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Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said on Sunday that he would be willing to bring a bipartisan proposal to stabilize health insurance markets up for debate if President Trump signaled his support. “If there’s a need for some kind of interim step here to stabilize the market, we need a bill the president will actually sign,” Mr. McConnell said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And I’m not certain yet what the president is looking for here, but I’ll be happy to bring a bill to the floor if I know President Trump would sign it.” (Fandos, 10/22)

"What I'm waiting for is to hear from President Trump what kind of health-care bill he might sign. If there's a need for some kind of interim step here to stabilize the market, we need a bill the president will actually sign," he continued. (Manchester, 10/22)

Repeatedly claiming that Republicans have the votes to repeal major parts of Obamacare early next year, Trump is stoking expectations that the GOP can fulfill its seven-year pledge before the 2018 midterm elections — a promise that Republicans once again might not be able to keep. The Senate, Trump says, will have the 50 votes needed to enact the bill known as Graham-Cassidy, the last of a series of repeal bids that went down in flames this summer and fall. (Haberkorn, 10/20)

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Sunday to bring a bipartisan short-term ObamaCare stabilization deal to the Senate floor this week, despite uncertain support from President Trump. "This is a good compromise. It took months to work out. It has a majority. It has 60 senators supporting it, we have all 48 Democrats, 12 Republicans. I would urge Senator McConnell to put it on the floor immediately, this week," Schumer told NBC's Chuck Todd on "Meet the Press" on Sunday. (Manchester, 10/22)

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday that the Alexander-Murray bipartisan health care bill has support from a majority of senators, and he urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring it to the floor "immediately." “This is a good compromise. It took months to work out. It has a majority. It has 60 senators supporting it. We have all 48 Democrats, 12 Republicans," Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on "Meet the Press" on NBC. "I would urge Senator McConnell to put it on the floor immediately, this week. It will pass and it will pass by a large number of votes.” (Morin, 10/22)

Top Senate Democrats rejected White House demands Friday to add provisions weakening the Obama health care law to a bipartisan deal on steadying unsettled insurance markets. The compromise already faced an uphill path and this was the latest blow. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the Trump administration was involved in the negotiations that produced the accord and "should support it instead of floating other ideas that would further the sabotage both parties are trying to reverse." (Fram, 10/20)

White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney said Sunday there is a "good chance" to get a deal on ObamaCare insurer payments. During an interview on CBS's "Face The Nation," Mulvaney was asked about President Trump's position on the bipartisan health-care deal. (Savransky, 10/22)

Despite President Trump’s pronouncements, not only is Obamacare not dead, there are signs that his administration is keeping it alive. In the latest signal that the Affordable Care Act is still law, the Internal Revenue Service said this week that it is taking steps to enforce the most controversial provision: the tax penalty people face if they refuse to obtain health insurance. (Abelson, 10/20)

The GOP is redoubling its efforts to eliminate ObamaCare’s individual mandate, a step that would be yet another blow to the health-care law. They are doing so even as key Senate Republicans seek a bipartisan deal that could strengthen the law by extending critical payments to insurers that help low-income people afford their copays and deductibles. (Weixel, 10/22)

Millions of Americans with insurance through the Affordable Care Act could find themselves locked into health plans they do not want for the coming year because of the Trump administration’s schedule for the enrollment season that starts in less than two weeks. The complication arises when people who already have health plans under the law are automatically re-enrolled in the same plan. In the past, a few million consumers each year have been auto-enrolled and then were sent government notices encouraging them to check whether they could find better or more affordable coverage. (Goldstein, 10/20)

Consumer groups and some state officials, facing new pressure to show the Affordable Care Act remains in place after President Donald Trump declared it dead, have begun launching urgent outreach programs to sign people up for health coverage during the coming open-enrollment period. The ACA’s fifth open-enrollment season, which this year runs Nov. 1 through Dec. 15, may be lackluster compared with previous years because the administration has cut the time period in half and cut about $116 million in funding for outreach and advertising. As a result, advocacy groups are mounting on-the-ground efforts aimed at telling consumers they can still get coverage and subsidies despite recent efforts to undo the law. (Armour and Hackman, 10/22)

