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Medicare red tape turned insurers into villains

The Blaze
1 week 3 days ago


Imagine your doctor diagnoses you with Alzheimer’s disease, evaluates your needs and risks, and recommends a tailored treatment plan to extend your healthy years. Who should have the final say over whether you pursue that care: you, your family, and your doctor — or an insurance company that has never met you?

For most Americans, the answer is obvious. Doctors and patients should make care decisions.

If policymakers want fewer insurance denials, they should stop creating incentives for them.

Yet in many cases, insurers end up with the final say.

New polling from Market Institute and President Trump’s pollster Fabrizio Ward found that 89% of registered voters believe doctors often choose not to prescribe Alzheimer’s tests or treatments because they know insurers are unlikely to cover them and patients cannot afford to pay out of pocket.

Voters are recognizing a real trend. Alzheimer’s patients have made headlines for benefiting from new treatments, only to receive abrupt coverage denials from their insurance companies.

Treatment allowed one patient, Lori Baetz, to return to her daily routine. When coverage was pulled back, she deteriorated, even getting lost in her own neighborhood. Lori’s neurologist, Dr. Cara Leahy, wrote that her patients are repeatedly denied coverage. Similar denials are happening across the country, including in New Jersey and North Carolina, and across insurers.

Thousands of Americans find these delays and denials unjust. In fact, a shocking 41% of young Americans said the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was “acceptable.” One voter from a Market Institute focus group said of insurance companies, “They just want to wear you down ... so you just give up.”

Americans’ frustration is understandable. But insurance companies are often following rules set by the federal government.

The real culprits are the behind-the-scenes government policies that encourage insurers to delay and deny coverage.

The clearest example is a Biden-era Medicare policy known as Coverage with Evidence Development.

After the Food and Drug Administration approved a new generation of Alzheimer’s therapies, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services took the unprecedented step of limiting Medicare coverage unless patients participated in government-approved studies and met additional requirements.

RELATED: Trump DOJ charges 455 people allegedly tied to $6.5B in health care fraud

Feodora Chiosea/iStock/Getty Images

That created a second layer of red tape after the FDA had already deemed the therapies safe and effective.

The decision sent a powerful signal throughout the health care system. When Medicare, the nation’s largest health care payer, treats FDA approval as insufficient, private insurers follow.

When Lori’s coverage was denied despite her positive response to treatment, the company described the therapy as “investigational/experimental,” even though the FDA had approved it. The company was following Medicare’s lead. When Medicare treats approved therapies as experimental by requiring additional paperwork and registration, insurers can cite the government’s own policy when denying coverage.

That bad policy worsens the financial and human cost of Alzheimer’s disease.

The lifetime cost of caring for a person with Alzheimer’s exceeds $400,000, with families shouldering roughly 70% of that burden through unpaid caregiving and out-of-pocket expenses.

Meanwhile, Medicare spends roughly $174 billion annually on Alzheimer’s patients, while Medicaid spends another $72 billion, much of it on long-term care. As Alzheimer’s cases double over the next few decades, those costs will continue to climb.

The good news is that treatment could help curb those mounting costs by keeping Americans independent and in the workforce longer.

According to USC Schaeffer research, providing treatment before symptoms fully emerge could add a full year of life, reduce nursing home stays by nearly two years, and lower medical spending by roughly $48,000 per patient. That means more Americans remaining independent, fewer families crushed by caregiving burdens, and more workers preserving their economic productivity.

Every patient who remains independent, stays out of a nursing home, or delays the need for full-time care represents both a human victory and an economic one.

If policymakers want fewer insurance denials, they should stop creating incentives for them.

The FDA is charged with determining whether a therapy is safe and effective. Once it does, CMS should not erect a second regulatory barrier that encourages insurers to do the same.

Until that changes, Americans will continue blaming insurance companies for behavior government policy encourages.

Charles Sauer

Maher: 'My Vote Is in Play' if Dems Go to DSA Direction of Antisemitism, No Prisons, Anti-Capitalism

Breitbart
1 week 3 days ago

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher said that if the Democratic Party is moving towards the direction of Democratic Socialists and “this obsession with Israel, with the Jew-hating, with they don’t believe in capitalism, no prisons,

The post Maher: ‘My Vote Is in Play’ if Dems Go to DSA Direction of Antisemitism, No Prisons, Anti-Capitalism appeared first on Breitbart.

