Matthew Glans

To the detriment of its residents and businesses, Seattle has been more active than any other city in pursuing new tax revenue.

This week is National Hospital Week, which is as good a time as ever to examine certificate of need (CON) laws, one of the biggest obstructions facing new hospitals, hospital expansion, and access to quality health care.

Kentucky currently has one of the largest pension funding gaps of any U.S. state.

Congress has failed to pass a replacement of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and Obamacare’s collapse is inevitable. To protect their citizens, state lawmakers should take the lead in passing free-market health care reforms.

Voters in South Dakota may soon be considering a new proposal to dramatically increase the state’s tobacco tax.

Arizona is one of three states — Maine and South Dakota are the others — that will ask voters in November to approve a minimum-wage increase.

Medicaid expansion is an expensive endeavor that many critics believe does not provide better or more affordable health care. Many of the expansion plans that states are now considering use federal dollars to expand their Medicaid programs to a larger portion of their state, creating new costs the federal government may not always be able to cover and leaving state taxpayers on the hook for the new liabilities.

In November 2016, Colorado voters will decide on a new ballot measure, a state constitutional amendment that would create “ColoradoCare,” a new single-payer, government-run health care system in Colorado. Colorado would be the second state — Vermont was the first — to attempt the creation of a single-payer health care system. Single-payer systems face major obstacles that make implementation difficult, if not impossible.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, allows states to expand Medicaid to cover individuals making up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level. Thirty states and the District of Columbia have chosen to expand their Medicaid programs under the ACA, and 20 states, including Virginia, have refused to do so.

One of the most ambitious efforts to replicate real-world competition in the Affordable Care Act has proven to be a growing failure. In an attempt to increase competition in the healthcare market and on the new health insurance exchanges, ACA established a program to assist in the creation of new private nonprofit health insurers, known as consumer oriented and operated plans.

Maine is one of the few states that has seriously addressed the growth of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, and it should be applauded for doing so.

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker’s (I) efforts to use executive power unilaterally to expand Medicaid in his state deserve a strong response from the State Legislature, not timid deference to the courts— an equal, not superior, branch of government. Alaska’s Medicaid program is in dire need of reform, not expansion. It has grown at an unsustainable rate, increasing by 150 percent over the past decade. State costs have increased by 300 percent since 2000.

Northern Virginia has experienced strong and consistent population growth over the past decade. Loudoun County grew more than any other county in the commonwealth over the past three years and recently became Virginia’s third most populous county. A booming population has led to growth in Northern Virginia’s economy, with competitive markets developing in all manner of industries, save one: health care. A single provider that has developed a near-monopoly, Inova, dominates health care in region.