Choosing the right health insurance plan can be a cumbersome process, and this year’s political back-and-forth over Obamacare has made it seem even more confusing. For months, executive orders and congressional debates have swirled around the law, officially called the Affordable Care Act. President Donald Trump has declared the law “dead” — but it’s still in effect, and open enrollment for plans on the Obamacare exchange begins Nov. 1. (Schencker, 10/20)

President Donald Trump's reversals in the past week on maintaining Obamacare subsidies to insurers are sowing new confusion over what kind of health insurance will be available to consumers, and at what price, when enrollment for 2018 begins in two weeks. (Humer, 10/20)

After years of absorbing attacks over the Affordable Care Act, its rocky roll-out and early flaws, Democrats are on the offensive. With Republicans now holding the White House and Congress, and President Trump taking steps to undercut the law, Democrats are pounding GOP incumbents over the results, particularly in the Philadelphia area. A potent example came earlier last week, when Pennsylvania and New Jersey regulators approved steep rate increases in the states’ insurance markets for individuals, a response, officials and insurers both said, to Trump’s decision to end roughly $7 billion in federal payments intended to hold down costs. (Tamari, 10/20)

Cigna and Oscar Health are the only two insurance companies offering Affordable Care Act health plans in Nashville next year. While it might seem like options are limited, it’s worth bearing in mind that Nashville was at risk of having no carriers offering 2018 plans. Thanks in part to the leadership of government officials, Middle Tennessee is fortunate to have two, given the turmoil in healthcare today. (Tolbert, 10/22)

The Maryland Insurance Administration will hold a public hearing Monday to consider new premium rate hikes proposed by health insurance companies in response to the Trump Administration’s decision to eliminate subsidies that help low-income people pay out-of-pocket expenses. CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield and Kaiser Permanente of the Mid-Atlantic States have requested permission to further increase rates on individual plans sold under Obamacare before enrollment opens on Nov. 1. (McDaniels, 10/20)

In September, the Commissioner of the New Hampshire Insurance Department, Roger Sevigny, sent the chairman of the U.S. Senate health committee, Lamar Alexander, a request for action. With premiums on New Hampshire’s individual insurance market predicted to rise amid a new swell of patients and rising treatment costs, Sevigny’s department was pursuing what they called a viable solution: a state-wide reinsurance program. ... This week, Alexander delivered. Included in the Tennessee Republican’s health care bill are changes to Section 1332, which would allow New Hampshire to use savings from the federal funds it usually receives for tax credits and insurance subsidies to instead be invested into the reinsurance program. (DeWitt, 10/20)

In signing a recent executive order, President Trump promised that millions of Americans could soon obtain “great, great health care” through inexpensive plans that offer consumers options they had been denied under the Affordable Care Act. But these health plans, created for small businesses, have a darker side: They have a long history of fraud and abuse that have left employers and employees with hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid medical bills. (Pear, 10/21)

For most people, the biggest attraction in the bipartisan health care bill in the Senate is the renewal of federal cost-sharing payments to insurers, which President Trump recently cut off.  ...The Senate bill would expand the use of so-called “catastrophic’’ health plans for individuals. Currently only young adults up to age 30 or those who qualify for “hardship waivers’’ can buy them. (Miller, 10/22)

An attempt by 19 states to force President Donald Trump to pay health care subsidies will go before a federal judge in San Francisco. State attorneys general, led by California Democrat Xavier Becerra, will try on Monday to convince U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria that the payments are required by law. (10/23)

A Washington appeals court is blocking for now an abortion sought by a pregnant 17-year-old immigrant being held in a Texas facility, ruling Friday that the government should be given time to try to release her so she can obtain the abortion outside of its custody. (10/20)

The decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit could put her health at risk, doctors say, especially now that she is about 15 weeks pregnant. “While first-trimester abortion is over 10 times safer than childbirth, the risks gradually increase in the second trimester to those of childbirth,” Dr. Nancy L. Stanwood, the chief of family planning at the Yale School of Medicine, said in an email. Forcing her to wait, she added, “harms her physical health, period.” (Caron, 10/21)

