The New York Times: Affordable Care Act Sign-Ups Dip Amid Uncertainty And Trump Attacks
The number of people who signed up for health insurance in the federal marketplace that serves most states dipped this year to 9.2 million, the Trump administration said Friday, as consumers struggled with confusion over the future of the Affordable Care Act. That represents a decline of more than 4 percent from the total of 9.63 million people who signed up through HealthCare.gov at this time last year. (Pear, 2/3)

The Associated Press: 'Obamacare' Sign-Ups Show Slippage In Trump Era
The report doesn't include figures from 11 states that run their own health insurance markets — including California and New York — so the final national number will be higher. But the preliminary report is being closely watched, because President Donald Trump and the GOP-led Congress have vowed to repeal the Obama-era health law and replace it with a plan yet to emerge. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 2/3)

The Hill: Trump Administration Announces 9.2 Million ObamaCare Sign-Ups
Officials framed the numbers by highlighting negative points about ObamaCare, an obvious contrast with the Obama administration. “Obamacare has failed the American people, with one broken promise after another,” Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Matt Lloyd said in a statement accompanying the numbers. (Sullivan, 2/3)

The Washington Post: HealthCare.Gov Suffers First Enrollment Decline As GOP Works To Kill The ACA
The absence of the customary deadline surge “could very well be the result of tremendous confusion and uncertainty surrounding the future of the health law, as well as the last-minute pulling of some outreach advertising,” said Larry Levitt, senior vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. (Goldstein, 2/3)

Bloomberg: Obamacare Sign-Ups Declined For 2017 As Republicans Eye Repeal 
States with the biggest declines in sign-ups included ones where health insurers pulled out of the markets, leaving consumers with fewer choices. In Mississippi, Alaska, Georgia, Missouri and other states, insurers left the program or scaled back, while premiums climbed. (Tracer, 2/3)

The Wall Street Journal: About 9.2 Million Americans Sign Up For Health Plans On Federal Exchange
The figures are likely to further fuel the fight over the effectiveness of the health law known as Obamacare—with opponents pointing to the declining year-over-year enrollment as a sign of the law’s failure, and supporters saying the law succeeded at expanding coverage to broad swaths of the population, with an estimated 22 million people gaining coverage through the exchanges and the expansion of Medicaid. (Hackman, 2/3)

Los Angeles Times: Final Obamacare Enrollment Figures Lag Under Trump
[T]he dramatic drop-off in the last two weeks fed rising criticism that the Trump administration is sabotaging the marketplaces to strengthen its political argument that the law must be scrapped. “There is no doubt that enrollment would have been even higher if not for the uncertainty caused by political attacks on the law, and the Trump administration’s decision not to provide consumers with all of the resources and support available to help them enroll,” said Anne Filipic, president of Enroll America, which helps consumers sign up for coverage. (Levey, 2/3)

Politico: Obamacare Sign-Ups Fall Short After Slow Finish
Opponents of the law said the latest figures are further evidence that the health care law is falling apart. “Enrollment numbers are down and costs are up. These cost hikes are exactly the reason why Republicans are committed to repealing and replacing Obamacare,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement Friday. (Pradhan, 2/3)

CQ Roll Call: Fewer People Sign Up For Obamacare On HealthCare.Gov
Earlier in 2017, the Obama administration had highlighted strong and increasing demand for plans on HealthCare.gov. By Jan. 14, about 8.8 million Americans had signed up for 2017 insurance coverage using the site, about 100,000 more than at a similar time in 2016. (Mershon, 2/3)

On state enrollment figures —

Houston Chronicle: Final ACA Enrollment Slips From Last Year
Plan selection this year between Jan. 15 and Jan. 31 was 376,260. By comparison, last year 686,708 peopled signed up in the final week alone. (Deam, 2/3)

