Pop Mart has struck it rich. The Chinese company that caters to toy connoisseurs and influencers said this week that it expects profit for the first six months of this year to jump by at least 350% compared with the prior-year period, largely because of its smash hit plush toy, the Labubu. Pop Mart joins a small list of companies that have tapped into the zeitgeist, drawing in millions of buyers who, for one reason or another, simply must get their hands on a toy or gadget of the moment.

But what makes the Labubu a must-have, or any toy for that matter, is a decades-old question that toy makers have yet to figure out.

Here’s a look at some of the most popular toys over the years.

Cabbage Patch Kids

Cabbage Patch Kids began as chubby-faced dolls with yarn hair that came with adoption papers. During the 1980s the dolls were so popular that parents waited in long lines at stores trying to get a hold of them. More than 90 million Cabbage Patch Kids were sold worldwide during their heyday.

Cabbage Patch Kids, which were created by Xavier Roberts and initially sold by Coleco, were relaunched in 2004, looking to take part in the successful return of other popular 1980s toys including Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

A Cabbage Patch Kid museum named BabyLand General Hospital still exists in Cleveland, Georgia. The dolls entered the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2023.

Beanie Baby

Beanie Babies captivated consumers in the mid-1990s. The cuddly $5 toys were under-stuffed for maximum hug-ability, stamped with cute names on their Ty Inc. tags, and given limited edition runs.

Many people collected, traded and sold the toys with the hopes that their value would just keep going up at the dawn of the e-commerce age. It made some people money, and the founder, Ty Warner, a billionaire in three years.

In 2014 Warner learned that he would not go to prison for hiding at least $25 million from U.S. tax authorities and instead received two years’ probation. Warner, one of the highest profile figures snared in a federal investigation of Americans using Swiss bank accounts to avoid U.S. taxes, had pleaded guilty to a single count of tax evasion.

Tamagotchi

Looking for a pet without the real-life responsibilities? Well then the Tamagotchi electronic pet from Bandai was for you. Consumers were hooked on the egg-shaped plastic toy that first launched in Japan in 1996 and became a craze worldwide in the late 1990s and 2000s.

Users were tasked with taking care of their virtual pet by pressing buttons that simulate feeding, disciplining and playing with the critter on screen. If a Tamagotchi is neglected, it dies.

In 2013 Tamagotchi was reborn as a mobile app, duplicating the experience of the plastic handheld toy. The toy was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame in May.

Fidget Spinner

Fidget spinners — the 3-inch twirling gadgets that took over classrooms and cubicles — were all the rage in 2017. The toy was considered somewhat of an outlier at the time, given that it wasn’t made by a major company, timed for the holiday season, or promoted in TV commercials. Fidget spinners were more easily found at gas stations or 7-Eleven than at big toy chains.

Fidget spinners had been around for years, mostly used by kids with autism or attention disorders to help them concentrate, but they became more popular after being featured on social media.

While hot toys are often made by one company, fidget spinners were made by numerous manufacturers, mostly in China. The toys were marketed as a concentration aid but became so popular among children that many schools started banning them, saying that they were a distraction.

Labubu

The Labubu, by artist and illustrator Kasing Lung, first appeared as monsters with pointed ears and pointy teeth in three picture books inspired by Nordic mythology in 2015.

In 2019 Lung struck a deal with Pop Mart, a company that caters to toy connoisseurs and influencers, to sell Labubu figurines. But it wasn’t until Pop Mart started selling Labubu plush toys on key rings in 2023 that the toothy monsters suddenly seemed to be everywhere, including in the hands of Rihanna, Kim Kardashian and NBA star Dillon Brooks. K-pop singer Lisa of Blackpink began posting images of hers for her more than 100 million followers on Instagram and on TikTok, where Labubu pandemonium has broken out.

Labubu has been a bonanza for Pop Mart. Its revenue more than doubled in 2024 to 13.04 billion yuan ($1.81 billion), thanks in part to its elvish monster. Revenue from Pop Mart’s plush toys soared more than 1,200% in 2024, nearly 22% of its overall revenue, according to the company’s annual report.

It sounds sophisticated — like something whispered in back rooms by finance guys wearing French cuffs. But really, it’s simple: leverage means using someone else’s money to buy something you couldn’t afford on your own.

That “someone else” is usually a lender, and the “something” is typically real estate. Whether you’re buying an industrial building, an office condo or a strip retail center, leverage is the reason you don’t need a million bucks in the bank to make it happen.

Let’s walk through it, and then I’ll explain why it’s both powerful and dangerous.

How leverage works

Say you find a building you want to buy. It’s priced at $2 million. You could write a check — if you happen to have a spare $2 million lying around. But most investors don’t.

So you approach a lender. The lender agrees to loan you 65% of the purchase price, or $1.3 million. That means you need to bring $700,000 to the table. With that $700,000, you now control a $2 million asset. That’s leverage.

Why is this useful? Because you get all the benefits of owning the building — rental income, appreciation, tax advantages — without tying up your full net worth in a single deal. But, you’ve borrowed $1.3 million, which must be repaid.

The cash-on-cash return

Now here’s where leverage starts to flex its muscles: cash-on-cash return.

