A summer whose entertainment headlines were dominated by Taylor Swift and her blowout concert tour just…
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Event Ticket Purchases: The Proposed BOSS Act Would Empower Biden’s Rogue FTC and Make Matters Worse, Not Better

A summer whose entertainment headlines were dominated by Taylor Swift and her blowout concert tour just came to an end.  Unsurprisingly, a significant number of those headlines centered upon the ongoing public policy debate over the consumer ticket purchase experience, along with varying and differing calls for reform.

Unfortunately, some of that discussion served to introduce terribly ill-advised proposals that would only make the industry and American consumers’ enjoyment of it far worse.

To be sure, the genesis of the problem underlying various reform proposals is the issue of predatory ticket resellers who engage in harmful practices that hurt fans as well as the artists themselves.  As just one illustration, resale ticket prices at StubHub alone have increased over 100% since…[more]

September 26, 2023 • 07:25 PM

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151 A Thinking Mom's Message for Jimmy Kimmel

I feel your pain. But please use your brain. On Monday, late-night TV comedian Jimmy Kimmel delivered an emotional monologue about his newborn son. His baby was born with a congenital heart defect that required emergency open-heart surgery. Millions of American parents, myself included, have walked in Kimmel's shoes. We've experienced the terrifying…

152 The Pre-Existing Conditions Scam

The House vote on the GOP's Obamacare repeal bill vote is down to the wire, with dozens of Republicans waffling as "undecideds." What's the hold-up? Ninety-six percent of people who have to buy their own insurance stand to benefit from this bill, which will likely drive down premiums by double digits. The remaining 4 percent —…

153 Why Can't House Repeal Obamacare? Because A Lot Of Republicans Don't Want To

"We're going to go when we have the votes," Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday when asked when the House will pass a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. Lawmakers will not be constrained by any "artificial deadline," Ryan declared. On March 24, when the Speaker pulled the GOP Obamacare bill before what would have been a sure defeat…

154 Feds Cover up Hospital Infections

Going into a hospital? It's getting riskier because of drug-resistant infections—the kind almost no drug can cure. Despite one federal government "action plan" after another, the germs are winning. Government authorities are clueless about how many infections there are, or how many patients are dying. Alarming new research shows that…

155 The GOP Repeal Plan Sucks. But Is it Better Than Nothing?

First of all, the preferred free-market plan for health care policy should be no plan whatsoever. The idea that we need a federal top-down strategy to manage a huge chunk of the economy is at the very heart of the problem. We don't need a federal plan for health care. Yet Republicans have allowed liberals to frame the entire health insurance debate…

156 Medical Devices Can Turn Deadly

What's the biggest killer in hospitals? Secrecy. That's the bottom line from the Government Accountability Office and the Food and Drug Administration. Both report that hospitals are failing to disclose when medical devices injure or kill patients by spreading cancer cells throughout their body or infecting them with superbugs. Federal regulation…

157 Obamacare Repeal Is a Jobs Program

On Saturday, Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders called for nationwide protests to stop Republicans from repealing the Affordable Care Act. The trigger event was Friday's confirmation of Dr. Tom Price as President Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services. Price is charged with making good on Trump's promise to repeal and replace…

158 Trump Pushes for Rapid Action on Obamacare

Congressional Republicans are huddling at a closed-door retreat this week to craft a replacement for the Affordable Care Act, but it's President Trump who's calling the shots. On Friday, hours after taking office, he issued his first executive order. No surprise, it targeted Obamacare, instructing federal agencies to do everything possible while the…

159 Deadly 'End-of-Life' Myths

As the new Congress convenes, budget cutters are eyeing Medicare, citing predictions that the program for seniors is running out of money. But federal bean counters have erroneously predicted Medicare's bankruptcy for decades, largely because they ignore the impact of medical breakthroughs. Worse, medical ethicists like Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, 59, insist…

160 The Myth of Pre-Existing Conditions

Democrats are warning that once Obamacare is repealed, people with serious illnesses won't get health insurance. President Obama says repeal will mean going "back to discriminating against Americans with pre-existing conditions." That's fake news. The truth is, every Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act protects…

161 Life and Death Choice

Going to a hospital is taking your life in your hands. New research shows patients treated at the worst hospitals are three times as likely to die as patients with the same health problem treated at the best hospitals. Yet most people pick a hospital based on convenience, a friend's recommendation or where their doctor practices. In fact, your doctor…

162 Trump's Urgent Job: Clean Up the VA

Last week, Veterans Affairs got caught covering up the quality ratings of its 146 medical centers. VA Secretary Robert McDonald insists, "No VA medical facility is bad or failing." Really? Not even a hospital that earns only one star out of five? McDonald denies he's hiding anything. But he and other VA brass have plenty to hide. In 2014…

163 Trump's Path to Repeal

On the stump, Donald Trump promised to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Now obstacles are emerging on the left and right. Democrats are sowing panic, falsely predicting that 20 million will lose coverage. Newly elected Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer claims Trump will "rue the day" Obamacare is repealed. Meanwhile, on Trump…

164 The Slacker Mandate and the Safety Pin Generation

News flash, kids: Things aren't free. Things cost money. And "free" things provided to you by the government cost other people's money. Donald Trump gets it -- somewhat. He vows to repeal Obamacare's most burdensome federal mandates that are jacking up the price of private health insurance. But he also plans to preserve the most politically…