The Baltimore Sun: Obamacare Enrollment Up In Maryland Counties That Supported Trump
As President Donald J. Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress move to repeal the Affordable Care Act, data in Maryland shows that many of the counties that voted for Trump saw the largest reductions in the ranks of the uninsured under the law. The biggest drop since enrollment began in 2013 — 11 percent — came in the rural Eastern Shore county of Somerset, according to data provided by the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, which operates the online marketplace where people can enroll in private insurance and Medicaid. (Cohn, 2/4)

Georgia Health News: Exchange Sign-Ups Down From 2016 As White House Ends ACA Backing 
Nationally, open enrollment for 2017 coverage ended with more than 9.2 million plan selections in the 39 states that use the HealthCare.gov enrollment platform, from November through Jan. 31, federal health officials announced Friday. That figure is down from 9.6 million during the same period a year ago. Proponents of the ACA pointed out that official outreach for exchange enrollment was sharply cut back after the inauguration of President Trump two weeks ago. Trump and his fellow Republicans who control Congress are opponents of the ACA, often known as Obamacare, and they are working to repeal it. (Miller, 2/3)

The New York Times: Trump Says Health Law Replacement May Not Be Ready Until Next Year
President Trump said in an interview that aired on Sunday that a replacement health care law was not likely to be ready until either the end of this year or in 2018, a major shift from promises by both him and Republican leaders to repeal and replace the law as soon as possible. (Landler, 2/5)

Politico: Trump: Obamacare Replacement Might Take A Year
President Donald Trump walked back his recent vow that Obamacare would be replaced in short order, telling Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that the process is “complicated” and “maybe it’ll take till sometime into next year.” "It statutorily takes a while to get," Trump said in a wide-ranging interview that aired Sunday during the Super Bowl pre-game show. "We’re going to be putting it in fairly soon, I think that yes I would like to say by the end of the year at least the rudiments, but we should have something within the year and the following year." (Palmeri, 2/5)

Bloomberg: Trump Says Obamacare Replacement Could Take Until Next Year 
Trump said in January that he’d put forward his plans for replacing the law, also called Obamacare, once Tom Price, his pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, is confirmed. “We’re going to be submitting, as soon as our secretary is approved, almost simultaneously, shortly thereafter, a plan,” Trump said at a Jan. 11 press conference. “It’ll be repeal and replace. It will be essentially simultaneously.” (Tracer, 2/5)

Politico: Tom Price Has His Finger On The Obamacare Destruct Button
Tom Price spent years railing against Obamacare. Now he’ll finally have sweeping power to do something about it.The Georgia Republican congressman is on the verge of becoming the Trump administration’s top health care official, armed with broad authority to begin unwinding Obamacare by using as much executive power as possible, even as Congress struggles to find consensus on a plan to repeal and replace the health care law. First, he could ax Obamacare's mandate ensuring coverage for contraception and give insurers more latitude to determine which health benefits they will — and won’t — pay for. Those changes will likely be paired with stricter monitoring of Obamacare enrollees, as the administration aims to win over jittery health plan executives with policies that prioritize insurance market predictability and profitability. (Cancryn, 2/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Hospitals Fear Changes To Health Law, Press GOP On Revenue Concerns
Hospital executives are descending on Washington with a message: They are concerned about losing insured patients and revenue under any plan to dismantle or significantly alter the Affordable Care Act. In a flurry of recent meetings, the executives have told lawmakers they don’t want Americans to lose insurance under any alternative the Republicans devise for the Affordable Care Act. If that happens, however, hospitals say they want Congress to restore billions of dollars in federal funding they lost when the ACA took force. (Evans, 2/5)

Des Moines Register: Obamacare Has Eased Hospitals' Burdens Of Caring For Uninsured
Iowa hospitals have seen a $127 million drop in annual charity-care costs since the Affordable Care Act took full effect in 2014, financial reports show. That was a decline of almost 38 percent. Over the same period, 2013 through 2015, Iowa hospitals saw a $168 million annual drop in “bad debt,” or medical bills that were sent but weren’t paid. Hospital leaders say the improved finances helped them stabilize and improve their organizations. They worry that if the law is completely rescinded, they would be worse off than they were before it passed. (Leys, 2/5)

