Warner Bros. Discovery owns the Warner Bros. studio and cable brands, including CNN, HBO, and the Discovery Channel. Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS, recently made several offers to buy the company. However, Warner executives are waiting for competing bids. Netflix, Comcast, and Amazon are among the potential bidders, reports say.

Conservatives warn that a sale to Netflix or Comcast would further concentrate power in the media industry. 

Former U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colorado, said mergers with Big Tech often lead to fewer competitors and less diversity of viewpoints, and that federal regulators should tread carefully.

“No doubt, Big Tech will marshal their resources to fight authorities — as they have before  — but regulators can, and should, use this moment to carefully examine mergers in the entertainment industry that will have an impact on free speech,” he wrote in a Newsmax column.

Tom Giovanetti, president of the Institute for Policy Innovation, said competition helps preserve balance in news and entertainment. 

“But consumers also need media to end its leftward slant on news and entertainment, and Paramount Skydance intends to correct biases in its media properties,” he wrote in a column for the Daily Caller. “Viacom stagnated for decades because of family and corporate infighting, but the newly invigorated Paramount Skydance wants to correct the leftward leanings of some of their properties like CBS News and 60 Minutes. There would certainly be a benefit to the public in that, as would extending those changes to CNN.”

Analysts note the Trump administration has previously criticized Comcast and NBC for bias in its political coverage. In 2023, Trump pledged to investigate NBC for “knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage.” More recently, he posted that Comcast and its chairman, Brian Roberts, were “a disgrace to the integrity of broadcasting.”

Craig Moffett of Moffett Nathanson said a successful Comcast bid is “nearly unthinkable.”

“Given past commentary against all-things-Comcast from both the White House and the FCC over the past year, a successful Comcast acquisition of almost anything seems nearly unthinkable,” he told Deadline.

Additionally, Blair Levin of New Street Research told CNBC that “it is almost certain that the Trump DOJ would not allow Comcast to buy WBD and the result would be decided in court.”

Netflix may also face skepticism. Company chairman Reed Hastings is a longtime Democratic donor, and Netflix employees sent 98% of their political donations to Democrats in 2020. Analysts warn that a merger with Warner Bros. would make Netflix more than twice the size of its nearest competitor.

By contrast, Paramount’s ties with the Trump administration may work in its favor. 

“Paramount Skydance got on Trump's good side to get the Paramount deal closed so there's still some of that good will that they could use … Not everyone has that good will,” Raymond James analyst Brent Penter told BBC.

Ticket resale marketplaces helped more than 10 million fans save a combined $414 million on live-event tickets last year, according to a new report released Tuesday by consumer advocacy group Protect Ticket Rights.

Analyzing 186,113 transactions tracked by data-analytics firm Automatiq, researchers found that 62 percent of events in 2024 featured tickets resold for less than their initial box-office cost. On average, secondary-market prices fell $29 from the original on-sale period to the final month before the show, translating to roughly $40 in savings per ticket.

“Transferability is the safeguard that lets fans comparison-shop,” the report argues, noting that staggered primary on-sales and increasingly common dynamic pricing make it difficult—or prohibitively expensive—for consumers to buy early. “Because tickets can change hands freely, they don’t go to waste, venues fill seats, and fans keep cash in their pockets.”

• Concerts accounted for the lion’s share of bargains, with 5.6 million below-cost tickets saving fans $202 million.
• Sports events generated $202 million in reduced prices across 5.6 million discounted seats.
• Theater performances delivered $15 million in fan savings on roughly 345,000 tickets, while “other” events—including comedy and family shows—added another $2.8 million.

At the state level, California topped all markets with $50.2 million in consumer savings on 1.3 million discounted tickets, followed by Texas ($32.4 million) and New York ($36.8 million). Even sparsely populated Wyoming saw fans save nearly $175,000.

PTR’s report comes as lawmakers and consumers both look for significant reform to the live event ticketing marketpace as a whole. Spiraling prices have caused public outcry to a point where both state and federal authorities have taken notice. President Biden put in place new rules for price transparency that went live earlier this year, and also had his Department of Justice pursue a lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster seeking to split those companies as an unlawful monopoly. 

President Trump’s DOJ has continued that lawsuit, and he recently called for action by the DOJ and FTC to develop a better ticketing experience – gathering thousands of responses from the public and interested organizations to a request for feedback on the problems in the industry today. 

A massive percentage of those comments focused on Live Nation and Ticketmaster themselves – but many also offered support for the open ticket resale ecosystem that exists today as an invaluable asset to consumers who purchase tickets. 

Alden Abbott, former FTC general counsel and now a senior scholar at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, wrote that “secondary markets, while imperfect, enable price discovery and allow tickets to reach those who value them most.”

Sal Nuzzo, executive director of Consumers Defense, warned against transfer restriction schemes that only benefit existing entrenched companies with massive market share against their competition – not consumers.

“Purchasing a ticket should guarantee the purchaser the right to do what they please with it. Restricting transfer only benefits one company while undermining basic components of our economic system. While the popular sell-outs drive headlines, out of the tens of thousands of live events each year, data show that more than half offer lower cost comparable tickets on the secondary resale market compared to the box office or its primary ticketer.”

Tom Giovanetti of the Texas-based Institute for Policy Innovation labeled the current system “Ticketmaster/Live Nation tyranny.”

“Those who buy tickets to live events are generally pretty unhappy with the fact that they are held hostage to Ticketmaster\Live Nation tyranny. In retrospect, this is a merger that has harmed consumers. But beyond their control of the first sale of tickets for live events, the Ticketmaster/Live Nation colossus does everything it can do prevent ticket purchasers from reselling their tickets, or to make it prohibitively troublesome or expensive.

This was an emerging issue twelve years ago, when IPI wrote a paper on the issues of the importance of secondary markets for tickets. If anything, the problem has only gotten worse."

Secondary markets are an important component of a free market, and if you buy a legitimate ticket to a live event, you should be able to transfer it to whomever you choose, however you choose. But the Ticketmaster/Live Nation demogorgon wants to control that as well.”

The National Consumers League has praised resale as “a hedge for consumers” stuck with non-refundable season or advance-purchase tickets, and a place to “get bargains when supply outpaces demand.”

Despite this enormous pressure from consumers and economic experts, Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster have continued to push forward in their efforts to re-brand all troubles as driven by the existence of ticket resale that they do not themselves directly control or profit from. They have also made no secrets of a coordinated campaign to curry favor with President Trump and others within his orbit. 

Protect Ticket Rights is urging lawmakers to enshrine free transferability in any future ticketing reforms. In nationwide polling cited in the report, 81.6 percent of respondents supported the right to resell or give away tickets they purchase.

With dynamic pricing pushing many face values higher—and top tours still commanding premiums even on resale—advocates say the latest data reinforce why open, competitive markets matter.

