Merrill Matthews, Ph.D., is a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation, a research-based, public policy “think tank.” He is a health policy expert and weekly contributor at Forbes.com. He also serves as Vice Chairman of the Texas Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Dr. Matthews is a past president of the Health Economics Roundtable for the National Association for Business Economics, the largest trade association of business economists. Dr. Matthews also served for 10 years as the medical ethicist for the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center’s Institutional Review Board for Human Experimentation, and has contributed chapters to several books, including Physician Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate and The 21st Century Health Care Leader and, in 2009, Stop Paying the Crooks (on Medicare fraud).

He has been published in numerous journals and newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, Barron’s, USA Today, Forbes magazine and the Washington Times. He was an award-winning political analyst for the USA Radio Network.

Dr. Matthews received his Ph.D. in Humanities from the University of Texas.

Penna Dexter is a radio commentator and columnist for various Christian conservative outlets. She is a frequent commentator and guest host for Point of View Radio Talk Show with Kerby Anderson. Her weekly commentaries air on the Moody Broadcasting Network and the Bott Radio Network. Penna’s columns appear at Baptist Press and the Christian Post blog page. Penna is an executive at Todd Dexter & Associates, the integrated marketing consulting company founded by her husband, Todd Dexter.

For eight years she served as Marlin Maddoux’s co-host on Point of View and for two years she co-hosted a daily drive time live broadcast on the Dallas-based Criswell Radio Network.

Penna’s interest in conservative politics and the issues that affect the family began when she was a child working on political campaigns with her parents. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in International Relations. She spent 8 years in the banking industry. Penna and her husband Todd are members of Trinity Presbyterian Church, they have three adult children.

A new house bill, H.R. 6666, introduced by Democrat Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois would provide $1 billion in government grants to “conduct diagnostic testing for COVID-19,” and “to trace and monitor the contacts of infected individuals, and to support the quarantine of such contacts.” Despite assurances from Rep. Rush that all testing and quarantining would be voluntary under the TRACE Act (COVID-19 Testing, Reaching, And Contacting Everyone), many people are worried that the bill, if passed into law, would compromise individual privacy.

While the TRACE Act would not update cellphones with contact tracing apps as some have claimed, such apps are in development by Apple and Google. Klon Kitchen, a technology researcher at the Heritage Foundation, says these apps will be voluntary and won’t collect personal information.

By: Merrill Matthews - ipi.org - May 19, 2020 Two key statements stand out in a recent Wall Street Journal news story about New York’s decision to send patients with Covid-19 to their nursing homes. One is ...

By: Merrill Matthews - thehill.com - May 20, 2020 When a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, I will be one of the first in line. But the fact is U.S. adults tend to have low vaccination ...

By: Ben Crenshaw - wsj.com - May 18, 2020 The debate over reopening the economy has a peculiar characteristic: It breaks down almost entirely along political lines. Liberals emphasize the dangers of an open society, shaming ...

We’re all homeschoolers now’ became a familiar parental refrain as Americans began a weeks-long ‘shelter-at-home’ period. Some can’t wait to be done with this particular duty. For others, the experience wasn’t as hard as they thought, perhaps more satisfying than expected.