Cash-on-cash is a fancy way of asking, “What am I earning on the actual money I invested?”

If that $2 million building brings in $100,000 in income after expenses and debt payments, and you only put in $700,000 to acquire it, you’re earning roughly 14% annually on your cash. (That’s $100,000/$700,000.) Not bad.

But if you bought the building all-cash and still brought in $100,000 a year, your return would only be 5%. See the difference? ($100,000/$2 million.

That’s why experienced investors love leverage. It makes the return on your money better because you’re using someone else’s money to own more.

When the math goes backward

There’s a flip side to this, and it’s become more common lately: negative leverage.

Negative leverage happens when the cost of borrowing exceeds the return you’re getting on the property. Specifically, when your interest rate is higher than the property’s capitalization (cap) rate. Imagine paying 7% interest on a loan to buy a building that only returns 5.5% annually. That’s a losing equation from day one.

Unless you’re banking on major rent growth, redevelopment or some other value-creation, you’re effectively paying to hold the asset. Your cash-on-cash return goes down, not up. And in that scenario, leverage isn’t helping you, it’s hurting you.

We saw the opposite for years when money was cheap. Investors could borrow at 3% and buy properties at 5%-6% cap rates all day long. But today’s reality is different. Many deals that penciled before don’t anymore, not because the buildings changed, but because the cost of capital did.

Pitfalls of leverage

Leverage works great when things go well: when tenants pay rent, rates stay low and property values rise.

But if vacancy creeps in, or interest rates rise, or your building needs unexpected repairs, that monthly loan payment doesn’t go away. It still shows up every month, like clockwork.

I’ve seen more than a few deals that looked great on paper fall apart in practice because the borrower didn’t leave enough breathing room. That extra margin of return? It can vanish quickly when costs go up or income goes down.

And over-leverage can lead to overconfidence. I’ve watched folks stretch into larger deals just because the bank said “yes.” And when the market turned? That yes turned into a painful lesson.

Using leverage wisely

Leverage is neither good nor bad, it’s neutral. It’s how you use it that matters.

Here are a few guiding principles I share with clients:

—Be conservative. Just because a lender will loan you 80% of the purchase price doesn’t mean you should take it.

—Understand your debt. Know your payments, your interest rate, your amortization period and what happens if rates change.

—Stress-test your deal. If rents drop by 10%, can you still pay the mortgage?

—Watch for negative leverage. If you’re borrowing at 7% to buy at a 5% return, you need a very clear reason for doing so.

—Keep reserves. Surprises happen. Don’t let one roof repair or a missed rent payment jeopardize your investment.

Bottom line? Leverage can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Used with discipline, it can multiply your wealth. Used carelessly, it can multiply your mistakes.

Choose wisely.

Allen C. Buchanan, SIOR, is a principal with Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services in Orange. He can be reached at abuchanan@lee-associates.com or 714.564.7104.

Recent numbers from property data firm Attom show home sales in the six-county Southern California region decreased from a year ago for the first time in nine months, falling to the second-lowest total for a May in at least 21 years.

Home prices, meanwhile, have mostly leveled off, with values dropping from April to May in three of the region’s six counties.

“It’s definitely been slower than in past years,” said Brandie Jones, a broker-associate with Downey-based Keller Williams Realty for Southeastern Los Angeles. “Buyers aren’t as eager to hop into the market because of all this uncertainty, uncertainty over tariffs.”

See also: Home-sale cancellations see ‘dramatic increase,’ agents say

Jones added that many would-be homebuyers are on the fence, waiting to see if interest rates or home prices drop.

For the most part, prices are not dropping in Southern California, although they did fall on an annual basis in Riverside and San Diego counties.

The median price of a Southern California home — or the price at the midpoint of all sales — was $825,000 in May, Attom reported.

On the one hand, that’s a record, topping the last high of $821,000 reached in February. Yet, May’s median was less than 1% above the year-ago level.

Price appreciation in April and May were the smallest for the region in two years, Attom figures show.

“With longer market times, negotiations have shifted in favor of buyers, and they are now calling more of the shots,” Steve Thomas, author of Reports On Housing, said in his latest dispatch.

Slow sales and steadily rising listings are behind the shift.

May saw 14,957 houses, condos and townhomes change hands, or 3.5% fewer than in May 2024, Attom reported Thursday, July 17.

That’s significantly below the May average of 21,000 home sales, and half the tally of May 2005, when buyers snatched up more than 33,000 Southern California homes.

This year’s spring — typically the busiest time of year for housing deals — is the third in a row of rock-bottom sales. Just two other springs, 2020 and 2024, were slower.

“We are seeing homes staying on the market longer, and we’re seeing more price reductions than we did in previous months,” Jones said, adding that buyers are worried about the economy and their job security.

“The ICE raids and things like that, they do have an impact on us. They do have an impact on our people,” Jones added. “People are kind of a little bit hesitant right now.”

Southern California homes are averaging more than 42 days on the market before going under contract, or almost 11 days longer than a year ago, according to the online brokerage Redfin.

See also: Seal Beach’s Water Tower House, a relic of 1890s ingenuity, lists for $5.5M

Slightly more sellers also are dropping their prices to make a deal than a year ago, Redfin reported.

