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The Senate's health panel intends to craft a bipartisan bill to stabilize the insurance markets by early next week, enabling the full Senate to pass it by the end of the month, according to Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). Alexander laid out the goal Thursday during the Health Committee’s fourth hearing on stabilizing the markets ahead of a Sept. 27 deadline for insurers to sign contracts to sell plans on HealthCare.gov, with open enrollment beginning Nov. 1. Last week, Alexander said he’d hoped for a deal by the end of this week. (Roubein, 9/14)

Differences remain between requests from Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., but the two expressed confidence Thursday that they would reach a deal. ... While Alexander said he has not received assurances from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that a bill the committee leaders produce would get a floor vote, the Kentucky Republican and Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., are monitoring their progress. “They know that we may get a result, and if we do, they’ll have to deal with it in the last week of September for it to have effect in 2018,” Alexander said. (Clason, 9/14)

As a Senate panel tries to agree on a bipartisan fix to stabilize the Affordable Care Act, some Democrats appear willing to part with the law’s controversial individual mandate — as long as there is an adequate replacement. ... At least two Democratic senators — Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Tim Kaine of Virginia — have expressed interest in automatically enrolling uninsured Americans in a low-cost insurance plan, a proposal that was included in one Republican plan to repeal Obamacare earlier this year. And 10 moderate House Democrats raised auto-enrollment as a potential tool to increase coverage and stabilize the Obamacare exchanges in a health care proposal released in July. (Reid, 9/14)

At the last of four hearings held by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, expert witnesses representing insurers, providers, consumers and state insurance commissioners stressed the urgent need for Congress to fund payments to insurers for the Affordable Care Act's cost-sharing reductions to low-income consumers. ... In addition, they pressed for a federal reinsurance program to help carriers with the cost of sicker enrollees. And they urged strong enforcement of the law's requirement that everyone buy insurance, or an alternative mechanism to prod consumers to maintain continuous coverage. (Meyer, 9/14)

Nashville surgeon Manny Sethi told a Senate panel Thursday that Tennesseans’ struggles to get healthy are tied directly to the challenges facing the individual health insurance market. Critically ill patients who have undergone multiple surgeries and clinic visits have suddenly seen their health insurance canceled or have been forced to find a new doctor to comply with rules imposed by their insurance company – in some cases, the only insurer in their county, Sethi said. (Collins, 9/14)

While some progressives campaigned this week for “Medicare for all,” a group of moderate House Democrats aligned themselves with a more modest push to stabilize the Affordable Care Act, arguing that it could spur broader health care reforms in the future. Thirty-five of the 61 members of the New Democrat Coalition sent a letter Friday urging the leaders of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to agree on a bipartisan bill to keep premiums from rising further for Obamacare enrollees next year. (Reid, 9/15)

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is measuring support for a new bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare as lawmakers head toward an end-of-the-month deadline. The vote-counting process, known as "whipping," will give GOP leadership a tentative count of which senators support the legislation spearheaded by GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (La.). (Carney, 9/14)

The Senate Finance Committee is expected to unveil the legislative text for its children's health insurance bill this week but progress in the House on the issue still seems stalled before the chamber leaves for recess. “We still have some things to work through, which we'll do at the staff level and member level next week when we're out, and then I hope when we return we'll have an opportunity then to mark up,” said Rep. Greg Walden, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the Children's Health Insurance Program. (Raman, 9/14)

Health and Human Services officials have informed grass-roots groups that assist with enrollment under the Affordable Care Act that their funding will be reduced by as much as 92 percent, a move that could upend outreach efforts across the country. The groups, which fund organizations known as “navigators,” had been braced for the cuts since the Trump administration announced two weeks ago that it would shrink overall program funding by 41 percent and slash the department’s ACA advertising budget from $100 million to $10 million. At the time of the announcement, HHS officials said the outreach wasted taxpayers’ money. (Eilperin and Goldstein, 9/14)