NPR: Health Insurers Say They Don't Want To Go Back To Being The Bad Guys
President Donald Trump and other Republican leaders have been working to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. And the millions of Americans who have health insurance through the Obamacare marketplaces aren't the only ones wondering about their fate. Leaders of insurance companies are, too. (2/3)

In other health law-related news —

San Jose Mercury News: Repeal And Replace? All Americans Could Lose Obamacare Protections
Lost in the bipartisan battle in Congress, many health experts say, are all the little-known aspects of former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law: They say it’s not just the 22 million Americans who now buy individual health policies on insurance exchanges — or who qualify for an expanded Medicaid program — who benefited from the 2010 law. From coast to coast, tens of millions of other Americans — including many who often rail against “Obamacare’’ — are also covered by the law’s consumer protections. (Seipel, 2/4)

Denver Post: Colorado Health Exchange A Political Football In Debate About Obamacare Repeal
The leaders at Colorado’s health insurance exchange are working to keep alive the online marketplace, even if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, while Republican state lawmakers want to shut it down now. The contradictory approaches put Connect for Health Colorado, the state-based exchange where 175,000 residents purchased insurance in 2016, at the center of a debate that is only amplified by the efforts in Washington to repeal President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. (Frank, 2/3)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: ACA-Established N.J. Health Insurer To Be Liquidated
A Superior Court of New Jersey judge on Friday approved the liquidation of Health Republic Insurance of New Jersey, one of 23 nonprofit consumer-operated and -oriented health plans established under the Affordable Care Act. Last fall, the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance put the insurer in rehabilitation, taking it out of the market for this year, but holding out the possibility that it could return to selling health insurance plans next year if Health Republic found investors. The insurer was expected to have a deficit of $18 million last month. (Brubaker, 2/3)

And KHN explains how budget reconciliation works —

Kaiser Health News: A Guide To Budget Reconciliation: The Byzantine Rules For Disassembling The Health Law
After capturing the White House, Republicans put repealing the health law at the top of their to-do list. But since they can’t get around a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, they are forced to use an arcane legislative tool called budget reconciliation to disassemble parts of the law. KHN’s Julie Rovner and Francis Ying explain the process. (2/6)

The Associated Press: House GOP Lawmakers Face Tough Questions On Health Care
Angry constituents confronted Republican lawmakers at separate town halls in California and Florida, fearful of the GOP promise to repeal former President Barack Obama’s health care law without a comprehensive alternative. In California, Rep. Tom McClintock faced tough questions on Saturday about health care and President Donald Trump’s agenda and had to be escorted by police after his hour-long event. Protesters followed him, shouting “Shame on you!” In an equally conservative district in Florida, Rep. Gus Bilirakis answered questions from frustrated town hall attendees who worried about the loss of insurance and higher premiums if the law is repealed. (2/5)

Politico: Republicans Face Anger Over Obamacare Repeal During Town Halls
In Pinellas County, Fla., Gus Bilirakis, who represents a district Trump won, was on the defensive as voters packed a town hall on Obamacare. For more than two hours, Bilirakis listened to stories from his constituents — young, old, black and white — who implored him to not repeal the federal health care law without having a replacement ready. “To take away the Affordable Care Act is taking away my freedom and justice,” said Evan Thornton, a 21-year-old St. (Colliver, 2/4)

Modern Healthcare: Panel's Partisan Sniping Foreshadows ACA Replacement Hurdles
Trust. It's the missing ingredient in congressional efforts to stabilize the individual insurance market as Republicans move to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. That was clear during a House committee hearing last week on four GOP bills to address various problems insurers say are forcing them to consider leaving the individual market in 2018. A mass exit would jeopardize coverage for the nearly 20 million Americans who have individual policies. ... The four bills discussed reflect the GOP strategy of replacing Obamacare through a number of separate measures rather than one large bill. Republicans hope some of these individual pieces could draw support from Democrats, who want to make the ACA markets work. ... But Democrats say before they consider these measures they want to make sure Republicans truly want to fix the ACA's problems. “They need to prove their sincerity,” said Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina. (Meyer, 2/4)