Southern California’s active inventory of homes for sale hit the highest level in May and June since the pandemic lockdowns in the spring of 2020. The number of homes for sale increased 70% in the past 1 ½ years.

“The housing market has been tilting in buyers’ favor for months, with buyers getting concessions from sellers and often successfully negotiating sale prices down,” Redfin reported Thursday.

A slowdown in asking-price growth, along with a shrinking gap between asking prices and buyer offers, is a sign that sellers are coming to terms with today’s market, Redfin said.

“Sellers are having to be more realistic in terms of their purchase price,” Jones added. “And the buyer will more than likely ask for some closing costs or ask for a concession, and it would probably be in (a seller’s) best interest to consider that.”

A small improvement in interest rates from a year ago made Southern California homes slightly more affordable.

May’s rates for a 30-year fixed mortgage averaged 6.8%, compared with just over 7% a year earlier. The house payment for a median-priced home was $77 cheaper in May.

Still, the local housing market remains pricey. The median house price was $880,000 in May. Buyers need $1 million to buy the typical house in San Diego County and $1.3 million for an Orange County house.

The median price for a Southern California condo, the most affordable type of housing, was $685,000 in May, topping out at more than $700,000 in L.A. and San Diego counties. In Orange County, a typical condo cost $829,000.

Sales were down from year-ago levels in all six counties, Attom figures show.

Here’s a county-by-county breakdown of median prices and sales totals, with annual percentage changes:

—Los Angeles County’s median rose 2.8% to a record high of $915,000; sales were down 1% to 5,535 transactions.

—Orange County’s median was unchanged at $1.2 million, which ties a record set in May and June 2024 and again this past February and March; sales were down 8.3% to 2,154 transactions.

—Riverside County’s median fell 1.8% to $599,000; sales were down 4.5% to 2,570 transactions.

—San Bernardino County’s median rose 1% to $515,000; sales were down 3% to 1,698 transactions.

—San Diego County’s median fell 0.2% to $900,000; sales were down 4.4% to 2,384 transactions.

—Ventura County’s median rose 3% to $865,000; sales were down 3% to 616 transactions.

CBS says its decision to end Stephen Colbert’s late-night comedy show is financial, not political. Yet even with the ample skepticism about that explanation, there’s no denying the economics were not working in Colbert’s favor.

The network’s bombshell announcement late Thursday that the “Late Show” will end next May takes away President Donald Trump’s most prominent TV critic and the most popular entertainment program in its genre.

The television industry’s declining economic health means similar hard calls are already being made with personalities and programming, with others to be faced in the future. For the late-night genre, there are unique factors to consider.

As recently as 2018, broadcast networks took in an estimated $439 million in advertising revenue for its late-night programs, according to the advertising firm Guidelines. Last year, that number dwindled to $220 million.

Once a draw for young men, now they’ve turned away

Late-night TV was a particular draw for young men, considered the hardest-to-get and most valuable demographic for advertisers. Increasingly, these viewers are turning to streaming services, either to watch something else entirely or catch highlights of the late-night shows, which are more difficult for the networks to monetize.

More broadly, the much-predicted takeover of viewers by streaming services is coming to pass. The Nielsen company reported that during the last two months, for the first time ever, more people consumed programming on services like YouTube and Netflix than on ABC, CBS and NBC or any cable network.

Networks and streamers spent roughly $70 billion on entertainment shows and $30 billion for sports rights last year, said Brian Wieser, CEO of Madison & Wall, an advertising consultant and data services firm. Live sports is the most dependable magnet for viewers and costs for its rights are expected to increase 8% a year over the next decade. With television viewership declining in general, it’s clear where savings will have to come from.

Wieser said he does not know whether Colbert’s show is profitable or not for CBS and parent company Paramount Global, but he knows the direction in which it is headed. “The economics of television are weak,” he said.

In a statement announcing the cancellation, George Cheeks, Paramount Global’s president and chief executive officer, said that “This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”

Cheeks’ problem is that not everyone believes him.

Colbert is a relentless critic of Trump, and earlier this week pointedly criticized Paramount’s decision to settle Trump’s lawsuit against CBS over a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris. He called Paramount’s $16 million payment to Trump a “big fat bribe,” since the company is seeking the administration’s approval of its merger with Skydance Media.

On Friday, the Writers Guild of America called for an investigation by New York’s attorney general into whether Colbert’s cancellation is itself a bribe, “sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump administration as the company looks for merger approval.”

CBS’ decision made this a pivotal week for the future of television and radio programming. Congress stripped federal funding for PBS and NPR, threatening the future of shows on those outlets.

Journey Gunderson, executive director of the National Comedy Center, called the decision to end Colbert’s show the end of an era.

“Late-night television has historically been one of comedy’s most audience-accessible platforms — a place where commentary meets community, night after night,” Gunderson said. “This isn’t just the end of a show. It’s the quiet removal of one of the few remaining platforms for daily comedic commentary.

Trump celebrates Colbert’s demise

Trump, who has called in the past for CBS to terminate Colbert’s contract, celebrated the show’s upcoming demise. “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “His talent was even less than his ratings.”

Some experts questioned whether CBS could have explored other ways to save money on Colbert. NBC, for example, has cut costs by eliminating the band on Seth Meyers’ late-night show and curtailing Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight” show to four nights a week.

