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Aesto Health Data Security Incident Affects Multiple Healthcare Provider Clients
A data breach at Aesto Health, a Birmingham, Alabama-based healthcare technology company, has affected several of its healthcare provider clients. Aesto A security incident at the Alabama healthcare technology company Aesto Health has affected at least 27 of its healthcare provider clients and exposed the protected health information of hundreds of thousands of patients.
Sights of the Game: Preseason Week 1 Gameday Entertainment vs. Cardinals
Get an exclusive look at the gameday entertainment from the Raiders' Preseason Week 1 matchup against the Arizona Cardinal at Allegiant Stadium.
Whole Hog Politics: Hyperventilation over Hong
[Watch Whole Hog Politics live: Hill Insider members can join us live today at 9 a.m. ET as Chris Stirewalt and host Bill Sammon break down this week’s political news …
The Friday Checkout: Can Kroger’s new e-commerce chief sort out its messy online business?
Nate Faust brings a founder’s energy and an outsider’s perspective to a digital business that has become overly complex.
Florida State University Launches Quantum Science and Technology Graduate Certificate
Florida State University launches a graduate certificate in quantum science and technology covering quantum computing and engineering.
Raiders’ Maxx Crosby trade update considered ideal for Cowboys
Good news for Dallas?
Magic Johnson on what it takes to build a billion-dollar business portfolio
"I've always gravitated to people who are smart or have been through something because I want to learn," Magic Johnson said.
Iowa Republican Zach Lahn confronts curiosity, and concerns, in outsider bid for governor
Zach Lahn, the Republican nominee for Iowa governor, says he's bringing a different message to Iowans.
Executives who left OpenAI in 2026
OpenAI continues to experience significant executive turnover in 2026, with key figures like Brad Lightcap and Fidji Simo stepping down.
Cloud storage is great until your vendor goes out of business
A St. Louis PBS station is suing a data center provider to rescue a 70-year archive.
Cardinals vs Raiders score updates, highlights from NFL preseason game
What's the Las Vegas Raiders vs Arizona Cardinals score? Follow our live score updates for latest news, highlights, analysis from NFL preseason game.
Raiders’ Latest Maxx Crosby Update Hints at Blockbuster Trade
The Las Vegas Raiders have gone through a rollercoaster offseason with superstar pass rusher Maxx Crosby. Even now, the final conclusion to the situation doesn’t seem to be in place.Crosby entered the NFL offseason as a clear-cut trade candidate. It didn’t take long for the Raiders to agree to a deal that sent him to […] The post Raiders’ Latest Maxx Crosby Update Hints at Blockbuster Trade appeared first on HEAVY.
Get the Facts: Douglas County’s Business Personal Property Tax Incentive for Flexential
Recent coverage of the Flexential data center planned in Parker has generated questions about Douglas County’s role in the project and the tax incentive considered by the Board of County…
I spent $100,000 testing my sock business idea
Allison Strumeyer says ordering 10,000 pairs of socks before launching doublesoul helped prove demand and gave her the confidence to build the company.
‘Spider-Man’ TV series star Kathy Garver shades new Spider-Men as ‘desolate and all alone’
‘Spider-Man’ TV series star Kathy Garver says new ‘Spider-Man’ franchises’ approach ‘takes away the warmth’ of Spider-Man as a character. Garver calls the modern characters ‘desolate and all alone.’
'GMA's Ginger Zee Opens Up About Surprise Health Struggle
The meteorologist took fans inside her treatment process.
PBS Station Sues to Regain Access to 70 Years of Archival TV History
A PBS station in St. Louis lost access to the data after its cloud storage provider apparently went out of business.
Mid-August New Jersey Political Update
Editor's Note: Here are some mid-August InsiderNJ thoughts about political doings in New Jersey. Does anyone care?
How to Watch: Arizona Cardinals at Las Vegas Raiders
Could we see a Carson Beck, Fernando Mendoza rematch?
Trip brings MBCON students, Chinese health providers together
Nursing student Lakeya Spicer-Lynch traveled a lot during her 23-year military career but a summer trip to China with her fellow nursing students was her first trip that wasn’t a […]
Jet-powered drones make up as much as two-thirds of some Russian attacks
Russia's jet-powered drones are more challenging to intercept than their predecessors powered by propellers.
New Executive Order Undermines Child Health
On August 10, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at making major changes to federal vaccine policy. Among several other actions, this order would make major revisions to the childhood vaccination schedule, direct care providers to administer monovalent vaccines as soon as they are available (starting with splitting up the MMR (measles, mumps, […]
Nvidia playing many roles in AI gold rush: tech guru
In this AI gold rush, Nvidia is selling picks, investing in mines, and bankrolling prospectors, business professor Rob Lalka says.