“Tickets may be sold out, but that doesn’t mean fans are out of luck,” the report concludes. “When resale is allowed, smart shoppers can still get through the turnstiles—and often for a lot less.”

There was a time when Congress did actually determine US trade policy.  The Institute for Policy Innovation recently produced a list of 15 treaties passed by Congress that President Trump violated in the past 24 hours.  I won’t list them all, but here are the first two and then the last two, to give you a flavor:

By Salome Ramirez Vargas

The race to the White House has been dominated by Republicans or Democrats, the two major parties that control every political aspect of the United States. However, in each election season, independent or alternative candidates have attempted to gain ground in the public eye.

My father, Norman Latker, was patent counsel for the National Institutes of Health in the 1960s and ’70s, and among the principal architects of the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act (“Team Biden Looks for an Excuse to Impose Drug Price Controls” by Merrill Matthews, op-ed, April 27). He drafted the “march-in rights” outlining strict criteria that government had to satisfy to seize intellectual-property rights from inventors. It now appears the government intends to circumvent his safeguards, creating a path to impose price controls on drugs that merely don’t align with its sense of acceptable pricing. My father would have been appalled.

Bayh-Dole’s purpose was to afford inventors, rather than government agencies, patent rights for novel advances. “Market forces do a far better job of disseminating such inventions to society than government bureaucracies,” my father wrote. The bipartisan bill’s passage unleashed a torrent of new investment into research and development, sparking a biotech revolution.

New York (CNN Business)American public pension funds are facing serious challenges that threaten the retirement plans for millions of US state and local government employees.

Pension plans remained severely underfunded during the 11-year bull market that followed the Great Recession. The plunge toward insolvency and high-return markets led fund managers to take on risky bets in hope of staying afloat. Now, the recent selloff has left funds struggling to keep up with their future obligations.

The 100 largest public pension funds in the United States had been funded at just 78.6% of their total obligations at the close of the second quarter, down from 85.5% at the end of 2021 according to analysis by Milliman, an actuarial and consulting firm. The funds lost a whopping $220 billion between March and April alone as Russia's invasion of Ukraine roiled markets.

Public pensions are borrowing increasing sums to meet their payout obligations. Nearly $13 billion in pension obligation bonds were sold in 2021, more than in the past five years combined. Now, they're taking on more risk by investing that leveraged money.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), which manages the largest public pension fund in the United States, with about $440 billion in assets under management, began leveraging some of its debt this month.

"We need every arrow in the quiver we can get, and private debt is one of the critical ones," said Dan Bienvenue, CalPERS' deputy chief investment officer.

The Teacher Retirement System of Texas, the country's fifth-largest public pension fund, has also used leverage funds since 2019.

Leveraging can help multiply market gains in bull markets, but it can also increase losses during the bear times.

While the majority of pensions still don't use borrowed funds, there has been a sharp increase over the last four years. Before 2018, none of the largest funds used leverage.

Taking on risk

At the same time, funds began taking on riskier assets during the bull run and low-interest environment to make up for some insolvency.

Instead of increasing fees or costs to make up for a lack of funding, pension managers have opted to raise their annual growth target rate and engage in riskier investing behavior to meet it. In many states, if funds end up going bust because of that strategy, the onus of meeting payout requirements will fall on the shoulders of taxpayers, found a study by the Boston Federal Reserve.

Analysts say pension funds are now operating more like hedge funds and treading on risky footing. It's also typically the funds in the most financial trouble that take on these trades.

"Risk-taking behavior is most pronounced among funds with sponsors with the least ability to bear additional risk," the Fed said.

Some funds, like the Houston Firefighters Relief and Retirement Fund began investing in cryptocurrency, according to a Reuters report. A lack of transparency makes it difficult to assess just how much money funds lost in the crypto crash this spring. Funds don't report second quarter returns until later in the summer.

As interest rates increase and market stability decreases, those pensions could face more trouble.

Of the roughly $4 trillion in assets managed by public pension funds in the United States, more than two-thirds are allocated to risky investments like equities, and alternative vehicles, including private equity, real estate, and hedge funds, according to Pew research. That means retirement systems' ability to meet their commitments are subject to stock market swings.

"It's like the gambler who's on a losing streak but keeps betting in the hope of making up some of the losses," wrote Merrill Matthews, a scholar at the conservative-leaning Institute for Policy Innovation "If most public pension funds were already underfunded last year, what does that mean today, when the market has been in a six-month slide?"

But some researchers say the crisis feels bigger than it is. The gap in funding for pension plans is "often a huge and scary number," explained Louise Sheiner, policy director at The Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy. But "for most (certainly not all) plans, there is no imminent crisis in the sense that the plans are likely to exhaust their assets within the next two decades."

Blame outrageous gas prices on big oil companies, which must be stopped by government price controls.

That’s the essence of a controversial bill passed by the Democratic-controlled House last week. “The Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act? is the party’s response to gas prices hitting new records across the country.

The makes it a crime to sell gas at “unconscionably excessive prices during an energy emergency.” The measure gives the president and the Federal Trade Commission new powers to penalize.

“The real problem with increased gas prices is gouging and monopolies,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said last week.

“Corporations have price gouged consumers for extra profits—and gotten away with it—for too long,” added Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)

And the House bill’s sponsor, Congresswoman Kim Schrier (D-Wash), tweeted “At a time when people in my district are feeling the pain of high prices at the pump, Congress needs to be doing all we can to bring down costs.” The measure is another attempt to use government action to impact high prices by allowing President Joe Biden to declare an emergency and then set prices.

So will it work? Most economists say no. And they point to the price control disasters of the 197os. Indeed, many energy industry experts say the bill gets the problem backward. It’s government action — most notably restrictions on production and refining petroleum — that goose up prices.

“We don’t really believe in price gouging. We think there are market shortages when demand spikes up. It is a natural. When there’s anticipation of a greater demand for a product, more people will drive up the price,” says Tom Giovanetti, president of the Institute for Policy Innovation. He adds prices are rising because new supply “has been restrained.”

The anti-gouging bill would make things worse for consumers, complains Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance. The Biden administration “has taken repeated action to suppress and prevent domestic oil and gas production. Now these chickens are coming home to roost as American families face rising energy prices at the pump.”

Giovanetti says oil companies are also cutting back on production “because woke bankers, applying Environment, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) standards, are denying them new financing.”

And what about giving the president the power to declare an energy emergency and put a cap on price hikes?

On Aug. 15, 1971, as oil prices were rising, Nixon declared in a nationally televised address,  “I am today ordering a freeze on all prices and wages throughout the United States.”

After a 90-day freeze, increases would have to be approved by a “Pay Board” and a “Price Commission,” with an eye toward eventually lifting controls after the 1972 election.

William Walker, who served as deputy director of the federal Cost of Living Council from 1972 to ’74, says the scheme failed.

