Heartland Daily Podcast

Welcome to another episode of the Heartland Daily Podcast, where Ann Marie Sheber and healthcare economist Devon Herrick unpack this week’s biggest developments in health policy:

🔹 Prior Authorization Reform
HHS Secretary RFK Jr. & CMS’s Dr. Oz secured voluntary pledges from major insurers to streamline prior authorization—cutting red tape, boosting transparency, and digitizing approvals by 2026–2027. Devon shares a personal story of how prior auth actually saved his wife thousands—and why this process isn’t always the bogeyman.

🔹 Healthcare for Gig Workers
With gig roles rising, rigid benefits laws in states like California ha...

On this special 500th episode of the In The Tank Podcast, the team takes a look at Culture -- from pop culture like movies, to broader American cultural trends like national pride. Is the dominant left-wing culture finally on its way out? Or are recent flops just a a hiccup in some eternal progressive march? Should conservatives even participate to try to influence it, or is it a lost cause?

The Heartland Institute's Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely, Chris Talgo, Sam Karnick, as well as our special guest--the ever-popular Donald Kendal, will discuss all of this and more...

Two of the most prestigious physicists in America have written a new paper explaining why greenhouse gases (GHG) produced by human activity — namely carbon dioxide — cannot cause dangerous warming on the planet. Based on their findings, Dr. Will Happer and Dr. Richard Lindzen urge Congress to repeal all Net Zero subsidies, all laws requiring GHG emission reductions, and all restrictions on fossil fuel development and infrastructure.

Our special guest this week is Dr. Will Happer, who will break down how he and Dr. Lindzen reached this conclusion — and why continuing to push Net Zero without scientific justification is a r...

In this episode of the Heartland Daily Podcast, AnneMarie Schieber and economist Devon Herrick break down the latest health care debates in Washington. They discuss how promised reforms like Medicaid work requirements and health savings account expansions are being stripped from President Trump’s health care package, and what that means for patients and taxpayers. The conversation covers efforts to close costly Medicare Advantage loopholes, the push for site-neutral payments, and Minnesota’s controversial plan to incentivize Medicaid-funded home births. They also examine Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s overhaul of the federal vaccine advisory committee and the growing concern about...

The corporate climate-alarmist media is already turning up the heat—on your TV, not outside—by hyping a summer warm spell as a “heat dome” threatening “dangerous heat and humidity” across much of America next week. Yes, it’s going to be hot. It’s summer. But the data tell a different story: there’s no long-term trend showing an increase in the number or intensity of heat waves. And despite what they claim, carbon dioxide emissions don’t drive heat waves. That’s not to say human activity isn’t warming the planet—but not in the way they’re shouting from the...

Hurricane season has begun, and while it’s quiet so far, what kind of year can we expect? The Heartland Institute welcomes back Stanley Goldenberg—one of America’s leading hurricane forecasters—to find out. We’ll also tackle the week’s Crazy Climate News: Greta Thunberg’s latest publicity stunt, a proposal to nuke the ocean floor for “carbon capture,” Trump pulling the plug on California’s EV mandate, and accusations that The Heartland Institute is “undermining EU climate rules.” You’re welcome.

In The Tank broadcasts LIVE every Thursday at 12pm CT on on The Heartland Institute Yo...

Riots are once again breaking out in California, all the way to Chicago and East coast cities. The National Guard is on the streets of LA to handle violent protests against ICE, and it seems there is evidence that these multi-day protests are anything but organic. Similar protests are planned around the country this weekend, attempting to counter a military showcase parade President Trump has planned for the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army. The media can't be trusted to cover it fairly, which leads to our next question: is the "knowledge" economy falling apart? The mainstream news...

We get so many great questions in each episode of The Climate Realism Show that we decided to dedicate a whole episode to it. Well, all of it but our coverage of the Crazy Climate News of the Week, of course. UN Secretary-General António Guterres is calling (again) for the censorship of climate realists, another giant ship has been set ablaze and adrift by EVs, our atmosphere is getting “thirstier” (and that’s bad, of course), and a Florida TV weatherman is lying about not being able to predict hurricanes because of federal budget cuts. 