Attorneys for a pregnant teen being held in a Texas immigration facility are asking a federal appeals court to reconsider its decision not to order the government to let her obtain an abortion. Lawyers for the 17-year-old on Sunday asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to hold another hearing before all the judges on the court. (10/23)

"Every additional day she must remain pregnant against her will places a severe strain on J.D., both physically and emotionally. Every additional week the government delays her abortion increases the risks associated with the procedure," the teen's attorneys wrote in the petition for en banc review filed with the D.C. Circuit just after 10 P.M. Eastern Time Sunday. "In a matter of weeks, J.D. will no longer be able to get an abortion at all, and the government will have forced J.D. to have a child against her will." (Gerstein and Rayasam, 10/22)

"If a sponsor is secured and J.D. is released from HHS custody to the sponsor, HHS agrees that J.D. then will be lawfully able, if she chooses, to obtain an abortion on her own pursuant to the relevant state law," the judges wrote. But they added if a sponsor is not secured and the minor is not released to a sponsor by Oct. 31, then the matter will return to the courts. (Gonzales, 10/20)

The Trump administration has fought in court to prevent a 17-year-old held in a Texas facility for unaccompanied immigrant children from having an abortion. ... Here's a look at some of the background to the dispute. (10/20)

For years, the Environmental Protection Agency has struggled to prevent an ingredient once used in stain-resistant carpets and nonstick pans from contaminating drinking water. The chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, has been linked to kidney cancer, birth defects, immune system disorders and other serious health problems. So scientists and administrators in the E.P.A.’s Office of Water were alarmed in late May when a top Trump administration appointee insisted upon the rewriting of a rule to make it harder to track the health consequences of the chemical, and therefore regulate it. (Lipton, 10/21)

The Environmental Protection Agency has published a list of 10 toxic threats it will evaluate first under a law passed last year intended to crack down on hazardous chemicals. (Lipton, 10/21)

Federal funds for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) expired Sept. 30, leaving states to come up with short-term fixes to keep their programs going. CHIP, now in its 20th year, primarily covers children from low-income families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. The program has long had bipartisan support, but lawmakers — consumed by the fight over Obamacare — blew past a key funding deadline and have been slow to extend new money. (Pradhan and Frostenson, 10/23)

The Department of Medical Assistance Services, or DMAS, has to be ready by the beginning of December so it can give families at least 60 days notice that their children will no longer be covered by the program when money runs out at the end of January. (O'Connor, 10/22)

The House Veterans' Affairs Committee wants to make permanent a program that allows former servicemen to receive care from private providers and speed up payments to participating hospitals. The VA Choice program has been marred by administrative and financing woes since it was enacted via legislation in 2014. The program was created in response to a scandal where some veterans died while waiting months for appointments at VA facilities. Congress and President Donald Trump had to intervene earlier this year to save the program as it was on the verge of running out of money. Despite an emergency infusion of $2.1 billion, the program is still expected to be tapped out by December. (Dickson, 10/21)

Phoenix police were investigating the death of a veteran who may have taken his own life outside Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center, officials said. Police said the death was reported as a "self-inflicted gunshot wound" near the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department building on Friday morning. (McCrory, 10/20)

More police officers in Delaware are being trained to help military veterans going through a mental health crisis. The News Journal of Wilmington reported Sunday that a new unit has been formed within the New Castle County Police Department. The Veterans Response Team includes officers who served in the military. It will complement the department’s already existing Crisis Intervention Team. (10/23)

The next HIV epidemic in America is likely brewing in rural areas suffering under the nationwide opioid crisis, with many of the highest risk communities in deep red states that voted for President Donald Trump. Federal and state health officials say they are unprepared for such an outbreak, and don’t have the programs or the funding to deal with a surge in HIV cases. And given how little screening for HIV there is in some rural counties, they worry it may have already begun. (Ehley, 10/21)