“The administration slapped a freeze on beef prices, but ranchers retaliated by withholding cattle from slaughter, and meat disappeared from store shelves. It declared an embargo on exports of soybeans to avert an impending shortage. Nothing worked,” Walker wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

Still, the anti-gouging bill has political, if not economic, appeal, says Mark Thornton with the Mises Institute.

“It portrays the government as doing something about high fuel costs when in fact the government is responsible for high fuel prices. It can be harmful to business and consumers in the short run and once on the books could be used in some future green campaign to eliminate gas stations in favor of electric cars.”

Thornton says the lower gas prices of two years ago can be restored without price fixing.

“Energy prices could come down with policies similar to those of the previous president. I would say go all out for fossil fuels and let power companies open coal plants and start new nuclear power plants. Create a tax credit for investment to turn natural gas into LNG (liquified natural gas).”

Ending the war in Ukraine, he adds, could also reduce prices by increasing supply.

By Cora Neas

AUSTIN (KXAN) — People who fall on all sides of the political spectrum are signaling concern over what implementing Texas’ social media law will look like practically. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction against Texas’ H.B. 20 on May 11, which means the law will now prevent social media companies from moderating user-generated content or banning users for speech that goes against the company’s terms of service.

H.B. 20 was passed by the Texas legislature and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in September 2021.

This week’s change

On Sept. 22, 2021 NetChoice, a trade association promoting free speech and enterprise online, and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) filed a complaint against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The complaint requested an injunction to prevent enforcement of the new law.

Paxton appealed the district court’s injunction to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. After the appeals court lifted the injunction, CCIA and NetChoice submitted an emergency application to Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito asking for immediate relief from H.B. 20.

According to a NetChoice press release, Alito may rule on the application unilaterally or bring it before the other eight justices.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton submitted a response to SCOTUS on Wednesday.

“Texas passed HB 20 to ensure that the platforms both forthrightly disclose their content-moderation practices and continue to serve the public without refusing to deal with potential customers due to their viewpoints,” Paxton response reads. “The platforms primarily challenge the ‘Hosting Rule,’ which prohibits the platforms from censoring a customer based on his viewpoint or location in Texas.”

The response also notes that social media companies can still choose to ban “entire categories of content” such as pornography or content by foreign governments. It also notes that illegal or inciting content is not protected by H.B. 20

Amicus briefs were also filed. More then 30 groups wrote to SCOTUS in support of the plaintiffs, and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed a brief supporting Paxton. Eleven other states co-signed Florida’s amicus brief.

Reaction to law going into effect

The Chamber of Progress, one of the groups that filed a brief in support of CCIA and NetChoice, hosted a virtual press conference at noon Wednesday.

The speakers said they were concerned marginalized groups, such as the Jewish community and LGBTQIA+ people, may receive more threats, and worried about the spread of extremist speech. Adam Kovacevich, founder of the Chamber of Progress, connected the law to the Buffalo mass shooting.

“We’re having this discussion just days after a tragic act of domestic terrorism in Buffalo, New York, resulting in the deaths of 10 Black Americans after the perpetrator posted racist manifestos online and attempted to livestream the massacre through Twitch,” Kovacevich said. “I think what’s clear in the wake of this tragedy is that we must do everything in our power to stop white supremacist ideology from further radicalizing Americans. But that is in direct conflict with this law, which explicitly prevents social media platforms from taking down user content, even when it promotes racism or terrorism.”

Rep. Jon Rosenthal (D) debated the law in the Texas House of Representatives prior to its passage, and proposed two amendments that would have kept bans on Holocaust denial and terrorist groups’ speech on social media.

“I even said ‘if you vote this amendment down, you’re voting to support domestic terrorism, international terrorism and their recruitment efforts here in the U.S.,'” Rosenthal said. “They still pretty much voted on the amendment on party lines. So it’s — it’s very alarming what folks are willing to do in in to line up with their party instead of what’s just right.”

Both proposed amendments failed and did not become part of the final law.

Carlos Gutierrez, deputy director of LGBT Tech, an organization that advocates for the LGBTQ+ community online and in tech, also spoke at the virtual event. He noted that many people in the LGBTQ+ community are at risk of losing online community and facing increased harassment due to enforcement of HB20.

“A lot of youth and people who are figuring out their identity are going to social media sites before they even talk to their own families because it’s a place where they may feel protected and able to have a safe space,” Gutierrez said. “Without content moderation, digital forums and apps can easily and quickly be overrun with homophobia, bullying, harassment and misinformation.”

Elizabeth Banker, Chamber of Progress’ general counsel, called the stay of the injunction unexpected and unusual.

“What the court is essentially invited to do is tell platforms that they have to put back these hateful messages and the people behind them proliferating those messages,” Banker said. “Individual states can’t moderate the internet — it is a vehicle of interstate commerce. Texas has reached far beyond its borders with this.”

Tom Giovanetti, president of the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), calls the law “overreach by government regulation.” IPI is a think tank that advocates for free market policy, individual liberty and limited government.

“Our view at the Institute is that markets are how companies are held accountable. If people are not happy with the job that a business is doing, they will stop patronizing that business,” Giovanetti said. “The people who own and run these platforms are interested in pleasing as many customers as possible, they’re not interested in alienating people and driving people away.”

Giovanetti pushed back against Paxton’s claims that social media represents a new “public square,” and instead advocated for the companies’ rights as private businesses.

Enforcement of HB20 will, in Giovanetti’s opinion, drive away users from social media sites as their user experience becomes a “Wild West” of inflammatory content.

“There’s members of the Texas legislature who would shout from the hilltops that they believe in free markets,” Giovanetti said, “But when you pass a bill like this, you’re proving that you don’t really believe in free markets, you believe in the power of government to force the result that you prefer.”

The Chamber of Progress and IPI both agree the bill will likely make its way to the Supreme Court and be struck down.

Until then, Texans should expect that their social media experience will change.

President Biden’s support among Hispanics has plummeted in the last 12 months to less than half of his approval numbers last year, according to a new poll.

Quinnipiac University’s poll in May 2021 found Biden’s approval rating among Hispanics riding high at 55% after he had garnered 59% of the Hispanic vote in the 2020 election. But the poll released this week revealed that number had plunged to 26%, barely more than a quarter of Hispanics.

“Biden is less popular among Hispanics than any other demographic, including age and gender,” Fox News noted of the poll’s results.

A paltry 27% of Hispanics approved of Biden’s economic policies, a percentage even lower than the 32% of Americans nationwide. Hispanics ranked inflation as the most pressing issue concerning them.

In March, Axios reported that their poll showed inflation had replaced COVID-19 as the major source for concern among Hispanics.

“Getting prices under control is very clearly the number one priority for the majority of Hispanics and Latinos, and it underscores the challenges Biden is facing now,” Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson acknowledged. “There’s not really a single issue that’s super-dominant, but we’re seeing a shift from a focus on COVID and COVID-related issues much more to inflation, cost pressures, supply chain breakdowns.”