Morning Consult: Rep. Jordan: Obamacare Not Worth Repairing
A top conservative House Republican called for full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and said Republicans should focus their work on a replacement plan rather than trying to repair a flawed law. “Repair by definition implies that there’s something worth fixing. I would argue Obamacare is so bad you’ve got to get rid of every single bit of it,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) told Fox News. (McIntire, 2/3)

The Hill: GOP Rep: ObamaCare Can’t Be ‘Repaired’ 
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is pushing back on Republicans shifting on ObamaCare from "repeal and replace" to "repair," saying the massive healthcare law cannot be saved. " 'Repair' by definition implies there’s something worth fixing,” Jordan said Friday on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom." "I would argue that ObamaCare is so bad you’ve got to get rid of every single bit of it. Every tax, every regulation, every mandate. (Hensch, 2/3)

The Hill: GOP Faces Big Decision On ObamaCare Taxes
Congressional Republicans are facing their first big decision on taxes under President Trump: Which ones to scrap in the repeal of ObamaCare. Republicans have in the past sought to erase most of the big tax hikes in the healthcare law, and the chairmen of the tax-writing committees have expressed support for eliminating the taxes in a repeal bill. (Jagoda, 2/5)

Kaiser Health News: A Guide To Budget Reconciliation: The Byzantine Rules For Disassembling The Health Law
After capturing the White House, Republicans put repealing the health law at the top of their to-do list. But since they can’t get around a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, they are forced to use an arcane legislative tool called budget reconciliation to disassemble parts of the law. KHN’s Julie Rovner and Francis Ying explain the process. (2/6)

Stat: Waiting For The CRISPR Patent Decision? Here's What We Know
It’s been 61 days since the one and only oral argument in the CRISPR patent case. Where’s the decision? Investors, lawyers, patent agents, biotech executives, and scientists have been anxiously waiting for the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to decide whether foundational CRISPR-Cas9 patents awarded to the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT beginning in 2014 “interfered” with a patent application filed in 2012 by the University of California. Based on the time it usually takes PTAB to hand down a decision, this one should arrive “any day now,” said Jacob Sherkow of New York Law School, an expert on intellectual property law. (Begley, 2/6)

Stat: Upstate NY County Latest To Sue Opioid Drug Makers
In what is shaping up as a national trend, yet another local government has filed a lawsuit accusing several drug makers of spreading the opioid epidemic by deliberately downplaying risks and improperly encouraging prescribing of the addictive painkillers. And the latest to do so is Erie County, N.Y., in the western-most corner of the state, which includes the city of Buffalo.The lawsuit alleged that four companies — Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen unit, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and Endo International — caused the county government to spend millions of dollars each year in its efforts to combat the epidemic. The lawsuit, which was filed in state court in New York, also named four physicians, who purportedly assisted the drug makers. (Silverman, 2/3)

In other news on the response to the opioid epidemic —

Nashville Tennessean: For Small-Town Tennessee Judge, Opioid Crisis Is Personal
Judge Duane Slone has observed the arc of the opioid crisis firsthand since painkiller addiction began taking hold of lives in the rural northeast Tennessee counties he serves. Serving as a drug prosecutor in the 1990s before becoming circuit judge in 2009, Slone routinely jailed addicts who committed petty crimes to support their habits. That included pregnant women.  "How in the world could someone who has a child in her be addicted to drugs?” he remembers thinking. ... Then when a family friend asked Slone and his wife in 2011 to adopt a baby born with withdrawal symptoms, the crisis reached his home. (Wadhwani, 2/5)

Arizona Republic: How Gov. Doug Ducey Is Hoping To Offer More Prisoners 'A Real Second Chance'
If Gov. Doug Ducey gets his way, the nascent re-entry program will expand with a $518,000 infusion from the state budget. Ducey wants to add six more substance-abuse counselors and a re-entry planner, which would allow more people to enroll. The additional funding request for counseling marks a slight shift in the state's philosophy on incarceration and how to pay for it. Ducey, a law-and-order Republican, spent the first part of his term successfully pushing through a $21 million, 1,000-bed private-prison expansion. But he now seeks a modest funding increase to pay for additional rehabilitation efforts to lower recidivism and, if it works, reduce Arizona's prison population. (Harris, 2/5)

