University of Chicago decides to stop raising LGBTQ+ flag for Pride Month — and activists are OUTRAGED



The University of Chicago announced that it would no longer be flying the LGBTQ+ Pride flag for Pride Month at the UC Laboratory Schools after three years.

Activists expressed their outrage over the decision in favor of institutional neutrality. The LGBTQ+ flag had been raised at the flagpole in Blaine Courtyard for Pride Month every year since 2022.

'You see the display of even basic symbols expressing the dignity of our students would be an unacceptable political stance and violation of neutrality.'

Interim Director Ethan Bueno de Mesquita announced the decision in an email Monday that made clear it only applied to the flagpole.

"To be clear, the full membership of LGBTQ+ people in the Lab community is not a contested issue. It is a core value," he wrote.

The UC Laboratory High School is a program for gifted high schoolers to experience the University of Chicago.

Bueno de Mesquita said the flag would violate the school's new policy on viewpoint-neutral teaching.

"I think the university saying that an observer who sees something flying from a flagpole and understands that to be a statement of the institution is a reasonable interpretation of how flagpoles operate, and so that doesn't strike me as an unreasonable rule," he said to U-High Midway, the student newspaper for the UC Lab.

The decision drew sharp criticism from the university’s American Association of University Professors.

"You see the display of even basic symbols expressing the dignity of our students would be an unacceptable political stance and violation of neutrality," the chapter account wrote in a sarcastic tone.

"The KKK is alive and well at UChicago," another response reads.

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However, the College Fix news site noted that a student life office run by the school's Center for Identity + Inclusion continued to offer support for "LGBTQ students, questioning students, and allies in the college and graduate and professional schools."

New laws and regulations against the LGBTQ+ agenda have reportedly led to an exodus of gender-confused people fleeing to Seattle, Washington, to seek gender refuge. Activists have called on the mayor to declare a civil emergency to provide support for community aid organizations.

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For once, Medicare is trying something that actually saves money



Medicare is the second-largest program in the federal budget, topping $1 trillion last year. In 2023, it accounted for 14% of federal spending — a share projected to reach 18% by 2032. After years of ballooning costs, something is finally being done to slow the growth. A new Medicare pilot program, the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction model, borrows a successful private-sector tool: prior authorization. And that’s good news.

Medicare Part B premiums now sit at $185 per month — up 28% from five years ago and a staggering 76% since 2015. Last year, 12% of the 61 million Americans enrolled in Part B spent more than a tenth of their annual income on premiums. That burden is unsustainable.

In a system as expensive and fragmented as ours, no one can afford to keep writing blank checks for low-value care.

WISeR, set to launch in Ohio, Texas, Washington, New Jersey, Arizona, and Oklahoma, will require prior approval for a short list of “low-value” services — procedures that research shows are frequently overused, costly, and sometimes harmful.

To some, the idea of Medicare reviewing certain treatments before covering them may sound like red tape. But when done correctly, prior authorization is not a barrier. It is a guardrail — one that protects patients, improves quality, and helps ensure that both tax dollars and premiums are spent appropriately.

The goal of WISeR is simple: Cut unnecessary treatments and shift resources toward more effective, evidence-based care. Critics warn about the possibility of delays or extra paperwork, and those concerns are worth monitoring. But they don’t negate prior authorization’s potential to make U.S. health care safer, more efficient, and more financially stable.

Prior authorization directly targets some of the most persistent problems in health care. Medicare spends billions each year on low-value services. A 2023 study identified just 47 such services that together cost Medicare more than $4 billion annually. Those are taxpayer dollars that could be put to better use.

The private insurance market shows the same pattern: unnecessary imaging, avoidable specialist referrals, and brand-name drugs chosen over generics all contribute to rising premiums. Prior authorization, when used properly, reins in this waste by ensuring coverage lines up with medical necessity and evidence-based best practices. Research from the University of Chicago shows that Medicare’s prior authorization rules for prescription drugs generate net savings even after administrative costs.

Consider one striking example. Medicare Part B covers wound-care products known as skin substitutes. But an Office of Inspector General report found that expenditures on these products skyrocketed over the past two years to more than $10 billion annually. Meanwhile, Medicare Advantage plans — which rely heavily on prior authorization — spent only a fraction of that amount for the same treatments.

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More importantly, prior authorization helps promote evidence-based medicine. It curbs outdated clinical habits and reduces financial incentives to overtreat. Health plans consistently say that prior authorization aligns care with gold-standard clinical guidelines, particularly in areas prone to misuse.

