Connecting today’s news with the research & opinion you need.

It's Back

What to Know: Former Vice President Joe Biden, now a presidential frontrunner, says he wants to revive the individual mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act.

“’Yes, I’d bring back the individual mandate,’ Biden said in an interview on CNN. The individual mandate would be popular now, ‘compared to what’s being offered,’ he added,” CNBC reports. “Biden played an integral part in crafting the ACA, commonly known as Obamacare. However, President Donald Trump eliminated the individual mandate in 2017 by signing the Republican tax bill, effective the 2019 tax year.”

The TPPF Take: TPPF continues to challenge the individual mandate—and thus the entire ACA—in court because some important questions have been left unanswered.

“A lack of punishment does not excuse someone from his or her legal duties, and ‘lawfully’ disobeying the law is an oxymoron,” points out TPPF’s Aaron Barnes. “Striking down the individual mandate would also put to rest whether Chief Justice John Roberts’ discussion of the limits of the Commerce Clause in NFIB v. Sebelius was a precedential holding or mere dicta to be ignored—and we believe it is precedent.”

But This Works

What to Know: A model for medicine that is pretty much the polar opposite of Medicare-for-All will be the topic of a new television show, starring a Texas physician.

“Dallas’ own Dr. James Pinckney is soon to be the medical host on a ten-episode show called Chasing the Cure with Ann Curry on TNT and TBS. Pinckney is a family medicine and founder of direct primary care practice Diamond Physicians, with four locations in North Texas,” D Magazine reports. “… Pinckney was featured in a 2017 Dallas Morning News story about the direct primary care model, or as he calls it, membership medicine. The piece raised his profile, and he is now invited to speak all over the country and on television, and was recently invited to the White House to spread the news of direct primary care and the misplaced incentives in the healthcare industry.”

The TPPF Take: Direct primary care returns the practice of medicine to what it should be.

“Further government intrusion into the health care system is not what Americans need,” says TPPF’s David Balat. “A far better solution is to rebuild the relationship between doctors and patients, as direct primary care physicians are doing with this innovative new model. We need to close the gap between doctors and patients, not widen it.”

Doom Approaches! 

What to Know: Advocates for drastic climate policies are ramping up the rhetoric.

“Do you remember the good old days when we had 12 years to save the planet?” the BBC asks. “Now it seems, there's a growing consensus that the next 18 months will be critical in dealing with the global heating crisis, among other environmental challenges. Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that to keep the rise in global temperatures below 1.5C this century, emissions of carbon dioxide would have to be cut by 45% by 2030. But today, observers recognize that the decisive, political steps to enable the cuts in carbon to take place will have to happen before the end of next year.”

The TPPF Take: It’s your own fault the date keeps changing; you’re aren’t sufficiently scared.

“Since simple math invalidates the apocalyptic climate change narrative, alarmists have no other choice than to resort to fear tactics and move up the countdown clock,” said TPPF’s Jason Isaac. “Despite the hysterical headlines, the data is clear that mild warming — which even totally eliminating fossil fuels would barely affect—doesn’t justify strangling our economy and quality of life.”