“If Republicans were to consistently draw just over 30 percent of the Hispanic vote, they would likely dominate American politics in both presidential and congressional races,” Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation posited.

Biden’s 21-point margin of victory among Hispanics in the 2020 election, 59%-38%, represented a steep decline from Hillary Clinton’s lead in 2016, when she won the Hispanic vote by a whopping 38 points, 66% to 28%.

Among Hispanics, Cubans are famously conservative, as they remember all too well the dangers of communism.

Up to 58% of Cuban registered voters said they affiliated with or leaned toward the Republican Party, while 38% identified with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic, according to a Pew Research Center survey from the fall of 2020.

This week, Biden may have inflamed Hispanics even further, as he eased restrictive policies targeting Cuba and Venezuela.

“The Biden Administration’s new policy removes the cap on dollar remittances that Americans may send to Cuba, reopens air travel to cities across the island, and restores travel by so-called educational groups,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “The practical effect will be to supply the regime, which controls all commerce, with hard currency to keep its repression going.”

“Who benefits from President Biden’s sudden U.S. opening to repressive communist Cuba?” an opinion piece in The Miami Herald complained. “Not American democracy — and not Florida, where the move almost feels like a betrayal by Biden and his administration.”

“By delivering a Cuba appeasement policy, offering Venezuela sanctions relief and removing Colombia’s communist Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations,” Biden gave Americans “reasons to believe that the left-wing rules the party,” the piece surmised.

Like their counterparts in many other state capitals, Tennessee lawmakers recently passed a reform, Senate Bill 2077, that will stop local politicians from interfering with pipelines and other energy infrastructure projects through local regulation and taxation. Senator Ken Yager (R), sponsor of SB 2077, which passed out of the Tennessee Senate on March 24 and now awaits House consideration, explains the motive behind this effort to preempt local regulation of energy infrastructure:

“These lines go across many several counties in this state, and at its worst case, if you allow micromanaging by each local level, sadly some of which who may have political agendas, you would end up with patchworks of regulations that would only serve to hurt our Tennessee economy,” said Senator Yager.

SB 2077 and similar preemption bills enacted in other states prohibit local governments from regulating or taxing various economic activities, transactions, products, and industries. Despite amendments intended to address concerns, local officials and environmental organizations are working to defeat SB 2077, which is now working its way through the Tennessee House. The Tennessee House Ways & Means is scheduled to take up HB 2246, the House companion to SB 2077, during an April 19 hearing.

“We think that cities and counties, people concerned with protecting public safety and protecting the environment, have made this bill better, but it’s still unnecessary to preempt local government,” said Scott Banbury, spokesman for the Sierra Club’s Tennessee chapter. “I know we do a lot of preemption up here, but this a very serious scenario where it could potentially have very devastating effects in someone’s neighborhood,” added Senator Raumesh Akbari (D).

Though it is not a new phenomenon, preemption legislation continues to garner intense opposition and has caused some policymakers to be conflicted. An example of that conflict was on display in Texas a few years ago. In 2015, Texas lawmakers and Governor Greg Abbott enacted a reform that, as the legislative language made clear, “expressly preempts regulation of oil and gas operations by municipalities and other political subdivisions.” That bill came about in response to efforts by some local officials in Texas to ban hydraulic fracturing.

“We have sued the federal government multiple times because of the heavy hand of regulation from the federal government – trying to run individuals’ lives, encroaching upon individual liberty,” Governor Abbott said when signing that preemption bill. “At the same time, we are ensuring that people and officials at the local level are not going to be encroaching upon individual liberty or individual rights.”

Yet even pro-fracking conservatives in and outside the Texas Legislature were conflicted over that 2015 reform. “I agree … that banning fracking is a bad idea,” said Mark Davis, a popular Dallas-based radio host, “but I also believe in local control. Shouldn’t local towns be able to do what they want?”

In response to such quandaries, preemption supporters point out that “local control” is not a magical term that should cause conservative state lawmakers to stand down in the face of onerous taxation and regulation proposed at the municipal level.

“Local governments are at least as capable as the feds of passing laws and ordinances that violate the presumption of liberty in the Constitution,” said Tom Giovanetti, president of the Institute for Policy Innovation, a Dallas-based think tank, in response to Davis’s remarks. “Tyranny isn’t OK just because it is approved by a majority of your fellow townsfolk. Rule of law, not local control, must be the governing principle.”

If SB 2077 gets signed into law by Governor Bill Lee (R) this spring, Tennessee would be joining more than just Texas in preempting local regulation of fossil fuels and energy infrastructure. In 2021 alone, the governors of Florida, Texas, Georgia, Missouri, and Ohio signed into law legislation preempting local regulations that restrict or prohibit natural gas hookups from being included in any new construction. Take HB 17 in Texas, a more recent preemption bill signed in to law by Governor Abbott in 2021 that “would restrict utility service connection or reconnection based on the type of energy source.”

A 2021 bill signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), meanwhile, bars local governments “from restricting fuel sources distributed and used by electric and gas utilities, power generators, pipeline operators and propane dealers.” The 2021 reform enacted by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R) bars localities “from adopting a policy that prohibits electric, gas or propane utility connections or reconnections, as well as propane sales.” Meanwhile legislation signed into law by Missouri Governor Mike Parson (R) last July “barred any Missouri subdivision from adopting an ordinance, resolution, regulation, code or policy that prohibits a utility connection or reconnection based on the type of service.”

Thus far, 19 states have enacted legislation that preempts local regulations banning natural gas hookups in new construction. “Those states accounted for nearly one-third of U.S. residential and commercial gas consumption in 2019,” S&P Global reports. “Some of the biggest consumers — Ohio, Texas and Indiana — have passed such laws in recent months.”

As red states enact legislation to preempt local regulation of fossil fuels, localities in Democrat-run states continue to adopt ordinances seeking to regulate or ban fossil fuels. In California, for example, 45 cities and towns have passed ordinances prohibiting natural gas hookups or mandating the electrification of buildings’ heating and cooling systems.

Preemption debates that continue to play out in state capitals extend far beyond the realm of energy policy and fossil fuels. Demonstrating this is legislation now pending in Missouri, Senate Bill 1158, that would “preempt any local laws, ordinances, orders, rules, or regulations enacted by a county, municipality, or other political subdivision of the state regulating the sale of tobacco products, alternative nicotine products, or vapor products.”

Should that bill be enacted, Missouri would not be the first state to preempt local regulation of tobacco and vape products. Likewise, a number of states have preempted local regulation of home-sharing services like Airbnb and most states have preempted local measures that regulate ride-sharing services like Uber. Even blue states that are not as keen on preemption laws as red states sometimes recognize the utility of statewide uniformity laws. In what will come as a surprise to many who are familiar with California’s political landscape, Golden State legislators enacted a law in 2018 that prohibits the enactment of new local soda tax hikes and bars any increases to already existing local soda taxes, at least until 2031.