Stat: As Mental Health Crises Soar, Colleges Can't Meet Student Needs
Colleges across the country are failing to keep up with a troubling spike in demand for mental health care — leaving students stuck on waiting lists for weeks, unable to get help. STAT surveyed dozens of universities about their mental health services. From major public institutions to small elite colleges, a striking pattern emerged: Students often have to wait weeks just for an initial intake exam to review their symptoms. The wait to see a psychiatrist who can prescribe or adjust medication — often a part-time employee — may be longer still. (Thielking, 2/6)

WBUR: The 'Nantucket Effect'? Latest Cancer Stats Find Island's Death Rate Has Plummeted
You may have heard of the "Roseto Effect," referring to a famous community of Italian immigrants in Roseto, Pennsylvania — made even more famous by Malcolm Gladwell — who get shockingly few heart attacks, apparently because their social ties with each other are so robust. Well, the latest county-by-county cancer statistics suggest there may be something of a "Nantucket Effect." Cancer death rates are down nationwide, the study in the journal JAMA finds, but on the island of Nantucket, they've plummeted so dramatically that Nantucket County ranks in the top 10 counties that have cut their mortality the most. (Goldberg, 2/3)

NPR: Test For Rare Brain Disease Might Lead To Earlier Diagnosis Of Parkinson's, Alzheimer's
By the time Kay Schwister got her diagnosis last summer, she couldn't talk anymore. But she could still scowl, and scowl she did. After weeks of decline and no clue what was causing it, doctors had told Schwister — a 53-year-old vocational rehab counselor and mother of two from Chicago — that she had an incurable disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD. The disease was shrinking Kay's brain, and riddling it with holes. She would likely only live a few more weeks, the doctors said. (Bichell, 2/6)

The New York Times: His Doctors Were Stumped. Then He Took Over.
They called him the Beast.David Fajgenbaum was the fittest of his friends at the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school, a 6-foot-3 gym addict and former quarterback at Georgetown. His mammoth hands seemed more suited to spiraling footballs than the fine fingerwork a doctor-in-training might need. He had endurance to match, taking multiple hits and returning to the field to play on. ... In July 2010, that all changed. (Thomas, 2/4)

Columbus Dispatch: Absorbable Heart Stent Does Job, Disappears
A central Ohio doctor said he is seeing success with a new heart stent that is absorbed by the body after delivering medication and helping to strengthen arteries in people with coronary artery disease. The stent is used to hold open arteries clogged with plaque and disappears within about three years, leaving four small platinum markers embedded in artery walls so cardiologists know where it was, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which approved its use last summer. Before dissolving, it administers a drug that inhibits the growth of scar tissue and reblockage. (Viviano, 2/5)

CQ Roll Call: More Young People Turning To E-Cigarettes
While traditional cigarette smoking is falling among both adults and teens, the use of e-cigarettes among young people rose in recent years. In 2005, about 20.9 percent of adults were current smokers versus 15.1 percent in 2015, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. That’s a decrease of around 8.5 million people. (Siddons, 2/6)

Stat: 'Dr. Oz Show' Will Again Talk Miracles With Faith Healing Segment
“The Dr. Oz Show,” which has come under fire from physicians and politicians for promoting “miracle” cures with no evidence, will launch a new weekly segment on the connections between spirituality and health that veers, once again, into the territory of miracles. Christian author and motivational speaker Priscilla Shirer and several pastors will join Oz for “Faithful Fridays.” Among the topics to be explored: “Miraculous medical recoveries only God can explain,” according to a press release from the show. (Thielking, 2/3)

