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Who knows what — if anything — Senate Republicans will do about health care reform. But there is a fundamental truth that is being overlooked in all the hyperbolic rhetoric over Medicaid, mandates, subsidies, accessibility and taxes: Free markets would turn our ailing healthcare system into a dynamic, innovative cornucopia of better and ever more affordable care for all of us. We'll see if Washington can rise to the challenge of starting to remove the formidable obstacles to such a market where patients would be in charge rather than the third party payers of government, big insurers and big employers. (Steve Forbes, 7/7)

If the halting, messy debate over legislation to overhaul health care has taught us anything so far, it’s that when it comes to health care, Republicans don’t know what they want, much less how to get it. (Peter Suderman, 7/7)

With their sledge hammers pounding Obamacare, [congressional Republicans] cannot move fast enough to strip Americans of health insurance. After yet another break this week to rest up, they plan to return and resume attempts to destroy the law and the benefits it has provided millions of people. Some lawmakers view success as a desperately needed political "win." But Americans will be the losers. (7/6)

Republicans believe the problem with the health-care system is that Americans are forced to buy too much insurance, in plans that are too prescribed. Their solution is to give consumers more choices for what kinds of plans (including no plan at all) they can buy. ... But the health insurance market has some distinctive properties that mean too many choices can lead the whole market to unravel. This would leave nearly everyone — consumers, insurers and health-care providers — much worse off. (Catherine Rampell, 7/6)

Sen. Ted Cruz has a litmus test for his Republican Senate colleagues: Do they care more about cutting health insurance premiums than protecting people with preexisting conditions? Granted, Cruz (R-Texas) wouldn’t put it that way. But the amendment he’s seeking to add to the Senate GOP’s bill to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act sets up a choice just that stark. (Jon Healey, 7/6)

The current health-care debate is often distilled into a series of binary choices for public consumption: good or bad, healthy or sick, help for the rich or help for the poor. As a result, a growing number of Americans are starting to believe that the GOP’s health-care legislation is a cruel ploy to hurt millions of Americans. This is in large part a messaging failure: Good policy must be sold with good arguments, and Republicans have not articulated their own vision of what the American health-care system should look like. (Juliana Darrow, 7/5)

Consider, in particular, Republican leaders’ strategy on health care. At this point, everything they say involves either demonstrably dishonest claims about Obamacare or wild misrepresentations of their proposed replacement, which would — surprise — cut taxes for the rich while inflicting harsh punishment on the poor and working class, including millions of Trump supporters. In fact, there’s so much deception that I can’t cover it all. But here are a few low points. (Paul Krugman, 7/7)

The battle we fight today should be about expanding coverage to millions more, not deciding how much coverage we should take away from people who already have it. Whether Congressional Republicans are successful in their repeal efforts or not, universal healthcare must be our goal. As President Trump realized all too late, healthcare is really complicated. But our priorities should not be: We must endeavor to provide quality, accessible care to every American. (Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), 7/6)

Healthcare industry leaders and patient advocacy groups are facing a sobering reality as Republican senators weigh whether to pass their bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Their staunch opposition to the repeal along with broad public disapproval may not be enough to convince lawmakers to kill the bill. Several public opinion surveys last week found the Senate GOP's Better Care Reconciliation Act extremely unpopular, with weak support even among Republicans. (Harris Meyer, 7/6)

In the 1990s, there was plenty of teeth-gnashing by welfare reform opponents over changing the funding structure for cash assistance, implementing work requirements, and creating time limits – rhetoric that sounds eerily similar to much of the health reform coverage today. Mostly absent from the welfare discussion was the role that earned income tax credits (EITC) would play in reform. Similarly, in the current health care debates over Medicaid changes there is a lack of any reference to proposed tax credits. (Josh Archambault, 7/6)

I am a family medicine physician who has worked in Philadelphia and New York City for the past three years, and I know how the BCRA will affect trafficked people: it will unequivocally harm them. I know this because I run the Institute for Family Health’s PurpLE Clinic (Purpose: Listen and Engage) in New York City, which provides health care for human trafficking survivors. The survivors I work with are of all genders, ethnicities, ages. Some have been without necessary healthcare for years, facing complications from untreated infections, undiagnosed diseases, addictions and complex trauma. And every single survivor is uninsured or on Medicaid. (Anita Ravi, 7/6)

Children make up 70 percent of Kansas’ Medicaid population, and Medicaid is there for them. Through Medicaid, children receive well-child visits, vaccines, early treatment for illnesses and chronic medical conditions, therapies and hospital care when needed, which are so important if kids are going to be ready and able to succeed in school and in life. (Pam Shaw, 7/6)

The Senate’s revised health care plan is in the midst of hot debate. While the impact on middle- and low-income Americans has rightly received attention, it is important to bring up another economic impact: The bill would have a chilling effect on entrepreneurship. (Nina Dudnik, 7/7)

We at NFIB hope Sens. Portman and Brown remember that our small businesses employ more than 2 million Ohioans, serving as the engine that drives the state's economy. Obamacare, as it stands, impedes their ability to grow and add new jobs. (Roger Geiger, 7/6)

Democratic politicians are rapidly embracing single payer health care, and as they do, they’re being met with an utterly bogus criticism. Unfortunately, it’s coming not only from Republicans but also from misinformed members of the media. So before this goes any farther, we need to get a few things straight. (Paul Waldman, 7/6)

At some point, endless discussions of economic theory need to yield to blunt fact -- government health-care systems just seem to do better than the U.S. system. That is understandably a bitter pill for many free-market types to swallow. Faced with the superior performance of universal health-care systems, some supporters of a less regulated system have argued that the U.S. is somehow subsidizing the rest of the world. The most common of these arguments claims that high U.S. prices go to pay for innovation that the rest of the world copies for free. (Noah Smith, 7/6)

The uberization of senior services is all the rage. You can download an app and order up a home visit from a doctor. You can get home delivered groceries or prepared foods. And, of course, you can get a ride. While these services were designed primarily for the young and overworked, there are real potential benefits for older adults and others with disabilities. The most obvious: They have the potential to deliver critical supports to people with mobility issues. (Howard Gleckman, 7/5)

In the United States, the fight against infant mortality seemed slow but sure. Indeed, over the past decade, the rate at which babies died before their first birthday fell by 15 percent. But in recent years, progress in reducing overall infant mortality has stagnated. And for African Americans, we’ve actually lost ground, according to a study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The infant mortality rate for black babies hit 11.6 deaths per 1,000 births in 2012, but that number ticked up slightly higher in 2015 to 11.7. (Robert Gebelhoff, 7/6)