In Episo...

The Heartland Institute and Heartland UK/Europe have been in Poland and Hungary this week, meeting with leaders of the conservative movement and top politicians. Opposition to Net Zero in Europe is real—and growing. Just a few years ago, even right-leaning public figures were reluctant to publicly oppose the Big Green agenda, and hardly ever spoke of it even in private conversations. Today, climate realism has become a main plank of center-right politics and policy.

Heartland Institute President James Taylor and Heartland UK/Europe Director Lois Perry join the show LIVE from Budapest to report on th...

Join The Heartland Institute's Linnea Lueken, S.T. Karnick, and Jim Lakely as they dive into Episode 497 of the In The Tank Podcast. This episode explores timely and provocative topics, including the Democrats' ongoing quest to find their own version of podcast superstar Joe Rogan—can they cultivate a voice that resonates widely in the digital age?

The team also discusses President Joe Biden's reliance on the autopen presidency. With Biden increasingly using automation and pre-scripted methods to fulfill presidential duties, what does this mean for transparency, authenticity, and public perception of leadership?

Finally, they br...

The "Big Beautiful Act" turned into a big disappointment for Medicaid reform. Instead of adding ways to improve Medicaid benefits, like cutting non-medical spending, Republicans caved. Work requirements and eliminating provider taxes will help, but the failure to fix Medicaid spending now creates major debt headaches just a few years down the road.
AnneMarie Schieber, managing editor of Health Care News, and Devon Herrick of the Goodman Institute Health Blog discuss how this golden opportunity was lost in the U.S. House.
Also on tap: tips beyond the obvious to bring down your prescription drug bill. Plus...

Are hospitals locking out Medicare Advantage enrollees? Find out the likely real reason behind the shutout and why we should be worried if MA can no longer compete with traditional fee-for-service Medicare. Join AnneMarie Schieber, managing editor of Health Care News, and Devon Herrick of the Goodman Institute Health Blog as they discuss the latest headlines in health care from a free-market perspective. Also on their radar: the mad rush by states to pass assisted medical suicide bills. Is the U.S. becoming Canada? Is assisted suicide becoming a means to ration ever-escalating health care costs?Additionally, former President...

Donald Trump achieved a major political and policy victory on Thursday when the U.S. House of Representatives passed what he calls his “Big Beautiful Bill.” The less-creative name is the budget reconciliation bill, which presidents for years have used to implement large parts of their agenda. (That’s how we got “Obamacare.”)

The bill includes many of Trump’s economic policy promises, such as tax cuts, but also rolls back much of the “green” energy and climate policies the Biden administration imposed via the Inflation Reduction Act.

Join Heartland’s Anthony Watts, Linnea Lueken, H. Sterling Burnet...

The legacy media that half this country relies on to inform them about the world is irrevocably broken. For the past five years, they’ve lied constantly to cover up the biggest political scandal of the century: that Joe Biden has been in accelerating cognitive decline since before he was sworn in as president.

Of course, it's worse than that. The media attacked anyone who merely stated that obvious fact, calling what you saw with your own eyes and heard with your own ears “misinformation,” “disinformation,” or even “Russian propaganda.”
CNN's Jake Tapper is now promoting his new book O...

A new study from the University of Alabama in Huntsville addresses the question of how much the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect is responsible for the higher temperatures at weather stations across the world. Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. John Christy have spent several years developing a novel method that quantifies, for the first time, the average UHI warming effects related to population density. Their finding: no less than 65% of “runaway global warming” is not caused by our emissions of carbon dioxide, but by the urbanization of the world.

Dr. Spencer will join us to go over his...

The Heartland Institute and Rasmussen just completed another polling study—this one asking people how worried they are about AI and what should be done about it legislatively. To no one's surprise, people are worried and think the government has a responsibility to get ahead of it.