Could CBS have saved more money by cutting off the show immediately, instead of letting it run until next May, which sets up an awkward “lame duck” period? Then again, Colbert will keep working until his contract runs out; CBS would have had to keep paying him anyway.

CBS recently cancelled the “After Midnight” show that ran after Colbert. But the network had signaled earlier this year that it was prepared to continue that show until host Taylor Tomlinson decided that she wanted to leave, noted Bill Carter, author of “The Late Shift.”

“It is a very sad day for CBS that they are getting out of the late-night race,” Andy Cohen, host of Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live,” told The Associated Press. “I mean, they are turning off the lights after the news.”

Colbert, if he wanted to continue past next May, would likely be able to find a streaming service willing to pay him, Wieser said. But the future of late-night comedy on the entertainment networks is genuinely at risk. Trump, in fact, may outlast his fiercest comic critics. Jon Stewart, once a weeknight fixture, works one night a week at “The Daily Show” for Paramount’s Comedy Central, a network that seldom produces much original programming any more.

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, who was chided on social media by Trump on Friday — “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next” — has a contract that also runs out next year. Kimmel, 57, openly wondered in a Variety interview before signing his latest three-year contract extension how long he wanted to do it. He’s hosted his show since 2003.

“I have moments where I go, I cannot do this anymore,” Kimmel told Variety in 2022. “And I have moments where I go, what am I gonna do with my life if I’m not doing this anymore?’ It’s a very complicated thing … I’m not going to do this forever.”

Colbert, Kimmel and Stewart were all nominated for Emmy awards this week.

AP journalist Liam McEwan in Los Angeles contributed to this report. David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.

NEW YORK (AP) — A former chief executive of two clothing technology companies who was once portrayed as an on-the-rise fashion entrepreneur has surrendered to face charges in an indictment unsealed Friday alleging that she cheated investors of over $300 million over the last six years.

Christine Hunsicker, 48, of Lafayette, New Jersey, was charged with six counts, including fraud, aggravated identity theft and false statement charges in the indictment in Manhattan federal court.

U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a release that Hunsicker forged documents, fabricated audits and made material misrepresentations about her company’s financial condition to defraud investors in CaaStle Inc. and P180.

The indictment said she portrayed CaaStle as a high-growth, private company with substantial cash on hand when she knew it faced significant financial distress.

In a statement, defense lawyers Michael Levy and Anna Skotko said prosecutors “have chosen to present to the public an incomplete and very distorted picture in today’s indictment,” despite Hunsicker’s efforts to be “fully cooperative and transparent” with prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“There is much more to this story, and we look forward to telling it,” they said.

According to the indictment, Hunsicker continued her fraudulent scheme even after the CaaStle board of directors removed her and prohibited her from soliciting investments or taking other actions on the company’s behalf.

She “persisted in her scheme” even after law enforcement agents confronted her over the fraud, the indictment said.

Before the fraud allegations emerged, Hunsicker seemed to be a rising star in the fashion world after she was named to Crain’s New York Business “40 under 40” lists, was selected as one of Inc.’s “Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs” and was recognized by the National Retail Federation as someone shaping the future of retail, the indictment noted.

At a time when the business was in financial distress with limited cash available and significant expenses, CaaStle was valued by Hunsicker at $1.4 billion, the indictment said.

Hunsicker was lying to investors in February 2019 and continued to do so through this March, prosecutors alleged.

They said she fed investors falsely inflated income statements, fake audited financial statements, fictitious bank account records and sham corporate records.

She allegedly told one investor in August 2023 that CaaStle reported an operating profit of nearly $24 million in the second quarter of 2023 when its operating profit that quarter was actually less than $30,000.

The indictment alleged that she carried out the majority of the fraud by bilking CaaStle investors of $275 million before forming P180 last year to infuse CaaStle with cash before its investors could discover her fraud.

Through misrepresentations and omissions, she cheated P180 investors out of about $30 million, the indictment said.

It said CaaStle filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last month, leaving hundreds of investors holding now-worthless CaaStle shares.

The senior living community Coventry Court in Tustin traded hands July 10, selling for $83 million. The seller was Meta Housing Corp. in Los Angeles, and the buyer was Jonathan Rose Cos. in New York. ()

The senior living community Coventry Court in Tustin traded hands July 10, selling for $83 million. The seller was Meta Housing Corp. in Los Angeles, and the buyer was Jonathan Rose Cos. in New York. ()

The senior living community Coventry Court in Tustin traded hands July 10, selling for $83 million. The seller was Meta Housing Corp. in Los Angeles, and the buyer was Jonathan Rose Cos. in New York. (Photo courtesy of Northmarq)

The senior living community Coventry Court in Tustin traded hands July 10, selling for $83 million, according to Northmarq.

The brokerage represented the seller, Meta Housing Corp. in Los Angeles. The buyer was Jonathan Rose Cos. in New York.

The deal closed July 10, Northmarq reps said.

The 55-and-older community in the Tustin Ranch neighborhood has 240 units, with more than half of them income-restricted. Only 87 units at Coventry Court are rented at market rates, according to Northmarq.

