Free Republic

When leftists attack our health care system for its supposedly market-driven forces, they fail to grasp a key fact. American health care has rarely functioned like a market because few, if any, patients know the price of their care in advance. A recent personal experience illustrated this problem and reinforced the rules the Trump administration must finally implement to make prices transparent.A Surprise Bill After the FactLast April, I went to the Surgery Center of Chevy Chase just outside Washington for outpatient foot surgery. Staff informed me in advance that my estimated financial responsibility would total $574.12 — an amount...

The proper response to foreign tariffs is nothing. Here is why. 1. A tariff is a tax on your citizens. Retaliation means you tax your buyers and your producers to “punish” a foreign government. You hurt the innocent to spite the guilty. 2. Imports are the benefit of trade. Exports are the cost you pay to get them. Blocking imports means you block the benefit and keep the cost. 3. Unilateral free trade raises real incomes. It lowers input costs for businesses, speeds innovation, and forces domestic firms to win by serving customers, not by lobbying. 4. Tariff tit for...

Las Vegas is experiencing a notable downturn in tourism, with hotel occupancy, visitor numbers and spending all slipping. Industry data points to several key reasons behind the shift, including rising costs, fewer international travellers, and broader economic uncertainties. Drop in international visitors and hotel occupancy According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, hotel occupancy dropped to just 66.7% in early July—a sharp fall from the previous year—and international visitors. Domestic arrivals also fell by around 6.5%, and traffic through Harry Reid International Airport declined nearly 4% overall.

The nation’s health-care marketplace insurers are seeking the largest premium increases in more than five years, ahead of the upcoming Affordable Care Act (ACA) enrollment period in November, according to an analysis by the Peterson Center on Healthcare and health policy nonprofit KFF.The July 18 report highlights several factors driving up insurance rates for 2026, as major health insurers submit rate filings to state regulators to justify premium changes for the upcoming calendar year.“As in most years, rising healthcare costs—both the price of care and increased use—are a significant driver for increasing rates going into plan year 2026. The costs...

I think our duty to a representative and limited government, a constitutional republic, doesn’t end when we exercise one day of democracy — Election Day and the vote. If our candidate makes mistakes, it’s up to each of us to speak out — not to criticize, but to educate, to ask him to do better. The following is an attempt to apply principle to the specific issue of tariffs and the overarching principle of constitutionally limited government. Congrats: Any citizen who consumes (buys) goods made in China, you are going to pay 35 to 50 percent more for everything you...

Low incentives and complicated state regulations, combined with high housing and business costs, have rendered California unable to keep Hollywood from moving production to other states and countries, according to an entertainment industry report released on May 27 by the Milken Institute, a California-based think tank.Hollywood’s in-state production has dropped in the past two years as other states and international destinations continue to increase industry incentives, according to the report’s authors, Kevin Klowden, executive director for the Milken Institute Finance, and Madeleine Waddoups, a graduate teaching assistant in the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California–Los Angeles.The...

The price of products Amazon Inc. displays in its online store may soon include the listed price and how much was added to the value due to President Donald Trump’s tariff impositions. Punchbowl News reported on Tuesday that, according to a source familiar with the matter, the e-commerce giant will start showing the figure added to the value because of the duties right alongside a product’s total price. The move is reportedly an effort by Amazon to inform customers cost rises have nothing to do with it and everything to do with the Trump White House. Response to the reported...

On Friday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “On Balance,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) stated that large tariffs won’t bring back steel or auto plants to his state “in less than five or ten years. And the costs of competing, of manufacturing here in the United States are still too high.” Coons said, “There was a 100-year-old steel mill in Claymont, Delaware. We worked hard to try and save it, but, ultimately, it closed. There were two auto plants in Delaware. Ultimately, they closed. High tariffs won’t bring those plants back in less than five or ten years. And the costs of competing,...

The price of eggs has taken a sharp plunge as Americans have watched the cost of the grocery staple shift downward since mid-February, Axios reported Friday. The drop in prices comes as the nation has been grappling with a bird flu outbreak that has affected egg prices and farmers, per Breitbart News. According to the Axios report, “The average wholesale price of a dozen eggs was $3 Friday, down 8% from $3.27 on March 21, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data released Friday.”

Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean claimed Wednesday on MSNBC’s “The Beat” that President Donald Trump’s “crazy” fixation on tariffs would cost Americans a lot of money. Dean said, “We have to be willing to show that we’re going to stand up for people. That’s why Trump won. Trump convinced them falsely because he lied every single day he was out there that he was going to stand up for them. And they figured, well, OK, let’s give it a shot. And, you know, we’ve got to be out there, and we’ve got to be at every door. It...

