Cato Event Podcast

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Ever since Congress created the income tax in 1913, workers have been able to avoid paying tax on income they receive in the form of fringe benefits, such as health insurance. The flip side of this feature is that Congress effectively threatens workers with higher taxes unless they allow their employer to control a large portion of their income and their health insurance. As marginal income‐​tax rates grew, so did that implicit penalty. As health insurance premiums grew, the amount of workers’ money this feature allows employers to control directly has grown to roughly $900 billion per year.Eighty‐​three years later, on August 22, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed a law creating tax‐​free Archer Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs). Archer MSAs freed workers to receive a small portion of their health benefits as cash—without a tax penalty. Later, President George W. Bush signed a law creating tax‐​free health savings accounts (HSAs), which allow workers to take more of their health benefits as cash without negative tax consequences. Even so, HSAs have reclaimed for workers less than 5 percent of that $900 billion.At this virtual forum, leading health policy scholars will commemorate the 25th anniversary of this milestone event and discuss how to return to workers every penny of that $900 billion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For an entire generation, at home and abroad, the United States has waged a war on terror. Fighting it has produced neither peace nor victory, but it has transformed America. A politically divided country turned the war on terror into a cultural and then tribal struggle, first on the ideological fringes and ultimately expanding to open a door for today’s nationalist, exclusionary resurgence.In Reign of Terror, journalist Spencer Ackerman argues that war on terror policies laid a foundation for American authoritarianism. In Ackerman’s account, Barack Obama’s failure to end the war on terror after the killing of Osama Bin Laden allowed cultural polarization to progress and set the groundwork for Donald Trump’s rise to power. As we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11, please join us for a discussion of how the war on terror transformed the United States and the prospects for moving away from its divisive excesses. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In June, the Food and Drug Administration gave marketing approval to the Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm, against the unanimous advice of its advisory panel. Three of the panel’s five members resigned in protest. The panel’s members and many other medical experts claim there is no convincing evidence that the drug provides clinical benefit. Other critics complain that what they see as a useless drug will now cost Medicare (and taxpayers) $56,000 per patient per year.The Aduhelm controversy brings into focus long‐​standing arguments against efficacy requirements for FDA drug approval, especially when the FDA also permits practitioners to prescribe any approved drugs “off label,” deferring to their expertise and clinical judgment. The controversy also directs attention to federal laws that require Medicare to cover most FDA‐​approved drugs and prohibit Medicare from negotiating drug prices.Experts on health care, health and regulatory law, and health economics will explore these and related issues in what promises to be a lively discussion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his new book, New Way to Care: Social Protections That Put Families First, author John Goodman argues that our most important social insurance institutions are in desperate need of reform. Goodman proposes a simple idea. People of any age should have the choice to opt out of social insurance in favor of alternatives that better meet their individual and family needs. In particular, people should be able to substitute the assets and arrangements they own for the insurance systems that the government currently forces people to participate in.Join us to hear Goodman discuss ways to reform health insurance with commentary from Cato Director of Health Policy Studies Michael F. Cannon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For years there has been an ongoing debate about the causes of medical malpractice liability insurance premium spikes and their impact on access to care and defensive medicine. State legislatures responded to premium spikes by enacting damages caps on noneconomic, punitive, or total damages, and Congress has periodically debated the merits of a federal cap on damages in medical malpractice cases.Yet, there has been a shortage of evidence in support of the narrative that excessive damage awards are responsible for such premium spikes. What did cause those premium spikes? What effect did state‐​level medical malpractice reform have? Did it reduce frivolous litigation? Did it improve access to health care and/​or reduce defensive medicine? Both sides in the debate have strong opinions, but their positions are mostly based on anecdotes.In a new book, Medical Malpractice Litigation: How It Works, Why Tort Reform Hasn’t Helped, a politically diverse team of researchers provide an accessible, fact‐​based response to the questions that ordinary Americans and policymakers have about the performance of the medical malpractice litigation system.Join us to hear coauthor Dr. David A. Hyman, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute; Dr. Richard Anderson, chairman and CEO of The Doctors Company; and Dr. Bill Frist, a former U.S. senator, hold a lively discussion on the medical malpractice litigation system and the effects of limiting the right of malpractice victims to recover. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

National debates over policies that affect the flow of digital information are heating up as censorship, surveillance, control over personal data, and requirements to store data locally have emerged as contentious political issues. At the same time, governments are negotiating international agreements that constrain their ability to regulate domestically. What exactly are the problems that have been caused by domestic regulation of the flow of digital information? And can international agreements help solve them? Please join us for a discussion of these timely issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You’ve heard the hype: Quantum technologies will supposedly disrupt cybersecurity and revolutionize computers, communications, and sensors. Perhaps they will. Perhaps not. Accurate or not, technology hype is common and consequential. This discourse does work. Evoking exceptional expectations about future tech can shape military research and development, as well as threat perceptions. The future is difficult to predict, however. Hype isn’t all bad, but it can mask important gaps between the imagined and actual performance of quantum technologies. It can also draw attention away from less flashy but more significant social and technical change.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thomas Sowell is one of the great social theorists of our age. In a career spanning more than half a century, few scholars have matched his combination of range, rigor, and accessibility. He has written more than 30 books covering topics including economic history, social inequality, political philosophy, race, migration, and culture. His bold and unsentimental assaults on liberal orthodoxy have endeared him to many but enraged most of his fellow intellectuals, the civil rights establishment, and much of the mainstream media. As a result, critics preoccupied with political correctness have demeaned, downplayed, or ignored his important contributions.In this first‐​ever biography of Sowell, Wall Street Journal columnist Jason L. Riley gives this iconic thinker his due, responds to the detractors, and explains their motives. Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell (Basic Books, May 2021) not only showcases Sowell’s most significant writings but also vividly traces the life events that shaped his ideas and resulted in a black orphan from the Jim Crow South going on to graduate from Harvard University, earn a PhD under Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago, teach economics at Cornell University and the University of California, Los Angeles, and spend the past four decades as one of America’s foremost public intellectuals.Drawing on firsthand conversations with Sowell, and interviews with close friends and colleagues, Riley offers a nuanced portrait of one of America’s leading conservative intellectuals. Maverick shines a light on the extraordinary scope and depth of Sowell’s work, exploring where he has distinguished himself and how he is likely to be remembered.Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of several books, including Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is American identity? How people answer that question has implications for their views on policy and politics in the United States. The current era has seen the growth of explicit nationalism in American politics. In After Nationalism, Samuel Goldman examines whether the United States has ever had a stable vision of shared identity and purpose. Examining the country from its founding to the modern day, Goldman highlights recurring contestation over what it means to be an American and shows how the coercive Americanization efforts of prior eras are unlikely to pass muster in modern America.Rejecting romantic notions of the past, Goldman urges a more pluralistic approach: “Rather than trying to restore an elusive consensus, I propose that we strengthen institutions of contestation.” Please join Goldman and Anatol Lieven, author of America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism, for a discussion of what America was, is, and should be. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.