The apartments were completed in 2012 and sit not far from the blimp hangar that burned in 2023.

Bustling Fullerton Metrocenter sells for $118.5M

Space Investment Partners recently paid $118.5 million to Kite Realty for Fullerton Metrocenter, a 395,703-square-foot retail center anchored by Sprouts, Petsmart and Target.

The shopping center at 1375 Harbor Blvd. sits on 30 acres with 40 tenants that also include Urban Air Adventure Park.

“Looking ahead, we plan to revamp the center, bringing in new concepts and ensuring it serves the surrounding community as more housing is added,” said Ryan Gallagher, Space IP managing partner and co-founder.

Built in 1988 and updated in 2002, the shopping center will get some immediate improvements including fresh paint, updated signage, new landscaping, and leasing efforts “focused on attracting new food and fitness tenants,” according to the company.

Eastdil Secured represented the seller in the transaction.

Fullerton apartments fetch $4.1 million

A nine-unit apartment property in Fullerton sold June 13 for $4.1 million or $455,555 per unit, according to Marcus & Millichap.

Greg Bassirpou at Marcus & Millichap pointed out the small complex is minutes from Cal State Fullerton and retail centers, making it an attractive option for investors.

Bassirpou did not identify the buyer or sellers.

The property at 3169-3175 Quartz Lane includes one two-bedroom, two-bathroom townhome and eight two-bedroom, one-bathroom units in 9,831 square feet.

Amenities include a landscaped courtyard, patios, enclosed garages and on-site laundry rooms.

Bassirpou said the sellers made “extensive interior and exterior renovations to the property.”

CapRock goes big in Houston

Newport Beach-based CapRock Partners recently acquired a 524,199-square-foot, Class A industrial facility in Houston for undisclosed terms.

The fully leased Kennedy Greens Distribution Center was CapRock’s first buy in the Houston marketplace as it expands across Texas.

Built in 2020, the distribution center sits on 29 acres less than 3 miles from George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

“Houston’s industrial market continues to demonstrate strength, driven by durable demand, land constraints and a diversified economy,” Jon Pharris, co-founder and president of CapRock Partners, said in a statement.

Gantry moves mortgage team to Atrium in Irvine

Fresh off it’s deal to acquire Irvine-based Westcap, Gantry has relocated its now larger team to the Atrium office campus in Irvine.

The firm, which moved from Suite 285 at 19600 Fairchild Road in Irvine, now works from 19100-19200 Von Karman. The office complex includes an open air, 10-story lobby connecting two, 10-story office towers in 334,828 square feet.

Gantry’s new office space houses the firm’s commercial mortgage loan producers and corporate marketing staff.

Gantry Principal Andy Bratt said the firm’s operations “grew significantly” in 2024 after buying Westcap and its $3.2 billion loan servicing portfolio last December. The shift to a larger space will help integrate Westcap’s loan production staff with Gantry’s team.

Stream Realty Partners represented both sides of the five-year lease for 5,000 square feet.

The real estate roundup is compiled from news releases and written by Business Editor Samantha Gowen. Submit items and high-resolution photos via email to  sgowen@scng.com . Please allow at least a week for publication. All items are subject to editing for clarity and length.

Most of the 24 million people in Affordable Care Act health plans face a potential one-two punch next year — double-digit premium increases along with a sharp drop in the federal subsidies that most consumers depend on to buy the coverage, also known as Obamacare.

Insurers want higher premiums to cover the usual culprits — rising medical and labor costs and usage — but are tacking on extra percentage point increases in their 2026 rate proposals to cover effects of policy changes advanced by the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. One key factor built into their filings with state insurance departments: uncertainty over whether Congress allows more generous, covid-era ACA tax subsidies to expire at the end of December.

“The out-of-pocket change for individuals will be immense, and many won’t actually be able to make ends meet and pay premiums, so they will go uninsured,” said JoAnn Volk, co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University.

Especially if the higher subsidies expire, insurance premiums will be among the first financial pains felt by health care consumers after policy priorities put forward by President Donald Trump and the GOP. Many other changes — such as additional paperwork requirements and spending cuts to Medicaid — won’t occur for at least another year. But spiking ACA premiums, as the nation heads into key midterm elections, invites political pushback. Some on Capitol Hill are exploring ways to temper the subsidy reductions.

“I am hearing on both sides — more from Republicans, but from both the House and Senate” — that they are looking for levers they can pull, said Pennsylvania-based insurance broker Joshua Brooker, who follows legislative actions as part of his job and sits on several insurance advisory groups.

In initial filings, insurers nationally are seeking a median rate increase — meaning half of the proposed increases are lower and half higher — of 15%, according to an analysis for the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker covering 19 states and the District of Columbia. KFF is a national health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

That’s up sharply from the last few years. For the 2025 plan year, for example, KFF found that the median proposed increase was 7%.

Health insurers “are doing everything in their power to shield consumers from the rising costs of care and the uncertainty in the market driven by recent policy changes,” wrote Chris Bond, a spokesperson for AHIP, the industry’s lobbying group. The emailed response also called on lawmakers “to take action to extend the health care tax credits to prevent skyrocketing cost increases for millions of Americans in 2026.”

Neither the White House nor the Department of Health and Human Services responded to requests for comment.

