Free Republic

As Democrats threaten government shut-down over Medicaid cuts; as Americans are bracing for another increase in their healthcare costs; and as patients wait an average maximum of 132 days to see a primary care doctor, Americans can’t seem to wake up from the nightmare called U.S. healthcare. The rise in insurance premium costs is estimated at 7–10 percent next year. This is on top of already unaffordable family spending with the average American family expending $32,066 on healthcare in 2024 according to Milliman Medical Index. Faced with increasing pressure on their bottom lines, employers are passing these additional expenses on...

We sure have seen a lot of really crazy things happen so far this year. But in the minds of most Americans, there is one crisis that far outweighs everything else. As I have been documenting for years, our standard of living has been collapsing as the cost of living has risen must faster than our incomes have.As a result, 67 percent of U.S. workers are now living paycheck to paycheck. We are in the midst of the worst cost of living crisis in modern history, and Statista has found that Americans consider it to be the biggest challenge that...

Health insurance prices in the U.S. have been spiraling for four consecutive years, and employers are now bracing for the highest spike yet in 2025—the biggest increase in 15 years, according to a wide-ranging survey of more than 1,700 employers. The National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans by Mercer, a subsidiary of Marsh McLennan, is part of the advisory firm’s services to help employers manage health insurance costs while seeking to improve employee health and well-being. Sunit Patel, Mercer’s US Chief Actuary for Health and Benefits, said two factors are combining to send costs higher. “Health benefit cost trend has...

Do you feel knots in your stomach due to financial stress? If so, you certainly have lots of company. All of a sudden, everyone is talking about the cost of living and prices are rising by double-digit percentages all around us. There are so many people out there right now that feel like they are “drowning” because no matter how hard they try there simply isn’t enough money for everything. Unfortunately, we are being warned to brace ourselves for even more inflation in the months ahead.When I heard that the cost of vegetables in the United States had gone up...

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...