Open Enrollment Season is upon us. It’s that time of year where employees, self-employed, businesses, and local governments start crunching numbers to see how much health insurance will cost next year—and, surprise of surprises, the answer is almost always “a lot more.” Worse yet, the Federal Budget impasse and Government shutdown over ACA healthcare subsidies...
“You can’t come in for your steroid injections without scheduling an extra appointment because your insurance isn’t paying us enough.” That’s what I was told at my most recent visit to an orthopedic surgeon I’ve seen for years. I expected relief from my pain, not a surprise medical bill—or as I learned later, “cost-shifting.” My...
Part 2: Projecting Winter Outage Risk Through 2030 As Texas approaches the five-year anniversary of Winter Storm Uri, the ERCOT grid faces growing vulnerability to winter power outages. This analysis projects that by 2030, the same type of storm that would cause approximately 12 hours of outages today could result in nearly 24 hours of...