Their grant funds ran out at the beginning of the month, and they will not be paid retroactively for the first two weeks of September, according to one source. In preparation, some groups had laid off staff and cut salaries. Now, navigators will be analyzing their new budgets ahead of an ObamaCare enrollment season beginning Nov. 1. The Missouri Association of Area Agencies on Aging received “a severe cut of 62 percent,” Catherine Edwards, the executive director, wrote in an email. (Roubein, 9/14)

The Trump administration’s decision to slash outreach funding for ObamaCare will, perhaps unintentionally, hit red states the hardest. The move last month to cut 90 percent of funds to spur signups for healthcare.gov is likely to lead to fewer young and healthy people in the insurance pool — and thus higher costs in states with majority Trump voters, according to experts. (Weixel, 9/15)

Late Wednesday night, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced various grant reductions for ACA navigators. Some cuts are as high as 90 percent. Genesis Health in the Quad Cities is facing a 90 percent cut to is ACA navigator grant. (Sostaric, 9/14)

Average premiums for individually purchased health insurance will grow around 15 percent next year, largely because of marketplace nervousness over whether President Donald Trump will block federal subsidies to insurers, Congress' nonpartisan fiscal analyst projected Thursday. The Congressional Budget Office estimate comes as Trump has repeatedly threatened to halt the payments in his drive to dismember President Barack Obama's health care law. (Fram, 9/14)

CBO blamed the premium hikes on "short-term market uncertainty." Insurers have pleaded for more certainty on key ObamaCare payments called cost-sharing reduction subsidies, which reimburse them for giving discounts to low-income patients. (Hellmann, 9/14)

The non partisan agency now estimates that the average monthly enrollment on the exchanges will be about 11 million people, down about 4 million from last year's forecast. People can sign up for or drop out of coverage throughout the year as their employment status or access to other government health plans changes. (Humer, 9/14)

Republican leaders want to move past Obamacare repeal, but most GOP voters aren't ready to let them do it. That's a key finding of the latest POLITICO-Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll, which finds the Trump administration's messaging on health care is clearly resonating with the party's base. (Diamond, 9/15)

Last year, 8.6 percent of Americans lacked health insurance. Three years earlier, that figure was 14.5 percent, meaning that the rate dropped by 5.9 percentage points over the period that the Affordable Care Act went into effect, a 40 percent decline from the 2013 figure. In real terms, that’s about 19 million fewer people lacking health insurance, per estimates released Tuesday by the Census Bureau. (Bump, 9/14)

Low-income Kansans are less likely to have health insurance than their counterparts in other states, according to an analysis of new data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The uninsured rate among Kansans living below the federal poverty level has been worse than the national rate for many years. But the gap has widened in recent years, mainly because of the state’s rejection of Medicaid expansion, said Robert St. Peter, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Kansas Health Institute. (McLean, 9/14)

As leading Democrats embrace Senator Bernie Sanders’s proposal to vastly expand Medicare to cover all Americans, Republicans are fighting back with familiar critiques of such a single-payer system. Mr. Sanders argued for his “Medicare for all” legislation in an Op-Ed published in The New York Times on Wednesday, while his Republican colleagues dismissed the idea in a news conference. Here’s an assessment of their claims. (Qiu, 9/14)

Single-payer health care, or as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) calls it, “Medicare for all,” is becoming a rallying cry for many Democrats in Congress. But are Americans behind the idea of mandatory government-provided insurance? Polling from the summer tells us that it could be a tough sell. Only 33% of the overall public supports a “single payer” approach to health care, according to the Pew Research Center’s June poll. Among Democrats and those who lean Democrat, Pew says 52% support single-payer, up from 33% in March 2014. (Jamerson, 9/14)

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) is asking congressional scorekeepers to analyze the cost of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) “Medicare for all” bill, which could fuel Republican attacks that a single-payer health-care system would bankrupt the country. In a letter to the head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Barrasso — the Senate Republican Policy Committee chairman — wrote he was “deeply concerned that Senator Sanders’ Medicare-for-All legislation is not only a government takeover of health care, but would also put financial burdens on the American people that they cannot sustain.” (Roubein, 9/14)