AI needs science’s search history
“Actually, that’s where the gold is,” said Alasdair Russell, my graduate school friend who leads a pre-clinical genome editing group at Cambridge. He was talking about the winding road of science that is omitted from published papers. “When you’re discussing how to do the experiment, and why this way is better than another way, and what does the data really mean? I know what it shows, but what does it mean?” At RAAIS 2026, he described how his group has begun logging the twisting path of discovery as it happens, recording the verbal and written exchanges that normally disappear. Ideas become nodes in a living graph: they branch when a meeting produces two plausible experiments, merge when separate lines of evidence converge, and go dark when someone quietly stops pursuing them. In his implementation, one agent scores novelty, while another tries to learn “how scientists think and how they navigate through a complex world of data,” so that high-potential nodes can trigger deeper investigation. As frontier AI labs deploy agents toward scientific discovery, giving AI authentic scientific taste remains a trillion-dollar dilemma. The bottleneck is that the record we have kept for centuries of science might be insufficient to get us there. The experiments that never make the paper Peter Medawar, 1960 Nobel laureate and “father of transplantation,” asked in 1963 whether the scientific paper was a fraud, and answered yes: the form of the paper misrepresents the thinking that produced it. Sixty years on, the diagnosis is unchanged. A paper presents a clean progression from hypothesis to result to conclusion. Lost along the way are the unconventional theories, the abandoned or unaffordable methods, and the underwhelming and inconclusive data. It reads like a browser history with every dead end deleted: the ten open tabs, the four rephrased queries, the wrong turn down a subforum. All scrubbed, leaving one clean path from question to answer as the canonical path. What has changed since then is that the discarded material is now worth something. No high-impact journal wants these artifacts, but raw trial and error is the most likely source of the training data required to develop scientific intuition, or what researchers call taste. Earlier attempts to capture the discards were motivated by scientific integrity. The Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine launched in 2002 to publish rigorous studies that disputed established models or exposed ineffective treatments. Its archive preserved negative conclusions after they had become papers, rather than the live alternatives and arguments that produced them. BioMed Central closed it in 2017, saying the mission had been served now that other journals publish null results. A less generous reading is that in fifteen years it published around 200 papers because almost nobody wants to read a negative result, let alone write one up when it will not count toward academic tenure. AI models are different. Even an uninteresting negative result can be useful, provided it is labeled. Earlier this year, Anthropic put a version of this to the test. The company pulled 129 decision points from real Claude Code sessions between January and March 2026, showed models the work up to a human detour, and asked what should happen next. Claude Mythos Preview beat the human choice 64% of the time, while Opus 4.5 managed 51%. The comparison was tilted toward the models because Anthropic deliberately chose moments where the human decision had room for improvement. On 127 further scenarios where the human action was already strong, the models improved on it only about 20% of the time. The study was possible because Anthropic’s researchers work inside a tool that logs by default. The reasoning, detours and outcome are produced in the same working environment. Biology has no equivalent. Its reasoning happens in hallways, at benches, in Slack threads and on whiteboards, while the outcome arrives weeks later somewhere else. The record has to emerge from the work itself. Ask scientists to reconstruct it afterwards and we’ll create another polished account. Subscribe A log is not a label Before any of this becomes training data, a negative result has to say what failed. The first paper published in the Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine examined 234 negative studies across five leading medical journals. Only 30% discussed statistical power, and half clearly defined a primary outcome. Tell a model an experiment failed, without telling it whether the assay was underpowered, a reagent had degraded, or the hypothesis was simply wrong, and it will learn noise with confidence. Decision histories have a second missing label too. When a lab considers five experiments and runs one, only the chosen branch returns an outcome. The other four are experimental counterfactuals. Researchers call this the selective labels problem: the data reveal results only for the actions someone chose to take. Such a record can teach a model to imitate a lab’s taste, but it cannot establish that the taste was good. It also smuggles local constraints into general lessons. A lab that never ran cryo-EM because it did not own a microscope teaches a model that cryo-EM is rarely the right call. Alasdair’s nodes preserve the candidate set, which is the necessary first step. To be useful, each decision record needs six fields: The evidence available at that moment, and nothing that arrived later. The candidates considered, including the ones dismissed in a sentence. For each candidate: the expected result, the confidence attached to it, and the cost in time and money. The route chosen, and the reason. What happened next. How the evidence changed the scientist’s view. These must be timestamped before the outcome, because hindsight turns uncertainty into inevitability. Disagreement also has to survive. Averaging three scientists into one clean rationale reproduces exactly the information loss we are trying to fix. But there is an obvious failure mode here. Once decisions are logged and scored, people log for the record post-facto. Anyone who has watched an electronic lab notebook fill up with retrospective tidying knows how quickly a research tool becomes a compliance exercise. A record that costs a scientist ten minutes of honest reflection per decision is worth far more than one that costs an hour of performance. A publication initiative called Registered Reports offers a useful starting point. Here, researchers submit their rationale, methods and analysis plan for peer review before the data exist, and the journal commits in principle to publish if they follow the approved plan. Nature has now expanded the format across every field it covers. This approach to paper writing timestamps intent before the outcome, but it freezes one plan. A useful search history must also preserve how the plan changed, which alternatives were rejected, when, and on what evidence. Subscribe Run the runner-up Autonomous labs show what happens when decisions and outcomes are connected in a loop. Liverpool’s mobile robotic chemist ran 688 experiments over eight days in a ten-variable formulation space. A batched Bayesian search used each result to choose the next experiments and found photocatalyst mixtures six times more active than the starting formulations. Every completed experiment changed what the system did next. The robot optimized within a goal and search space that humans had already chosen. It did not decide which scientific question mattered. So what this work demonstrates is narrower, but still useful: a search history pays off when the options return standardized outcomes quickly. Open-ended biology is harder because branches can take weeks and the discarded alternatives may never be run. Some exploration therefore has to be bought. Where two branches are plausible and the stakes justify the cost, a lab should sometimes run the runner-up. Otherwise the record captures what today’s scientists usually chose and stays silent on what they systematically overlooked. A funder could ring-fence a small fraction of a grant for the branch not taken, provided that the decision record and the outcome are both deposited. That costs money, but so does having every lab rediscover the same abandoned path. Test whether taste transfers When it comes time to evaluate if our new AI system exhibits taste, the comparison should run across laboratories and fields. At selected decision points in a live research campaign, we should freeze the six fields: the evidence, the candidates, expected results, confidence, costs and the choice made. Experts then rank the options before the outcomes are known, and those outcomes are checked independently later. We could give models one of two diets - papers alone, or papers plus decision histories - and ask them to rank the next experiment on unfamiliar projects. Then, we score information gained per dollar and week, calibration, and how quickly weak branches are abandoned. If histories improve choices only inside the lab that produced them, they amount to useful organizational memory. If they improve choices on unfamiliar problems elsewhere, Alasdair’s group will have captured something science has never managed to write down: a transferable record of taste. Until that happens, a scientific search history is a promising record, not yet a training set.
