Since the 2005 reforms in Missouri, malpractice premiums at Hagen’s practice have fallen 24 percent — a decline he attributes to the reforms. Reintjes said his premiums have declined 30 percent.

Kansas has some of the strictest liability limits in the country, so medical malpractice costs are not much of a problem there. Illinois, which is not discussed in the Star‘s article, desperately needs tort reform — but I have no faith that they will see it enacted anytime soon. Every doctor in Southern Illinois will have moved to Missouri by the time they pass it.

As I said a few days ago, I support tort reform, but don’t necessarily want another example of the federal government taking over what has long been a state issue — tort and malpractive laws. I am not willing to go along with such an expansion in federal scope just because this might be one rare instance in which I’d agree in principle with the reforms the federal government were going to pass. This should remain a state issue. Missouri has properly addressed it, and can go further if need be.

Kansas has addressed the issue very successfully as well:

The report stated that, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, there were 34 medical malpractice cases involving 41 health care providers that went to a jury (In Kansas). Only five resulted in damages awarded to the plaintiffs and only three required payouts by the fund, for a total of $1.73 million.

If Illinois refuses to deal with its legal system, then Illinois will pay the price for that.

The post Tort Reform 2: Reform Schoolin’ appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Today’s Kansas City Star details how Kansas City officials are angry that St. Louis got a lot of pork — aka, stimulus money — and Kansas City received none. This is a perfect real-world example of what public choice economists have long discussed: the logrolling and vote-swapping in a legislature divided by districts leads to ever-increasing spending, as every (or almost every) legislator tries to make certain that their constituents get as large a share of the pie as possible. When the pie gets divided up, if not everyone is satisfied, you just make a bigger pie. Now, Missouri has rules such as the balanced budget amendment and the Hancock amendment that make doing this less common than an assembly such as the U.S. Congress, but it is still unseemly.

This post should be taken simply as a comment on how our democracy works: good, bad, and ugly. It is not a criticism of Kansas City legislators, who are just being open about their displeasure with how the stimulus spending worked out. If it were the other way around, I am quite certain that St. Louis officials would be saying the same thing.

The post Another Reason to Dislike the Stimulus Plan, As If You Needed It appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Opponents will have a harder time proving that argument this year. The reason: We won’t know the projected ridership until after the Nov. 4 election.

The project is priced at $815 million in today’s money, but planners say it probably would exceed $1 billion when — and if — it is built four or five years from now.

What does Randal O’Toole write about ridership estimates and costs in his study about KC transit, written for the Show-Me Institute?

“The systematic tendency to overestimate ridership and to under-estimate capital and operating costs,” says U.S. Department of Transportation researcher Don Pickrell, “introduces a distinct bias toward the selection of capital-intensive transit improvements such as rail lines.”

I think this next quote from the Star might fall into the category of a Kinsley Gaffe:

“If you told them we’re going to have 10,000 (riders) a day, or 20,000 a day or 30,000 a day, that doesn’t mean anything. Compared to what?” said Pat McLarney, a Kansas City lawyer and a leader of the pro-light rail campaign. “I wished we did have an exact number to give you because it would sure make our lives easier.”

Randal would certainly agree that figure does not mean anything, but would consider it an argument in opposition, rather than in favor. From his study:

Many of the transit agencies that built these lines claim they are successful, pointing to the number of people who ride their light-rail trains. But many of these riders might have been riding bus transit anyway, so rail ridership numbers are meaningless without a comparison to total transit figures.

At least someone in Kansas City is calling this out for what it is:

“If we’re going to spend a billion dollars to build something and we don’t know how many people are going to ride it, this becomes a fairy tale,” said former City Councilman Bob Lewellen, who is a leader in the campaign against the proposed 3/8-cent sales tax to fund light rail.

The post Ridership Estimates? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Ridership Estimates appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

After spending a summer working for the city of St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners, it is no surprise that a petition could be rejected in the final moments of its processing. Petitions are mostly signed on the street by people in a hurry, so legibility is not their first concern. My handwriting isn’t glorious, of course, but wow — some people’s signatures would have pharmacists scratching their heads. Plus, there is always the percentage of jokers out there who think it’s hilarious to put down fake information. Frankly, I think the odds are very slim that anyone named “McLovin” are in favor of any petition being placed on a ballot.

The Clean Energy Initiative was not the only petition blocked by the Secretary of State for lack of valid signatures. Two petitions dealing with eminent domain abuse were also dropped. To gain a place on the ballot, a petition must have at least as many signatures as 5 percent of the number of votes in the last gubernatorial election, from at least six of the nine congressional districts in Missouri.

This news comes in the same week that Ameren proposed a 12-percent increase in its rates. With today’s energy costs, Missourians need to be aware of any options they have when it comes to their energy sources, and have the opportunity to voice their opinions.

When expressing those opinions, Missourians should make sure to write neatly.

The post Close Call for Missouri’s Renewable Energy appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Today’s Kansas City Star has an editorial (link via Combest) discussing Missouri’s judicial selection process. Luckily for us, some think tank in Missouri has already issued a study about the judicial selection process and its superiority to other forms of judicial selection.