The day after he finally unveiled his legislation to turn Medicare into universal health insurance, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) built on his momentum in an unusual way: a 32-minute interview with a Canadian doctor. “We have a very, very exciting show!” Sanders said, kicking off his occasional podcast and introducing Danielle Martin, a Toronto physician and academic. “She’s kind of a household name in America now.” (Weigel, 9/14)

President Trump on Thursday called Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I-Vt.) "Medicare for all" plan a "curse on the U.S.” "Bernie Sanders is pushing hard for a single payer healthcare plan - a curse on the U.S. & its people," Trump tweeted. "I told Republicans to approve healthcare fast or this would happen. But don't worry, I will veto because I love our country & its people." (Hellmann, 9/14)

After an estimated 215 people died in hospitals and nursing homes in Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, policy makers realized that the nation’s health care institutions were ill-prepared for disasters. One of the rules they created after years of discussion looked especially prescient in light of the tragic deaths on Wednesday of eight nursing home residents in Florida’s post-hurricane heat. But the rule, regarding power supplies and temperature control, will not be enforced until November, and even then, some patient advocates are concerned that it does not go far enough. (Reisner and Fink, 9/14)

Police obtained a search warrant on Thursday in their criminal investigation of the deaths of eight elderly patients exposed to sweltering heat inside a Miami-area nursing home left with little or no air conditioning after Hurricane Irma struck. The loss of life in Hollywood, Florida, brought the overall death toll from Irma to 82, with several hard-hit Caribbean islands, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, accounting for more than half the fatalities. (Oliphant, 9/15)

The Hollywood Police Department has opened a criminal investigation that could lead to manslaughter charges if the Broward state attorney’s office concludes that employees, administrators or the owner of the center acted with culpable negligence — “an utter disregard for the safety” of the deceased elderly patients. (Weaver and Teproff, 9/14)

President Trump told Florida hurricane victims his administration is “there for you 100%” as officials moved urgently to safeguard the state’s vulnerable elderly and restore power to millions of homes and businesses still without electricity. The president and First Lady Melania Trump arrived aboard Air Force One in Fort Myers on the peninsula’s southwestern Gulf coast, then traveled by helicopter to Naples, 40 miles away. It was Trump’s third disaster-zone visit in less than three weeks. (Lee, McDonnell and King, 9/14)

Florida's fits and starts toward post-Irma recovery have shifted to urgent efforts to protect its vulnerable elderly residents after a string of nursing home deaths. Several nursing homes have been evacuated because of a lack of power or air conditioning, while utility workers raced help dozens of others still lacking electricity as of Thursday. Homebound seniors found help from charities, churches and authorities. (Kay and Reynolds, 9/15)

For the millions of people who are still without power across Florida, heat illness can be a concern. The old and the very young are most susceptible to heat-related health issues and the death of 8 residents at an assisted living facility in Hollywood that lost power after Hurricane Ivan illustrates the danger. (Ochoa, 9/14)

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said his committee may begin looking at oversight of nursing facilities following the deaths of eight people in a Florida nursing home. The deaths occurred after the South Florida facility apparently lost its air conditioning amid widespread power outages in the wake of Hurricane Irma. The storm knocked out power for millions of people across the state. (Weixel, 9/14)

The news that eight Florida nursing home residents died in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma has prompted a criminal investigation and spurred widespread outrage. But it also poses unsettling, difficult questions for people selecting a nursing home for themselves or a loved one. This emotionally fraught choice often must be made at a chaotic moment when a relative is sick, his or her time in the hospital is running short and the options seem confusing. (Thomas, 9/14)

The assisted living facility, Good Samaritan Village in Kissimmee, experienced up to four feet of flooding after Hurricane Irma passed through. On Tuesday morning, 356 elderly residents were evacuated from the facility, while close to 200 residents chose to leave. (9/14)

The shocking news that eight people who were residents of the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills in Hollywood, Fla., died at the facility in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma has sparked many questions about how such a thing could happen. It has also led to nearly 150 patients being taken to local hospitals. (Chappell, 9/14)