The sanctity of “local control” will continue to be invoked in opposition to state legislation that preempts local regulatory and taxing powers. But, as the aforementioned numbers make clear, it has not stopped the spread of state preemption laws and is not as powerful of an argument as it once was. Given their lack of legislative success, expect opponents of certain statewide preemption measures to make lawsuits a greater piece of their strategy moving forward.

A top-ranked medical school has gone “full woke” with revised guidelines for appointment, reappointment, and promotion of faculty that include diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training as well as making a “positive contribution to DEI efforts.”

WASHINGTON, September 23, 2021 – Advocates for less government encroachment on big technology companies are warning that antitrust is being weaponized for political ends that may end up placing a “chilling effect” on innovative businesses.

The Institute for Policy Innovation held a web event Wednesday to discuss antitrust and the modern economy. Panelists noted their concern that antitrust law may be welded with political aims that will ultimately create a precedent whereby the federal government will stifle innovators who get too big.

Jessica Melugin, the director of the Center for Technology and Innovation, said technology companies could see what’s happening in Washington – with lots of talk of breaking up companies deemed too big – and be uncertain of the future.

She noted that growing companies largely seek one of two things to make it big: grow to file an initial public offering, where the company’s shares are publicly traded, or wait until a large company buys you out. She said talk emanating from the White House and Washington generally about regulating the industry could deter larger companies from acquiring them, and onerous financial regulations could put a damper on IPO dreams.

“If you start robbing companies of other smaller companies they purchased, it’s going to give a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of funders in Silicon Valley pause,” Melugin said. “If another path to success gets blocked – the IPO is now harder, and now acquisitions are a little bit questionable…that’s a chilling effect.”

President Joe Biden has made a number of appointments to key positions that is bringing more attention on Big Tech, including known Amazon critic Lina Khan to chair the Federal Trade Commission, which recently filed an amended case against Facebook for alleged anticompetitive practices. He also appointed antitrust expert and Google critic Jonathan Kanter as assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s antitrust division.

FTC could set a bad precedent if focus is ‘big is bad’ 

Christopher Koopman, the executive director at the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University, said he’s concerned about the precedent Khan could set for big companies.

He said the odds are that once Khan starts, she will continue down “this path of ‘big is bad’ because that’s a prior that she has and she’s continued to operate on her entire professional career. It just so happens that the focus of this is on tech companies.

“We may be building a regulatory apparatus that will continue to burrow a hole right down the middle of the American economy before we even have a chance to ask if that’s really what we want,” Koopman added. “We just have to recognize that it doesn’t matter, really, who is running the FTC – once we tell the FTC to go break up big companies, they’re going to go break up big companies.”

And the concern for Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel of lobby group NetChoice, which advocates for less government regulation on the future of technology, is not just a domestic problem, but an international one, too.

“I really do worry about us shanking our innovation and essentially giving a free kick to our competitors and that seems to be what we’re doing,” Szabo said. “Right now, we lead the world.

“This is an international issue, this is a national issue, and we really need to – whether Conservative or Democrat – as Americans we need to see the forest from the trees. And if we want to put corporations ahead of competitors and think those are good democratic values, go ahead and do it.

The House has before it six antitrust bills targeting big technology companies, which passed the chamber’s judiciary committee in June. The goal of the bills is to rein in the power of Big Tech through new antitrust liability provisions, including new merger and acquisition review, measures to prevent anticompetitive activity, and providing government enforcers more power to break-up or separate big businesses.

Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr said earlier this year that Big Tech has too much influence and power, citing the ability of Apple and Google to remove applications like controversial chat website Parler from its app stores.  Carr recently recommended that Big Tech contribute to the Universal Service Fund, which supports broadband expansion in low-income and rural areas of the country, because these companies benefit from broadband.

Short-term rates traders are girding for a bumpy road ahead, as the U.S. debt ceiling looks poised to return on Aug. 1 while Congress so far has no clear plan to increase it -- meaning federal government borrowing could soon get tricky.

Toward the top of the list of worries among traders: the U.S. is likely to reduce issuance of bills -- which are already in short supply as investors scramble for places to park cash -- because the Treasury Department needs to dramatically reduce its cash balance this month.

The debt ceiling was suspended for two years in July 2019. If Congress doesn’t increase that limit on U.S. borrowing or suspend it again, then Treasury will be forced to deploy extraordinary measures to keep paying its debts. Politicians have in the past decade used threats of not raising the debt ceiling to get concessions on other matters.

Bill rates have been hovering near low levels, dipping below zero at times, as Treasury already cut supply by more than $680 billion during the first half of 2021 to bring its cash balance down. There’s also a deluge of liquidity in the system due to the Federal Reserve’s asset purchases, inducing the central bank to lift key rates last month to help control its benchmark. Strategists will be eyeing Wednesday’s release of minutes from that gathering for potential new insights on officials’ views on that matter. 

 “Treasury bill paydowns will be a significant factor as Treasury tries to achieve its stated cash balance level,” said Jonathan Cohn, a strategist at Credit Suisse Group AG. Paydowns are when the government sells less debt than is maturing, thus reducing what’s in circulation. “I expect focus to start to shift toward drop-dead dates, bill curve dislocations, and other refrains common to the all-too-frequent debt limit showdowns.”

The Treasury said in May that it assumes the cash balance, known as the Treasury General Account, will amount to $450 billion at the end of the current debt-limit suspension period on July 31. Treasury’s cash balance was $784 billion as of July 1

Treasury bills maturing through April 2022 are mostly yielding less than 0.05%. The heightened investor demand for bills was clear at Treasury’s sales this week of four- and eight-week bills. During the coming holiday-shortened week, bills are the only securities on the docket for Treasury auctions, with the government slated to sell 13- and 26-week bills on Tuesday and another round of four- and eight-week bills on Thursday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that they were considering “all the options” with regard to the debt limit. 

In a protracted 2013 debt-limit episode, Fitch Ratings put the U.S. rating on negative watch given the government’s failure then to raise its borrowing limit as the Treasury’s hard deadline neared. In 2011, a split House and Senate took the debt-limit debate down to the wire, prompting S&P Global Ratings to cut America’s sovereign credit grade for the first time. 

“Democrats will likely be able to” increase or suspend the debt ceiling “even if they have to use the budget reconciliation process,” Merrill Matthews, resident scholar at the non-partisan Institute for Policy Innovation, said in a note. “But that could take a while -- and they don’t have much time, especially at the rate the federal government is currently blowing through money.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last month before a Senate hearing that her department may exhaust emergency measures to avoid breaching the debt ceiling as soon as August unless Congress acts to avert a potential default that would be “catastrophic.” However, market analysts have said the administration can avoid hitting it until at least October.

