest, if not the largest, health plan in the state. So, state legislators who want to reform health care should start with the one plan over which they have a great deal of direct control.… Another reform that is long overdue is the elimination of certificate-of-need (CON) laws, which create huge regulatory obstacles to newcomers who want to open a hospital or a nursing home, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center or even an ambulance service. Studies show that CON laws raise costs and lower quality. For that reason, 15 states have repealed all, or almost all, of them.