The typical American hospital charges between $20,000 and $100,000 to perform open-heart surgery. The 1,000-bed Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital in Bangalore, India, charges $2,000 on average -- and, arguably, provides better quality outcomes. 
Conservative sources are suddenly abuzz with the story of "phantom" congressional districts in the Recovery.gov website that tracks where the 2009 stimulus money (more properly known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) goes. Embarrassingly, the website lists way too many congressional districts. Virginia, [...] 
As Congress lurches forward in its campaign to "reform" a deeply flawed health care system by making it a grievously flawed system, moderate "blue dog" Democrats are emerging as a key swing constituency that can make or break any deal. In the Senate, that puts the [...] 
I had the pleasure of visiting Annapolis, Md., a couple of weekends ago, a city I had not seen in maybe 20 years. After watching Navy trounce Wake Forest in football, my family and I spent the night at the Governor Calvert House across the street [...] 
That's the question that Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson asks in today's column. The very idea of the likes of the United States, Japan or Great Britain defaulting on their sovereign debt once seemed preposterous, he writes. It still seems far fetched. But it's not' [...] 
One of the thought leaders in the arena of health care reform today is a Darden School professor, Elisabeth Olmsted Teisberg. She is virtually unknown in her home state of Virginia, but political leaders ought to make her acquaintance. She teamed up with Michael Porter, Harvard [...] 
The world's largest shopping mall/entertainment complex, in Guongzhou, China, is China's version of "too big to fail." The developer poured $365 million into this showcase project. It's beautiful in an extravagant, Las Vegas kind of way. But the developers, inexperienced in running malls, gave little thought' [...] 
In Virginia, it is always surprising that the talking heads, lobbyists, politicians and others always regard the "Business Community" as a monolith that thinks and speaks with one voice and must be protected because of the Old Dominion's coveted status as being "business friendly." 
One of my problems with the whole health care debate is that, for the most part, it has focused on the redistribution of wealth. One reason the Donkey Clansmen have had such a hard time getting a health care "reform" passed is that they offer [...] 
One of the drawbacks of living in the Richmond area is the dearth of penetrating reporting inthe local daily rag. Luckily for me, The New York Times finally started home delivery last week in the piney woods edge of Chesterfield County where I have lived for [...] 
It's not often that I find myself agreeing with op-eds in the Los Angeles Times, but a piece by Christopher Layne and Benjamin Schwarz, "The Twilight of Pax Americana" is must reading. In a nutshell: The United States is on a fiscally unsustainable path' [...] 
For all the wailing one hears, especially in Virginia, about Barack Obama being some kind of radical with a socialist agenda, let's take a reality check.
The Virginia Institute for Public Policy has published a must-read analysis of the impact of proposed health care reform on Virginia. Far from bringing the cost of health care under control, as its advocates assert it will, "reform" based on President Barack Obama's principles will drive [...] Virginia Tech has a great football program this year, but the team that gets me stoked is the squad of architectural-engineering students competing in both the U.S. and European Energy Solar Decathlons, the only U.S. team to do so. The challenge: to build the most attractive energy-efficient house. The solution: [...]
Looks like the United States will have plenty of competitors in the race to fiscal insolvency. According to the European Commission’s May forecasts, public debt in the eurozone will soar to 77.7 per cent of GDP this year and 83.8 per cent in 2010, reports the [...] 
I wouldn't want to be Gov. Tim Kaine at the moment. He has the unenviable job of chopping $1.3 billion out of next year's budget. There are no easy choices, and there is no way to avoid making a lot of people unhappy. 
Puzzling is the only word to describe it.
Against the backdrop of the federal march to insolvency, it is fearful to see that many states are following the same path. As Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels wrote in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, "State government finances are a wreck." 
Sometimes commentators scold our political leaders for running up deficits that will have to be repaid by our children and grandchildren. I suspect that many politicians would gladly foist our nation's obligations onto the next generation if they thought they could get away with it. But they' [...] 
The starting point for the discussion of public policy in the United States and the 50 states today is the looming insolvency of the federal government at some point in the next 20 to 25 years. By "insolvency," I mean we are heading toward an Argentina-style [...] 
You have to love how Richmond works. 
A word to the Wise: be wary when you mess with a street-wise Italian guy from Philly. 
Finally, Marleen Durfee has prevailed. The peppy, fast-talking, middle-aged woman is seeing what she warned about becoming reality and looks forward to a brighter day. For most of this decade, the Pennsylvania native has harangued the Chesterfield Board of Supervisors about their mindlessly pro-growth development policies. [...] 
One of my recurring nightmares is that I wake up one morning to find Virginia and the U.S. transformed into a right-wing theocracy.
If I go to a public library, I find my Internet access is severely restricted to information that a government committee has [...]
Often, BR discussions have fluctuated about the remedies for the current financial crisis. The arguments seem endless, but then the problems are huge. And, properly, I think, they surround real concerns about massive government deficits and massive injections of liquidity.
It's the thesis of my new blog, "Boomergeddon" (or, "The Retirement Crisis") that the federal government will reach the brink of financial insolvency within the next two or three decades. If you buy my argument, another question logically poses itself: Who will provide essential government services' [...] 
Is a serious plan finally in the making to limit carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S.? 
Gooze Views, E M Risse, James A. Bacon
