by Charles Katebi The Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as "Obamacare," will begin selling insurance plans for the fourth year in a row this week. The big question on everyone's mind is: do people want Obamacare insurance? After all, the primary purpose of Obamacare is to provide affordable coverage to the uninsured. As President Obama said:...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff Comprehensive criminal justice reform could increase public safety, save millions of dollars, and give each non-violent offender a second chance. Over 95% of those incarcerated in Wyoming will eventually be released from prison, so we must consider what to do with these individuals while they are in the state's custod...

Who ever heard of a football team not improving by competing? Practice makes perfect, but perfect gets better through competition. Competition reveals unknown flaws, generates new ideas and improves execution of old methods. Our K-12 education system needs improvement as Wyoming Liberty Group has written previously. Assuming our schools want to get...

What do we do when we encounter a luxurious buffet but are on a diet? We carefully take only the permitted amount of each allowed item, right? And then we consciously take a smidgen more of each. Soon the plate is overloaded (and maybe we go back for seconds – or thirds!) Is that what's happened in Wyoming K-12 education over the last decade? Take ...

Charlie Katebi and KGAB's Gary Freeman discuss a new poll by the Wyoming Liberty Group that finds a large majority of Wyoming voters oppose expanding Medicaid under Obamacare.  

Bob Nelson talks with Glenn Woods on BoldRepublic about how little K-12 spending goes to classroom instruction. 

Robert Nelson explains how Wyoming spends more on education than its neighbors but shows no improvement in student test scores.  

Wyoming's constitution mandates K-12 education be universal, free of charge and efficient 1. However, the concept of efficiency is so inconvenient it was scarcely mentioned in the course of more than twenty years of litigation about K-12 funding. The result is the mammoth and terrifically expensive education system we now have. Efficiency often sim...

Charlie Katebi joined Glenn Woods on Bold Republic to discuss a new poll that shows most Wyoming voters oppose Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid.  

by Charles Katebi Every 8 weeks, Paula Bennet visits a primary care clinic to receive Remicaid infusions to treat her Crohn's disease. Normally, an appointment like this would cost $30 in copays. But in Paula's case, her health plan pays her. That's because her employer, Health Trust, works with a company called Vitols SmartShopper that rewards wor...

In a recent poll conducted on behalf of the Wyoming Liberty Group, Wyoming taxpayers overwhelmingly supported our Taxpayer Protection Pledge by saying they would be much more likely to vote for a candidate who had signed the pledge. In the same poll, voters said they believed Wyoming could get it's deficit spending under control through cuts in sta...

Several states have been moving their health care systems in a more patient centered direction. Reforms that empower patients to find better value in their health care systems is a win-win scenario for both the patient and taxpayers. Their patients now have both the right information and incentives to find the best health care at the lowest price. ...

by Charles Katebi Twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton signed welfare reforms into law that revolutionized American anti-poverty policy. Critics warned these changes would cruelly condemn vulnerable families to extreme hardship. But new evidence shows these reforms lifted millions of families out of poverty. According to a new study by the non-...

by Stephen Klein Wyoming's reform of civil asset forfeiture, which passed unanimously in the 2016 Budget Session, went into effect on July 1. Already, the reform has lived up to its name, which is illustrated by comparing two cash seizure cases—one that began before the reform, and one after. Asset forfeiture is a process by which law enforcement s...

Rep. Marti Halverson - September 2016  Medicaid Expansion is Not Good for Wyoming Citizens. In 1965, Medicaid was designed to help poor pregnant women and their small children, the impoverished elderly and the disabled – the truly needed among us. (1) Under original Medicaid, Wyoming pays 50% and the federal government pays 50%. Under the gove...

We all get the warm fuzzies, don't we, when the auto mechanic confidently assures us he knows the cause of our car's clunking, that it can be fixed by end of day and it will only cost a small amount? Sure; but then hope and reality clash when the work starts. Taking a look under the hood, the mechanic decides whatever it is, it's going to take long...

by Charles Katebi Testimony before the Wyoming Labor, Health, and Social Services Committee, August 25, 2016 My name is Charlie Katebi. I'm a policy analyst with the Wyoming Liberty Group. I'd like to thank the Department of Health for researching and bringing greater attention to Wyoming's lack of healthcare transparency, and why we need greater c...

We read frequently about employers who desperately want to hire and put people to work. And we often read about how young people are desperate to find jobs "with a living wage." So why aren't they teaming up and living happily ever after? Where's the disconnect? It's in basic skills. Employers routinely report that people they interview don't have ...

Wyoming has been paying a ton of money for K-12 education since 2005. The reason for the heavy spending? It was a major Wyoming Supreme Court/Legislative overhaul of the way our schools were being funded to equalize spending among students. Now we find that the consultants, on whose advice the spending was largely based, criticize the system for we...

by Charles Katebi Since Obamacare became law, patients have seen their health insurance choices disappear. There are fewer insurers selling fewer plans with narrower networks than ever before. And now Obamacare's architects want to snuff out the few remaining private options and replace them with government rationing and substandard healthcare. Pre...