1) Yes Mr. Speaker, This Is How To Fix Health Care

According to Punchbowl News, this slide of potential health care bill fixes was shown on Wednesday to members of the House Republican Conference by Speaker Mike Johnson:

This includes nearly everything on our checklist, scoring at least a 4 out of 5. (We don't see cash pay parity here, but it would fit well and might be included.)

This may be one of the last opportunities to inject free market reforms into our archaic and needlessly expensive $5 trillion health care system.

We pray they don't cave in.

2) And This Is How to NOT Fix Health Care

It's clear that the Left is moving us day by day toward an entirely government-run health care system, like Canada's.

So here's the latest on their "free" health care system.

The Fraser Institute just published "Waiting Your Turn," an annual survey of physicians across Canada on wait times for common medical services. The MEDIAN wait time for elective treatment, from doctor referral to specialist care, is 29 weeks or more than SIX months!

After seeing a specialist, Canadian patients waited 4.5 weeks longer than what physicians consider to be clinically reasonable (8.8 weeks).

Patients also endure long waits for diagnostic technology: 8.8 weeks for CT scans, 18.1 weeks for MRI scans, and 5.4 weeks for Ultrasound.

When we heard this story it reminded us of the memorable waiting room scene in the movie Beetlejuice:

There's your wonderful free health care folks! Get in line.

3) A Democrat For School Choice?

Jared Polis of Colorado is our favorite Democratic Governor. (OK, we know that's a low bar.)

We at UP are thrilled that Polis has become the second Democrat to sign up for the new federal tax-credit private school scholarship program. The first, Josh Stein of North Carolina, only did it under pressure from the Republican-controlled state legislature. Polis was under no such duress.

The scholarships were created last July when the Big Beautiful Bill passed by Congress. The Senate Parliamentarian ruled that funding private school scholarships in all 50 states was against reconciliation rules, but making them available only where governors opt in is fine.

All 26 Republican governors are expected to sign their states up for the program, but union interests are furiously lobbying Democratic governors to just say no. It might be the first time they have ever turned down free federal dollars.

Starting in the 2027 tax year, every taxpayer will be able to get a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit of up to $1,700 a year for donating to scholarship granting organizations. But the scholarships will only be made available to students in states where the governor gives the green light.

Polis told the Colorado Sun that it was a no-brainer for the state to join the program: "It supports donors to give more money to our schools. I mean, I would be crazy not to."

Meanwhile, Great Education Colorado, the leading opponent of school choice, opposes scholarships and calls them "a distraction from what really matters" -- fully funding public schools, making sure that funding is dispersed equitably and ensuring teachers earn good wages.  Notice that graduating competent students prepared for the future isn't listed.  

4) Michigan May Double the State Income Tax - For the Children

Here we go again. We've noted that several blue states like California, Colorado and New York are debating income tax increases and now Michigan is getting into the "soak the rich" debate.

The lefty group "Invest in MI Kids" is pushing a ballot measure that would raise Michigan's top tax rate from 4.25% to 9.25%. This would make Michigan the 7th highest tax rate in the country.

Our friend Jordan Bruneau at Great Lakes Policy Institute has found that Michigan schools are already flush with cash with the K-12 school budget rising from $12.7 billion to $21.3 billion between 2011-12 and 2025-26 - a 68% increase. The result? Test scores plummeted:

And enrollment is dropping:

If Michigan wants to "invest in kids," the very first thing Governor Gretchen Whitmer should do is follow Jared Polis's lead and allow federal tax credit scholarships to flow in her state.  

Every state over the past fifty years that has raised income taxes to fund schools has lost ground on educational achievement and has lost income to other states.  

Are "progressives" immune to reality?  

5) It Was Government NOT Banks Behind the Debanking Scandal

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released a preliminary report this week on debanking activities by the nation's largest financial institutions. Yes, there was some debanking by banks during the height of the "woke" craze under Biden. But as we've covered in the HOTLINE, the main villain here is the federal government itself, not the banks.

Yet the OCC - one of the chief offenders itself - takes aim at financial institutions and ignores the role of regulators in pressuring account closures and targeting out-of-favor industries.  It is well-documented that the Obama and Biden administrations used Operation Chokepoint and its sequel to coerce banks into cutting off businesses like gun manufacturers, crypto companies, payday lenders, and energy producers.

President Trump's recent executive order on fair banking access got it right, addressing years of regulatory overreach and government interference in financial institutions' decisions:

"Bank regulators have used supervisory scrutiny and other influence over regulated banks to direct or otherwise encourage politicized or unlawful debanking activities."

A recent House Financial Services Committee report gives a much more realistic picture of how the Biden administration weaponized the 5,000(!) bank examiners to blacklist politically out-of-favor industries and depositors.

Now what will Congress do about it? A simple first step would be to embrace ideas like Senator Tim Scott's Firm Act, to prohibit regulators from using the much abused "reputational risk" concept.

6) Tipping Is Really Getting Out of Control

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