The post You’re the Best … Around appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

“What was substituted out is a plan that requires us to rank teachers and only the top 20 percent are eligible for a bonus. That fosters competition and an every-man-for-themselves atmosphere. You would have teachers trying to get ahead of one another.”

Oh my goodness! Perish the thought that quality should be rewarded!

Why has capitalism been so successful in this country? Because it encourages competition, which fosters an environment of innovation and an incentive structure that aligns supply and demand. Rewarding good teachers ensures that those teachers are driven to constantly improve quality, adopting lesson plans that work and abandoning those that don’t. Under the current system, teachers have little incentive to invest time and effort in improving their curriculum, or tweaking it from year to year to meet student needs, because they won’t be recognized for their efforts.

This is about helping good teachers to earn the higher pay that they deserve. This is about bringing the public school system up to speed with every other facet of the American economy, and aligning incentives with positive results.

The post Politicking Revisited appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Many so-called “civil rights” advocates despise Ward Connerly because the African-American head of the American Civil Rights Institute brings a great deal of legitimacy to his cause to abolish affirmative action programs throughout the country. I’ve written before about why I oppose affirmative action programs, but I’d like to address one statement in today’s editorial in particular.

Diversity matters, and affirmative action helps promote diversity in education, contracting, businesses and jobs, making America more competitive.

Surely the author must be more open-minded than to believe that we can judge an individual’s "diversity" solely on the basis of his/her skin color. Just because someone is “black,” this doesn’t imply a qualitative difference from someone who is "white." This assumption alone ensures that affirmative action programs do more to segregate people along racial lines than they do in promoting racial harmony.

Civil rights protections are of the utmost importance to a free society. But affirmative action should be anathema to civil rights advocates and the history of their movement. Civil rights legislation aims to ensure that no person is discriminated against on the basis of their sex, race, religion, etc. Affirmative action ensures that they most certainly are.

?

On the lighter side, I’d like to make one correction to Dave’s last post.

In that post, Dave stated that:

“As for being informed, active, and intelligent, when I was 16 I was none of the three, and I now work at a think tank!”

We apologize for this error. Dave’s statement incorrectly implied that Dave is now somehow “informed, active, and intelligent,” which we assure you is incorrect. We sincerely apologize for any confusion this may have caused to our readers.

The post A Diverse Opinion appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In 2006, the General Assembly passed a bill that required all gasoline sold in Missouri to contain a 10-percent ethanol blend beginning January 1, 2008, making Missouri only the third state in the country to impose such high standards.

In doing so, as the Star correctly documents, the General Assembly overlooked several problems with the “new brew”:

• Fuel with 10 percent ethanol has about 3 percent less energy than gasoline made from petroleum. Fuel mixed with ethanol gets fewer miles to the gallon.
• Ethanol is subsidized with a 51-cent federal tax credit. Increased consumption of blended gasoline leads to higher taxpayer funding for the ethanol industry.
• It takes a lot of water — as well as fertilizers that create pollution — to produce corn-based ethanol. As a result, ethanol has some negative effects on the environment.

Missourians can debate whether ethanol is an effective solution to Missouri’s energy needs and whether its costs are justified. But it is important for voters to be aware of these costs and recognize that ethanol is not the “free lunch” panacea that some pretend it to be. And what Missourians especially don’t need is a political coup that only replaces “Big Oil” with “Big Corn” for “Big Bucks.”

The post The Coronation of Big Corn appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A long line of interest groups urged lawmakers Tuesday to approve new
and expanded subsidies for developers, cattle ranchers, small business,
rural business and numerous other types of business.

Also, in response to testimony by Tom Kruckemeyer, chief economist for the Missouri Budget Project, about possible damage the tax credits could cause the Missouri budget, state Rep. Will Kraus said something that throws economics out the window:

“Economic development is driven by tax credits"

Kraus should know that lasting economic development is driven by smart tax policy — i.e., lowering taxes and simplifying the tax code. Reducing taxes across the board allows all businesses to benefit, rather than  just a few industries. This would cause job expansion in all parts of the economy.

The harms of tax credits for targeted industries have been discussed on this blog and at the the Show-Me Institute frequently. The fact that other states are offering tax incentives does not mean we should do it as well. Missouri should take the lead in showing how economic growth happens through broad-based, common-sense tax and economic policy, not through giving handouts to favored industries.

The post Tax Credits Don’t Always Create Jobs appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Using the oil industry as the lone dissenting voice to legislation that seems populist and consumer-friendly on the surface makes it look like any objection to the bill is disingenous. After all, an oil industry spokeswoman would have to be against price controls, right? For those who have an instinctual us-vs.-them attitude about business, and the oil industry in particular, it seems like naked self-interest masquerading as concern for consumer welfare. But this is an objection worth heeding. If it had made a few more phone calls, the Star could well have titled its article, "Gas-price legislation would hurt consumers, says almost every economist on the planet".

The fundamental relationship between supply, demand, and price isn’t a matter of opinion or conjecture. Changing one of those variables by legislative fiat changes the others as well. If you set a cap on prices, more people will buy more gas and fewer oil producers will have an incentive to supply the market — leading to shortages. Simple as that.

The post Supplying Prices on Demand appeared first on Show-Me Institute.