Of course, the system must be designed responsibly. A well-functioning PA process should be transparent, fast, and grounded in strong clinical evidence. Decisions should be made in close coordination with the patient’s treating provider. The appeals process must be straightforward. And both public and private payers should be held accountable for improper denials or harmful delays.

When structured this way, prior authorization is far more efficient than the current “pay-and-chase” model, where Medicare pays first and tries to recover improper payments later.

Prior authorization already works in the private sector. It can work in Medicare.

Public and private payers have an obligation to steward the dollars they spend — whether those dollars come from taxpayers or premium-payers. In a system as expensive and fragmented as ours, no one can afford to keep writing blank checks for low-value care. When implemented wisely, prior authorization keeps coverage aligned with medical necessity, elevates the value of care, and helps deliver better outcomes at a sustainable cost.

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Pharmacy middlemen didn’t break health care — the feds did



Let’s stop pretending the government can fix the health care system it wrecked — by wrecking it even more.

For years, Americans have endured rising health care costs, shrinking access, and mounting frustration. Now, senators from both parties, the Federal Trade Commission, and several states want to blame pharmacy benefit managers. Before they do, it’s worth asking: Who actually caused this mess?

It wasn’t PBMs. It was Washington, D.C.

I’ve spent decades studying health care and economic systems. Central planning always fails. Yet here we go again — federal regulators scapegoating private players for a system government distorted over generations.

PBMs aren’t flawless, but they’re not the villains. They emerged as one of the few market-based responses to a government-created crisis. They operate within a system twisted by 80 years of policy failures — starting with World War II wage controls that incentivized employer-sponsored insurance. That led to the third-party payer model, which removed patients from pricing decisions.

Layer on Medicare, Medicaid, and a blizzard of mandates, and the result is clear: Government made sure health care would never again resemble a functioning market.

If we’re serious about fixing health care, we must stop repeating the failed policies that broke it in the first place.

PBMs didn’t invent this system. They were born into it. Congress established Medicare Part D, which subsidized prescription drugs without fixing the underlying distortions. PBMs stepped in to negotiate with manufacturers, manage formularies, push generics, and introduce cost controls into an otherwise bloated and opaque drug market.

They’re not perfect. But they didn’t start the fire. Government did.

Here’s the kicker: PBMs work better than almost anything else in the health care system.

University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan recently published research for the National Bureau of Economic Research showing PBMs create $145 billion in net annual value. Even after accounting for their costs, PBMs lower drug prices, help patients stick to medications, reduce hospitalizations, and cut non-drug health costs by about $40 billion each year. They also drive pharmaceutical innovation — improving uptake of new treatments and adding another $13 billion annually in future drug development.

Now compare that to the government’s record. Medicaid and Medicare leak hundreds of billions through improper payments, bloated administration, and price manipulation. Mulligan doesn’t put a figure on the waste, but other studies estimate government health care inefficiencies cost more than $1 trillion every year.

Still, no one talks about that. Instead, the FTC is grandstanding, blaming PBMs for prices the government made uncontrollable in the first place.

Washington’s real problem? It keeps designing a health care system around bureaucrats instead of patients. PBMs aren’t the issue. Bureaucracy is. The solution isn’t more scapegoating — it’s restoring freedom and responsibility to the people who use and deliver care.

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That’s why we need unlimited health savings accounts, especially for low-income Americans on Medicaid. Don’t micromanage their health care. Give them agency. Pair it with work requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients — not to punish them, but to promote responsibility and reduce dependency, while still supporting those in genuine need.

The result: smarter decisions, stronger competition, lower costs, and fewer true middlemen — starting with the federal regulators and compliance officers who helped create this mess.

In a real market, PBMs will sink or swim based on value. If they deliver, they’ll thrive. If not, they’ll fail — and be replaced. That’s the beauty of market discipline. And right now, PBMs are one of the only players in health care remotely subject to it.

This assault on PBMs isn’t about health care. It’s about power. Regulators and politicians want a scapegoat for a system they helped break.

But facts still matter. PBMs reduce costs, improve access, and drive innovation. Government programs promise the same — and deliver the opposite.

If we’re serious about fixing health care, we must stop repeating the failed policies that broke it in the first place. Scrap the mandates, cut the bureaucracy, and shift power back to patients and providers. Real reform means transparency, personal responsibility, and the freedom to choose what’s best — not what Washington prescribes.

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