UnitedHealth Group Is a Bank: How Policymakers Can Protect Independent Physician Practices from Becoming Loan Shark Bait
December 18, 2025 — This analysis documents how UnitedHealth Group's FDIC-insured industrial bank, something that has largely been overlooked in debates over health care consolidation, has become another lever the company uses to push independent practices toward financial dependence, closure, or sale, often during moments of acute distress and volatility.
Within Earshot: Overcoming Barriers to Over-the Counter Hearing Aid Access
November 24, 2025 — This report explores why reforms to date have not produced widespread adoption and what steps policymakers and private actors can take to spur further use. Specifically, it provides an overview of the extremely consolidated hearing aid market; outlines barriers to broader consumer adoption, including consumer concerns about purchasing a medical device without the assistance of a licensed professional, retailer concerns about such consumer reluctance, and a widespread lack of insurance coverage for OTC hearing aids; and recommends policy solutions, including reversing the vertical integration in the hearing industry and eliminating its inherent conflicts of interests while expanding insurance coverage, particularly within Medicare.
Capital Crunch: How the Fall of Local Finance and the Rise of Shareholder Primacy Warped Single-Family Homebuilding in America — And What to Do About It
November 17, 2025 — This paper examines the shift in America’s homebuilding system from decentralized abundance to financialized scarcity, why these changes have made housing unaffordable for millions of people, and what policymakers can do to rebuild a financial system that supports competition, affordability, and the productive use of land. That includes helping smaller homebuilders access capital, preventing large corporations and investors from hoarding land and homes, pursuing targeted regulatory reforms, and blocking anti-competitive tactics that raise barriers to entry.
How to Rein in Big Tech’s Secret Data Center Deals
November 11, 2025 — This brief explains how Big Tech’s building spree will place new strains and costs on local communities, while providing questionable benefits to residents and taxpayers, all under a corrupt regime of secret agreements that excludes the public from participating in any debate. But, as this policy brief describes, there are several steps state and local lawmakers can take to bring these secret deals to light and provide more transparency and accountability to Big Tech’s actions in their communities.
Morgan’s Monopoly Digest – Nov 2025
November 7, 2025 — July version of Economic Liberties' monthly newsletter that covers the latest with the federal antitrust agencies — the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division — and other big developments in competition policy.
The New Railroad Barons: Why the Union Pacific/Norfolk Southern Railroad Merger Must Be Blocked
October 20, 2025 — This brief explains the proposed acquisition in the context of the modern railroad industry, the dangers of any such combination, the stakeholders likely to be most affected, and how the public can push back against this merger. It also outlines the regulatory process and merger rules of the Surface Transportation Board (STB), the federal agency with merger review authority over the railroad industry. An appendix outlines the STB’s regulatory process and review timeline for the deal.