We’ll also cover the way people can fool even themselves with AI, how some are totally outsourcing their thinking to it, what effect that has (or seems to have), and what the mass expansion of AI is going to do to the economy—especially in terms of energy demand and wh...

The Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports released a new poll showing that 71% of Democrats support Elon Musk being IMPRISONED for his DOGE work. This insane position is held by 80% of self-reported "liberals" from the polling. The poll results were released the same day as this episode.

This is sadly not very shocking, as we take a look at what leftist-dominated Reddit says about Elon in our Unhinged segment. We also discuss DOGE's work so far, including issues at the U.S. Treasury Department, and whether or not the pork uncovered by DOGE is actually being cut. It...

A new paper by Dr. Judith Curry, one of the world’s most prominent scientists skeptical of a looming human-caused climate catastrophe, and economist Harry DeAngelo cautions investors and the public that “the apocalyptic climate narrative is a seriously flawed guide for public policy.” Why? “Because it radically overstates the risks to humanity from continued global warming.” Wide-scale suppression of fossil fuel use will not measurably change future temperatures, but “a sharp decline in quality of life would surely ensue.”

We are proud to welcome Dr. Curry back to the show to dig deeper into her paper. We will also c...

In mid-April, Spain’s socialist government bragged that, for the first time, the nation was powered by 100 percent “renewable” energy—mostly solar and wind. One week later, Spain, Portugal, parts of France, and several other countries suffered the largest peacetime blackout in their histories. Net Zero came to Europe all right—as in zero energy. We were perhaps seconds away from nearly the entire continent going dark. Yet again, wind, solar, and other “renewables” proved they simply cannot generate the consistent power needed to keep a complex electricity grid stable. We’ve been warning about this for a while, and today we’ll...

Will AI replace your doctor? Bill Gates seems to think so. In today’s podcast, AnneMarie Schieber, managing editor of Health Care News, and Devon Herrick of the Goodman Institute Health Blog discuss where AI can be a benefit—such as reducing medical error. But when it comes to replacing highly trained medical doctors to reduce the doctor shortage and save money for insurance companies, Herrick and Schieber say "nada."

Also in the podcast: how tariff policy could impact the low cost of generic drugs in the U.S., and how far Trump should go in getting fore...

Spend any time at all watching or reading the news, and you may notice an odd trend in the Democrat party-- they seem to be embracing policies more and more that totally alienate the "normies," people who hold generally average views on social and political issues. Democrats increasingly favor extreme positions, like defending gang members and embracing ideologies that would have been universally rejected just a few years ago. Where it may end is anyone's guess, we try to parse it out here.

We also cover anti-gun activist David Hogg's potential expulsion from the DNC, how Trump...

In news that has climate alarmists in an even greater panic, the Trump administration is ending funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the panel that produced the federal government’s National Climate Assessment every four years. Several officials in the office have reportedly been fired, and Trump’s NASA has canceled the contract with the firm that coordinates the production of the National Climate Assessment. Defenders of the program say the report has been a “comprehensive look at climate change,” but has that ever been true?

The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts, Sterling Burnett, Linnea Lue...

The Net Zero project in Great Britain, so the country does it’s part to stop climate change, has a true believer behind it in leftist Prime Minister Keir Starmer. But recent opinion polls show the public is starting to turn dramatically against it, especially when the economic costs become increasingly real. A London Times poll in November found that 92% of the British public viewed Labour’s specific Net Zero plans—particularly the 2030 clean power goal—as unrealistic. Despite a foolish drive to “deindustrialize” the UK, force residents to buy expensive heat pumps, and reducing agriculture, the government’s own Climate Ch...

Tariffs are the subject of heated debate not just between Democrats and Republicans, but within the spectrum of right wing economic thought as well. Trump has announced reciprocal tariffs for every country on the planet, in an attempt to end unfair trade imbalances across the board. Some countries have already started falling in line, the question is, what will the end result for American citizens be?