These are initial numbers and insurance commissioners in some states may alter requests before approval.

Still, “it’s the biggest increase we’ve seen in over five years,” said analysis co-author Cynthia Cox, a KFF vice president and director of its Program on the ACA.

Premiums will vary based on where consumers live, the type of plan they choose, and their insurer.

For example, Maryland insurers have requested increases ranging from 8.1% to 18.7% for the upcoming plan year, according to an analysis of a smaller set of insurers by Georgetown University researchers. A much larger swing is seen in New York, where one carrier is asking for less than a 1% increase, while another wants 66%. Maryland rate filings indicated the average statewide increase would shrink to 7.9% from 17.1% — if the ACA’s enhanced tax credits are extended.

Most insurers are asking for 10% to 20% increases, the KFF report says, with several factors driving those increases. For instance, insurers say underlying medical costs — including the use of expensive obesity drugs — will add about 8% to premiums for next year. And most insurers are also adding 4% above what they would have charged had the enhanced tax credits been renewed.

But rising premiums are just part of the picture.

A bigger potential change for consumers’ pocketbooks hinges on whether Congress decides to extend more generous tax credits first put in place during President Joe Biden’s term as part of the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021, then extended through the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.

Those laws raised the subsidy amounts people could receive based on their household income and local premium costs and removed a cap that had barred higher earners from even partial subsidy assistance. Higher earners could still qualify for some subsidy but first had to chip in 8.5% of their household income toward the premiums.

Across the board, but especially among lower-income policyholders, bigger subsidies helped fuel record enrollment in ACA plans.

But they’re also costly.

A permanent extension could cost $335 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Such an extension was left out of the policy law Trump signed on July 4 that he called the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Without action, the extra subsidies will expire at the end of this year, after which the tax credits will revert to less generous pre-pandemic levels.

That means two things: Most enrollees will be on the hook to pay a larger share of their premiums as assistance from federal tax credits declines. Secondly, people whose household income exceeds four times the federal poverty level — $84,600 for a couple or $128,600 for a family of four this year — won’t get any subsidies at all.

If the subsidies expire, policy experts estimate, the average amount people pay for coverage could rise by an average of more than 75%. In some states, ACA premiums could double.

“There will be sticker shock,” said Josh Schultz, strategic engagement manager at Softheon, a New York consulting firm that provides enrollment, billing, and other services to about 200 health insurers, many of which are bracing for enrollment losses.

And enrollment could fall sharply. The Wakely Consulting Group estimates that the combination of expiring tax credits, the Trump law’s new paperwork, and other requirements will result in ACA enrollment dropping by as much as 57%.

According to KFF, insurers added premium increases of around 4% just to cover the expiration of the enhanced tax credits, which they fear will lead to lower enrollment. That would further raise costs, insurers say, because people who are less healthy are more likely to grit their teeth and reenroll, leaving insurers with a smaller, but sicker, pool of members.

Less common in the filings submitted so far, but noticeable, are increases pegged to Trump administration tariffs, Cox said.

“What they are assuming is tariffs will drive drug costs up significantly, with some saying that can have around a 3-percentage-point increase” in premiums as a result, she said.

Consumers will learn their new premium prices only late in the fall, or when open enrollment for the ACA begins on Nov. 1 and they can start shopping around.

Congress could still act, and discussions are ongoing, said insurance broker Brooker.

Some lawmakers, he said, are consulting with the CBO about the fiscal and coverage effects of various scenarios that don’t extend the subsidies as they currently exist but may offer a middle ground. One possibility involves allowing subsidies for families earning as much as five or six times the poverty level, he said.

But any such effort will draw pushback.

Some conservative think tanks, such as the Paragon Health Institute, say the more generous subsides led people to fudge their incomes to qualify and led to other types of fraud, such as brokers signing people up for ACA plans without authorization.

But others note that many consumers — Democratic and Republican — have come to rely on the additional assistance. Not extending it could be risky politically. In 2024, 56% of ACA enrollees lived in Republican congressional districts, and 76% were in states won by Trump.

Allowing the enhanced subsidies to expire could also reshape the market.

Brooker said some people may drop coverage. Others will shift to plans with lower premiums but higher deductibles. One provision of Trump’s new tax law allows people enrolled in either “bronze” or “catastrophic”-level ACA plans, which are usually the cheapest, to qualify for health savings accounts, which allow people to set aside money, tax-free, to cover health care costs.

“Naturally, if rates do start going up the way we anticipate, there will be a migration to lower-cost options,” Brooker said.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

My trusty spreadsheet, filled with state job figures released Friday, July 18, found 8.01 million people at work in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties in June. These figures are not adjusted for seasonal swings.

That’s up 71,300 workers in the year compared with 36,600 local jobs added in the previous year. It’s the most significant increase in 10 months, but it’s no wild hiring spree. Southern California bosses grew staff at a 101,400 annual pace since 2010.

Alternatively, consider staffing changes on a percentage basis. The past year’s 0.9% expansion was an improvement from the 0.5% increase the previous 12 months, but it’s below the 1.4% annual pace of the last 15 years.

A hiring revival?

Well, this job bump is somewhat surprising. Local businesses have expressed caution as they assess the unorthodox economic strategies of the Trump administration.