Walmart, one of the nation’s biggest retailers, is telling its China-based suppliers to absorb the cost of President Donald Trump’s increased tariffs on Chinese-made products. Sources told Bloomberg News that Walmart is asking Chinese suppliers to cut their prices — some by as much as 10 percent — so that Trump’s increased tariffs on China will be absorbed by the retailers rather than American consumers. Chinese suppliers are reportedly trying to resist any lowering of their prices while some manufacturers are having to go outside China to source their materials. A spokesperson for Walmart told Bloomberg that the retailer is...

A Maine Republican says that her state’s transgender athlete policy is so “extreme” that it will cost the state millions in federal funding. Maine Republican state Rep. Laurel Libby is blasting Democrat Governor Janet Mills for refusing to obey President Donald Trump’s Title IX rules banning transgender athletes in girl’s sports or risk a loss of federal education funding. Maine’s Principals’ Association maintains that its state rules take precedence over the new rules written by Donald Trump’s administration, and the state’s schools will continue to allow transgender athletes to compete in girl’s and women’s sports, Fox News reported.

Elon Musk and his now 100 person strong gang of Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutters are stripping the federal government of waste. While some Americans are up in arms at the sudden upheaval, others express gratitude for Musk and his crew getting under the hood to cut through federal bureaucracy and bring the way it runs into the 21st century. **SNIP** The DOGE-bros – the first 12 were referred to by President Trump as “geniuses” – are a corps comprised largely of twentysomething techies, some of whom dropped out of college, who see themselves on a mission to make America’s...

That’s a buzz kill! Big Apple beer hounds may have to fork over 13% more for a brew as congestion pricing drives up costs for customers and businesses alike in some of Manhattan’s busiest neighborhoods. Anheuser-Busch, whose brands include Budweiser, Michelob Ultra, Stella Artois and Corona, will raise keg prices by $5 across the board for customers throughout the NYC area, a company sales rep told The Post this week. “We’re building the cost of congestion pricing into delivery fees,” the rep said. And that means bars will likely have to charge an extra dollar per pint to offset the...

American health insurance seems to frustrate everyone. Patients complain that it’s expensive and complicated. Providers say it buries them in paperwork and can negatively affect patient care.Poll after poll indicates that most people simply don’t trust their health insurance provider or the health care system itself. Fully 70 percent of the country thinks American health care has major problems or is in a state of crisis. Consumer satisfaction is at a 24-year low.Frustration with health insurers may have turned to rage in a young man accused of killing a UnitedHealthcare executive in New York City on Dec. 4. The alleged...

Luigi Mangione’s alleged killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has sent waves through the medical community. This horrific act of violence, while tragic and inexcusable, forces us to confront an uncomfortable reality: frustration with the unchecked power of publicly traded insurance companies has reached a boiling point, for patients and doctors alike. As a pain management physician, I deeply empathize with the anguish of denied care. While my patients desperately seek relief, insurance companies reject treatments that are evidence based, cataloging them as “unnecessary” or “experimental.” They use opaque and unreliable artificial intelligence algorithms to deny care and rely on...

Texas taxpayers pay an average of more than $50,000 per pupil for the state’s government-run schools. Vance Ginn, an economist who runs the Texas-based Vance Ginn Economic Consulting firm, highlighted Tuesday on X that when maintenance and operations (M&O) and debt service (I&S) taxes are combined with current levels of outstanding debt, the total per-pupil cost is $50,334. The average private school tuition, meanwhile, is only $11,340 annually per pupil. In Birdville Independent School District alone, “Texas has taxpayers funding $42K+ per student at ‘public schools,’” wrote Ginn. “1) $15,125 per student for M&O and debt service. 2) $27,504 per...

Illegal immigration cost American taxpayers a whopping 2.6 percent of the entire U.S. government's $6.1 trillion in federal spending for the entire 2023 fiscal year. This amounts to $150.7 billion, according to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). If the figure is correct, the staggering sum of money going toward illegal immigrants entering and living in the U.S. would rival spending across some other agencies.

President-elect Donald Trump announced on Monday that he would be attending the grand reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, slated for Saturday. The Cathdral was horribly damaged in a fire in April 2019. It has undergone extensive repairs. "It is an honor to announce that I will be traveling to Paris, France, on Saturday to attend the re-opening of the Magnificent and Historic Notre Dame Cathedral, which has been fully restored after a devastating fire five years ago," Trump said. "President Emmanuel Macron has done a wonderful job ensuring that Notre Dame has been restored to its full...

Social media was abuzz this week after NBC published an article that claimed “Thanksgiving dinner is historically affordable this year” and suggested the average cost of a Thanksgiving meal for 10 people would cost just $58.08. The $58 dollar estimate comes from a survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation, which has conducted the same survey since 1984. That survey, however, has a limited number of items on it, which together can’t be considered a full Thanksgiving meal, let alone a meal for 10 people. The survey asks volunteer shoppers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico to search their...