The Heartland Institute’s Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely, Chris Talgo, and S.T. Karnick will discuss. Join us as we also discuss the staff purges at various U.S. health agencies, Ti...

The scientific community and the media are focused almost exclusively by how greenhouse gas emissions affect the climate — from power plants to automobiles to your fireplace to your gas stove, and even cow farts. But what about that big ball of gas in the sky? Why does it get short shrift when it comes to the causes of climate change?

The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts, Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely will discuss this topic, asked for by many of the show’s fans, with one of the leading solar and climate experts in the world: Dr. Willie Soon...

How can you consent to paying for something if you don’t know the price? In today’s podcast, AnneMarie Schieber of Health Care News and Devon Herrick of the Goodman Institute Health Care Blog talk about New York State’s decision to ban “consent to pay” forms at medical practices. Also on tap: reforming health care without a political fight, the RESULT Act being reintroduced, which fast-tracks successful treatments in trusted countries but comes too late for one Alzheimer’s patient, “Name it to tame it,” is over-diagnosing symptoms driving up health care utilization?—and has private equity ruined the doctor...

The 2024 election will go down in history as a radical and lasting political realignment in America on the right. The Republican Party of the 80s and 90s is gone, and with it the influence of past presidents and the thought leaders of the right. In their place is a new populism led by former Democrats who were driven out by radical leftists. But is this unusual coalition of former Democrats and populist writers and YouTube stars built to last?

The Heartland Institute’s Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely, Chris Talgo, and S.T. Karnick will di...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by Frank Trentmann, professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London, to discuss his latest book, Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942–2022. They chat about how a nation whose past has been marked by mass murder, a people who cheered Adolf Hitler, reinvented themselves, and by how much. 

Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554959/out-of-the-darkness-by-frank-trentmann/

Show Notes:

Literary Review: David Blackbourn – “A Mercedes in Every Garage”

https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-mercedes-in-every-garage

New York Review of Books: T...

Can you beat a medical bill you feel is unfair?  AnneMarie Schieber and Devon Herrick discuss their personal experience.  Can Congress rein in Medicaid?  Many ideas being consider:  block grants to states, changing funding rates for expanded Medicaid, work requirements.  Do enrollees value Medicaid or waste it?  Schieber and Herrick also discuss “gutting the FDA.” Herrick discusses why DOGE and the Trump administration might want to proceed cautiously. 

New parody book out critical of MI Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her pandemic lockdowns.  True Gretchen is a hilarious parody of the governor’s own tome, True Gretch.

Be s...

Hours before his confirmation hearing, former Rep. Dave Weldon’s nomination to head the CDC was withdrawn.   Weldon has been a vaccine critic. How much of a role did Big Pharma play? AnneMarie Schieber and Devon Herrick also talk about the growing focus on vaccines, and the history of vaccine policy. Most recently the Trump’s administration to nix vaccines on chickens for bird flu.  Also in the podcast, state AGs take the first step in going after Anthony Fauci for violating state laws when handing the COVID-19 pandemic. A company offers indemnity style health insurance for direct primary care m...

The other day, Donald Kendall, director of the Glenn C. Haskins Emerging Issues Center at the Heartland Institute, was a guest on the Shawn Thompson Show on AM 560 The Answer in Chicago.

Donald is a regular guest on Sean's show and was invited on this time to talk about a new heartlands to paper titled The High Cost of Green Scams, assessing the Green Giveaways in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Donald details how the whole thing was a scheme designed to enrich the politically connected. It had nothing to do with fighting climate change, let...

The new EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, dropped the Mother of All Bombs this week on the radical environmental agenda that has dominated Washington, DC since the start of the Obama administration. If it holds, the impact will be devastating.

The Heartland Institute’s Sterling Burnett and Jim Lakely are joined by SPECIAL GUESTS Matthew M. Wielicki, Ph.D.—an earth science professor-in-exile from “official” academia at the University of Alabama—and Steve Milloy, who served in Trump’s EPA Transition Team in his first presidency.