Ian Hanchett

Mamdani’s Unprecedented NYC Rent Freeze

Geller Reports
1 week 3 days ago

Communism in action.

While rents are frozen, taxes, insurance, maintenance, and operating costs keep soaring. Property owners will be forced to absorb staggering losses. The result? Construction stops, investment disappears, and New York's housing shortage gets even worse. Housing costs won't fall—they'll explode. And property owners won't be able to maintain their buildings which Mamdani will then use as the excuse to seize private property.

Geller Report Staff

Etsy cracks down on spell-casting after a decade of turning a blind eye

The Blaze
1 week 3 days ago


Despite banning metaphysical services (like spell-casting, hexes, clairvoyant readings, prayers or rituals promising outcomes, etc.) in 2015, Etsy has largely looked the other way as "Etsy witches" built lucrative businesses around custom spell work.

In September 2025, a Jezebel article satirically detailing how its writers hired Etsy witches to curse conservative activist Charlie Kirk drew intense backlash after he was assassinated just two days later.

However, now the online marketplace for handmade, vintage, and unique goods has suddenly started strictly enforcing the policy, leading to shop removals and listing takedowns.

BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey was encouraged by the news because witchcraft is a very real danger, she says.

“Christians know that demonic activity is real and that witchcraft is real because Satan is real, and he works through these means that might just seem silly and superstitious but actually are vectors and vessels of his workings and of his power,” Allie explains.

The good news, she says, is “witchcraft doesn't have any dominion over the Christian” because Christians are “indwelt by the Holy Spirit.”

“However, because of its evil and because of the effect that it has on culture, the effect that it has on societies, we really have to care,” she argues. “When it's becoming popularized, when it's becoming normalized, when it's becoming commercialized, when billions and billions of dollars are being made by people casting spells on others through a seemingly innocuous site like Etsy, we've got a problem.”

Part of the problem is the inevitable fraud that results from selling intangible goods.

“When you're selling intangible things and you're kind of commercializing these spiritual, abstract practices, it's obviously rife with the potential for fraud and all different kinds of things and can also be very damaging if people don't feel like they got their money's worth,” says Allie.

But the even bigger issue is the darkness millions of people are being lured into.

Allie lists some of the spells that have been sold on Etsy, including wealth-enhancing spells, love spells promising to make an “avoidant” crush become “obsessed” with the spell buyer, and hexes that supposedly cast curses on one’s enemies.

“It actually is very sad when you think about the desperation that someone has to have and just the longing, the unrequited love that someone has to feel, the purposelessness, the lostness that someone is embroiled in to believe this kind of advertisement and then to pay money for it,” she sighs.

On top of that, these spells — regardless of whether they’re real witchcraft or just scams — lead people away from the truth.

Allie calls the lost souls looking to witchcraft to solve their problems “just another manifestation of exchanging the God of Scripture for the God of self.”

While many of the Etsy spells are undoubtedly hoaxes, Allie believes that some are probably legitimate.

“I actually don't put it past Satan to use this means to get people to have faith in things like witchcraft, even if it gives you something that you want temporarily, as long as he can win the long-term war for your soul,” she warns.

Sadly, the evil of witchcraft is almost certainly not what motivated Etsy to suddenly start enforcing the company's decade-old policy.

“I don't think that the people at Etsy, who are very anti-pro-life and who are very pro-trans and pro-abortion, I don't think they have moral qualms with witchcraft,” says Allie.

“I think they don't want to be on the hook for the potential of fraud. They don't want to deal with the customer service issues of people not getting the outcome that they want. They don't want to deal with another negative PR campaign [like the Charlie Kirk scandal] ... so they're like, ‘It's just not worth it.”’

To hear more, watch the episode above.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

BlazeTV Staff

COLLISION COURSE: How I learned the most important rule of senior softball

The Blaze
1 week 3 days ago


I ran into a guy during senior softball last night. I was running to third base, and I came in a little too fast. He was reaching to catch the ball, and I knocked into him.

Nothing happened. Nobody was hurt. But I felt bad about it. I apologized. It was poor etiquette.

The next thing I knew, the whole world did a wild 360-degree spin, and I found myself sans glasses, on my backside in the grass.

That’s the thing about senior softball. The players are seniors. You’re a senior. Everyone is a little bit ... vulnerable. You’re not supposed to knock into people.

One of the things senior softball players try hardest to do IS NOT GET HURT.

So running into someone. That’s not cool.

