innovation

We are in the very first stages of what is now – and will for a long, long time be – a global Information Economy.

The promise of the world of tomorrow is just an empty promise long held out as being made good.

Austin voters have approved a ballot referendum to regulate peer-to-peer transportation network companies such as Lyft and Uber, forcing the companies to suspend service in a city otherwise known for its forward thinking and friendliness toward innovation.

In today’s Health Care News Podcast, Dr. Mike Koriwchak, vice president of Docs4PatientCare Foundation and co-host of The Doctor’s Lounge joined Heartland research fellow and Health Care News Managing Editor Michael Hamilton to share why the day the feds rolled out “meaningful use” was the day innovation died in the realm of EMR and EHR, and how lawmakers and CMS can help revive it.

DPS has operated its school system using a top-down, bureaucrat-run model for decades. Under this structure, teachers are protected with outdated tenure rules and rewarded for the amount of time they work in the system, rather than for performance. Innovation is scarce, and administrators, who often enjoy exorbitant salaries, are not encouraged to make the sort of radical changes that are needed to turn the city’s schools around.

In an April 5 editorial titled “Bill would ruin certificate of need program,” the News Sentinel argued legislation Tennessee lawmakers are considering could make it harder for the poor and Tennesseans living in rural communities to obtain access to high-quality, affordable health care.

Looking backwards at 1934-era Title II telephone utility law, the FCC concluded in its 2015 Open Internet Order that only broadband providers could be “gatekeepers” warranting net neutrality regulation to “protect and promote the “virtuous cycle” that drives innovation and investment on the Internet.”

Does the FCC’s concept of a “virtuous circle of innovation” mean fostering a full and true “circle of innovation,” of not only edge provider innovation, but also ISP innovations of zero-rating pricing plans that lower users’ bandwidth costs and better fund more broadband deployment?

A growing number of people have begun to appreciate the damage done to small business and innovators by so called “patent trolls.” Some of the arguments about those who take advantage of the patent system have been conjecture, some no more than name calling, but much has been well grounded with empirical studies. A recent literature review of all the studies has brought into a clear bright light the damage of the marauding trolls.

“Mission creep” as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is “the gradual broadening of the original objectives of a mission or organization.” Mission creep as practiced by the Federal Communications Commission is wholesale bootstrapping to create any authority to reach to a goal of ever more regulation of innovation.

Competition has long been proven to improve services, lower prices, and give consumers more choices, but despite the success of the free market, Georgia has decided to restrict competition in its health care industry. Georgia is one of 36 states that limit the ability of health care providers to expand their businesses by mandating an approval process known as a certificate of need. The system gives current suppliers of health care services an unfair advantage and keeps out new entrants into the marketplace.

Kudos to Senators Mike Lee and Orin Hatch, and Rep. Blake Farenthold for their leadership and wisdom in advancing the SMARTER Act, H.R. 5402, “Standard Merger and Acquisition Reviews Through Equal Rules.”

To try to justify mandating Title II utility regulation of broadband and the blocking of the Comcast-Time Warner acquisition, the Administration and FCC had to gerrymander broadband definitions to reach their political goal that wireless broadband service not be considered an official competitor to wireline broadband service.