Tell us about your HBT (Healthcare Billing Trauma)!
It seems that everywhere you go in South Carolina there’s a healthcare bill horror story.
Fixing South Carolina’s Education Finance Foundation
“South Carolina’s educational funding scheme is a fractured formula denying students…constitutionally required opportunity.” – South Carolina Supreme Court PROBLEM 1: South Carolina’s overall academic performance is poor…and falling below Mississippi. South Carolina is at—or near—the bottom of every major national ranking of education outcomes. In 2017-18, 2/3rds of 3rd-8th graders did not meet grade level
Tale of the Century
The manufacturing process for Century Aluminum is extremely electricity dependent, requiring at full capacity 400 megawatts of electricity per year. That level of use (400 megawatts would power 80,000 homes) means that electricity is about 40% of the cost of operating the plant, its single highest expense. Unfortunately, high energy costs risk putting it out of business.
New poll shows South Carolinians’ support for comprehensive tax reform
A recent poll conducted by the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce shows that 71% of registered voters support a simpler state tax code. Since 2017, Palmetto Promise has been doing the research to show how South Carolina’s unfair, unstable, and uncompetitive tax system is killing the little guy. The good news: states like North Carolina
Debunking the myths surrounding education choice
Download this report. Earlier this month, the online opinion journal EducationNext rolled out the results of its annual poll on issues in American education. We always anticipate this nonpartisan survey because it provides a window into the minds of the general public on issues we track here at Palmetto Promise, like education choice and school
Santee Cooper’s “fact check” fallacies
Earlier this summer, Palmetto Promise Institute conducted an in-depth study of aspects of Santee Cooper’s finances. Due to the opaque nature of Santee Cooper’s finances, our research was based on Santee Cooper published sources, legal filings, correspondence to elected officials, legislative hearings, and the reporting of The State and The Post & Courier.
South Carolina’s disabled students being left behind
Test scores for South Carolina’s special needs students have worsened considerably over the past 20 years. It’s especially telling when you compare South Carolina’s trajectory to nearby states.
New healthcare price transparency rules could mean lower costs, less confusion for patients
Just last month, Palmetto Promise highlighted a groundbreaking executive order from President Trump laying the groundwork for forcing hospitals to publicize what insurance companies actually pay them for various services and drugs used by patients – numbers that are treated like trade secrets in the healthcare industry.
An “education moonshot”
This week, I was honored to be invited to speak to the Downtown Aiken Rotary, one of the oldest and largest clubs in the state. Education was front and center. My mission: to pack this massive (and massively important) issue into a digestible 20-minute talk! We touched on many topics we’ve shared in previous emails,
Education report card: South Carolina vs. neighbors
South Carolina continues to sink below our southeastern neighbors in education outcomes. On almost every indicator, data shows that South Carolina is behind the curve. In light of that, Palmetto Promise has done some digging to look at how South Carolina really stacks up to our neighboring states on education innovation and performance. We’ve assigned 1-4 rankings