While some grassroots efforts are trying to bring food to poorer communities after the storm, it does not get to everyone who needs it, and some families report they’re going hungry. (9/15)

Texas officials said Thursday that they believe at least 82 people died as a result of Hurricane Harvey and the intense flooding it brought to Houston and coastal areas, although it could take weeks to determine the exact death toll. The picture could have been much bleaker, given the amount of flooding and that entire communities were cut off for days. Hospitals had to be evacuated as water rose into buildings that had never before flooded; some residents found themselves trapped in their homes while chest-deep floods took over their streets; and emergency responders along the Texas coast were overwhelmed, leading civilians with watercraft to rescue one another. (Moravec, 9/14)

As drug addiction soars in the United States, a booming business of rehab centers has sprung up to treat the problem. And when drug addicts and their families search for help, they often turn to Google. But prosecutors and health advocates have warned that many online searches are leading addicts to click on ads for rehab centers that are unfit to help them or, in some cases, endangering their lives. (Corkery, 9/14)

Federal officials and members of President Donald Trump's opioid commission on Thursday said additional steps are required before the administration can formally declare the opioid epidemic a national emergency. (MacDonald, 9/14)

An Arizona-based pharmaceutical company targeted in lawsuits and criminal investigations over its marketing of a highly addictive painkiller has filed a related patent-infringement lawsuit against a rival drug maker. Insys Therapeutics filed the complaint against Teva Pharmaceuticals on Wednesday in federal court in Delaware. (Chase, 9/14)

Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.)  on Thursday called on federal watchdogs to investigate an alleged scheme in which drug addicts in Philadelphia are herded into drug-treatment centers in exchange for kickbacks using Medicaid dollars. In a letter to Daniel Levinson, inspector general for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Toomey cited articles in the Inquirer and Daily News that disclosed the practice. (Lubrano, 9/14)

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price made a quick trip to New Hampshire Thursday afternoon to announce $200 million in federal grants targeting community health centers, to increase access to mental health and opioid abuse services. Ten New Hampshire recipients – nine health centers and the City of Manchester – are set to receive about $175,000 each as part of the grant program. (McDermott, 9/14)

New Bedford is one of the Massachusetts cities that's been hit particularly hard by the opioid epidemic. ... Each opioid outreach team is made up of a police officer, a member of the clergy, and some type of drug counselor. Many of them grew up in New Bedford. (Mullins and Joliocoeur, 9/14)

In the summer, Henry Wrenn-Meleck likes to sit on the stoop of his building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, observing the passing urban parade. One day in late July, “one of my neighbors could see something was wrong,” he recently recalled. “I was sort of rolling around, obviously in a lot of pain. He said, ‘I have to call 911,’ and he did.” (Span, 9/14)

The words “Alcoholics Anonymous” are synonymous with addiction treatment, but the people behind an alternative therapy hope that those dealing with addiction know there are other forms of treatment out there. (Moffitt, 9/14)

In the world of celebrities, there are diseases such as HIV/AIDS and breast cancer that are very “popular” and well understood, thanks to years of fundraising and awareness campaigns by stars. And there are those diseases that are less so. Lupus, an autoimmune disorder that can damage organs, is in the second category. When Selena Gomez shocked her 126 million Instagram followers on Thursday by revealing that she had disappeared from the public eye this summer because she was getting a kidney transplant because of lupus, her fans had many questions. (Cha, 9/14)

Are you a toe-tapper, hair-twirler, eye-blinker, head-nodder, nail-biter, knuckle-cracker, skin-picker, lip-licker, shoulder-shrugger or a chin-stroker? Call it a nervous habit or tic, almost everybody has at least one — whether they are aware of it or not. Tics exist on a spectrum ranging from barely noticeable to extremely annoying to potentially injurious. (Murphy, 9/14)

