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NASHVILLE – The Beacon Center of Tennessee, founded as the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, today made available in electronic version its most recent publication, An Idea a Day: 51 Ideas for a Prosperous Tennessee. The second of its kind, the pamphlet offers one innovative free market idea for each remaining legislative day of the 107th General Assembly. Each idea is surmised in one brief sentence, followed by a link to original work published by the Beacon Center or contact information for more details.

Hardcopies of the pamphlet will be provided to each member of the General Assembly upon their return to session in January. The electronic version was sent to members and their staff today as the Legislature prepares for the second session of the 107th General Assembly.

“When lawmakers look for solutions that will expand individual liberty, return taxpayers’ hard-earned money to their pockets, and reduce the size and scope of government, they now have a place to turn,” said Justin Owen, the Beacon Center’s president & CEO. “We hope members of the General Assembly will frequently turn to this simple, concise resource as they conduct the people’s business.”

A new feature was added to the second edition of An Idea a Day, with a special emblem marking ideas that will create jobs and/or save taxpayers money. This makes it easier for lawmakers to identify those issues that are a top priority for taxpayers: job creation and tax cuts.

The electronic version of the pamphlet, complete with links to original Beacon Center work on the ideas offered, can be viewed by clicking here or visiting http://www.beacontn.org/wp-content/uploads/An-Idea-a-Day-2012.pdf.

The Beacon Center of Tennessee’s mission is to change lives through public policy by advancing the principles of free markets, individual liberty, and limited government. The Center is an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan research organization committed to providing timely free market solutions to public policy issues in Tennessee.

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by Michael Tanner & Justin Owen

In the days before the new health care law passed Congress last year, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said that we would “have to pass the bill to find out what is in it.” Well, it has been a year since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed, and we are now learning what was in it – much to the detriment of Tennessee taxpayers, businesses, doctors and patients.

Here’s some of what we now know:

You probably cannot keep your current insurance plan. Although the president constantly reassured us that Americans would not be forced to change their current plans, that increasingly appears untrue.

If you get your insurance at work, you will almost certainly have to change plans. The administration itself now admits that more than two-thirds of companies could be forced to change the coverage they currently offer their workers. For small businesses, the total could reach 80 percent. The new plans will have to offer additional benefits and meet new federal requirements, likely making them more expensive.

Moreover, the law’s individual mandate continues to pose a threat to Tennesseans’ ability to keep their current coverage. That mandate not only requires everyone to buy insurance, it also requires insurance to meet strict government requirements, offering the benefits the government thinks you should have, not necessarily those you want or need.

It will cost more than advertised. The Congressional Budget Office officially “scored” the health care bill as costing $950 billion. However, those numbers do not reveal the new law’s true cost. For example, CBO’s estimates do not include roughly $115 billion in implementation costs, such as the cost of hiring new IRS agents to enforce the individual mandate. The arcane budget rules of Medicare, Social Security and the law’s new long-term care program also allow the government to count savings twice while ignoring future costs outside the budget window. Finally, the law front-ends taxes while deferring costs, providing a misleading 10-year budget outlook. True accounting suggests that the law will cost as much as $2.7 trillion over 10 years of full operation, adding $823 billion to the federal deficit.

Your premiums are going up. Tennesseans opening their health insurance bills can already see that their premiums are not going down. In fact, CBO estimates that premiums could double over the next six-10 years. Worse, the new law may actually be increasing premiums faster than they would otherwise rise. Some estimates suggest that the law’s new regulations have already added 7-9 percent to insurance costs.

Your taxes are going up. The health care law imposes more than $569 billion in new or increased federal taxes over the next 10 years. And it’s not just federal taxes that are rising. The law will add more than 700,000 people to Tennessee’s Medicaid rolls, driving up the cost of the state’s program by more than 25 percent. That means either state taxes will go up, or other state services will be cut.

It’s not getting any more popular. These are just some of the reasons why half of Tennesseans want to see the health care law repealed, according to a recent poll by Middle Tennessee State University. Now that Pelosi has given them a chance to see what is in the bill, Tennesseans are wisely saying “no thank you.”

Michael Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of “Bad Medicine: A Guide to the Real Costs and Consequences of the New Health Care Law.” Justin Owen is president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

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NASHVILLE – The Tennessee Center for Policy Research applauds the House of Representatives for passing the “Health Care Freedom Act” Monday evening. Once signed by the governor, the act will safeguard Tennesseans from the unconstitutional federal healthcare law that has become notoriously known as ObamaCare.

The “Health Care Freedom Act” protects the right of Tennesseans to participate or not in any healthcare system, and prohibits the government from imposing fines or penalties for that decision. It also protects the right of individuals to purchase—and the right of doctors to provide—lawful medical services without government fine or penalty.

“This is a very important day for Tennesseans, as the date draws near that the federal government will force them to purchase health insurance,” said TCPR president Justin Owen. “This new law will provide Tennesseans with additional recourse against what two federal judges have already ruled to be an unconstitutional mandate. We were honored to have played a role in securing this protection for our fellow citizens.”