Also, note that most of the recent job gains are in industries tied to government spending. Such funding may decrease in the coming months: healthcare – up 41,200 in a year, social assistance – up 34,300, and government – up 19,600.

As for June itself, 4,400 jobs were trimmed across the region. June is typically a weak month for employment, as educators leave the job market for summer recess, outnumbering new staffing at tourism-related workplaces. Since 2010, June has generally seen only 400 workers added.

Joblessness

The four-county unemployment rate was 5.7% in June compared with 4.9% in the previous month, and 5.6% a year earlier. By the way, the median monthly local jobless rate is 5.8% since 2010.

There were 505,400 Southern Californians counted as officially out of work, up 65,100 in a month and up 10,700 in a year. The jobless count is 1% above the 500,100 median since 2010.

Regional differences

Here’s how the job market performed in the region’s key metropolitan areas in June …

Los Angeles County: 4.61 million workers, after adding 41,700 in 12 months vs. a 43,800 annual pace since 2010. For the month, there were 6,500 cuts, a decrease compared with the historical average of 1,700 cuts. Unemployment? 5.9% vs. 5.4% a month earlier, 6.7% a year ago and 6.1% median since 2010.

Orange County: 1.7 million workers, after adding 11,900 in 12 months, vs. 21,100 annual pace since 2010. For the month, there was a 2,200 increase compared with the historical 2,300 additions. Unemployment? 4.5% vs. 3.6% a month earlier, 4.4% a year ago and 4.3% median since 2010.

Inland Empire: 1.71 million workers, after adding 17,700 in 12 months, vs. a 36,500 annual pace since 2010. For the month, there was a 100 decrease compared with history’s 1,000 cuts. Unemployment? 5.9% vs. 4.8% a month earlier, 5.9% a year ago and 6.2% median since 2010.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com

Last year in Massachusetts, after finding lumps in her breast, Jessica Chen went to Lowell General Hospital-Saints Campus, part of Tufts Medicine, for a mammogram and sonogram.

Before the screenings, she asked the hospital for the estimated patient responsibility for the bill using her insurance, Tufts Health Plan. Her portion, she was told, would be $359 — and she paid it.

She was more than a little surprised weeks later to receive a bill asking her to pay an additional $1,677.51. “I was already trying to stomach $359, and this was many times higher,” Chen, a physician assistant, told me.

The No Surprises Act, which took effect in 2022, was rightly heralded as a landmark piece of legislation, which “protects people covered under group and individual health plans from receiving surprise medical bills,” according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. And yet bills that take patients like Chen by surprise just keep coming.

With the help of her software-wise boyfriend, she found the complicated “machine-readable” master price list that hospitals are required to post online and looked up the negotiated rate between Lowell General and her insurer. It was $302.56 — less than she had paid out-of-pocket.

CMS is charged with enforcing the law, so Chen sent a complaint about the surprising bill to the agency. She received a terse email in return: “We have reviewed your complaint and have determined that the rights and protections of the No Surprises Act do not apply.”

When I asked the health system to explain how such a surprising off-estimate bill could be generated, Tufts Medicine spokesperson Jeremy Lechan responded by email: “Healthcare billing is complex and includes various factors and data points, so actual charges for care provided may differ from initial estimates. We understand the frustration these discrepancies can cause.”

Here’s the problem: While the No Surprises Act has been a phenomenal success in taking on some unfair practices in the wild West of medical billing, it was hardly a panacea.

In fact, the measure protected patients primarily from only one particularly egregious type of surprise bill that had become increasingly common before the law’s enactment: When patients unknowingly got out-of-network care at an in-network facility, or when they had no choice but to get out-of-network care in an emergency. In either case, before President Donald Trump signed the law late in his first term, patients could be hit with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in out-of-network bills that their insurance wouldn’t pay.

The No Surprises Act also provided some protection from above-estimate bills, but at the moment, the protection is only for uninsured and self-pay patients, so it wouldn’t apply in Chen’s case since she was using health insurance.

But patients who do qualify generally are entitled to an up-front, good-faith estimate for treatment they schedule at least three business days in advance or if they request one. Patients can dispute a bill if it is more than $400 over the estimate. (The No Surprises Act also required what amounted to a good-faith estimate of out-of-pocket costs for patients with insurance, but that provision has not been implemented, since, nearly five years later, the government still has not issued rules about exactly what form it should take.)

So, surprising medical bills — bills that the patient could not have anticipated and never consented to — are still stunning countless Americans.

Jessica Robbins, who works in product development in Chicago, was certainly surprised when, out of the blue, she was recently billed $3,300 by Endeavor Health for a breast MRI she had received two years earlier, with prior authorization from her then-insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois. In trying to resolve the problem, she found herself caught in a Kafkaesque circle involving dozens of calls and emails. The clinic where she had the procedure no longer existed, having been bought by Endeavor. And she no longer had Blue Cross.

“We are actively working with the patient and their insurer to resolve this matter,” Endeavor spokesperson Allie Burke said in an emailed response to my questions.