For tax payments, “nudges” have helped municipalities increase revenues and decrease collection-related costs. For energy consumption, “nudges” have helped homeowners save money and utilities preserve capacity. But in health care, the technique has been slower to catch on. First described by the pioneering economists Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (who is also a legal scholar), a “nudge” is a way of framing a set of choices to essentially steer people toward a particular option without shutting out other options. (Tedeschi, 9/14)

Dr. Vinay Prasad is a professional scold:  He takes to Twitter each day to critique this cancer drug as ineffective, or blast that one as overpriced, or dismiss the clinical trial of another as completely irrelevant. ... Just 34, Prasad has become an influential voice in the medical community through his prolific, high impact publishing, a steady stream of media cameos, and — of course — his vociferous Twitter presence. Among his main arguments: Drug costs have spiraled out of control. Conflicts of interest run amok in health care. We don’t have any idea how well new cancer drugs and diagnostics work, thanks to ill-designed clinical trials. And more than half of all practiced medicine is based on scant evidence — and possibly ineffectual. (Keshavan, 9/15)

Don’t get two when one will do. Instead of getting both a Pap test and an HPV test to screen for cervical cancer, many women should get just one or the other at regular intervals, according to a draft recommendation published this week by a panel of prevention experts. (Andrews, 9/15)

A new powdered peanut product is the first food item allowed to claim it may reduce peanut allergies in infants, though parents of susceptible babies are urged to consult a doctor before trying it. The product, called Hello, Peanut, can be mixed into puréed baby food to expose infants to peanuts starting around five months old. (Rabin, 9/14)

Medical storylines have riveted television viewers since the earliest days of the medium — and for just as long, TV writers and directors have had to navigate the age-old tension between truth and storytelling. One early solution, beginning in the 1950s, was a group of doctors who advised television producers directly. The group, known as the Physician’s Advisory Committee (PAC) on Television, Radio, and Motion Pictures, reviewed scripts, helped find props, and showed actors how to properly hold a scalpel. (Samueal, 9/15)

For years, the government has been trying to reduce the risk that legitimate biological research could be misused to threaten the public's health, but those efforts have serious shortcomings. That's the conclusion of a report released Thursday by the prestigious National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that examined existing practices and policies on so-called dual-use biological research. (Greenfieldboyce, 9/14)

When you feel like everyone around you is having more fun and spending more time with friends, it can make you feel bad about yourself — even if it's not true. But according to Ashley Whillans, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School who studies how our view of the world affects our view of ourselves, this perception can challenge us to become more social and make more friends. (Fulton, 9/14)

The House voted on Thursday to prevent D.C. from receiving funding to implement a local law making it illegal for employers to discriminate against workers based on reproductive health decisions. An amendment offered by Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) to a 2018 government-spending package would prohibit the use of funds for the District to implement the law, which bans employers from punishing workers for obtaining contraception, family planning services or abortions. (Marcos, 9/14)

The U.S. House on Thursday passed a spending bill that would block five laws affecting the District of Columbia, including the city’s new assisted-suicide law. The bill would also block the District from spending money to subsidize abortion for low-income residents; regulate the sale of marijuana; or carry out a law that says employers cannot discriminate against workers based on their reproductive decisions, such as whether to take birth control or seek an abortion. (Portnoy, 9/14)

Employees would not risk losing their jobs for reproductive health choices, including having an abortion, in-vitro fertilization or a child out of wedlock, under a bill that passed the Legislature on Thursday. The measure, by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego), takes aim at employer codes of conduct, particularly at religious institutions, that could cost workers their jobs for making such health decisions. (Mason, 9/14)

State officials will be keeping a close watch over a new state-run family planning program under an initiative unveiled at a statehouse committee this week. The Department of Human Services will be gathering data to determine how services are affected now that Planned Parenthood clinics aren’t included. (Russell, 9/14)

It seemed like the whole [Pittsburgh] hospital was in the operating room. The crowd had gathered with smartphones in hand, snapping photos and recording video, the object of their fascination a patient's genitals with a foreign object protrusion. It was “a ton” of staff, to be precise, according to one staffer. (Horton, 9/15)

