1) Obamacare Is Now Costing Taxpayers $218 Billion a Year for Mostly Free Health Care
HOTLINE readers won’t be too shocked by this revelation, but everything we were told and sold about Obamacare turned out to be a big lie.
Here's a striking chart from Paragon Health Institute on the occasion of Obamacare's 14th anniversary.
It shows that the Biden-era increase in Obamacare enrollment has made the health plans essentially free for more than half of the recipients. Under the Biden expansions of the program, taxpayers pay 100% of premiums for lower-income Americans.
Paragon explains:
As is increasingly clear, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is more a welfare program that transfers income than a health care program that benefits the middle class. According to CBO, federal subsidies—largely directly deposited into health insurers’ coffers —through the ACA totaled $218 billion in 2023...
In 2019, roughly 35 percent of people who selected a plan during open enrollment had income below 150 percent of the FPL. In 2024, this population accounted for 53 percent of enrollment.
Prior to ARPA, many people below 150 percent of FPL were unwilling to pay the $25 or less per month required to enroll in an ACA plan—a strong sign that they just don’t place much value on the coverage and that the main beneficiaries of the enhanced subsidies are health insurers.
The big insurance companies are making a fortune off these taxpayer subsidies, which now cost taxpayers over $20,000 per enrollee per year.
This is what the media and other Democrats are celebrating?
Our readers ask us a lot about Bitcoin. We’re not especially knowledgeable about crypto currencies and few of us are major investors in them.
But what is undeniably true is that Bitcoin has been one of the biggest upside movers in the market over the past year. Its price has more than doubled (up sone 130%) from around 30,000 last March to around 70,000 now. Since Biden was elected, Bitcoin’s value has more than tripled.
In the last two years, Bitcoin has outperformed major stock indices – including the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones.
Why? Because of jittery investor confidence in the dollar. Like gold, Bitcoin is a hedge against inflation. Both prices have been rising. If the dollar were stable in value and investors believed the Fed was committed to smothering inflation, Bitcoin would be a flat investment. It would lose its function as an alternative to the dollar as a store of value.
One thing seems obvious: the surge in Bitcoin’s price, at the same time gold and commodity prices are rising, is a pretty strong indication that inflation isn’t falling. It’s a mystery to us why the Fed should be cutting interest rates. The cutting necessary has to come from Washington by slashing spending. And that isn’t happening while Biden is still in the Oval Office. Bitcoin investors are the big winners.
3) Millions of Americans Are Fleeing Blue “Progressive” Cities and Moving as Far Away as They Can Get
According to the new Census Bureau metropolitan area population estimates reveal two substantial changes:
Major metropolitan areas (over 1,000,000 population) lost 2 million net domestic migrants to other parts of the nation in just three years (2021-2023). This contrasts sharply with the early 2010s (2011-2013) when major metros gained 352,000 net domestic migrants and the balance of the nation lost 352,000.
All of the 10 largest metropolitan areas but one lost net domestic migrants from their urban core counties (even fast-growing Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and Atlanta). Phoenix was the exception, gaining net domestic migrants. The three largest net domestic migration suburban county gains were in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, and Philadelphia.
The left has transformed our once-great cities into high taxes, anti-business, lousy public services, and soft-on-crime zones. Liberals blame this on racism – except now even the minorities are stampeding out.
Now Biden wants to do for all America what the Dems have done to our cities.
4) California Relearns an Iron Law of Economics: Higher Minimum Wage = More Unemployment
Speaking of ways that progressives destroy everything they touch, this headline from USA Today says it all:
How many times does this lesson have to be repeated before liberals catch on? More than 70 percent of Californians eat fast food each week. Starting next Monday, they’ll be paying significantly more as the state’s minimum wage for its 700,000 fast-food workers jumps by a quarter to $20 an hour.
Restaurants are already paring their payrolls of workers. Two big Pizza Hut franchisees have laid off all their in-house delivery workers. El Pollo Loco is automating salsa making. Jack in the Box is wheeling out robots and automated drink dispensers to save on labor.
Fast food was invented in California. The first McDonald’s opened there, followed by other homegrown chains like Carl’s Jr., Taco Bell, In-N-Out Burger, and Jack in the Box.
It’s not just starter jobs that will be lost. Food will cost even more. With this inflated minimum wage the “dollar menu” is going to turn into the $10 menu.
Media bias isn’t just how stories are slanted but what stories don’t get covered at all. Word is finally seeping out that a March 15 hailstorm crippled a 3,000-acre solar panel farm outside of Houston. This is a vivid reminder of just how fragile green energy platforms like wind and solar can be.
The storm shattered hundreds of panels and has led nearby residents to worry that toxic chemicals may be leaking out of them and endangering local water tables.
This is a useful reminder that Green energy isn’t just incredibly expensive, it’s the most unreliable source of energy. The green lobby wants the entire country to be 100% reliant on wind and solar power. This raises the age-old question: are they sinister or just stupid?
