Wary of inflation, Americans have been watching the prices of everyday items such as eggs and gasoline. A less-noticed expense should cause greater alarm: rising premiums for health insurance. They have been trending upward for years and are now rising faster than ever.

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Consider that, from 2000 to 2020, egg prices fluctuated between just under $1 and about $3 a dozen; they reached $6.23 in March but then fell to $3.78 in June. Average gas prices, after seesawing between $2 and $4 a gallon for more than a decade starting in 2005, peaked at $4.93 in 2022 and recently fell back to just over $3.

Meanwhile, since 1999, health insurance premiums for people with employer-provided coverage have more than quadrupled. From 2023 to 2024 alone, they rose more than 6% for both individuals and family coverage — a steeper increase than that of wages and overall inflation.

For many people who have the kind of insurance plans created by the Affordable Care Act (because they work for small companies or insure themselves), rates have probably risen even more drastically. In this market, state regulators scrutinize insurers’ proposed rate increases, but only if they exceed 15%.

And the situation is about to get worse: For 2026, ACA marketplace insurers have proposed eye-popping new prices: In New York, UnitedHealthcare has proposed a 66.4% rise. HMO Colorado has asked for an average increase of more than 33% in that state. In Washington, the average proposed increase across all insurers is 21.2%, and in Rhode Island it’s 23.7%.

According to Business Group on Health, a consortium of major employers, “actual health care costs have grown a cumulative 50% since 2017.” In a separate survey published in 2021, 87% of companies said that in the next five to 10 years, the cost of providing health insurance for their workers would become “unsustainable.”

And insurers in the ACA marketplace are increasing premiums by an average of 20% for next year, according to a new analysis. Imagine if tens of millions of Americans’ rent or mortgage payments were to suddenly increase by that amount.

Insurance regulators theoretically could demand that these proposed rates be lowered — and this often happens. But some states are more active than others in this regard. And all are wary that too much regulatory interference could drive insurers from their markets.

Insurers offer many explanations for their calculations, some of which are tied to recent actions by Congress and President Donald Trump. New tariffs on America’s trading partners, for example, are expected to push up the cost of drugs and medical supplies.

Meanwhile, reductions in health care spending included in the GOP budget bill, along with the expiration of some Biden-era premium subsidies at the end of this year, will cause many people to lose their health insurance. About 16 million Americans are expected to become uninsured by 2034, in many cases because keeping insurance will become unaffordable.

Because most of these people are likely to be young and/or healthy, the “risk pool” of those remaining insured will become older and sicker — and therefore more expensive to cover.

“Ultimately, we believe the ACA market will likely be smaller and higher acuity-driven next year,” Janey Kiryluik, vice president of corporate communications for Elevance Health (formerly known as Anthem), wrote in an email. She added: “Our position reflects early disciplined action.”

Remember, most insurers in the United States are public, for-profit companies; as such, they tend to act in the interests of their shareholders, not the patients whose health care they cover.

Large employers that manage their own health care plans might be able to negotiate better deals for their workers. But smaller companies, for the most part, will need to accept what’s on offer.

Premiums are not the only part of health insurance that’s getting more expensive. Deductibles — the money that beneficiaries must spend out-of-pocket before insurance kicks in — are also rising. The average deductible for a standard ACA silver plan in 2025 was nearly $5,000, about double what it was in 2014. (For those with employer-based insurance, the average number is just under $2,000.)

A few states are trying to stem the tide by offering a state-run “public option,” a basic affordable insurance plan that patients can choose. But they have struggled because a lower payment rate for workers generally means fewer participating providers and reduced access to care.

If voters paid as much attention to the price of health insurance as they do to the cost of gas and eggs, maybe elected officials would respond with more action.

Elisabeth Rosenthal writes for KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.

 

Ask an American conservative what makes America great, and at least until about a week ago, he might have said that, among other virtues, it’s a country in which the government stays out of the business of getting in business.

Yes, there are exceptions — Fannie Mae and Amtrak come to mind — but their record of mismanagement and mediocrity would prove the conservative’s point. Other democratic countries have government-controlled champion enterprises, and some of them, like the Airbus consortium in Europe, sometimes do well. Yet the heavy hand of the state tends to lead to problems over time, including corruption, inefficiency and a reluctance to let bad companies fail.

But American conservatism under President Donald Trump is changing into something unrecognizable, at least to those of us (silly us!) who thought the movement had guiding principles beyond getting, wielding and abusing power. Umpteenth case in point: The federal government becoming an equity shareholder in Intel.

