Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Guest AuthorDecember 11, 2013

I wonder how my mother’s past year may have gone differently had telemedicine been an option for her care. Following the resection of the lower lobe of her lung due to cancer, she developed an inability to swallow properly. She was diagnosed with aspiration pneumonia, and after multiple hospitalizations, she was fitted with a feeding […]

Guest AuthorDecember 3, 2013

Charlie Crist was on to something with his 2008 plan to cover Florida’s uninsured, but he was also its undoing. Called “Cover Florida,” it was designed to offer lower-cost options to the uninsured without mandates or tax dollars. Instead, the program was designed to use competitive negotiations between the state and insurers. The state’s pitch […]

Guest AuthorNovember 19, 2013

My family’s big question for this coming week is how to celebrate the epically rare convergence of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving. The two holidays haven’t started at the same time since 1888, and will not again for another 77,798 years. There isn’t a playbook for such an occasion. If you’re up for the challenge, here are […]

Guest AuthorNovember 6, 2013

How many examples can you think of where Florida law is unnecessarily complex? Where loopholes — intended or not — undermine a goal? Where a fix ends up worse than the problem? For instance, take casinos. It took years of patchwork lawmaking to create the identity confusion Florida has today with gaming regulations. You can […]

Guest AuthorOctober 22, 2013

It was a milestone: My two-and-a-half year old wanted ice cream, and my nearly four-year-old told her, “Sorry, it is all gone.” This was the first recognition from her that Brett and I, as parents, don’t possess magical powers to make things materialize on demand. But my relief was short-lived. “Mommy, can you go to […]

Guest AuthorOctober 8, 2013

“Throw my brain in a hurricane, and the blind can have my eyes, the deaf can take both of my ears, if they don’t mind the size.” — John Prine in “Please Don’t Bury Me” Nearly 90 percent of Americans say they would refuse aggressive medical treatment if it left them in an incompetent condition, […]

Guest AuthorSeptember 24, 2013

Usually it is Democrats who have the short-sentence sell: “This (fill in the blank) will help people.” As news circulates that Florida’s unemployment rate fell again in August, Republicans have the easy pitch, “It’s working,” while critics must expend a lot of breath to argue it is not as it seems. It’s a lot simpler […]

Guest AuthorSeptember 17, 2013

I remember watching in disbelief as Anderson Cooper grilled Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz in a live interview, pointing out that her facts were all wrong. Cooper called Wasserman Shultz out for misquoting the LA Times in a fundraising letter. She had wrongly suggested that Mitt Romney endorsed the GOP’s platform plank on abortion. The truth, […]

Guest AuthorSeptember 12, 2013

Policy textbooks say that when considering alternatives, all equal, invest in the one that will have the greatest reach. But the political process has an appetite for eating good ideas, leaving just piecemeal chunks on the bone. No shock there, particularly for contentious issues. But what’s more confounding is when policies of uncontested merit fall […]

Guest AuthorSeptember 1, 2013

Say you notice that in City X there was a dramatic drop in speeding tickets issued year-over-year. You could assume that drivers just stopped speeding (yeah right), or that cops decided to turn a blind eye (unlikely). Or you could look back at the conditions and notice that prior to the ticketing decline, roads weren’t […]

Tag: Karen Cyphers

Karen Cyphers: More ‘telemedicine’ would reduce costs, suffering

Karen Cyphers: Too easy on insurers, Crist doomed his health-care plan

Karen Cyphers: ‘Thanksgivukkah’ a rare alignment of feasts and miracles

Karen Cyphers: Sensible pot laws are needed, but amendment is flawed

Karen Cyphers: Ice cream, apples and the botched Obamacare rollout

Karen Cyphers: Talking about death saves heartache, money

Karen Cyphers: Jobs data incomplete, but Dem rebukes are a greater folly

Karen Cyphers: Public disapproval of Obamacare reflects flawed plan

Karen Cyphers: What do Steve Southerland’s daughter’s friends have to do with Alzheimer’s funding?

Karen Cyphers: A pound of cure: Scott environmental approach working