Tea at Trianon: The Biggest Shake-up in American Healthcare History

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, May 15, 2025

The Biggest Shake-up in American Healthcare History

From The Vigilant Fox:

It was a moment you’ll remember for decades. Standing before reporters and his healthcare team, President Trump announced the most aggressive move on drug pricing America has ever seen. The plan? To cut prescription drug costs by up to 90%—a direct strike against the industry that’s drained American families dry for years.
“Starting today, the United States will no longer subsidize the health care of foreign countries, which is what we were doing,” Trump said. “We were subsidizing others’ health care, countries where they paid a small fraction of what for the same drug that what we pay many, many times more for.”
This wasn’t just about reining in corporate greed. Trump laid it out clearly: this was a global scam, and America was the one footing the bill.
“And [we] will no longer tolerate profiteering and price gouging from Big Pharma,” he added. “But again, it was really the countries that forced Big Pharma to do things that frankly, I’m not sure they really felt comfortable doing, but they’ve gotten away with it, these countries, European Union has been brutal, brutal.”
Trump promised that would change. “So for the first time in many years, we’ll slash the cost of prescription drugs and we will bring fairness to America.”
How much cheaper? “If you think of a drug that is sometimes ten times more expensive, it’s much more than the 59%… but between 59 and 80, and I guess even 90%.”
For struggling families, this wasn’t just reform. It was real relief. (Read more.)