This month, Trump called for the resignation of Lip-Bu Tan, Intel’s new CEO, based on vague allegations that he had invested in Chinese technology companies that U.S. officials say have links to China’s military. (Tan is a U.S. citizen who was born in Malaysia and raised in Singapore.) Trump also decided to convert nearly $9 billion in government funding promised to Intel under the 2022 CHIPS Act, a piece of industrial policy intended to boost the U.S. semiconductor manufactures, into an equity stake.

“You know what? I think the United States should be given 10% of Intel,” Trump says he told Tan in a White House meeting Friday. Tan speedily agreed. On Monday, Trump boasted on social media that he would “make deals like that for our Country all day long.”

If a Democratic president did this to Tan or any other American CEO, Republicans would call it a political shakedown, an assault on capitalism, a loser for taxpayers. They’d be right. Intel, which had a $500 billion market cap at the turn of the century, is now at $107 billion. What’s to keep it from going lower and taking taxpayers down with it?

As for other arguments for investing in Intel — that it’s systemically important to the U.S. economy (as the banks were in the 2008 financial crisis), that it’s vital for national security (as the critical minerals industry is today), that it’s a symbol of American industrial might (as, arguably, Boeing is) — none of them hold water. The ecosystem of American chipmakers, from Nvidia to Micron to Qualcomm, is thriving. With about 110,000 workers worldwide at the end of last year, Intel pales in comparison with the largest U.S. companies. If Intel were to fail, or stagger along for years to come, it would simply join the long gray line of America’s corporate has-beens, from Sears to Chrysler to IBM to General Electric.

Instead, Intel is about to become something much worse: a precedent.

In a news release, the company insisted that the government’s stake will be “passive ownership, with no board representation or other governance or information rights.” That’s like letting a tiger into your house on the solemn promise that it won’t raid the fridge or eat your children. Intel will now join the stable of other cowed and compliant corporations, universities and law firms living in fear of the next Truth Social post, funding revocation or regulatory obstruction. And that’s to say nothing of the FBI searches that could await those unlucky enough to have once served Trump with insufficient servility.

Republicans now cheering Trump for his daily Big Dog performance should at least wonder what the consequences for America’s economic freedom and competitiveness will be once he makes America statist again. Trump’s personalized control of ever-broader swaths of the economy based on ever-thinner pretexts is the beginning of a long trend with neither a political check nor a limiting principle.

Especially since ever-greater government control of private enterprise is usually a progressive goal, not a conservative one. A current of neosocialism now runs through parts of MAGA land, particularly among those who confuse Catholic social teachings with economic reality. This crew should remember that in democratic politics, two can play the game. What the Trump administration did to “60 Minutes” could be done by a left-wing administration to Fox News or Newsmax. And what Trump is doing with Intel could soon become a template for dozens, if not hundreds, of U.S. companies in which Uncle Sam demands a golden share.

Last year, I said that Republicans would regret a second Trump term and that principled conservatives should not imagine he’s on their side. To them one can only say: It’s going to get worse.

Bret Stephens writes a column for the New York Times.

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In the restaurant business, it often seems like the only constant is change.

Chef Lawrence Kirkland of The Lexington on St. Paul’s Grand Avenue has a résumé that includes being a private chef for NFL players and helming the kitchen at 801 Fish in Minneapolis. (Courtesy of The Lexington)

Although The Lexington has remained a stable force in the St. Paul culinary scene for nearly a century, it has endured, and continues to endure, a constant churn behind the scenes.

As the restaurant approaches its 90th anniversary, the staff is planning for a big blowout event (you’re invited, too!) with a new chef and ownership that has shuffled again in the past few years.

Chef Lawrence Kirkland, who started just a few months ago, is still getting his sea legs running the 22,000-square-foot restaurant and event space, making small changes to the dessert menu and running seafood specials that hint at new items that he might add to the main menu. As if that isn’t enough, he’s been in charge of creating an event menu that includes a giant seafood tower, a grazing table, and a whole host of passed appetizers.

The anniversary event will take place from 5 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 9, at the restaurant. Each space will have a theme, from a “bubble room” sponsored by Veuve Clicquot to a “barrel room” featuring The Lexington’s own barrel of 2XO whiskey to a “red room” with Orin Swift wines. There will also be a cigar and Scotch experience on the rooftop patio — the first 30 guests will receive a complimentary hand-rolled cigar dipped in Dalmore scotch.

There will be live vintage jazz from Debbie Briggs, displays of restaurant artifacts hauled upstairs from the Lexington’s labyrinth-like basement and costumed historians offering guided tours of the building. Tickets are just $50 and are available at thelexmn.com.