"The unemployment rate in January and February of 2020 was 3.5%, the lowest unemployment rate we have seen in 50 years," Merrill Matthews, of the Institute for Policy Innovation, tells One News Now.

Those positive figures from a year and a half ago marked record low unemployment for blacks and Hispanics, he adds. Looking toward future employment numbers, Matthews says the Biden administration and their allies in the media are predicting slow improvement over time.

“But I'm not sure we're going to ever hit those again,” he counters, “if President Biden and Democrats are successful in passing their big budget reconciliation bill as that will add lots of new spending, lots of new borrowing, and much higher taxes to the economy."

Matthews insists the federal government should keep the 2017 tax reform bill passed by the GOP-led Congress and President Donald Trump, which he credits as a primary instigator of the good economy before COVID hit.

President Trump ordered his administration to cut bureaucratic red tape and now the Biden administration is imposing regulations that are harming the economy and businesses, Matthews points out.

"The third thing is,” Matthews adds, “you really need to loosen up on the energy sector rather than spending so much money trying to promote green energy and electric vehicles."

“We support the Biden Administration's focus on making bold investments in American infrastructure,” Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of Amazon, said in a statement backing Biden’s plan to raise corporate tax rates from 21% to 28%. 

Biden has announced he plans to raise the corporate tax is to pay for investment in "infrastructure,” a term that typically means improving roads and bridge but, in reality, is allocating just 6% to those projects out of a whopping $2 trillion price tag. 

It was just two week ago, when Biden announced his American Jobs plan on “infrastructure,” that he cited a 2019 analysis that found numerous Fortune 500 companies did not pay federal taxes during the previous year, GeekWire, a technology website, reported March 31. 

In that speech, the president named only one company as an example: Amazon. 

AmazonSmile logoAccording to CNBC, Amazon posted income of $11 billion in 2018 but paid zero dollars federal taxes in 2019 and, in fact, received a federal tax refund of $129 million that year. The previous year, in 2017, Amazon received a $137 million refund. 

In 2020, Amazon was hit with a $162 million tax bill for 2019, for revenue that topped $280 billion, but the company likely used tax credits and loop holes to reduce its bill, CNBC said. 

Speaking on behalf of Amazon last week, Bezos stated the corporation is “supportive of a rise in the corporate tax rate.”

Merrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation tells One News Now that people who are applauding Bezos for his statement should know how a company such as Amazon views such proposals.

"Large companies that dominate certain areas,” he says, “often like more regulations and higher taxes because that may keep their competitors from being able to gain a foothold against them.” 

The Wall Street Journal explained that scenario in a Dec. 2020 story that began with the headline, “How Amazon Wins: By Steamrolling Rivals and Partners.” 

The investigative story describes how Amazon uses cut-throat tactics to beat competitors, such as cutting its price of diapers so low that it was losing money on online purchases. But the underhanded tactic squashed its competitor, Diapers.com, which eventually sold out to Amazon. 

Yet another Amazon tactic, the story explained, was to demand online sellers provide manufacturing information under the guise of authenticating the seller as a legitimate business. With that information in hand, Amazon would then approach the manufacturer and partner with them to sell a competing product. 

Bezos, meanwhile, is currently the richest person on the planet with an estimated wealth of $181.6 billion. 

“One of the things you always have to worry about is those companies that are very successful colluding with politicians, or supporting things that increase taxes or costs on them,” Matthews warns, “because they're able to afford it and keep the competition down, allowing them to charge higher prices than they might have been able to do otherwise."

AUSTIN, TX — Texas has joined a multi-state lawsuit against Google accusing the company of monopolizing the search engine market. 

In an advisory, Attorney General Ken Paxton accused Google of engaging in anticompetitive and exclusionary practices that eliminate competition for internet searches and search advertising. Texas joins the U.S. Department of Justice and the States of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana and South Carolina in filing an antitrust suit challenging Google's exclusionary business practices. 

"Google's illegal conduct has allowed it to dominate the search industry by requiring exclusivity from business partners and avoiding competition on the merits while shielding itself from competitors who might threaten its market share," Paxton wrote in his advisory. 

Paxton added: "Google's anticompetitive business strategies have disrupted the competitive process, reduced consumer choice, and stifled innovation. The violations set forth in the complaint show that Google no longer resembles the innovative startup it was 20 years ago. Our action today is intended to restore competition and allow rivals and next generation search engines to challenge Google so that the marketplace, not a monopolist, will decide how search services and search ads are offered." 

The complaint explains that Google's practices have harmed competition for search services and search advertising not only on mobile devices and personal computers but also on emerging search access points, such as voice assistants, smart speakers, automobiles and Internet of Things devices. Paxton categorized Google's practices as harmful to consumers by reducing choices in areas like privacy, data protection, and use of consumer data, ultimately diminishing the quality of search services. Google's anticompetitive conduct has also given it the ability to increase advertisers' costs and reduce the quality of its advertising services.

 But not everyone is supportive of Paxton's move — including some from his own Republican political party. "Before they dismember the goose, lawmakers should look not only at the benefits big tech has provided to consumers but also at the fact that U.S. tech companies' world-wide lead depends on policies that encourage innovation and don't punish companies simply for growing large, former U.S. senator from Texas Phil Gramm told the Wall Street Journal. 

For his part, Tom Loeffler, former member of Congress and chairman of the University of Texas Board of Regents told the Dallas Morning News: "Antitrust litigation against our technology companies could be shortsighted and misguided, just as was when the government pursued Microsoft in previous years. The companies are critical to our national security, our economy and our future prosperity." 

Tom Giovanneti, president of the Dallas-based Institute for Policy Innovation, a public policy research organization, sees the Google suit as a double standard for conservatives: "How is 'take on Big Tech' even a policy issue?" he asked on Twitter. "When the Dems decided to "take on fossil fuels" conservatives rightly objected that that was illegitimate. It isn't legitimate for government to 'take on' ANY legal industry."

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s plan to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 60 will only help a group of Americans with high income and health insurance coverage rates.

The income per household member for Americans ages 60-64 is $42,457, the fourth highest of 20 age brackets, according to the Current Population Survey for 2018 (CPS). The difference in net worth between age groups is even more striking. In 2017, the median wealth for individuals ages 65 -69 was $236,900, second behind those ages 70 to 74, at $302,300, the CPS reports.

In terms of insurance coverage, the CPS does not have a specific breakdown for those between ages 60 and 64, but for individuals between ages 55 and 64, the uninsured rate is 11.2 percent.

The Biden proposal raises a question of fairness, says John Goodman, co-publisher of Health Care News.

“It would tax people who are least likely to have health insurance and who can least afford the premiums and spend money on people who are already insured and don’t need any help from government,” Goodman said.