More than 30 U.S. senators demanded information Friday on the 2016 law that stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its most potent weapon against companies suspected of spilling hundreds of millions of addictive painkillers onto the black market. Thirty-one Democrats and two independents noted that the same law required the DEA and the Department of Health and Human Services to compile a report for Congress on the law’s impact by April 16. Six months later, no report has been submitted. (Bernstein and Higham, 10/20)

Patrick Kennedy, it seemed, had been waiting for a public opportunity to speak directly to the nation’s health insurers. “The historic treatment of addiction and mental illness has been a separate and unequal process,” the former Rhode Island congressman and a member of the president’s opioid commission told a group of insurance executives on Friday. “All of you, as insurers and payers, have treated mental health and addiction as if it’s something other than the rest of medicine.” (Facher, 10/20)

Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wrote to the companies after an article by ProPublica and The New York Times found that insurance companies sometimes favor cheaper, more addictive opioids over less addictive, but more expensive, alternatives. (Ornstein, 10/22)

The Richmond region trails only Roanoke for the highest rate of emergency room visits for opioid overdoses in Virginia over the past five months, according to figures compiled by the Virginia Department of Health. The local rate is more than two times the state average. (Ramsey and Burnell Evans, 10/21)

Some patients at Bon Secours Richmond Health System’s St. Mary’s Hospital are now going home two days earlier than they did a year ago after surgery, and are less likely to use opioids for their post-surgical pain. The changes come in light of St. Mary’s Enhanced Recovery Program, launched in August 2016, which has changed the protocols for patients receiving open and laparoscopic colorectal surgery. (O'Connor, 10/22)

In the United States, the number of NAS births grew nearly five-fold between 2000 and 2012 — reaching a total of nearly 22,000 infants. As the number of cases has grown, health care providers across Connecticut and the country have started to focus more on the syndrome, especially since no national standard of care currently exists for screening and treating NAS. (Rigg, 10/23)

A state lawmaker who has drawn criticism after asking about the legality of quarantining people with HIV has said her comments were misunderstood and intended to be “provocative” and “rhetorical” in a broader conversation about curtailing the virus. Georgia State Rep. Betty Price (R) made the statement Tuesday, at a study committee meeting on barriers to adequate health care. Committee members had been discussing, she later said, why Georgia ranks second in the nation when it came to new HIV cases. (Hui and Wang, 10/22)

“What are we legally able to do, and I don’t want to say the quarantine word, but I guess I just said it,” Price says. “Is there an ability, since I would guess that public dollars are expended heavily in prophylaxis and treatment of this condition. So we have a public interest in curtailing the spread. What would you advise, or are there any methods legally that we could do that would curtail the spread?” (Conradis, 10/22)

Price added, “It seems to me it’s almost frightening, the number of people who are living that are potentially carriers. Well they are carriers, with the potential to spread, whereas in the past they died more readily and then at that point they are not posing a risk. So we’ve got a huge population posing a risk if they are not in treatment.” (Hart, 10/21)

On Saturday, Price stressed she has worked in public health for years and had made the comments during a discussion of why there were so many people in Georgia who were not getting treatment and posed a risk of spreading the virus to others. Georgia has one of the highest rates of new HIV infections in the country. (10/22)

Georgia was home to nearly 50,000 people diagnosed with HIV in 2014, and had the second highest rate of new diagnoses among all states the following year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wortley’s presentation noted that gay black men in metro Atlanta have by far the highest rates of HIV diagnoses in Georgia. AIDS researchers have compared the severity of Atlanta’s epidemic to that of some nations in Africa. (Blau, 10/20)

When Julie Schlomer got the news that she was finally pregnant at the age of 43, her thoughts turned to the other mothers. There were three of them in all, complete strangers, but they shared an extraordinary bond made possible by 21st-century medicine and marketing. They were all carrying half-siblings. Under a cost-saving program offered by Rockville-based Shady Grove Fertility, the women split 21 eggs harvested from a single donor — blue-eyed, dark-haired, with a master’s degree in teaching. Each had the eggs fertilized with her partner’s sperm and transferred to her womb. (Cha, 10/21)