Scientists travel to Fermilab to discuss future of high-energy physics
Fermilab recently hosted over 500 physicists for the American Physical Society’s biennial Division of Particles and Fields meeting. With presentations by Fermilab Director Norbert Holtkamp and CERN Director-General Mark Thomson, the meeting provided particle physicists the opportunity to come together and consider the future of high-energy physics research.
Apple in talks to pay publishers to provide Siri with current news: report
The tech giant has considered a nine-figure budget for the payments, according to the WSJ.
Should ‘The Downfall Of ARC Raiders’ Be Studied?
'ARC Raiders' has seen a significant player drop in less than a year. Is this nothing to worry about, or a huge problem?
Darksiders 4, Next Kingdom Come Game Both Planned to Launch Before March 2028
Plenty of time to catch up
Flock tightens safeguards on surveillance cameras after backlash
On Thursday, CEO Garrett Langley outlined new safety and privacy changes for the surveillance camera network "that came from listening."
Dodgers Considering New Pitching Role for Ohtani’s Return
Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts hints at utilizing Shohei Ohtani’s elite arm in high-leverage, multi-inning bursts to maximize impact.
High-flying entertainment: Airway X Motocross wraps up Cyber Optics races starting this weekend
Airway X Motocross begins its final two Cyber Optics night races of the season this weekend, with the finale set for Aug. 28-29 and a $10,000 purse for professional riders. The night series features racing for riders of all ages and skill levels.
New York State Department of Financial Services Introduces Guidance and Proposed Regulation to Strengthen New York’s Surprise Medical Bill Resolution Process
New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) Acting Superintendent Kaitlin Asrow today issued new guidance to health insurers, health care providers, and independent dispute resolution (“IDR”) entities implementing improvements to the IDR process signed into law by Governor Hochul as a part of her Fiscal Year 2026-2027 (FY27) Budget.
As North Florida's need for healthcare providers grows, FSU Health is responding
As North Florida faces a growing shortage of healthcare providers, Florida State University is helping address the challenge through FSU Health, the
Appeals court strikes down formula used to calculate ‘qualifying payment amount’ under No Surprises Act
Radiologists and other provider groups praised the decision on Aug. 12, contending that "QPAs have been completely detached from reality."
Scientists uncover new clue to how protons maintain their identity
New results from the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) suggest that gluons, the gluelike particles that hold quarks together inside protons, play a central role in the conservation of baryon number, an essential part of a particle’s quantum identity.
College football championship contenders: Favorites, long shots, and playoff candidates
College football preview season rolls on today at SB Nation. While we previously released our own Top 25 ahead of the campaign, we are diving into those rankings a bit more today, breaking them down by what teams can truly be considered title contenders. Some are longshots, others need a break or two to make […]
Ardagh considers selling off metal packaging business after restructuring
Ardagh Holdings, which has a 76% stake in Ardagh Metal Packaging, disclosed Thursday it may take steps to facilitate a sale to a third-party buyer. AMP’s revenues totaled $5.5 billion last year.
UVA Health elevates Dr. Nassima Ait-Daoud Tiouririne from interim to permanent Dept. of Psychiatry chair
The UVA Health career provider has led the effort to serve unhoused at The Haven.
In redrawn FL-23, incumbent Rep. Lois Frankel battles political outsider Victoria Doyle
The 78-year-old from West Palm Beach — who has been in elected office since the mid-1980s and in Congress since 2013 — is facing a progressive challenger, Victoria Doyle, 60, a retired intellectual property attorney and local activist.
The 'cofounder prenup': Startup founders share what to agree on early
Three startup teams share what cofounders should agree on early, from equity split and domain ownership, to conflict resolution and exit scenarios.