The president and CEO of Wentworth-Douglass Hospital joined a senior vice president from Massachusetts General Hospital on Thursday to talk about their merger during the first CEO Forum of the academic year at the University of New Hampshire. On Jan. 1, Wentworth-Douglass was officially acquired by Massachusetts General Hospital. Tony James, senior vice president of network development and integration for Massachusetts General, told the crowd in Durham that now people who receive treatment in Boston can get the follow-up care they need in Dover. James said they have always catered to the Seacoast population. (Haas, 9/14)

The Massachusetts hospital industry’s largest trade group Thursday named former state representative Steven Walsh as its new chief executive. Walsh, 44, will head the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association beginning in November, replacing Lynn Nicholas, 63, who announced her retirement several months ago. (Dayal McCluskey, 9/14)

For decades, many of SSM’s local hospitals have had an associated foundation, a group led by a volunteer board that raises money to improve facilities and programs. But gone are the days of marrying a charitable foundation to nearly every SSM hospital in the region. Instead, Creve Coeur-based SSM Health is deliberately constructing a larger, more influential philanthropic entity to serve the entire region. (Liss, 9/15)

Workers at Philadelphia’s scandal-ridden LGBT health-care provider, Mazzoni Center, have won a vote to unionize. Mazzoni leaders have been scrambling to restore order to the health center, which provides vital services in particular to low-income, HIV-positive, and transgender clients, since the medical director, chief executive, and several board members all departed the agency this year. That shake-up followed allegations of sexual misconduct by former medical director Rob Winn. (Melamed, 9/14)

Almost the entire southern half of Minnesota will have air quality unhealthy for some people on Friday, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency says. The cause: unseasonably high temps, sunny skies and bad air moving from the southern and central U.S., the MPCA said in a statement. (Nelson, 9/14)

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) has issued an “unhealthy for sensitive groups” air quality alert for southern, eastern and portions of central Minnesota from noon to 8 p.m. Friday. The affected area will include the Twin Cities, Marshall, Rochester, St. Cloud and the Tribal Nation of Upper Sioux. (Pheifer, 9/14)

At least 50 people – 43 children and seven adults – reported health problems after being exposed to a powerful insecticide at an Oregon day care, according to newly disclosed state records and information obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive. The statistics reveal publicly for the first time the scope of reported ailments at a Coos Bay childcare center, which the newsroom uncovered in May. (Schmidt, 9/14)

After Donna Horger injected her chronically ill mother with insulin, she would later tell authorities that she hoped the 74-year-old “would not wake up and just pass.” But Mary Horger, who suffers from dementia and osteoporosis, did not die. Instead, her daughter, a licensed pharmacist, was arrested for attempted murder. Authorities say the 50-year-old resident of Feasterville, Bucks County, surreptitiously gave her immobile mother the injections at least three times last month in an attempt to lower her blood sugar to a fatal level. (McCarthy, 9/14)

Senate Bill 725, which became effective immediately after Gov. Greg Abbott signed the legislation in June, allows schools to create food pantries on campus where they can store donated food as well as surplus food from the cafeteria. (Swaby, 9/15)

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires insurers to provide cost-sharing reductions (CSRs) that lower deductibles, co-payments, co-insurance, and out-of-pocket maximums for people eligible for tax credits and with incomes below 250 percent of the federal poverty level. With current policy uncertainty surrounding these CSRs, there are multiple future scenarios, but all involve increases in insurance premiums for consumers and there is a potential for large reductions in the insured population. In 2018, the number of uninsured Americans could increase by 9.4 million, and average premiums could increase by nearly 37 percent, if insurers abandon the marketplaces because of a decision to eliminate federal reimbursement of health insurance CSRs. (Blumberg, Buettgens and Wang, 9/8)