TCPR congratulates the main sponsors of the legislation, Sen. Mae Beavers and Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver, as well as others who have worked tirelessly on the measure. The full list of co-sponsors can be viewed at www.capitol.tn.gov.

The Senate passed the final version of the bill in February by a bipartisan vote of 21-10. It passed overwhelmingly on the House floor tonight. The bill now goes to Governor Bill Haslam for final approval.

Tennessee joins Virginia, Idaho, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, and Oklahoma as the first eight states to pass a law or constitutional amendment protecting the healthcare choices of their citizens.

“It’s refreshing to see Tennessee lawmakers take a stand against the unconstitutional federal healthcare mandate,” said Christie Herrera of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the main proponent of this and similar legislation across the nation. “We thank the General Assembly for addressing this important issue before the true implications of ObamaCare hit home.”

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization committed to achieving a freer, more prosperous Tennessee through the ideas of liberty.

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Media coverage of the Health Care Freedom Act:
FoxNews, Forbes, CNBC, BusinessWeek, Tennessean, Commercial Appeal, Clarksville Leaf Chronicle, Kingsport Times-News, Jackson Sun, Action News 5 (Memphis), WBIR (Knoxville) – TN House passes the “Health Freedom Act”
WGNS Radio – Group applauds House of Representatives for Passing “Health Care Freedom Act”
TN Report – TCPR: Health Freedom Act gives Tennesseans recourse against ObamaCare
Chattanoogan – State House passes Health Freedom Act

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by Richard Grant

A law that is not enforced might as well not exist. We see this in property rights, as well. An owner that fails to challenge those who use his property, whether land or trademark or any other form, over time risks losing control of that property. This is true for individuals, corporations and sovereign states. The failure to live on or defend one’s territory will result in its forfeiture to those who are willing and able to establish a presence there.

The failure to enforce a law will lead people to believe that it will never be enforced and allow them eventually to forget that the law exists. In this regard, the U.S. Constitution is no different from any other law.

The United States began as a decentralized federal republic within which the states retained sovereignty except for those powers specifically granted to the central government by the Constitution. It largely remains so, but over time the exercise of real power has gravitated toward the center.

The 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This amendment has not been repealed, but it has been neglected.

It was once taken for granted that the states were an integral part of a broader federal government.

But now when we speak of the “federal government,” we mean the central government not including the states. From the beginning, the natural exercise of its powers led the central government to push out the practical limits of those powers. War, and later the 17th Amendment, also reduced the practical influence of the states over the central government.

Politicians in any government are tempted to curry favor with voters by visibly, if selectively, spending money on them while de-emphasizing the real source of those funds. As the central government expanded its powers of taxation and money creation, it was increasingly able to buy the cooperation of the states for its own programs. State governments were happy to receive extra funding without having to raise state taxes. Although there were strings attached to the funding, the full burden of the new commitment would usually not be realized until later.

Distracted by such temptations, the state governments have unwittingly abetted the expansion of the central government and its encroachment on their areas of responsibility. Education is not a constitutionally authorized area of federal responsibility. But the offer of federal money weakened the states’ resistance to federal mandates and programs. The centralization of influence over education has weakened private authority and reduced the choices available to students and families.

The central government has overstepped its constitutional authority in the area of health care. Resource-wasting programs such as Medicare and Medicaid impose burdens on the states and all taxpayers. Had the states more presciently defended their spheres of sovereignty, they might not now be caught in such a regulatory and fiscal trap.

With the passage of the so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the central government has claimed even more powers originally reserved to the states and the people. It is also unaffordable.

We now see state governments standing up to defend themselves, particularly in the areas of educational choice and freedom of choice in health care. They are returning responsibility to the people.

Dr. Richard Grant is a scholar at the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

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“The uncertainty created by the new health care law and the attempts to pass cap and trade have created an environment where many of our customers have cancelled or postponed projects. The anti-business rhetoric of the administration has business people on the defensive and hesitant to make investments in their business.”

Read the entire article here.

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Are doctors in Tennessee so frustrated with the bureaucracy in the state’s TennCare system that they might retire soon? That’s a possibility, according to some medical professionals in the state.

Some medical administrators complain that a certain portion of TennCare recipients (or those on the state’s version of Medicaid, which is government-run health insurance for the poor) are abusing the system and costing their businesses thousands of dollars.

Read the entire report over at TennesseeWatchdog.org.

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Hardcopies of the pamphlet were provided to each member of the General Assembly last week. The electronic is now available to members and their staff as the Legislature embarks on the second session of the 106th General Assembly.

“When lawmakers look for solutions that will expand individual liberty, return taxpayers’ hard-earned money to their pockets, and reduce the size and scope of government, they now have a place to turn,” said Justin Owen, Director of Policy at TCPR. “We hope members of the General Assembly utilize this simple, concise resource as they conduct the people’s business.”

The pamphlet offers solutions in each of the following policy areas:

• Budget
• Education
• Government Reform
• Government Waste
• Healthcare
• Property Rights
• Regulation
• Taxation
• Technology
• Transparency
• Transportation

The electronic version of An Idea a Day, complete with links to original TCPR work on the ideas offered, can be viewed by clicking here.

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