BofA joins banks pouring billions into US infrastructure
Bank of America is the latest Wall Street firm to announce an investment in American infrastructure.
LigoLab and MarginLogic Health AI Bring AI-Powered Requisition Automation to Laboratory Workflows
GLENDALE, Calif., Aug. 13, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LigoLab, a leading provider of laboratory informatics solutions, today announced a partnersh...
How will Raiders handle Mendoza in preseason?
Mike Florio and Chris Simms discuss the Raiders’ preseason decisions with Fernando Mendoza, questioning how Klint Kubiak and Tom Brady will handle the 2026 No. 1 overall pick.
Small Business, Happy Pets
Local veterinary providers say corporate-owned vet practices are becoming more common as the cost of operating an independent practice increases. Vets say cost of medications and increasing economic…
Celtic to open talks over sixth summer signing
Niko Sigur playing for Hajduk Split in white kit
From black boots to pastel suits, Italian premier's wardrobe evolves with her politics
ROME (AP) — As Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's politics have evolved — from combative outsider to pragmatic establishment leader — so, too, has her fashion sensibility.
49ers insider shares growing concern over key position battle
The 49ers might have a tough decision to make at left guard between two underwhelming players.
Steelers bring back hard-hitting, fan-favorite linebacker
Roberts, 32, spent the 2023 and 2024 seasons playing with the Steelers, and spent the 2025 season playing for the Las Vegas Raiders.
Colorado health providers say executive order on childhood vaccines puts youth at risk
How Amanda Janoo, a progressive political outsider, won Vermont’s Democratic primary for governor
“She represented a more authentic version of change, to enough voters, to give her the victory,” one observer said.
Aaron Bruno of AWOLNATION, Alexia Jayy, Junior Raiderettes highlight Thursday's gameday entertainment
Aaron Bruno will take the stage at halftime while Alexia Jayy will perform the National Anthem. The Junior Raiderettes will perform a special routine pregame.
Shopify Inc. (SHOP) Soars as Jim Cramer Applauds AI-Driven Business Formation
Software platforms faced selling pressure due to concerns that generative AI tools would replace traditional software architectures. However, Shopify Inc. (NASDAQ:SHOP) broke away from sector headwinds after second-quarter financial results showed AI tools driving business formation rather than displacing its e-commerce infrastructure. Because Shopify serves small and medium-sized businesses requiring turnkey checkout, payment processing, and […]
How recently DFA'd Red Sox catcher could help Yankees
The Yankees should consider this veteran as a backup catcher option.
Raiders-Cardinals preseason Week 1: 5 things to watch
The Klint Kubiak era starts Thursday night
Screen protector leak shows iPhone Ultra's asymmetric corners
A leaker with a decent track record has shown what is claimed to be a screen protector for the forthcoming iPhone Ultra, and it shows the device's unusual corners.
Raiders roster 2026: Get to know Deven Thompkins
Veteran wide receiver was recently signed
Bob Iger and Josh Kushner to buy the Lakers
In a statement, former Disney CEO Bob Iger and venture capitalist Josh Kushner said they "were deeply honored" by the opportunity.
Cardinals to include starters against Raiders
Coach LaFleur is stating two series, then out
Ramp: Anthropic's Fable 5 lagged behind OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol in July
Although OpenAI trails Anthropic in business adoption, it won a moneymaking battle in July with its most advanced model, GPT-5.6 Sol.
Qunova Appoints CFO and Two Business Development Executives
Qunova Computing appoints Jake Hwang as CFO and adds Evan Kang and Woomin Kyoung to expand quantum software commercialization.
NV lawmakers mull maternal health protections for '27 session, punt on child welfare funding fix
Nevada state lawmakers are considering a wide-range of health-related policies in the next year’s legislative session that includes implementing a slate of maternal health protections in a “momnibus” bill, bolstering efforts to investigate Medicaid insurance fraud, and reducing reporting requirements for state health agencies. Also at Tuesday’s interim Health and Human Services committee meeting, discussion […]
An Overview of State-Directed Payments and Medicaid Provider Taxes: History and Potential Effects of the Working Families and Tax Cut Legislation on Health Care Costs
Health care provider taxes and state-directed payment policies in the Working Families and Tax Cut legislation are expected to reduce non-Medicaid prices by up to 3.5 percent in markets with provider taxes and reduce spending on Medicaid, commercial and Medicare coverage. Our spending estimates indicate that there will be an additional $29 billion in federal savings on Medicare and commercial coverage for each $100 billion that federal Medicaid spending is reduced.KEY POINTS
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN ENTERTAINMENT ($MSGE) Releases Q4 2026 Earnings
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN ENTERTAINMENT ($MSGE) posted quarterly earnings results for Q4 2026 on Wednesday, August 12th. The company reported earnings of -$0.13 per share, beating estimates of -$0.42 by $0.29. The company also reported revenue of $196,320,000, beating estimates of $169,951,125 by $26,368,875.You can see Quiver Quantitative's $MSGE stock page to track data on insider trading, hedge fund activity, congressional trading, and more.
Elon Musk says Grok will be trained on SpaceX employee data
SpaceX has become the latest tech giant to target employee data in the race to improve its AI models.
