The Hoover Institution hosted its annual Board of Overseers’ summer meeting during July 10–12, 2012.

The program began on Tuesday evening with two dinner presentations hosted by John Raisian. Hoover fellows Daniel Kessler and Michael McConnell discussed “Health Care and the Constitution,” with McConnell beginning by speaking to the current health care situation as affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act and explained the difference between mandates enforced by a penalty versus a tax. Kessler spoke about changing the subsidy formula, Medicaid and Medicare, and the need to “get costs down.”

Edward Lazear, the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and former chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, in discussing the immigration legislation being considered by the US Senate, recommends supporting a liberal immigration policy. Lazear also weighs in on the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Professor Zegart discusses the US relationship with China and how she views that country’s aggressive stance toward Taiwan; why big tech companies are a potential threat not only to privacy, but also to our national security; and why the next war may well be fought with a keyboard rather than on a battlefield.

People have a right to make a living. 

The Hoover Institution Spring 2012 Retreat began on Sunday, April 22, 2012, with before-dinner remarks by John Stossel, a commentator on the Fox Business Network, where he hosts Stossel, a weekly program highlighting current consumer issues from a libertarian viewpoint. Before joining Fox, he coanchored ABC’s prime-time news magazine show 20/20. He discussed his new book No, They Can’t: Why Government Fails—but Individuals Succeed, which depicts Stossel’s ideas of “what we’re imprinted to believe and what reality has taught [him].” Stossel, in talking about how people are unsatisfied with the government today and how the free market system works better for our society, stressed how “central planning appeals to people” and how we are “programmed to follow the central planner.”