More than five years following the passage of The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Protection Act (Dodd-Frank), the question of necessity of such an extraordinarily large and overbearing act persists. This enormous document was introduced to address the issues existing in the financial system, specifically to prevent another financial crisis, but it appears to have … Continue reading
Telehealth Series: Cutting Costs and Making Payments
According to Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who spearheaded the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies for Health Act (CONNECT), “telehealth is the future of health care.” The CONNECT for Health Act has been designed with the purpose of saving money and increasing access to health care by slimming down regulatory measures … Continue reading
Republican or Democrat, Let’s Wait on a Nominee
The legal world was shocked to hear of the sudden passing of Supreme Court justice and conservative intellectual giant, Antonin Scalia. Appointed by Ronald Reagan, Antonin Scalia could always be counted on as one of the “conservative” members of the Court, in addition to promoting his “originalist” interpretation of the constitution. After he died, it … Continue reading
Proposed Overtime Rule: Overestimated Benefits Fail to Justify Costs
This past summer, the Department of Labor (DOL) unveiled a proposed rule that could provide almost five million new workers with overtime protections. Currently, overtime regulations apply only to those earning $455 or lower weekly. If implemented, this new rule would increase the salary threshold up to $970 a week. This threshold is equivalent to … Continue reading
What This Nation Needs is a Good Affordable (Large) Cigar
History has all but forgotten Thomas Marshal. After surviving an attempted bombing, the former governor of Indiana managed to serve two terms as Vice President under Woodrow Wilson. Narrowly escaping death, however, seems to have been Marshal’s greatest accomplishment in office. He took a cynical approach to the job, readily acknowledging the ‘insignificance’ of the … Continue reading
The Price of Free Education
Anyone who has ever taken an economics class recalls the first basic principle; nothing is free. Everything has a cost. Whether it’s time or money, there is a ticket to everything. Recently, politicians like Bernie Sanders have been campaigning on the promise of free college education to promote opportunity for all. This call has students scrambling in … Continue reading
Boko Haram: Who, Why, and What We Should Do
Generally, little attention is given to the jihadist group based out of Nigeria known as Boko Haram. Much of the world learned about the group in April 2014 after the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from their dormitory in Chibok. Approximately 50 of the girls escaped, but little is known about the remaining 225 girls, besides … Continue reading
EITC: Improvement Not Disruption
For years, there has been concern over stagnant wages, unemployment, and the persistence of poverty across the United States. Many different remedies have been proposed, and at times implemented, in an effort to improve the U.S. labor market. One of the solutions most vehemently advocated for is the increase of the minimum wage, both on … Continue reading
Telehealth Series: Fighting Rural Health Inequities with Technology
In late 2015, Wisconsin became the 12th State to adopt the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (IMLC). This program recognizes that medical training is fairly uniform across the states involved, and it provides a quicker path to licensure for physicians looking to practice medicine in Wisconsin. The move for Wisconsin to enact the IMLC also presents a major … Continue reading
Fighting Waste: Proton Beam Therapy in Prostate Cancer
Experts across the political spectrum have questioned how much society should be willing to pay for new and expensive treatments, especially if another treatment exists with a proven track record. Although it often escapes policymakers, the heart of this debate should be medical efficacy. For both the new treatment and the old, do they work? How … Continue reading
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