What do fans think of potential minority share sale?
Liverpool fans consider the club to have a specific set of values, centred around its working-class roots. When FSG attempted to raise season ticket prices last season, fans' group Spirit of Shankly (SOS) launched a campaign called 'Not a Pound in the Ground'. It urged fans to buy food and drink from local businesses in the Anfield area rather than inside the stadium.
Skillfully Adding AI To The HHS Pledge On Advancing Best Practices For National Mental Health Care
HHS released a pledge to advance national mental healthcare. I add AI to the six stated principles, since AI will be integral to this. An AI Insider analysis and scoop.
Golden Knights’ Stanley Cup Final Decision Named Among NHL’s Worst
The Vegas Golden Knights came within two victories of another Stanley Cup championship last season.One decision from that run is drawing considerably less praise.Bleacher Report’s Adam Gretz included former coach John Tortorella’s playoff choices on his list of the eight worst decisions from the 2025-26 NHL season, with his handling of the goaltending situation during […] The post Golden Knights’ Stanley Cup Final Decision Named Among NHL’s Worst appeared first on HEAVY.
ARMK Q2 Deep Dive: Nexus Expansion and Core Business Growth Drive Momentum
Food and facilities services provider Aramark (NYSE:ARMK) reported revenue ahead of Wall Street’s expectations in Q2 CY2026, with sales up 9.3% year on year ...
Arizona Cardinals to play starters in preseason game vs. Raiders
Find out whether the Arizona Cardinals starters will play against the Las Vegas Raiders and for how long.
Rebecca Cooke Wins Democratic Primary for Key Wisconsin House Seat
Ms. Cooke, a three-time congressional candidate, held a huge fund-raising edge in a western Wisconsin race that Democrats consider pivotal to their hopes of flipping the House.
San Mateo County may require permit for businesses using humanoid robots
San Mateo County is considering a plan surrounding the use of humanoid robots to help firefighters put out fires caused by lithium-ion batteries.
Game Thread: Reds (56-61) at White Sox (61-56)
Sean Burke and the South Siders host Cincinnati for a three-game series, kicking it off with Pope Night at the park.
Oracle is planning another round of job cuts this month
The potential layoffs reduce Oracle's payroll as it racks up billions in debt to fund AI infrastructure.
Kevin Weil is raising a new round of funding for an AI science startup
Kevin Weil, the former chief product officer of OpenAI, is in discussions to raise a round of funding for a new AI science startup.
The best college towns where life revolves around their universities
College towns offer student experiences that set them apart from big cities. Life in Ann Arbor revolves around the University of Michigan's culture.
Pittsburgh Pirates Insider Drops Concerning Paul Skenes Update
A longtime Pittsburgh Pirates insider has weighed in about what could be causing Paul Skenes' struggles.
I tracked my daughter's road trip all night
When my 19-year-old drove to another state for a concert, I realized the trip wasn't just about her independence. It was about mine, too.
SpaceX shares can more than double, Morgan Stanley says. The bull thesis isn't based on space business
SpaceX has worked to become a bigger player in AI by acquiring startup Cursor, and that should add considerable value to its shares, Morgan Stanley says.
Galaxy Z Fold 8’s wider shape still survives bend test, teardown shows off titanium and poor Qi placement [Video]
Durability is perhaps the single-biggest hesitation about folding phones, but Samsung has proven time and time again that its foldables...
Why GameStop’s bold $56-billion play for eBay is suddenly in doubt
(Bloomberg) -- GameStop Corp., led by Chief Executive Officer Ryan Cohen, is considering withdrawing its $56 billion bid for eBay Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.
2026 Fall Preview: Willow Springs Volleyball
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter By Michael Cignoli (For OzarksSportsZone.com) When Dawn Gastineau’s volleyball career ended, she never considered the possibility that life might one day lead her back to the sidelines. But that’s exactly where
A pain point in my schedule led me to leave Citadel to found a startup
Maria Cabral Menezes, 27, would work out before her job at Citadel every day. Her smelly gym bag gave her an idea for the company she's now building.
Inside Marshall Wace's rocky credit push
Marshall Wace has seen several big names depart its credit team since Dan Shatz took over in 2024.
