How Trump reclaims the narrative, a Medicaid fix worth $$$ and other commentary

“The past month has seen the Trump team on the back foot,” but if Trump can “use the 100-day mark” of his presidency “to double-down on Trump 1.0,” he can turn the narrative around, urges The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley A.Strassel.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Signal scandal “gave a circling press corps the opening it had been salivating for,” and Trump decided to turn tariffs “into a real, live bomb and the center of his economic policy.” “Trump’s first-term success came largely down to his Reaganesque agenda,” but in recent years, he’s drawn closer “to his party’s new breed of uber-populists and neoisolationists.” “To get back to a winning message,” Trump should revive “the free-market agenda of his own first term.”“A glitch in state insurance law” has allowed doctors to collect Medicaid fees hundreds of times higher than normal, fumes the Empire Center’s Bill Hammond.Gov.

Hochul has wanted “to close this loophole,” but the Legislature has resisted her fix.Under a 2015 law, “out-of-network emergency providers can no longer bill the patient for amounts left unpaid by insurance.

Instead, providers can seek higher reimbursement from the health plan.” The result? “A powerful incentive” for “emergency room doctors and orthopedic surgeons” to “refuse to join Medicaid managed care provider networks.” If lawmakers want to shield Medicaid recipients from federal cuts, closing this “needlessly expensive” loophole is a “relatively painless step to take.”Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is “going to run for president, and she will be a top-tier candidate on the Democrat side, which says a great deal more about the expected 2028 field than it does about AOC,” snarks The American Spectator’s Scott McKay.She’s “the only potential Democrat candidate for 2028 who can sell out a decent-sized basketball/concert arena.” She’s also Bernie Sanders’ candidate: “He’s bringing her aroun...