The issue also pokes at a broader puzzle ethicists and experts are trying to reckon with as genetic testing moves out of the lab and further into the hands of consumers. People have access to more information about their own genes — or, in this case, about the genes of their potential offspring — than ever before. But having that information doesn’t necessarily mean it can be used to inform real-life decisions. A test can tell prospective parents that their embryo has an abnormal number of chromosomes in its cells, for example, but it cannot tell them what kind of developmental delays their child might have, or whether transferring that embryo into a womb will lead to a pregnancy at all. Families and physicians are gazing into five-day-old cells like crystal balls, seeking enlightenment about what might happen over a lifetime. Plus, the tests can be wrong. (Joseph, 10/23)

For more than a decade, Kristin Page-Nei begged Montana lawmakers to raise cigarette prices. As a health advocate for the American Cancer Society, she watched year after year as other states increased their cigarette taxes and lowered their smoking rates. “What they’re doing is saving lives,” she kept saying. Finally, this spring, she helped persuade state senators to raise cigarette taxes for the first time in 12 years. Then came the tobacco lobbyists. (Wan, 10/21)

An experimental vaccine meant to combat peanut allergy came up short on Friday in a large clinical trial, but the company developing it blames the failure on a surprising placebo effect — and believes it still might win Food and Drug Administration approval. The treatment, called Viaskin Peanut, is a patch designed to gradually train a patient’s immune system to tolerate peanuts. In a trial on more than 300 children with peanut allergies, about 35 percent of patients responded to Viaskin, but the overall results didn’t beat placebo by enough to meet the study’s primary goal. (Garde, 10/20)

Many doctors recommend that women in labor sit upright or walk to speed things along. But a randomized trial suggests the best bet may be to lie on your side. British researchers randomly assigned 3,093 first-time mothers with a low-dose epidural in the second stage of labor to either an upright position (walking, kneeling, standing or sitting up straight) or to a lying-down position (up to 30 degrees inclination). (Bakalar, 10/20)

Giving pregnant women epidural spinal anesthesia to ease their pain during the late stages of labor and delivery may not prolong the birthing process, a new experiment suggests. “Many obstetric providers believe that the numbness and weakness in a woman’s legs from epidural medications may affect a woman’s ability to push out a baby,” said senior study author Philip Hess, an anesthesiology researcher at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. (10/22)

When it comes to brain training, some workouts seem to work better than others. A comparison of the two most common training methods scientists use to improve memory and attention found that one was twice as effective as the other. The more effective method also changed brain activity in a part of the brain involved in high-level thinking. (Hamilton, 10/23)

Data released last week suggest Americans’ health is declining and millions of middle-age workers face the prospect of shorter, and less active, retirements than their parents enjoyed. Here are the stats: The U.S. age-adjusted mortality rate—a measure of the number of deaths per year—rose 1.2 percent from 2014 to 2015, according to the Society of Actuaries. That’s the first year-over-year increase since 2005, and only the second rise greater than 1 percent since 1980. (Steverman, 10/23)

Once disparaged as borderline quackery, the total ankle replacement is gaining acceptance as a treatment for crippling arthritis and serious injuries. For years, doctors discouraged patients from getting the procedure — called ankle arthroplasty — because of persistent controversy over the earliest techniques, which involved cementing metal ankle reconstruction devices to bone. Sometimes the parts loosened prematurely or caused infections, leaving patients in worse shape than before. (Pianin, 10/22)

Urinary tract infections cause painful urination and are unfortunately widespread. Scientists estimate that somewhere between 40 percent to more than 50 percent of women will get a UTI in their lifetime, and one in four will get a repeat infection. Left untreated, they can lead to kidney problems. (Jochem, 10/20)

A 2008 survey by researchers at Stanford University found that 85 percent of pediatric transplant centers consider neuro-developmental status in the eligibility process at least some of the time, [Courtney] Hansen said. And in the same study, 62 percent of the centers said eligibility decisions based on disability tended to be made informally, making discrimination difficult to show. (Price, 10/22)

The top four Democrats running for California governor stood onstage for the first major candidate forum Sunday, splintering over single-payer healthcare but little else. The divide on healthcare mirrored the conflict within the Democratic Party both nationally and in California, with progressives — including those who backed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for president — aggressively pushing for universal healthcare while moderates and establishment party members want to plot a more deliberative, cautious course. (Willon, 10/22)