The U.S. Healthcare System is Already Mostly Socialized
Now that Abdul El-Sayed is the Democratic nominee for Michigan’s open Senate seat, the outcome of this crucial race will depend mainly on two things: Whether Republicans succeed in demonizing El-Sayed because he’s brown and a Muslim, and whether they succeed in demonizing him as a left-wing radical. I will defer for the now the question of whether bigotry will be effective this year, although I will address it another day. What I want to address instead is El-Sayed’s signature issue — healthcare. Yes, El-Sayed advocates Medicare for All, a position the usual suspects denounce as “socialism.” I will get to the politics of his stance soon. Today, however, I want to talk about the substance. We should be clear that El-Sayed doesn’t even call himself a socialist. On the contrary, he explicitly disavows the label, saying “I’m a capitalist who just knows about capitalism”. In fact, as I explained in a previous post, the policies that El-Sayed advocates qualify him as a social democrat, not a socialist. Still, El-Sayed advocates a system under which the government would pay almost all medical expenses. Isn’t that socialism? Well, if that is the criterion then much of U.S. healthcare is already socialist. In fact, the government’s role is so large that U.S. healthcare is better described as partially privatized socialism than as anything resembling a free market. Let’s start with the raw numbers on health insurance, which pays the bulk of Americans’ medical expenses. Americans receive health insurance either from private companies or from public programs, overwhelmingly Medicare and Medicaid. Here’s what the breakdown of coverage and spending between private and public looked like in 2024: While a majority of Americans with health insurance get it from private companies, well over 100 million of us are covered by government programs instead. And these government programs pay more total dollars for medical bills than the private insurers do. Why do government programs that cover a minority of the population account for a majority of health insurers’ outlays? Mainly because Medicare covers seniors, and we’re expensive. Also, while Medicaid covers many younger Americans, disabled and elderly beneficiaries account for most of its spending. Even by the raw numbers, then, U.S. health insurance looks as much public as private. But that understates the government’s role: Private health insurance in the U.S. is both highly regulated and heavily subsidized. This is obviously true for the insurance coverage purchased by tens of millions of Americans through the exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act. But employment-based health insurance, which covers 161 million Americans, is far more of a government creation than most people realize. For employment-based insurance exists largely because of huge implicit government subsidies that come with major strings attached. Here’s how that works. If your employer pays you $10,000, that’s taxable income. But if your employer pays $10,000 toward a company health insurance plan that meets certain criteria, it isn’t taxable. That’s a huge effective subsidy, running at more than $300 billion a year. Take that subsidy into account, along with the more than $100 billion per year spent subsidizing policies purchased under the ACA, as well as the outlays on Medicare and Medicaid, and net effect is that the government pays for more than two-thirds of Americans’ health insurance. Granted, there are strings attached. Roughly speaking, employment-based health plans can’t discriminate based on medical history — that is, they can’t deny coverage to employees with pre-existing conditions — and they also can’t offer the plans only to highly compensated employees — a health plan that is only for the C-suite is considered taxable income. So given the restrictions of the federal tax code, employer-based health insurance is a lot like Obamacare, which also prohibits discrimination based on medical history and provides subsidies to make insurance affordable to lower-paid workers. The fact is that virtually all of private healthcare insurance is already well under some form of government control through regulation and tax subsidies. How should we think about this system? First of all, is Medicare socialist? Don’t tell anyone, but the way Medicare operates — it covers every senior’s medical expenses, whatever they turn out to be, while being funded by taxes that depend on one’s income — could be summarized by the old Marxist slogan “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” And back in 1961, when Ronald Reagan was the face of a last-ditch effort by the American Medical Association to block the creation of Medicare, he denounced Medicare as “socialized medicine” and warned that it would destroy our freedom. In reality, American freedom survived until Jan. 20, 2025, while Medicare is immensely popular, with an 82 percent favorable rating in the most recent KFF survey. Medicaid, government health insurance for lower-income Americans, comes in at 73 percent. This is in sharp contrast to public views about private insurers, who are widely disliked if not hated and accused of denying essential care. Furthermore, if Medicare is socialism, then the whole U.S. health insurance system, with the government paying most of the bills and placing conditions on private insurers, is almost equally socialist. If you insist on calling any program the government pays for and regulates socialist, then U.S. healthcare would best be described as a partially privatized form of socialism. And one must ask, what is the point of the part that is privatized? Do private insurers add anything positive? Or are they simply parasites, skimming off money that could have been paying for care? The case for viewing insurers as parasites is strong. Many Medicare benefits are now delivered via Medicare Advantage, that is, plans paid for by the government but run through insurance companies. MedPAC, an independent advisory commission, estimates that last year Medicare Advantage plans were overpaid by $84 billion, thanks to practices such as “upcoding,” in which patients’ health problems are overstated to get larger sums from Medicare. Assessing the waste from employer-based insurance is harder, but most evidence suggests that private insurers have substantially higher administrative costs than Medicare does. Furthermore, the complexity of private insurance, with multiple payers all trying to deny care when they can, is a huge burden both on providers — doctors, nurses, and hospitals — and on patients. What do private insurers offer to compensate for these costs? One must go through intellectual contortions to avoid the conclusion that they are, in fact, parasites. Which brings me back to El-Sayed. In supporting Medicare for All, he’s basically calling for an end to the partial, parasitic privatization of a healthcare system that is already hugely dependent on public funding. When one looks at it that way, it’s not at all a radical proposal. Admittedly, the political lift requires overcoming the opposition to higher taxes to pay for Medicare for All. Political realism rather than economics was the reason I and many other progressives supported Obamacare, with all its complexities, rather than demanding an immediate move to Medicare for All. But the political calculus may very well have shifted since the 2000s, as Americans are fed up with a system of unaffordable premiums, rampant claim denials, and byzantine claim administration. Moreover, funding healthcare insurance through taxation would allow for a much more progressive distribution of the cost. That is, compared to the present system, middle-income households would pay less as high-income households would pay more. And the U.S. would stop wasting large sums on pointless administrative costs. So let’s be clear: El-Sayed’s healthcare platform is perfectly reasonable on the merits of cost, fairness and health efficacy. And with private insurers never more hated, while millions of Americans are losing their health insurance, 2026 may be its time. MUSICAL CODA
Wisconsin considers democratic socialist for governor amid US wave of progressive wins
Francesca Hong is Democratic frontrunner in four-way primary race to lead the swing state, a test of anti-establishment sentiment
Inside David Hatcher's day as Baringa's managing partner
David Hatcher is the managing partner of Baringa, a global consulting firm. He shared his daily routine and some of his best productivity hacks.
