Is Obamacare Now Truly Optional?

At long last, the Trump administration has created a “freedom option” for people suffering under Obamacare. A final rulemaking issued last week reverses an Obama-era regulation that exposed the sick to medical underwriting. The new rule will expand consumer protections for the sick, cover up to two million uninsured people, reduce premiums for millions more, protect conscience rights, and make Obamacare’s costs more transparent.

A Temporary Respite From U.S.-EU Trade Tensions?

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker last week met with President Trump at the White House to talk about trade. Afterwards, to the surprise of many, they held a press conference at which they said positive things about the U.S.-EU trade relationship. But obviously, an amicable press conference and positive tweets only get you so far. According to Cato scholar Scott Lincicome, “The president could have actually achieved far broader liberalization had he just vigorously committed to picking up the TTIP baton 18 months ago… And it would have avoided all sorts of economic and diplomatic headaches caused by his own national security tariffs.”

The Budgetary Effects of Ending Drug Prohibition

In the past several years, the national movement to end drug prohibition has accelerated. Nine states and Washington, DC, have legalized recreational marijuana, with at least three more states (Connecticut, Michigan, and Ohio) likely to vote on legalization by the end of 2018. A new bulletin from Cato scholar Jeffrey Miron uses the most recent available data to estimate the fiscal windfall that would be achieved through drug legalization. All told, says Miron, drug legalization could generate up to $106.7 billion in annual budgetary gains for federal, state, and local governments.

Losing Count: The Empty Case for “High-Capacity” Magazine Restrictions

Since the early 1990s, several states have passed restrictions on firearm magazines as a purported public safety measure. To date, the Supreme Court has repeatedly refused to hear cases surrounding these “high-capacity” magazine bans. This has led to a fractured and unpredictable state of the law. In a new bulletin, Cato scholar Matthew Larosiere argues that these laws, as well as the “assault weapon” bans they tend to come packaged with, are abridgments of the natural right to self-defense. Moreover, says Larosiere, they fail to provide sufficient benefit to justify their inherent costs.

Recent Commentary

Events

September 4

The NSA and the Road to 9/11: Lessons Learned and Unlearned

Featuring William Binney, Former Crypto-Mathematician, NSA; Kirk Wiebe, Former Senior Analyst, NSA; Edward Loomis, Former Computer Systems Analyst, NSA; Thomas Drake, Former Senior Executive Service Member, NSA; and Diane Roark, Former Professional Staff Member, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; moderated by Patrick Eddington, Policy Analyst in Homeland Security and Civil Liberties, Cato Institute.

10:00AM to 12:00PM EDT
Hayek Auditorium, Cato Institute

More Events

Of Special Note

Overcharged: Why Americans Pay Too Much For Health Care

Overcharged: Why Americans Pay Too Much For Health Care

Why is the American health care system so dysfunctional and costly? How can it be fixed? Overcharged – Why Americans Pay Too Much for Health Care, a new Cato Institute book, drills into these issues with exceptional energy and power and is the culmination of years of research by authors Charles Silver and David Hyman. Overcharged lays bare the root causes of why health care is so expensive, out of control, and operates with no apparent accountability, and then shows how subjecting our health care system to the same competitive forces that apply to the rest of the economy will result in lower costs and improved access for all.

Special! 10 Copies for $10

Cato Pocket Constitution

To encourage people everywhere to better understand and appreciate the principles of government that are set forth in America’s founding documents, the Cato Institute published this pocket-size edition.

Now Available

Home Study Resources

The Cato Institute offers a wealth of online educational audio and video resources, from self-paced guides on the ideas of liberty and the principles of economics, to exclusive, archived lectures by thinkers such as Milton Friedman and F. A. Hayek. Browse through some highlights of our collections, for personal study or for use in the classroom.

The Supreme Court: Past and Prologue
A Look at the October 2017 and 2018 Terms

The annual Constitution Day symposium, presented by Cato’s Center for Constitutional Studies, marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring noted scholars discussing the recently concluded Supreme Court term and the important cases coming up.