Also at that link, there’s a place for guests to share stories and photos from their visits to The Lex over the years.

“When ownership has changed hands over the years, it’s been basically a handshake and ‘here’s the keys,’” said general manager and COO Craig Ritacco, who is a new addition to the ownership group in the past few years. “Not a lot of work has been done to collect that history. We’d love people’s stories and photos to help fill that out.”

Ritacco was hired by the late chef Jack Riebel, whose tenure as a co-owner coincided with the massive remodel and 2017 relaunch of the restaurant after it was closed for a few years. After Riebel’s 2021 death, partners Josh Thoma and Kevin Fitzgerald were bought out. And in 2024, Ritacco was invited to join the ownership group, adding COO to his general manager title.

Craig Ritacco, general manager and COO of The Lexington on St. Paul’s Grand Avenue. (Courtesy of The Lexington)

Ritacco is a history buff, so The Lex is an obvious fit for him. It’s also what makes him so excited to celebrate the longevity of the storied restaurant.

He has brought some of the history to the forefront of the space, adding vintage photos to the foyer and framing Riebel’s chef coat and hanging it just inside the doors.

“When I went to visit him just before he passed, Jack said, ‘You know, you have to take care of the place, keep it going,’” Ritacco said. “And sometimes I sit in the chair across from his chef’s coat and chat with him about how things are going.”

There’s been a lot of talk about The Lex being haunted, but for Ritacco, it’s more about living out the legacy that so many before him have created.

“The Lexington is bigger than just one person,” he said.

Kirkland, whose eclectic résumé includes working as a private chef to an NFL offensive lineman and most recently helming the kitchen at 801 Fish in Minneapolis, says he’s honored to be a part of the legacy and is taking menu changes slowly.

“I know I have to put my stamp on it, but I’m trying to do it delicately,” Kirkland said. “There’s a ton of history here. The classics might need to be revamped a little bit, but I don’t want to make too many changes too fast.”

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Today is Thursday, Aug. 28, the 240th day of 2025. There are 125 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Aug. 28,1955, Emmett Till, a Black teenager from Chicago, was abducted from his uncle’s home in Money, Mississippi, by two white men after he had allegedly whistled at a white woman four days prior; he was found brutally slain three days later.

Also on this date:

In 1845, the first issue of “Scientific American” magazine was published; it remains the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States.

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In 1862, the Second Battle of Bull Run began in Prince William County, Virginia, during the Civil War; the Union army retreated two days later after suffering 14,000 casualties.

In 1898, pharmacist Caleb Bradham of New Bern, North Carolina changed the name of the carbonated beverage he’d created five years earlier from “Brad’s Drink” to “Pepsi-Cola.”

In 1957, then U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond (D-South Carolina) began what remains the longest speaking filibuster in Senate history (24 hours and 18 minutes) seeking to stall the passage of the Civil Rights Act of that year.

In 1963, during the March on Washington, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech before an estimated 250,000 people in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

In 1968, police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominated Hubert H. Humphrey for president.

In 1988, 70 people were killed when three Italian Air Force stunt planes collided during an air show at the U.S. Air Base in Ramstein, West Germany.

In 2005, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation as Hurricane Katrina approached the city.

In 2013, a military jury sentenced Maj. Nidal Hasan to death for the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood that claimed 13 lives and left 30 people injured.

In 2016, six scientists completed a yearlong Mars simulation on the big island of Hawaii, where they emerged after living in a dome in near isolation on Mauna Loa.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor Ken Jenkins (TV: “Scrubs”) is 85.
Former MLB manager and player Lou Piniella (pih-NEHL’-uh) is 82.
Former MLB pitcher Ron Guidry (GIH’-dree) is 75.
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove is 73.
Artist Ai Weiwei is 68.
Actor Daniel Stern is 68.
Olympic gold medal figure skater Scott Hamilton is 67.
Actor Jennifer Coolidge is 64.
Film director David Fincher is 63.
Country singer Shania (shah-NY’-uh) Twain is 60.
“Pokemon” creator Satoshi Tajiri is 60.
Actor Billy Boyd is 57.
Actor Jack Black is 56.
Hockey Hall of Famer Pierre Turgeon is 56.
Actor Jason Priestley is 56.
Olympic gold medal swimmer Janet Evans is 54.
Actor Carly Pope is 44.
Country singer Jake Owen is 44.
Country singer LeAnn Rimes is 43.
Rock singer Florence Welch (Florence and the Machine) is 39.
Actor Quvenzhane (kwuh-VEHN’-zhah-nay) Wallis is 22.