Medicare is funded predominantly by payroll taxes of working Americans and adding beneficiaries will surely put a strain on a system already under fiscal pressure, says Robert Moffit, senior fellow of health care studies at The Heritage Foundation.

“This would be like pouring gasoline on the fire,” Moffit said.

A “Progressive” Vision with Questions

The Biden plan, part of the candidate’s “progressive vision for the country,” allows individuals ages 60 to 64 to enroll in Medicare “if they choose.” Biden states that Americans age 60 would get the same benefits as they would when they turn 65.

“This would make Medicare available to a set of Americans who work hard and retire before they turn 65, or who would prefer to leave their employer plans, the public option proposed, or other plans they access through the Affordable Care Act before they retire,” Biden stated.

Currently, Medicare is available to all Americans age 65 or older, younger people with disabilities, and people with end-stage kidney disease. The program covers hospitalization (Part A),  physician visits (Part B), and prescription drugs (Part D). As enrollees quickly learn, Medicare is not “free.” There are no premiums for Part A for most beneficiaries, but there are deductibles and co-insurance for hospital stays, and all enrollees pay premiums and fees for Parts B and D.

It is not clear if the plan is a “buy-in,” says Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

“While Biden discusses that people can keep their employer coverage, he doesn’t say anything that suggests people will be paying ‘full-price,’” MacGuineas said. “Our assumption is that the Biden plan would offer Medicare as it currently is offered—with a partial premium for Parts B and D and nothing for Part A—though there is some ambiguity because there is no full plan yet.”

Another question is what is motivating the desire to lower the Medicare age.

“When Al Gore proposed a Medicare buy-in in 2000 when he was running for president, there really was a problem,” said Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation. “A 62-year-old who had been downsized had to go to the individual health insurance market to buy coverage and it could be very expensive because of age and pre-existing conditions.

“So the question for Biden, which he never addresses, is why isn’t Obama-Biden-care working the way it was supposed to?” Matthews asked.

The Burden of Early Retirement

Biden states that Americans ages 60-65 are free to remain on an employer’s health plan and that employers would be prohibited from discriminating against this age group or pushing older workers into Medicare.

There is also the concern that a lower Medicare age would encourage people to take early retirement.

“That could weaken the economy,” MacGuineas said. “On the other hand, if lowering the age reduces the costs to employers for providing health coverage, that could actually lead to later retirement; so there will be some offsetting effects.”

Early retirement is bad social and bad economic policy, Moffitt says.

“What we ought to be doing is tapping into the extraordinary talents, abilities, and skills of people who are still very productive and have a huge amount to offer by not only their institutional knowledge but the fact that many are still very healthy,” Moffitt said. “And in terms of the economy, our workforce needs more people, not fewer.”

Putting Trust Fund in Jeopardy

Costs associated with the plan to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 60 would be financed “out of general revenues to protect the Medicare Trust Fund,” Biden states.

That suggests Medicare will be available to younger people under a “buy-in” program. Such an option, however, doesn’t make sense, Moffitt says.

“I don’t know anyone who would buy a Medicare Part A policy,” Moffitt said. “Unlike conventional insurance, you pay more, the more you use.”

Patients must pay $352 each day they are hospitalized between 61 and 90 days, and more per day for longer periods.

If Biden intends to offer Part A to younger enrollees, not as a “buy in” but premium-free, that would put pressure on the Medicare Trust Fund.

According to the Medicare Boards of Trustees’ 2020 Annual Report, expenses exceeded income by $5.8 billion. Deficits will deplete the trust fund for hospitalization by 2026.

“What that means is, under current law, Medicare will not be able to cover all the benefits that have been promised, not the short-term or long- term standards or what the trustees call ‘financial adequacy,” Moffitt said. “What they are really saying is we are going to see very big benefit cuts over time or big tax increases to keep the program solvent.”

The Medicare board report states that the President and Congress should work together urgently to fix the shortfalls.

“A plan to lower the eligibility age is directly incompatible with that recommendation. I defy any serious analyst to demonstrate that Medicare’s financial condition is anything but worsening,” Moffitt said. “I do not know where Biden’s head is on this.”

Heavy-handed approaches targeting a fast-tracked path to deep decarbonization continue to be a tough sale in rural America. But power sector observers said they are increasingly seeing conservatives embrace clean energy and even climate-friendly policies as droughts, floods and extreme weather take their toll on rural communities.

"Rural America sees climate as a problem," though they are more likely to refer to it as disturbing weather patterns than climate change, former Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota said at a recent event held by the think tank Third Way. "Because they don't see this as a crisis — they see this as a challenge and a problem — their solutions are not as bold" and they are not willing to entertain actions they believe would be disruptive to the economy or raise energy prices, she said.

Calls for all-out bans on fracking or other fossil fuel development, for instance, are not going to get buy-in from rural communities and will make those areas ground zero for pushback, said Heitkamp, founder of the nonprofit One Country, which aims to help Democrats engage with rural voters. "But with that said, you get them onboard by showing them the economic development benefit … of making this change."

One example already seen has been the growing popularity of wind turbines among farmers and ranchers who have been able to tap into an additional revenue source.

Providing a sense of economic security will be key to gaining support in rural America, Heitkamp said. "And if we can do that, I think we can bring the entire country along on a very aggressive climate policy that will get us to net zero."

If former Vice President Joe Biden were to win the White House, the former Senator said climate change would likely take a front seat in economic renewal plans and climate policy would become a more prominent aspect of dialogue on Capitol Hill. "Republicans aren't completely stupid," she said. "They're looking at the polling and they're realizing if they're going to survive into the next generation of voters, they have to have a plan and they have to be cooperative."

'Go big on climate'

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said earlier in the month that Congress would "go big on climate" with a comprehensive bill if Democrats are able to secure a majority in the Senate and the House remains under Democratic control following the November elections. Whitehouse lamented failing to push a 2009 House-passed cap-and-trade climate bill through when Democrats held the White House and Senate, and he promised "that will never happen again."

Whitehouse added that Democrats would strive to find a bipartisan path forward for advancing climate legislation. "If Republican participation becomes an excuse to slow walk things … and put sand in the gears …, then we're going to have to jettison Republican participation," he said. "It would be unfortunate, but it'll be much less unfortunate than failing to act at all. So bipartisan if we can, partisan if we must."

But without a trifecta of Democratic leadership in the White House, Senate and House, any climate legislation faces an uphill battle.

For instance, if Democrats take the Senate but President Donald Trump is elected to a second term, "you may see some power sector-focused bills … in 2021," but whether Trump would "support or object to those packages, I think, is an open question," Sasha Mackler, energy project director at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said in an interview.

Common ground

"I'm optimistic that a second Trump term could support some targeted climate initiatives," Mackler said, pointing to Trump's announcement in January that the U.S. would join the World Economic Forum’s One Trillion Trees initiative.