Google's AI Overviews are causing chaos for small businesses
Google AI Overviews are becoming customers' first impression of small businesses. Inaccurate summaries are damaging their reputations.
Solis Mammography opens 4 new imaging centers
In the latest move, the Addison, Texas-based breast imaging provider—one of the 10 largest in the U.S.—is opening a new Denver metro area outpost, with others in North Carolina and Florida.
Anthropic rolled out a fix that stops undetected AI-generated writing
Anthropic said new Claude models will embed an "imperceptible watermark" directly into AI-generated text.
She lost her job and found fulfillment working part time at a garden
After getting laid off, single mom Leslie Friday took a part-time job that was the complete opposite of her career while she continued her job search.
Guide to Austin politics: The Daily Texan explains city government, local leaders’ roles
The city of Austin is currently developing their annual city budget and considering a bond issue, while several charter amendments (link once story is up) are up for a vote in November. With all this activity in City Hall, the Texan is providing a guide to new UT students on how Austin politics works and...
Dr. Ramon Tallaj reflects on the family doctor, faith, and health equity
Dr. Ramon Tallaj is chairman of the board and founder of SOMOS Community Care. “SOMOS,” which means “we are” in Spanish, is a physician-led network of 2,600 healthcare providers serving over 850,000 Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries in New York City’s immigrant communities. Tallaj reflects on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of the family doctor, and how faith has played a large role in his life and work.
Cowboys Give 4-Time Pro Bowler Historic Contract Extension
It was highly expected, but the Dallas Cowboys have finally taken care of one of their top defenders. NFL insider Ian Rapoport reported that the Cowboys and defensive lineman Quinnen Williams have agreed on a three-year, $105.9 million contract extension. Williams will get $101 million total guaranteed and $63.35 million fully guaranteed at signing, which […] The post Cowboys Give 4-Time Pro Bowler Historic Contract Extension appeared first on HEAVY.
Boone County Fair opens Tuesday in Belvidere for six days of entertainment
The Boone County Fair will open its gates at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday in Belvidere for a six-day event featuring entertainment, thrill rides and food.
Quantum Computing Inc. Revenue Jumps as Acquisitions Expand Commercial Business
Quantum Computing Inc. reported $5.6 million in second-quarter revenue, largely driven by acquired businesses.
Saber's newest game trailer takes a shot at Gearbox's CEO, if you look closely
The first hint that something might be up with the recent debut trailer for Saber Interactive’s Rideshare Stimulator is an unusual choice of words—aside from that second one in the game’s title. “Don’t take your passengers too seriously,” the trailer’s narrator says, as he describes this upcoming game. It a car game about the gig work of driving eccentric people to their destinations, a riff on Crazy Taxi. And then, he says: “When I think I’ve met the randiest of passengers, someone even stranger gets in.” “Randiest”? That suggests “randy,” which usually means having strong sexual desire. Yet none of the oddball backseat occupants featured in the trailer seem particularly lustful. One is an old man who considers his grandson a failure, another shares the theory that birds might control traffic lights, another says he’s banned from an aquarium. A little later, there’s a license plate, shown 63 seconds into the trailer, on the front of an SUV: USB DRV It’s a Texas plate. The symbol between those letters is a cog wheel. If you know, you know. That’s a reference to Texas-based Borderlands game development studio Gearbox Software (their logo features a cog wheel). More specifically, it’s a reference to Gearbox’s CEO Randy Pitchford, who in 2018 found himself explaining the nature of video he’d saved on a USB drive that was found at a Medieval Times restaurant before being returned to the studio: “It was ‘barely legal’ porn. This girl’s handle was ‘Only 18.’” The “girl” in the video had committed a solo sex act that Pitchford, an avid practitioner of magic, found remarkable. “I realized, this is not a sex worker…This is a fucking magician.” Back then, the USB drive was central to competing lawsuits against Gearbox by the studio’s former lawyer and by Gearbox against him. A settlement in late 2019 “exonerated” Pitchford, per the Hollywood Reporter. The USB story has resurfaced at times, now in a trailer from a company that not long ago was corporate brethren with Gearbox. Saber vs. Gearbox The head of Saber told Game File that the reference is payback. “The dig is because Randy took shots at Embracer in Borderlands 4,” Saber CEO Matt Karch told me when I asked him about the license plate. “Without Embracer, Randy is performing magic tricks at birthday parties for a living.” Having interviewed Karch during a cross-country flight in late 2024, I can confirm that Karch was unimpressed with Pitchford during their time both working in the Embracer group. I’d approached him not out of surprise that there was animosity but that it was manifesting publicly now. Gearbox was founded in 1999, worked on a port of Halo early on, and developed hit series such as the loot-based sci-fi shooter Borderlands before it was purchased by The Embracer Group in early 2021 for $363 million (with a possible earn-out of over $1 billion, if certain