KCUR: Brownback Budget Plan Cuts Nearly $20M From State Psychiatric Hospitals
Kansas’ two state-run psychiatric hospitals would lose nearly $20 million under the budget proposed by Gov. Sam Brownback. In the current fiscal year, Osawatomie and Larned state hospitals are relying on state funds to make up for the loss of federal funding. Brownback’s recommendations for the fiscal year that starts in July would end that practice, leaving it to the hospitals to make up the lost revenue. The governor’s proposal would cut Osawatomie State Hospital’s annual budget by $11.6 million and Larned State Hospital’s by about $8 million. (Wingerter, 2/3)

The Associated Press: Wisconsin Fines 22 Hospitals Over Not Offering Emergency Contraception To Rape Victims
Wisconsin has fined 22 hospitals in recent years for not complying with a law requiring them to offer emergency contraception to rape victims. The 2008 law requires emergency rooms to give sexual assault victims information about the so-called “morning-after pill,” to provide the drugs on request, and to train staff about the drugs. (2/5)

Pioneer Press: New Law Lets For-Profit HMOs Into Minnesota — The Last State To Keep Them Out 
Minnesota legislators swept away a 40-year-old law last month, a controversial add-on to a rescue package for Minnesotans’ health insurance premiums. The change lets for-profit companies be licensed as health maintenance organizations, or HMOs, in the state. Minnesota had restricted HMOs to nonprofits ever since it first authorized HMOs in 1973. The change is a cultural shift for Minnesota with uncertain results for the insurance marketplace and consumers. The much-debated nonprofit-only clause had withstood decades of legislative challenges until this year. (Montgomery, 2/3)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Wanted: Someone To Operate Louisiana Heart Hospital 
The pending closure of Louisiana Heart Hospital has St. Tammany Parish political and economic development leaders focused on luring a new operator to the medical campus near Lacombe and finding employment for the hundreds of people who will lose their jobs. Meanwhile, other North Shore medical institutions are offering the newly unemployed health care workers a chance to apply for positions on their staffs. The 134-bed hospital announced Tuesday (Jan. 31) it will close within a month due to "significant financial challenges in recent years." The privately owned hospital also filed for Chapter 11 protection from its creditors in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. (Chatelain, 2/3)

The CT Mirror: CT Aims To Compete In Precision Medicine. What Will It Take?
Connecticut has the potential to become a national leader in the growing field of precision medicine, which aims to tailor disease prevention and medical treatment to individuals’ unique genetic code, environment and experiences, scientists and industry officials told a state economic competitiveness panel Friday. But that potential comes with caveats, several said: Connecticut is far from alone in seeking to be a top player in the field. Other states have put money into supporting the field, and Connecticut must too, some researchers said. (Levin Becker, 2/3)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Bayada Home Health Care Consolidating Jobs In Pennsauken
Bayada Home Health Care, aided by $18.5 million in state tax breaks, this week started renovating new office space in Pennsauken, where it plans to consolidate 400 employees from support locations in six Philadelphia-area counties. The employees are expected to start moving in June, and the privately-held company promised to create an additional 100 jobs over the next five years. Bayada, which has offices in 22 states and four overseas countries, said it served 114,000 clients last year, down from 150,000 in 2015. It employs 20,000 field workers and 3,300 office employees nationwide. (Brubaker, 2/3)

The Star Tribune: Mayo, Norway Partner Up To Push The Limits Of Survival For Hypothermia Victims 
The crude mantra “you’re not dead until you’re warm and dead” has guided paramedics for years, but advances in resuscitating frozen patients are improving the odds for hypothermia victims, whether they are oil rig workers who fall into the North Sea or Minnesotans who pass out in the cold. Promising approaches have emerged in a partnership between Mayo Clinic and the University Hospital of North Norway, which, located above the Arctic Circle, has gained expertise on saving hypothermic skiers, adventurers and outdoor workers. Its work is identifying new, safer methods to rewarm frozen patients to improve on the existing survival rate of 30 to 40 percent. (Olson, 2/4)