165 Last Chance to Get Rid of Obamacare

This election is a referendum on the Affordable Care Act. Almost everyone in America is affected, and it's harming millions more people than it's helping. Donald Trump is promising to "repeal and replace the disaster known as Obamacare." Hillary Clinton defends it and wants to "build on it." "Disaster" sums up the skyrocketing…

166 When Will Liberals Answer for Obamacare's Failures?

These days, there's been a lot of discussion about conservative media's culpability in creating unrealistic expectations and warped priorities among Republican voters. It's a reasonable critique. My question: When are we going to have this conversation about the other side — you know, the one that enabled the passage of a massive partisan…

167 Obama Lied. My Third Health Plan Just Died.

Once was a shock. Twice was an outrage. Thrice is a nightmare that won't end. Over the past three years, my family's private, individual health insurance plan — a high-deductible Preferred Provider Organization — has been canceled three times. Our first death notice, from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, arrived in the fall of…

168 The GOP Should Be Obamacare's Death Panel

When The New York Times tells you Obamacare is "ailing" and must change to survive, rest assured that the law is in serious trouble. Then again, people who read The New York Times might be under the impression the only way to fix a collapsing state-run program is to pass another, more intrusive state-run program — in this case…

169 Stop Penalizing Obamacare Victims

On Inauguration Day, the next president of the United States should suspend the penalty for being uninsured under the Affordable Care Act. President Obama promised his law would provide an array of affordable health plans. In 2017, consumers will get neither choice nor affordability. In nearly one-third of the nation, only one insurer will offer coverage…

170 Zika's Threat to a City Near You

Health officials are bowing to political correctness instead of taking obvious steps to protect residents in most of the United States from the Zika virus. For example, New York has more Zika cases — some 579 — than any other state. Officials warn pregnant women and their sexual partners not to travel to Zika-infested regions,…

171 Reminder: Obamacare Is Still A Disaster

So a giant, rent-seeking insurance company is accused of having threatened to leave Obamacare's health insurance "marketplace" if the government didn't approve its giant merger. If true, this would be the least surprising development in the past six years of Obamacare fiascos. Any giant regulatory scheme bringing together big business and…

172 How to Escape Obamacare

"You get what you pay for," the adage goes. Not with the Affordable Care Act. When open enrollment starts Nov. 1, the public will see they're going to be paying lots more for health insurance in 2017 and getting less. Across the country, state insurance departments are announcing double digit premium hikes, often as high as 20 percent and…

173 Clinton Destroys Medicare

Hillary Clinton is taking a sledgehammer to Medicare. In a move calculated to fire up the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton pledges to open Medicare to people 55 to 64, and make a "public option" insurance plan for all ages. The 65-and-overs are already having a hard time finding a doctor willing…

174 Sanctuary Hospitals: Who Pays the Bills?

Medical bills are pushing more Americans into severe financial distress, even if they have insurance. That's the grim news from a top medical journal. These bills force hundreds of thousands into bankruptcy each year. What's so galling is that while Americans struggle to pay their bills, freeloaders from other countries get the same care at no cost…

175 Dems Destroy Medicare

Under the guise of "reform," President Obama is dismantling Medicare — dooming seniors to needless pain and disability and shortening their lives. The stakes are high, because Medicare and the access it allows to medical innovations have transformed aging. Before Medicare, older people languished in nursing homes or wheelchairs…

176 Zika's Nasty Facts

This week, mosquitoes capable of transmitting Zika start biting in Florida, the Gulf States, and Southern California. It's the "virus from hell," warns Peter Hotez, Dean of Baylor University's School of Tropical Medicine. He's urging women to delay getting pregnant. Hotez worries expectant mothers in these states are already being bitten,…

177 The 'War On Salt' Is Bad Policy Based on Bad Science

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, one of the few openly authoritarian organizations functioning in the United States, once sued the Food and Drug Administration for refusing to regulate Americans' salt intake. No worries. This week, the Obama administration finally embraced CSPI's junk science and allowed the FDA to set new "guidelines…

178 Germs Multiply While CDC Fiddles

Federal officials are predicting doom because a Pennsylvania woman became infected with a germ that can't be stopped by most antibiotics. "The medicine cabinet is empty for some patients," warned Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Thomas Frieden last week. You'd think the CDC was finally ready to get serious about drug-resistant…

179 Obama's Deadly Globalism

Federal officials are warning that mosquitoes carrying Zika virus will start biting and infecting U.S. residents in the next month. Key trouble spots are southern Florida, Louisiana, Texas and southern California, but the risk could extend north to New York and San Francisco. The virus inflicts horrific brain damage on unborn children as well as neurological…

180 Medicare Cuts Killing Seniors

President Obama's Medicare cuts are killing seniors. His health law changed Medicare, adding bonuses for hospitals that spend the least per senior. The result? Hundreds of hospitals are skimping on care to win bonuses. Seniors at these hospitals aren't getting the right antibiotic or other treatments they need. They're dying from pneumonia, heart attacks…

 
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Notable Quote   
 
"The Biden administration recently issued yet another outlandish immigration action, but most Americans likely did not realize it. I'm talking about the Department of Homeland Security's decision to extend and 'redesignate' Temporary Protected Status for more than 700,000 illegal aliens from Venezuela that the Biden administration has already allowed into the U.S. For many Americans, this may sound…[more]
 
 
— Chad Wolf, Former Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and Executive Director of the Center for Homeland Security & Immigration at the America First Policy Institute
 
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