targets were hit by 2027). Saber was founded in 2001, worked on a remaster of Halo early on, had a big hit with zombie shooter World War Z and was purchased by Embracer in early 2020 for $150 million, with a potential earn-out of up to $375 million. For a few years, the Embracer group was a voracious acquirer of game studios. Then, as investment dried up, it choked. In March 2024, Embracer sold Saber to an investment company controlled by Saber CEO Matt Karch, and it sold Gearbox in an all-stock deal to long-time Borderlands publisher Take Two Interactive. Other studios were shut down. Hundreds of developers were laid off. Gearbox didn’t say much about their Embracer experience, nothing too direct, at least. In the summer 2024, Pitchford told reporter and occasional Game File contributor Nicole Carpenter that Borderlands 4’s story was in some way thematically connected to Gearbox’s experience at Embracer: “There’s this cultural and emotional shift in me, personally, and at the studio. What does it mean to trade some autonomy for organization?” When Borderlands 4 came out, there was something stranger: the matter of “Embracer’s Bluff,” a location in the game featuring an AI-powered toilet and a large trash dump, according to a detailed Kotaku account of the place. Gearbox never commented on it; Take Two never got back to me about it when I asked them last year. By contrast, since Saber exited Embracer, Karch has been one of Embracer’s biggest defenders, casting their management as well-meaning and supportive despite the layoffs and studio closures that resulted from their excessive expansion. Like others, Saber’s Karch saw Embracer’s as a shot. With Rideshare Stimulator’s trailer, he’s returned fire. “It’s amazing to me how fast people forget those who went above and beyond for them,” Karch told Game File. A rep for Gearbox did not comment by press time. Game File is a reader-supported publication. Your backing makes my reporting—including any coverage of trailer-based beefs—possible. Good news! I’m currently running Game File’s first big sale of 2026. You can get a one-year subscription for 23% off. Click here to take advantage of the limited-time offer. And thank you for your support! Item 2: In brief… 🚫 Wal-Mart has laid off the staff of Restart, a games media outlet launched in 2024, Aftermath reports. 🟥 A GTA VI preview is on the way, at last, via an “extended look” that will premiere, unusually, on Netflix at 3pm ET on August 27, then officially go live elsewhere six hours later. Last week, Game File noted that Take Two label Rockstar Games is overdue for showing off GTA VI, based on the timing of the initial hands-off previews of GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2. During a call with investors, Take Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said pre-orders for GTA VI were “unprecedented and astonishing,” but added the company can’t predict how many of those pre-orders represent bonus sales vs. sales that otherwise would have been made at launch. During the same call, Zelnick was noticeably bullish on the future of playing games over streaming cloud connections (predicting wider adoption in three or so years). He sounded unbothered by Sony’s plans to stop making discs for new games (he said the business is 90% digital already and predicted that there could still be limited edition physical editions of games “in the same way there’s still vinyl in the recorded music business.”) 👀 Take Two wrote off $43 million in their spring quarter after deciding “not to proceed with further development of an unannounced title in its pipeline from a third-party developer.” 🤔 Some rare age-demographics from a big publisher: Capcom recently told investors that “users in their 20s account for approximately half of the users of both Pragamata and Resident Evil Requiem.” Item 3: The week ahead Tuesday, August 11 Game releases: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (Switch 2; already out for PC, PS5, Xbox) continues the Bethesda strategy of putting Elder Scrolls games on everything; Royalty Free-For-All is a Smash Bros.-style fighting game featuring public domain characters such as Mother Goose brawling with Oliver Twist in a stage based on the original Little Shop of Horrors movie. Wednesday, August 12 Game release: Pro Jank Footy (PC, console) is an arcade-style Australian Rules Football game with increasingly ridiculous rules, the more you play (I enjoyed the Steam demo) Thursday, August 13 Game release: Super Mario Sunshine (Switch 2, originally released in 2002 on the GameCube) is released for Switch 2’s Nintendo Switch Online service. This game is the black sheep of 3D Mario games. It’s the successor to the breakthrough Super Mario 64 and the rare Mario game built around a single (vacation resort) theme. Mario’s got a water-spraying backpack, a Yoshi pal and a lot of blue coins to collect.
ICYMI: Bernhard Capital Partners to acquire Virginia engineering firm
Baton Rouge-based private equity firm Bernhard Capital Partners has agreed to acquire Reston, Virginia, engineering and infrastructure services firm Bowman Consulting Group Ltd. in an all-cash transac… Already an INSIDER? Sign in. Already an INSIDER? Sign in
Business Insider wins 2026 Excellence in Financial Journalism Award
Business Insider has won a NYCPA Excellence in Financial Journalism Award in the General Reporting category for the "80 Over 80" series.
Enterprise connectivity boosts AI performance and security
AI and cloud demands reshape enterprise connectivity. Optimum Business provides scalable solutions for secure and efficient network architecture.