Media Hit

Will Deener, Dallas Morning News columnist, recently moaned about how big U.S. companies engaged in real businesses are avoiding paying billions in taxes because "the nation’s largest companies stockpile billions of dollars in profits overseas." In the process, he assumed that companies would pay the highest federal income tax rate of 35 percent on all overseas profits repatratriated. That's simply wrong, and it's astonishing that someone with his experience doesn't know any better.

You may be surprised abuot who is eligible for the HISD free school meal program in which children up to the age of 18 can eat two meals a day for free, with no registration required. IPI's Merrill Matthews says costs might go down if enrollment was required.

In a new publication, The Private Sector Can Reform Social Security’s Disability Program, Dr. Merrill Matthews, Ph.D., a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation, outlines how Galveston County opted out of Social Security in 1981 with Matagorda and Brazoria counties following suit in 1982. The three counties instead adopted what’s known as the “Alternate Plan.”

Several mostly blue states jumped on the health insurance exchange bandwagon as a way of showing support for Obamacare, says IPI's Merrill Matthews, and something similar happened in 1993 and 1994 with Clintoncare, Matthews says. “Those universal-coverage dreams turned into financial nightmares, and every one of those states eventually dramatically modified, scaled down, or eliminated their plans,” Matthews said.

Writing for the Institute for Policy Innovation, Merrill Matthews has a must-read article about an unintended consequences of Obamacare. He starts with a very sensible point about the effect of third-party payer.

The frequent but mild earthquakes giving shivers to the Irving area likely should be blamed on geologic fault lines rather than gas drilling practices, a geologist said Tuesday at a presentation hosted by the Institute for Policy Innovation.

Merrill Matthews says AH’s struggles are unfortunate but were predicted by nearly everyone—except the company’s CEO.

“The whole goal of Blue Cross is to go to a global budget with fixed prices,” Matthews said, adding that there is nothing wrong with a global budget as long as the prices are being set by the provider, but in this case the prices are being set by Blue Cross and the hospitals.

The cost of health insurance premiums for young, healthy Americans have increased significantly under Obamacare. Dr. Merrill Matthews explains why premiums are going up for younger people, and that much of the cost is hidden by federal subsidies, and it will likely only get worse as the [nation’s] population ages.