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Accountability in Care

What to Know: According to one expert, “COVID has highlighted a key problem with our health-care system: Americans are afraid to seek health care because they don’t know what it will cost.”

The TPPF Take: Requiring hospitals and insurers to disclose rates and prices can reduce inflated health care costs and benefit all Americans.

“Health care consumers do not know what they’ll pay until after treatment occurs,” says TPPF’s David Balat. “As a result, providers can charge far more than if patients had pricing information to inform their treatment decisions before receiving care.”

Real Solutions to Skyrocketing Taxes

What to Know: The Dallas Morning News’ Editorial Board blasted Texas’ property tax system recently, saying: “There is something wrong with a system that creates a tax bill so high that folks are forced to consider whether they can afford to stay in their homes.” The Board urged state lawmakers and local officials to find “real solutions.”

The TPPF Take: It’s true—real solutions are urgently needed. Far too many Texans have been taxed out of their homes or are close to it.

“Struggling taxpayers need state and local officials to step up,” says TPPF’s James Quintero. “For their part, local officials can adopt the no-new-revenue tax rate or something lower, stop going into debt, and cut spending so as to pass along any savings to taxpayers. Separately, state lawmakers should fundamentally change the way we tax in Texas. The status quo is broken and big changes are needed to really solve the problem.”

Union City Blue

What to Know: The Texas Attorney General will soon issue an opinion defining public sector employee rights under the U.S. Supreme Court’s Janus decision, which says they can’t be forced to pay union dues (particularly when those dues are used to advance political views they disagree with).

The TPPF Take: The Janus decision restores free speech rights for public sector workers.

“The Janus decision is about free speech and the First Amendment,” says TPPF’s Chuck DeVore. “No American should be forced by their government to participate in speech opposed to their beliefs. The U.S. Supreme Court decision protects government workers' free speech rights.”