Mark D. White

Writer, editor, teacher

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about

I’m a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the College of Staten Island/CUNY, where I teach courses in philosophy, economics, and law, and the author/editor/co-editor of several books.

Category: Policy

  • “Breathtaking in its expansive scope”: Individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act rejected again

    Mark D. White The latest blow to the Affordable Care Act came yesterday from a U.S. appeals cout in Atlanta–let me merely repeat what The Wall Street Journal quoted from the opinion today, which makes the case exceptionally well: [The individual mandate] is "breathtaking in its expansive scope," the court wrote. "The government's position amounts…

  • Want social engineering of your diet with that meal? The New York Times’ Mark Bittman does

    In today's New York Times, food writer Mark Bittman continues his call for regulation of food choices through a comprehensive scheme of taxes and subsidies. While he takes pains to point out the savings in health care costs this would bring forth, he does not hide his desire to engage in social engineering, reorienting the…

  • Yes, of course health insurance improves health, but…

    Mark D. White At the New York Times' Economix blog this morning, David Leonhardt reports on a recent NBER study that studied the health outcomes of low-income people who either were or were not granted access to Medicare through a lottery, and good golly gosh, guess what they found: those with health insurance had better…

  • A fascinating first-person account of the health care reform battles

    Mark D. White Regardless of where you stand on the law, economics, or politics of the Affordable Care Act, I highly recommend Ilya Shapiro's new paper "A Long, Strange Trip: My First Year Challenging the Constitutionality of Obamacare" (forthcoming in Florida International Law Review), in which the CATO scholar details his year of writing, speaking,…

  • Much Ado about Happiness

    Mark D. White Carl Bialik at The Wall Street Journal has an article in today's edition and a blog post from last night, both very evenhanded, about the attempts by governments to measure the happiness of its citizenry, and the skepticism of some regarding the efficacy of this. For a critical look at the theory behind happiness studies,…

  • From Florida, another judicial blow to individual mandate

    Mark D. White Today, Judge Roger Vinson of Florida reiterated Judge Henry E. Hudson's opinion from last month that the individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. From The Wall Street Journal: In his ruling, Judge Roger Vinson, a Republican appointee, said that the law's requirement to carry insurance or pay a…

  • The End of Cost-Benefit Analysis?

    Mark D. White Today, the editors of The Wall Street Journal commented on the fine print of President Obama's recent executive order requiring all regulatory agencies to submit their rules to cost-benefit analysis in an effort to streamline government and reduce regulatory burden on business. They note that the order requires that agencies include in…

  • Externalities for Christmas

    Mark D. White Today's Pickles strip provides a valuable service to gungho-ho-ho regulators everywhere:   Why, this is going on in every neighborhood in America! Something must be done! I can hear them now: "We'll have to subsidize the decorators–no, no, we'll tax the nondecorators! Better yet, we'll make everyone buy holiday decorations, and tax penalize put…

  • The Ambiguity of “Dignity” in Embryo Research and Judicial Decisions

    Mark D. White An article in the new issue of Bioethics (25/1, January 2011) by Inmaculada de Melo-Martín titled "Human Dignity in International Policy Documents: A Useful Criterion for Public Policy?" examines several EU documents governing enbryo research to see if their regulations motivated by proecting human dignity are useful, informative, and/or effective. From the…

  • Health care and the Constitution: On the individual mandate and pre-existing conditions

    Mark D. White As you may have heard, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled Monday that the part of the Affordable Care Act (the health care reform bill passed earlier this year) dependant on the individual mandate to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional. From his ruling (as reported by The Wall Street Journal): "At…