A winter’s tale

Last winter, during a practice game, I was involved in another minor collision. I may or may not have caused that one too.

I was playing first base. A guy on the other team hit a grounder. Our third baseman scooped it up and threw it to me. But the throw was a little to my left, and in my attempt to catch it, I leaned into the base path and the batter ran into me.

I ended up on the ground. I don’t remember what happened to the other guy. Maybe he fell too. Neither of us was hurt.

Still, in senior softball, if anyone ends up on the ground, people become concerned. The game stops. Players in the dugout stop discussing their holiday plans and look up. Players on the field come over to check on the downed player(s).

Even after it is confirmed that no one is injured, people will linger and discuss what happened. What caused the collision? What were the relevant vectors and angles? Who was going where? And how fast? Was anyone at fault?

A verdict is reached

Of course, senior softball players are quick to give each other the benefit of the doubt. Unless there is grievous evidence to the contrary, it is usually assumed that no one is at fault. It’s a dynamic game. Stuff happens.

Still, there was some debate in this case. Finally, an elder of the group, a grizzled veteran of the senior softball circuit, declared authoritatively: “It was an errant throw.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. I nodded too. It was indeed an “errant throw.”

But was I wrong to try to catch an errant throw? And end up in the base path colliding with the batter? I don’t know. But I resolved to be more careful next time.

The worst collision

The worst collision I have been involved in happened in my first game, during the first season that I played senior softball.

This was in a “rec” league, which is the entry level of senior softball. These are often the oldest men. The most stationary. The most in need of not being run into.

I was new to senior softball. I hadn’t played any form of organized baseball/softball since I was in fourth grade.

For that first game, I was sent to right field since I was an unknown quantity. Could I catch? Could I throw? Nobody knew. I didn’t even know.

RELATED: The secret to senior softball? It's all about the magic bat

Irfan Khan/Getty Images

The moment of truth

I stood in right field. Several innings went by. And then someone hit a high fly ball in my direction. It was going to land a fair distance in front of me, but if I ran, I thought I could catch it.

I really wanted to catch it. I wanted to prove myself to my new team. I also wanted to find out if I was any good at softball. I really had no idea.

But I believed I could catch that ball. So I ran forward while keeping my eyes glued to that big yellow softball in the sky.

And then BLAM. The next thing I knew, the whole world did a wild 360-degree spin, and I found myself sans glasses, on my backside in the grass.

Don’t run into the seniors!

I had run into the second baseman. And I had done so at FULL SPEED. I was running AS FAST AS I COULD. And I ran right into one of my teammates.

Thank God he was 6' and 200 pounds and I am 5'8'' and 160 pounds.

I sat up and checked myself. Was I hurt? I didn’t seem to be. I looked around in the grass for my glasses.

But then I saw the second baseman. He was down. And not getting up. I put my glasses on and hurried over to him with the other guys.

Oh God! I thought to myself. What if he’s hurt!

The other players were already gathered around. They lifted him up to a sitting position. He was holding his side. Our coach asked what happened. I said it was my fault. I didn’t call it.

They got him standing up. And it turned out he was OK. It was probably just the shock of the impact. For both of us. For me it was like a car crash you didn’t see coming. A violent out-of-body spinning sensation. And then everything stops, and for a moment you don’t know which way is up.

I remember driving home after that game, wondering if my new teammates would ever trust me again. Before that game, I had not really thought about getting injured or injuring others as a possibility.

Now, I realized I had literally done the worst thing you can do in senior softball.

Rebuilding trust

At first, my teammates didn’t trust me. Nobody said anything. But it was pretty obvious that I was on an unspoken probation.

But from that moment on, I locked onto the idea to never run into anyone, in any situation, for any reason.

Also, I became the “call it” guy.

Everyone always says you have to “call it,” but more often than not, nobody does, because people aren’t sure if they do “have it” because we’re just a bunch of old guys playing softball.

But boy, for the rest of that season, when it was clear that I was the closest person to the ball, I CALLED IT. I BELTED IT OUT. I SCREAMED IT AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS. The players in the other games, on the other softball diamonds, could hear me.

And then most of the time, I did catch it. Without running into anyone. And by the end of the season, I was back in everyone’s good graces.

Still though, I just ran into a guy last night. And this is my fourth season! That is not good.

So I have to be on guard. That’s why I’m writing this now. To remind myself, in public, in print. What is the most important rule in softball? DON’T RUN INTO THE SENIORS!

Blake Nelson