The significant gains in health insurance coverage and improvements in health care access and affordability that followed the implementation of the key coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act in 2014 have persisted into 2017. Adults in all parts of the country, of all ages, and across all income groups have benefited from a large and sustained increase in the percentage of the US population that has health insurance. The gains have been particularly striking among low- and moderate-income Americans living in states that expanded Medicaid. Our latest survey data from the Urban Institute’s 2017 Health Reform Monitoring Survey shows that only 10.2 percent of nonelderly adults are now uninsured—a decline of almost 41 percent from the period before implementation of the ACA. (Long, Bart, Karpman et. al, 9/7)

While lowering the cost of prescription drugs has broad support across the political spectrum, there has been little change in federal policy on drug pricing and costs. In the meantime, several states have taken the lead to lower out-of-pocket costs for consumers with chronic diseases needing expensive prescription drugs or specialty drugs. In this brief, the authors provide their findings from a 50-state survey of action on such policies. Eight states have policies protecting their consumers from high out-of-pocket costs for expensive specialty medication. These states either place limits on out-of-pocket spending or require certain plan formulary designs. (Ahn and Corlette, 9/6)

The uninsured rate among 19-to-64-year-old adults was 14 percent in 2017, or an estimated 27 million people, statistically unchanged from one year earlier. Uninsured rates ticked up significantly in three subgroups: 35-to-49-year-olds, adults with incomes of 400 percent of poverty or more (about $48,000 for an individual), and adults living in states that had not expanded Medicaid. Half of uninsured adults, or an estimated 13 million, are likely eligible for marketplace subsidies or the Medicaid expansion in their state. Four of 10 uninsured adults are unaware of the marketplaces. Adults in marketplace plans with incomes below 250 percent of poverty are much more likely to view their premiums as easy to afford compared with people with higher incomes. Policies to improve coverage include a federal commitment to supporting the marketplaces and the 2018 open enrollment period, expansion of Medicaid in 19 remaining states, and enhanced subsidies for people with incomes of 250 percent of poverty or more. (Collins, Gunja and Doty, 9/7)

The smartest, savviest people in Washington will tell you Bernie Sanders’s “Medicare for all” idea is dead on arrival, a waste of time and energy. But since those same smart, savvy people told you Donald Trump didn’t have a prayer of becoming president, I’d advise keeping an open mind. What the Vermont senator’s bill has going for it is simple: It’s the right thing to do. (Eugene Robinson, 9/14)

Senator Lindsey Graham admits that when a defense specialist like him feels compelled to roll out a health-care bill, something has gone wrong—and that’s an understatement for the Republican failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The question is whether a last-ditch effort by Sen. Graham and a few colleagues represents an improvement over the Obama Care status quo. The answer is yes. (9/14)

The Republicans' failure to repeal Obamacare has created a political opening. The American public, threatened with the withdrawal of health insurance from millions of people, has largely come to embrace the idea of universal coverage. At such a moment, Democrats are right to advance ideas for building on the gains accomplished by the Affordable Care Act. (9/14)

Since President Trump took office, he and his administration have expressed their intention to sabotage the Affordable Care Act by creating instability in state insurance markets. As governors and other leaders across the nation warned, the Trump administration’s actions could threaten the health care and indeed the lives of millions of people across our nation. Unfortunately, here in Virginia, we have seen many of those fears come to fruition. (Gov. Terry McAuliffe, 9/14)

Bernie Sanders’s biggest ally in his push for single-payer health insurance may well be the Republican Party. Yes, Republicans criticized and mocked the “Medicare for all” bill that Sanders released yesterday, and I doubt any Congressional Republicans will support the bill in the foreseeable future. But I do think they are unwittingly helping his cause. (David Leonhardt, 9/14)

But the lesson the Democrats seem to have taken from the 2016 electoral trouncing is that they need to become more like Republicans. Meaning: Abandon thoughtful, detail-oriented bean-counting and attempts to come up with workable solutions grounded in (occasionally unpopular) reality, and instead chant virtue-signaling catchphrases. (Catherine Rampell, 9/14)

It’s admirable to stand up for what you believe and to try to persuade voters that the nation would be better off with single payer, a $15-an-hour minimum wage and free college. There are reasonable arguments for all three. But all three are political losers outside the liberal base — at least right now. (David D. Haynes, 9/14)