Mary Ann Bonita of Fresno, California, was starting school this year to become a nursing assistant when, on a Friday, she received a positive skin test for tuberculosis. Her school’s administration said she couldn’t return to class until she had a negative chest X-ray. When her doctor from Kaiser Permanente didn’t answer requests to order the test for several days, Bonita went to an emergency room and paid $595 up front for the X-ray, which showed no TB. So she and her husband were surprised to receive another bill, for $1,039, a month later, “with no explanation of what it was for,” said Joel Pickford, Bonita’s husband.

In the cases above, each patient questioned an expensive, unexpected medical charge that came as a shock — only to find that the No Surprises Act didn’t apply.

“There are many billing problems out there that are surprising but are not technically surprise bills,” Zack Cooper, an associate professor of economics at Yale University, told me. The No Surprises Act fixed a specific kind of charge, he said, “and that’s great. But, of course, we need to address others.”

Cooper’s research has found that before the No Surprises Act was passed, more than 25% of emergency room visits yielded a surprise out-of-network bill.

CMS’ official No Surprises Help Desk has received tens of thousands of complaints, which it investigates, said Catherine Howden, a CMS spokesperson. “While some billing practices, such as delayed bills, are not currently regulated” by the No Surprises Act, Howden said, complaint trends nonetheless help “inform potential areas for future improvements.” And they are needed.

Michelle Rodio, a teacher in Lakewood, Ohio, had a lingering cough weeks after a bout of pneumonia that required treatment with a course of antibiotics. She went to Cleveland Clinic’s Lakewood Family Health Center for an examination. Her X-ray was fine. As was her nasal swab — except for the stunning $2,700 bill it generated.

“I said, ‘This is a surprise bill!’” Rodio recalled telling the provider’s finance office. The agent said it was not.

“So I said, ‘Next time I’ll be sure to ask the doctor for an estimate when I get a nose swab.’ ”

“The doctors wouldn’t know that,” the agent replied, as Rodio recalled — and indeed physicians generally have no idea how much the tests they order will cost. And in any case, Rodio was not legally entitled to a binding estimate, since the part of the No Surprises Act that grants patients with insurance that right has not been implemented yet.

So she was stuck with a bill of $471 (the patient responsibility portion of the $2,700 charge) that she couldn’t have consented to (or rejected) in advance. It was surprising — shocking to her, even — but not a “surprise bill,” according to the current law. But shouldn’t it be?

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is granting two years of regulatory relief to coal-fired power plants, chemical manufacturers and other polluting industries as he seeks to reverse Biden-era regulations he considers overly burdensome.

Trump issued a series of proclamations late Thursday exempting a range of industries that he calls vital to national security.

The proclamations cover coal-fired power plants, taconite iron ore processing facilities used to make steel, and chemical manufacturers that help produce semiconductors and medical device sterilizers.

The proclamations allow the facilities to comply with Environmental Protection Agency standards that were in place before rules imposed in recent years by President Joe Biden’s administration, the White House said.

Trump called the Biden-era rules expensive and, in some cases, unattainable. His actions will ensure that “critical industries can continue to operate uninterrupted to support national security without incurring substantial costs,” the White House said in a fact sheet.

Trump’s EPA had earlier exempted dozens of coal-fired plants from air-pollution rules for the same reasons. The EPA also offered other industrial polluters a chance for exemptions from requirements to reduce emissions of toxic chemicals such as mercury, arsenic and benzene. An electronic mailbox set up by the EPA allowed regulated companies to request a presidential exemption under the Clean Air Act to a host of Biden-era rules.

Environmental groups have denounced the offer to grant exemptions, calling the new email address a “polluters’ portal” that could allow hundreds of companies to evade laws meant to protect the environment and public health. Mercury exposure can cause brain damage, especially in children. Fetuses are vulnerable to birth defects via exposure in a mother’s womb.

Within weeks of the EPA’s offer, industry groups representing hundreds of chemical and petrochemical manufacturers began seeking the blanket exemptions from federal pollution requirements.

The Clean Air Act enables the president to temporarily exempt industrial sites from new rules if the technology required to meet them is not widely available and if the continued activity is in the interest of national security.

John Walke, clean air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, said Trump’s claims about technology problems and national security concerns were “pretexts” so he could help big corporations get richer.

“President Trump just signed a literal free pass for polluters,″ Walke said. “If your family lives downwind of these plants, this is going to mean more toxic chemicals in the air you breathe.”

In April, the EPA granted nearly 70 coal-fired power plants a two-year exemption from federal requirements to reduce emissions of toxic chemicals. A list posted on the agency’s website lists 47 power providers — which operate at least 66 coal-fired plants — that are receiving exemptions from the Biden-era rules.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced plans in March to roll back dozens of key environmental rules on everything from clean air to clean water and climate change. Zeldin called the planned rollbacks the “most consequential day of deregulation in American history.”

An Associated Press examination of the proposed rollbacks concluded that rules targeted by the EPA could prevent an estimated 30,000 deaths and save $275 billion each year they are in effect. The AP review included the agency’s own prior assessments as well as a wide range of other research.

In a related development, the EPA said Thursday it will give utility companies an additional year to inspect and report on contamination from toxic coal ash landfills across the country.

“Today’s actions provide much needed regulatory relief for the power sector and help … unleash American energy,” Zeldin said.