That initiative aims to grow and conserve 1 trillion trees worldwide by 2030. Trump signed an executive order on Oct. 13 directing the formation of the U.S. One Trillion Trees Interagency Council to further the federal government's contribution to the global effort.

Mackler added that infrastructure and innovation were areas of common ground between the Trump administration and those on the left looking to support an energy transition, and a bill structured to highlight those aspects could gain traction with both parties.

Merrill Matthews, resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation, offered that carbon sequestration and small modular nuclear reactors also presented an avenue for Republicans to embrace clean energy.

Trump himself, from a business perspective, could tout those "innovative ways to reduce or minimize carbon emissions without necessarily giving a nod to environmentalists who have supported solar and wind," Matthews said in an interview.

"If you're trying to find a way to distinguish yourself from your opponent and there's an issue that you know people are embracing, then you embrace the issue but you do it from a different approach," Matthews said. "That way, you're not giving them any credit for what they're doing. In fact, you can criticize them for what they're doing because even though the goal is the same, you're taking what you argue to be a better, more efficient way of doing it."

By AnneMarie Schieber

In the November 2020 election, voters will decide between candidates with widely different visions of American health care, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Democratic candidate for president, former vice president Joe Biden, says he favors a larger government role in the delivery of health care, such as with a public health insurance option. Biden favors expanding the Affordable Care Act, lowering the eligibility age for Medicare, and regulating drug prices.

President Donald Trump unveiled his health plan in December 2018, a 124-page health document entitled, “Reforming America’s Healthcare System Through Choice and Competition.” The Trump Administration implemented a number of reforms through executive authority, many of them expedited under the emergency declaration in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Congress will need to act to make a number of reforms permanent.

Competing Visions

The election will be a vote for competing visions of health care, says Chad Savage, M.D., physician and policy advisor to The Heartland Institute, which co-publishes Health Care News.

“Vice President Biden envisions a top-down health care system where bureaucrats make life and death decisions through a governmentally controlled health system,” Savage said. “He would move us toward a single choice system where patients will have no options but the ones chosen for them by their ‘betters.’”

Choice is the primary feature of the Trump plan, Savage says. “Americans will have a plethora of quality choices,” Savage said. “Health care choices will be as dynamic and customizable as those that exist in all other industries subject to the consumer-friendly influence of the free market. Additionally, by putting the patient in charge of health care, instead of bureaucrats, President Trump will keep the decision making in the most ethical location: with the patient.”

This is a “health care make-or-break” election, says Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation. “If Joe Biden wins, he will make every effort to expand the government’s role in health care. And if he has a Democratic Senate and House, he will be able to go as far as he (or Bernie Sanders) wants,” said Matthews. “President Trump, by contrast, wants to expand flexibility and consumer choice in most areas of health care. And with a Republican House and Senate, he might be able to set the country back on the right path. It would not necessarily be a free market in health care, but it would be much freer than a Biden health care system.”

A Health Care Revolution

Many of the reforms under the Trump health plan have already amounted to a dramatic shift in health care, says John Goodman, president of The Goodman Institute and co-publisher of Health Care News.

“Vice President Biden wants to expand existing programs, like Obamacare, that are highly regulated and offer doctors and patients little flexibility in delivering care,” said Goodman. “Trump wants to deregulate health care programs because he realizes by putting health care more in the hands of the private sector, we will get more innovation.”

In an upcoming Health Affairs article, Goodman and Marie Fishpaw, director of domestic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation, describe seven areas where deregulation has been most pronounced. The reforms include changes made in virtual medicine, round the clock medical care, patient power, and chronic care centers for excellence for chronic care, price transparency, and customized, personal and portable health insurance.

Virtual Health Care

During the pandemic, the Trump Administration, with the help of Congress, removed reimbursement obstacles to a visit to the doctor by phone or online. “Legalizing telemedicine was not a simple act,” Goodman and Fishpaw write. “There are roughly 7,500 procedures Medicare pays doctors to do.”

The Trump Administration had been sorting through these for three years prior to the pandemic, deciding which were appropriate for virtual medicine and how much Medicare should pay. This laid the groundwork for rapid execution when Covid-19 struck, Goodman and Fishpaw write.

Additionally, the Trump Administration, prompted by the coronavirus pandemic, temporarily stopped enforcing privacy rules so doctors could communicate with their patients using Facetime, Skype, Zoom, and other similar platforms.

Custom-Tailored Insurance

The insurance market is where the Trump Administration made significant progress, with the potential for even more radical change.

Short-term, limited-duration health insurance plans (STLD) have been one solution advanced by the Trump Administration. The plans are more affordable than those offered on the Obamacare exchanges because they are not subject to the same regulations. STLD plans are temporary plans to “bridge a gap,” mostly for healthy individuals, as they move from in and out of the workforce.

The plans, which cost up to one-haft the price of Obamacare plans, are often criticized as “junk insurance.” “Remember,  people with a chronic condition can always enroll in an Obamacare plan,” write Goodman and Fishpaw.

Personal and portable insurance is another significant reform under the Trump Administration, write Goodman and Fishpaw. The idea behind health reimbursement accounts (HRAs) is to give employees the opportunity to own their own health insurance. Beginning January 1, 2020, employers can provide pre-tax dollars to employees to buy their own insurance. The insurance can travel with the employee in from job to job and in and out of the labor market.

Under a new executive order, employers will soon be able to put money into HRAs to buy direct primary care. DPCs are membership-based and can provide round the clock access to care, face to face, by phone, or virtually.

Patient-Managed Chronic Care

Another reform has been to give patients more control to manage chronic conditions. Goodman and Fishpaw write studies show that with minimal training, patients can manage their own care as well or better than traditional doctors. The Trump Administration has liberalized the use of health savings accounts to allow patients to do that.

Similarly, insurance could be tailored to address specifically the needs of patients with chronic conditions, write Goodman and Fishpaw. “Insurance doesn’t need to be all things to all people,” said Goodman in reference to the article. “Health plans should be able to specialize and become focused factories in the treatment of chronic care.”

The Trump Administration has already demonstrated this with Medicare Advantage. “Medicare Advantage Chronic Condition Special Needs Plans specialize in 15 chronic conditions,” said Goodman. “Congress needs to apply the same type of reforms to the Obamacare exchanges.”

Price Transparency

Patients could also make better health care decisions with more price information, says Goodman. President Trump signed an executive order in 2019 that requires hospitals to post prices for common procedures. Additionally, hospitals must also release payment details on the payment arrangements they have with insurers.

“The next step is for Congress to act. Every executive order can be rescinded by a future president and every act of Congress that facilitates these reforms is tied to Covid-19,” says Goodman, (see related article).

Some of the executive orders were made and supported by the pandemic.  “When the virus goes away these new freedoms will also go away unless there is legislation,” Goodman and Fishpaw write.