- Liability exposures are a major roadblock to reopening. Over to you, state and federal lawmakers [Jim Copland, City Journal] “Can reopened businesses use waivers to fight coronavirus lawsuits? Probably not” [Daniel Fisher, Legal Newsline]
- The structural reasons America is so good at turning out cans of soda and so awful at turning out COVID-19 tests [Paul Romer] Links we haven’t rounded up previously on the testing debacle: Alec Stapp, The Dispatch; Michael D. Shear, Abby Goodnough, Sheila Kaplan, Sheri Fink, Katie Thomas and Noah Weiland, New York Times; Shawn Boburg, Robert O’Harrow Jr., Neena Satija and Amy Goldstein, Washington Post; Jeffrey Singer; Caroline Chen, Marshall Allen and Lexi Churchill, ProPublica; Paul Detrick, Jacob Sullum; earlier here, etc.;
- Loosening a 1967 federal law so as to ease intrastate sales of meat between ranchers and local grocers could help both consumers and embattled livestock raisers while better respecting the Constitution’s scheme of federal authority [Baylen Linnekin; related here from 2010 on the tendency of food regulation to be pushed by a combination of consumer/safety groups and large producers, for whom the regulation often serves to improve their position as against smaller market players]
- “Even though the state government asked thousands of people to come to New York from out of state to help fight coronavirus, they will have to pay New York state taxes, even on income they might make from their home states that they’re paid while in New York.” [Corey Crockett and James Ford, WPIX]
- Forced retroactive coverage of business interruption risks never underwritten or paid for “could bankrupt the insurance industry,” per one defense lawyer [Alison Frankel, earlier here and here; Nancy Adams and Kaitlyn Leonard, WLF]
- Bilingual national identity is not a suicide pact: “Canada recently relaxed bilingual labeling requirements for some cleaning products coming from the United States.” [Inu Manak]
Filed under: Canada, COVID-19 virus, insurance, taxes
4 Comments
Re: Liability exposure solutions
1. Universal health care
2. universal health care
In the alternative:
1. Require businesses to have insurance, and have the insurance companies oversee safety measures
Someone has to pay when people get sick. If the sick person has no money, it is the rest of us who pay.
That is what we need.
Let the governemt run healthcare. They have done such a wonderful job running Amtrak, the Post Office, the VA, Social Security, Welfare, and the FDA.
If you think our problems are bad,
Wait until you see our solutions!
If I may paraphrase Churchill: “Universal health care is the worst form of health care, except for all the others.
There are a bunch of people who think Social Security (especially the retirement part) is run very well. And there are many veterans who like the VA system. Of course, there are some who do not, but I doubt there would be different results if it were a private entity.
The Post Office and Amtrak have political considerations that prevent them from operating at a profit. Those considerations are important, especially with respect to the Post Office. Without them, rural folks would not get mail at a reasonable price.
I am not sure what is wrong with welfare.
And, if you think the FDA would be better if it were run as a for-profit company, then you must really be pro-trial lawyer, because the tort system would be the only thing to ensure consumer protection.
With respect to the NY taxes, the workers could simply take vacation to cover the time. Obviously, not a perfect solution.
Companies should simply ignore NY. The fact is that this was a charitable deduction by the employers. They donated the labor of their employees. Thus, NY has no business grabbing anything.
What NY doesn’t realize is that it is going to need the good will of the rest of the country.