Once radical and taboo in mainstream Democratic circles, endorsing universal healthcare coverage is now de rigueur for anyone who seriously wants to run for president on the Democratic side in 2020. Kamala Harris, the California senator who seemed to be taking the Clinton route to the nomination by courting her Hamptons donors, is now co-sponsoring Sanders’ Medicare for All bill. (Ross Barkan, 9/14)

The United States has long needed a real debate about the possibility of the kind of universal healthcare system that has led to some better outcomes in other developed countries. Sen. Bernie Sanders effectively kicked off that debate Wednesday by revealing a “Medicare for All” plan, backed by 15 Democratic Senate colleagues. (9/14)

On Wednesday Donald Trump demanded that Congress move quickly to enact his tax reform plan. But so far he has not, in fact, offered any such plan. Not only is there no detailed legislative proposal, his administration hasn’t even settled on the basic outlines of what it wants. Meanwhile, 17 Senate Democrats — more than a third of the caucus — have signed on to Bernie Sanders’s call for expanding Medicare to cover the whole population. So far, however, Sanders hasn’t produced either an estimate of how much that would cost or a specific proposal about how to pay for it. I don’t mean to suggest that these cases are comparable: The distinctive Trumpian mix of ignorance and fraudulence has no counterpart among Democrats. Still, both stories raise the question of how much, if at all, policy clarity matters for politicians’ ability to win elections and, maybe more important, to govern. (Paul Krugman, 9/15)

After months of conflicting statements, President Donald Trump has announced that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a landmark immigration program introduced during the Obama administration, will be rescinded as of March 2018. ... Like many other elements of the administration’s immigration platform, the termination of DACA also appeared to be driven by a belief that rescinding economic benefits granted to undocumented immigrants would enhance economic opportunities for native-born people. ... The recent policy debates about DACA have centered on the program’s economic consequences, while its substantial public health benefits have been less discussed. ... The evidence clearly indicates that rescinding DACA will have profound adverse population-level effects on mental health. (Atheendar S. Venkataramani and Alexander C. Tsai, 9/13)

While prices for life-saving drugs should be far more reasonable -- an issue that the U.S. Congress ought to make a top priority -- this is simply not the vehicle to do it. Voters must reject Issue 2. (9/15)

In 2010, 5-year-old Emily Whitehead was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Though her parents were told that if you had to have a kid with cancer, ALL was the best one to have, Emily’s course was hardly typical. After two rounds of chemotherapy, necrotizing fasciitis developed in both legs and she barely avoided amputation. Sixteen months later, she had a relapse. Bone marrow transplantation was recommended, but the Whiteheads, concerned about toxic effects, sought a second opinion at Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania. There they learned about a new therapy, developed by University of Pennsylvania investigators and known as CART-19, which involved genetically engineering the patient’s own T cells to kill tumor cells. (Lisa Rosenbaum, 9/13)

This is madness. A Centerville mental health center has won national attention for saving taxpayer money and helping clients stay out of jail and the hospital, but it may be forced to close next month, as Register writer Tony Leys reported Sunday. Why? Because, in part, state administrators have yet to write rules allowing Medicaid to reimburse the Oak Place center — and the 10 other “crisis-stabilization” centers set up around Iowa. (9/14)

In case there were any lingering doubts, a trial in federal court in Louisville last week made this much clear: Gov. Matt Bevin is seeking to effectively outlaw abortion in Kentucky — something the U.S. Supreme Court has long ruled states cannot do. The three days of testimony also made clear that Bevin’s administration has used underhanded tactics to accomplish its unconstitutional goal. (9/14)

With both sides steadfast yet lacking the votes to prevail, Cook County Board members on Wednesday kicked to next month a decision on whether to repeal the unpopular soda tax. The board is expected to take action at its Oct. 11 meeting. In other words, soda tax opponents: You’ve got four weeks to keep up the pressure. Don’t let up. Kill this arbitrary, unnecessary, expensive tax. (9/13)