In The Tank broadcasts LIVE every Thursday at 12pm CT on on The...

Who actually runs this country? Voters asked for real change in November, and Donald Trump and his team are doing all they can to deliver it as quickly as possible. Yet federal judges use questionable authority to thwart it, keeping the Deep State status quo of unaccountable opposition to the people’s will — which includes shoveling YOUR MONEY to their connected leftist cronies.

Who is really in charge of the Executive Branch of the United States? The Constitution says it’s the president, who was elected by all the people to direct the administrative state. The legacy media...

The Heartland Institute’s Donald Kendal, Jim Lakely, and Chris Talgo present episode 487 of the In The Tank Podcast. Former ITT host Donald Kendal returns after only a few months and the world has gone insane. Suddenly, the left is burning the most popular electric vehicles while a Republican President promotes them in front of the White House. No, the world did not go insane, it was driven to insanity by an incredibly corrupt media system - a media system that has lied to us about virtually everything. We cover some more examples of this on this week's episode.

The Heartland Institute's Tim Benson wrote a paper analyzing the money funneled to green groups through the Inflation Reduction Act, where everything predictably cost way more than our government claimed. The Supreme Court decided that a district judge could tell the President when and how to pay USAID contractors, and Canada retaliates against Trump's tariffs. The President gave his first address to Congress, to the surprise of no one, the Democrats hated it.

The Heartland Institute's Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely, Sam Karnick, and Tim Benson will discuss all of this and more on this episode of the...

Big news this week as EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has reportedly told the White House it should officially abandon the ruling that greenhouse gases pose a threat to human health and welfare. The so-called “endangerment finding” for carbon dioxide and methane emissions forms the backbone of government regulations to “fight climate change” by heavily regulating everything from power plants to automobiles to stoves. Will President Trump repeal the endangerment finding? Can he do it unilaterally? We will discuss.

Also, NOAA has “homogenized” the temperature data again. What does that mean? And does it correct the historical record, or distort i...

Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by David L. Roll, founder of the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation, to discuss his latest book, Ascent to Power: How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt's Shadow and Remade the World. They chat about Truman’s struggles to emerge as president in his own right after his accidental ascension to the office and how Truman’s decisions during these pivotal years changed the course of the world in ways so significant we live with them today.

Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/690665/ascent-to-power-by-david-l-roll/

Show Notes:

In this episode of Health Care News, hosts AnneMarie Schieber and Devon Herrick dive into the critical debates shaping health care today. They discuss the potential expansion of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), exploring proposals from Rep. Chip Roy and policy experts who argue HSAs could significantly improve coverage, especially for gig workers and those seeking direct care options.

AnneMarie and Devon also highlight Ohio’s groundbreaking step to enforce price transparency at hospitals—holding institutions accountable by barring debt collection if hospitals fail to disclose clear pricing. Additionally, they examine troubling conflicts of interest within medical boards, spot...

The FBI is investigating an alleged "honeypot" operation against the 2016 Trump campaign, in which Comey's FBI may have planted female agents to try to compromise Trump. It has been a tough week for our mainstream media elites—multiple MSM personalities were fired or retired, and Jake Tapper is pretending he wasn’t involved in covering up Biden’s obvious decline. Bezos cracks the whip on The Washington Post Opinion section writers, and the White House Correspondents' Association loses its special status as press pool wranglers.

The Heartland Institute’s Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely, and Chris Talgo will discuss...

Physicist C. Michael Hogan says the evidence shows that we do not face a climate crisis and that there is no existential threat. Instead, now, as throughout history, a warmer world is improving life. Attempts to fight climate change by forcing wind, solar, and battery power onto the grid are undermining the nation's electric power supply, costing enormous sums of money, and damaging the environment. Gas and nuclear power, not wind and solar, are the future.  

In The Tank broadcasts LIVE every Thursday at 12pm CT on on The Heartland Institute YouTube channel. Tune in to h...