Research Reports: Health Care & Human Services

Key Points Health insurance benefit mandates benefit few but increase costs for all Mandates cost North Carolina policyholders in the individual and small-group insurance markets over $218 million per year…

An increased use of the innovative health care delivery model called Direct Primary Care could lead to better outcomes for treatment of patients with chronic diseases, and that could mean…

3 Ways North Carolina Can Improve Access To Health Care With Less Government Intervention

Direct primary care restores the incredible value of personalized medicine, benefiting patients, doctors, employers, and the state.

In the last two years, academics and scholars of public policy have identified North Carolina as a state with an overly complex criminal code that can ensnare small businesses, farmers, and individuals who unknowingly fail to comply with regulatory rules. In 2014, Professor Jeff Welty of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government published an article in the North Carolina Law Review, “Overcriminalization in North Carolina”; and James Copland and Isaac Gorodetski, directors respectively of the Center for Legal Policy and the Center for State and Local Leadership at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, published a primer, “Overcriminalizing the Old North State.”

The ACA focuses on expanding coverage through a massive redistribution of wealth in the amount of $1.2 trillion over the next decade. It’s clear that low-income individuals and those with chronic conditions benefit the most from the law’s sliding scale subsidies, but market-oriented tactics can make health insurance (and more importantly medical care) more accessible and affordable and can lessen the risk for insurers to experience adverse selection.

What the healthcare industry needs is a strong dose of disruptive innovation — relaxing regulations that will increase provider competition, force downward pressure on costs, and enhance patient choice. CON ultimately picks who gets to compete within the health care sector. Reforming the law will by no means untangle the complexities of health care, but state lawmakers should capitalize on an opportunity to make one of the most highly regulated industries a little less heavy on the red tape and a little more patient friendly.

Overall, North Carolina ranks 23rd in the nation and 5th among the 12 states of the Southeast in freedom. North Carolina ranks 16th in fiscal freedom, 18th in educational freedom, 36th in regulatory freedom, and 46th in health care freedom.

Medicaid’s fundamental flaws stem from the way in which it is funded, as both state and federal government share the total bill. If Medicaid’s federal share was transferred to North Carolina as an annual block grant, it would allow lawmakers to exercise more control over the program and create a stronger incentive to sort out system waste and abuse.

Every two years since 1996, coinciding with North Carolina's races for the General Assembly, the John Locke Foundation has published a revised edition of Agenda, our public policy guide for candidates and voters. Typically as we enter the campaign season, candidates for public office in North Carolina are faced with a daunting task: to develop informed positions on dozens of public policy issues. In the pages of Agenda 2014 we provide a concise and easily digestible guide covering a wide range of specific issues, from taxes and spending to energy policy and education.