The two leading Democrats for California governor on Sunday split over how to achieve universal health care, with Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom defending his support for a government-run, single-payer system and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa dismissing as “pie in the sky” plans that don’t include viable financing methods. (Cadelago, 10/22)

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced  Friday that the agency is “working closely” with about 10 companies that manufacture medical devices in Puerto Rico to “prevent medical device product shortages.” Since Hurricane Maria devastated the island in mid-September, many, including the FDA, have been worried about the impact on Puerto Rico’s pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. Medical device companies have received comparatively less attention, although Gottlieb’s announcement emphasized that the agency has been working “equally hard” to assist those companies. (Swetlitz, 10/20)

Containment efforts are winding down for the wildfires that have ravaged Northern California this month, but not all the dangers have passed. A handout is circulating among firefighters that details the warning signs of extreme physical and emotional stress. (Cuevas, 10/23)

With more than 4,000 families facing the loss of their state-subidized KidCare health insurance in the wake of Hurricane Irma, Florida regulators have reversed course and now say they are prepared to seek federal help. Florida Healthy Kids, the agency that operates the KidCare insurance program, told the Herald/Times Friday that it will call a special board meeting next week to explore asking the federal government for a waiver to help families still financially stressed from the hurricane. (Klas, 10/20)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August approved the first ever Chimeric Antigen Receptor Therapy, or "CAR-T cell therapy," for children and young adults up to age 25 suffering from leukemia and other blood and bone cancers. And just this week, the agency approved the same immunotherapy for adults with large B cell lymphoma, a form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. (Griffin, 10/20)

During a 15-minute recess, the elementary school students trooped from the playground toward nurse Catherin Crofton’s office — one with a bloody nose, a second with a scraped knee and a third with a headache. Kids quickly filled a row of chairs. Staffers brought paper towels for the bleeders and tried to comfort the crying. “We’re here for first aid, emergency, counseling,” said Crofton of the Mount Diablo Unified School District. “There is always something to do.” (Ibarra, 10/23)

Doug Wilson, an elder at West Baltimore’s Kingdom Life Church, recalled the steps he took after he was diagnosed with throat cancer. Before going into the University of Maryland Medical Center, he put down, in writing, the steps he wanted taken during and after his seven-hour surgery. ...Sunday’s class was the first in a series sponsored by the Maryland Faith Health Network. The class, like others to follow at other congregations, was funded by the Maryland State Department of Health. The initiative will continue until about 500 religious congregants hear the talk and receive informational documents. (Kelly, 10/22)

Hallmark Cards and The University of Kansas Health System on Friday unveiled a first-of-its-kind Hallmark Gold Crown hospital gift shop. "It's very important to us at Hallmark and at Hallmark Gold Crown that we present an opportunity to be a store of the community," said  Jennifer Seyller, a vice  president of retail sales at Hallmark. (Taylor, 10/20)

The ACA requires insurers to reduce deductibles and co-pays for low-income buyers on the individual insurance market, and it requires the government to reimburse the insurers for those reductions; but because the ACA didn’t specifically provide an appropriation for the payments, congressional Republicans have maintained that they can’t be made. In other words, the payments are mandated by law, and also illegal (and unconstitutional). President Trump cited this argument on Oct. 12, when he said through his press office that “the government cannot lawfully make the cost-sharing reduction payments.”... But that raises an important question: If the payments are illegal, why did the Trump administration make them every month after it took office, from February through September? (Michael Hiltzik, 10/20)

After a season of healthcare policy fits and starts, now is the time for Washington to take a collective deep breath and assess what we learned and how we as a nation can do better. I say "we" because if the objective is truly a high-performing, affordable health system for all Americans, then everyone has a role to play—patients, providers, purchasers, health plans and policymakers of every stripe. ... Market stabilization is central to long-term success. (Ceci Connolly, 10/21)

Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Thursday formally introduced their proposal to shore up the Affordable Care Act’s private insurance markets. And in a show of the proposal’s bipartisan strength, they announced the bill now has 24 sponsors, with precisely 12 from each party. It will take that kind of support to push the proposal through Congress, given many Republicans’ feelings about anything related to “Obamacare,” not to mention the contradictory statements President Donald Trump has made lately. (Jonathan Cohn, 10/19)

As the debate unfolds about the bipartisan bill by Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray to repair the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, the public could be just as confused as they have been about the ACA's marketplaces. That's why it's important to debate it in the right context: It's aimed at an urgent problem affecting a relatively small sliver of the health insurance system, not all of the ACA and not the entire health system. The bottom line: It's a limited measure that will never give conservatives or liberals everything they want. (Drew Altman, 10/23)

After failure to repeal and replace Obamacare comes retribution, but not against White House staff or U.S. senators. Instead, President Donald Trump is punishing millions of American families by jacking up premiums and letting skimpy health plans flood the marketplace. (Daniel Zingale, 10/20)

The president is required by Article Two of the Constitution to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” So are his efforts to undermine the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional? Particularly since Congress, which is empowered to write American laws, declined to make similar changes to the Obama-era health law when Trump urged legislators to do so, most of the framers of the Constitution would presumably be appalled by these actions. (Scott Lemieux, 10/18)

Late Friday, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled that the teenager must be allowed to have an abortion, but it gave the federal government until Oct. 31 to find her a sponsor so that the government itself does not have to arrange for the procedure. The ruling came hours after the court heard the case, in which the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement said that if it released her to see a doctor it would “facilitate” an abortion, an action it said would contradict its interest in “promoting child birth and fetal life.” The government argued that barring an abortion doesn’t place an “undue burden” on her rights because she can always go home to get one — to a Central American country that criminalizes abortion and to parents who are abusive. This argument is as weak as it is ideologically brazen. (10/20)

Special interests and their Washington lobbyists are undermining the campaign to combat opioid abuse, an epidemic that is now taking the lives of nearly 100 Americans a day. Until we put the victims of this national tragedy front and center, the conflicted voices of soulless opioid manufacturers and the opaque treatment world, which is filled with sketchy rehab clinics and questionable alternative therapies, will continue to cloud the debate and prevent effective action. (Merrill Goozner, 10/21)

Obviously opioid abuse is a challenge today, as is adequately treating patient pain, though, 20 years later, the problem is still sometimes misstated. But one thing is certain: Unless the Washington Post and CBS ’s “60 Minutes” have discovered a new, physics-defying form of quantum action at a distance, their splashy exposé last weekend identified neither the cause nor any solution. (Holman W. Jenkins Jr., 10/20)

The danger of these disasters lies not only in the tremendous loss of life and property, but also in the psychological toll they take on survivors. When disaster strikes, mental health support should be a top priority. Amidst the chaos, though, it often isn’t. Sadness, shock, anxiety, and fear are normal stress responses for those who live through a natural disaster. For many of them, these feelings fade away. For others, though, they persist, affecting their quality of life and ability to function. Survivors of natural disasters are at risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. (Alani Gregory, 10/20)

Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 239 into law, putting California at the forefront of states modernizing HIV laws. These laws – which criminalize otherwise legal conduct of people living with HIV and increase criminal penalties based on a person’s HIV-positive status – were passed at the height of the AIDS crisis, when the public perceived HIV as a death sentence, and there was no effective treatment. (Ayako Miyashita, 10/20)

Ohio Medicaid spends about $48,000 per minute. While that number sounds dramatic, it's important to understand the context of how costs grow in Medicaid, otherwise we are limited to the politics of the moment, oversimplifying one of the most significant investments made in our society. Medicaid provides a critical safety net. While many believe Medicaid is a program only for the poor, the majority of the spending, over half, goes to the disabled and the elderly. In fact, Medicaid provides more resources for the regular health care needs of the aging population than does Medicare. (Loren Anthes, 10/22)

On Monday, an Assembly select committee will hold its first hearing “to determine the best and quickest path forward toward universal health care,” in the words of Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. However, the committee has no authority to act on legislation. (Deborah Burger, 10/20)