San Antonio Press Express: Metro Health: Fewer Than 50 Babies Tested For TB After Exposure At North Central Baptist Hospital 
Metro Health has identified fewer than 50 babies and 30 adults who came into contact with an individual with tuberculosis at North Central Baptist Hospital in November or December. Metro Health spokeswoman Carol Schliesinger said all of the people who are at risk of exposure have been notified and tested. So far, all tests have come back negative, but the individuals will be tested again 10 weeks after their first test. (Martin, 2/3)

San Antonio Press Express: Baptist Health System On Verge Of Split With Blue Cross Blue Shield Of Texas 
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas notified insurance agents and brokers on Wednesday that Tenet Healthcare, which owns Baptist Health System, will sever ties with the insurance company on April 15 if contract negotiations are unsuccessful. That would mean Baptist Health’s six San Antonio-area hospitals and Resolute Health Hospital in New Braunfels would no longer be in network for Blue Cross Blue Shield policy holders. (Martin, 2/3)

The CT Mirror: Doc, Now Rep. Petit, On Health Care, Victims’ Rights And Small Business 
Dr. William A. Petit Jr. is one of 35 newly elected legislators in the Connecticut General Assembly, but he’s probably the only one whose November victory made national news. Petit became widely known as the sole survivor of the horrific 2007 Cheshire home invasion in which his wife and two daughters were murdered. He says some people wrongly believe all his views come from that experience. (Levin Becker, 2/5)

Health News Florida: Top Donor Wants More Competition For Medical Marijuana Industry
In the upcoming legislative session, lawmakers will debate how to implement the state’s new medical marijuana regulations. 71% of voters approved a measure to allow more patients to access the drug. One of the top fundraisers behind the effort wants to see more competition in the industry. (Payne, 2/5)

San Antonio Express-News: How To Bridge The Funding Gap For Scientific Breakthroughs
We stand on the brink of the age of personalized medicine, when such things as bespoke cancer treatments may well become commonplace. Yet, there is a disconnect between researchers undertaking vital research and venture capitalists with the money to commercialize their science. (Ramphis Castro, 2/4)

Sacramento Bee: Could California Be 'Healthcare Sanctuary' With Universal Coverage?
Eric Bauman, a registered nurse who aspires to become the next chairman of the California Democratic Party, says it’s time for California to become a “healthcare sanctuary” by providing universal, state-operated medical coverage. Citing efforts by a Republican-controlled federal government to repeal Obamacare, Bauman wrote in an op-ed article, “we cannot miss the historic opportunity the moment presents us: enacting single-payer healthcare into California. Let’s take that step and make California a healthcare sanctuary state.” (Dan Walters, 2/4)

Lexington Herald Leader: Choosing A Hospital? Read This First
It needs to be stated on the front end that the hospital industry is not happy with the current quality measurements. However, the vast majority of these measures were derived from, or had extensive input from, the health-care industry. The industry criticizes these measures as not being accurate. Of course, the exception is when a facility scores No. 1; then there seems to be no limit to marketing the result. (Kevin Kavanaugh, 2/3)

San Antonio Press Express: Birth Control Bill Should Be A No-Brainer 
Despite a decline in teen pregnancy rates across the country, Texas still has one of the highest number of babies born to teenage mothers. Nationally, there are 31 births per 1,000 teenagers, while in Texas the rate is 46.9 births. In San Antonio, 22 percent of the 2,412 babies born in 2014 were the second children of teen moms. State Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, a registered nurse, former school board member and volunteer in the campaign against teen pregnancy, is well aware of the statistics and wants the state to get involved in lowering them. (2/4)

The Charlotte Observer: Let’s Not Repeat Our Ghastly Abortion History
As your editorial this morning so aptly pointed out, there have been dramatic declines in the number of pregnancy terminations and unintended pregnancies in the United States. I am a retired obstetrician-gynecologist and have seen the full spectrum: a time when abortion was illegal, the advent of Roe v. Wade, to the present day when reliable, long-acting, reversible contraception covered by the Affordable Care Act, along with better education, have caused the rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion to drop to record lows. (2/5)

The New York Times: Grading Obamacare: Successes, Failures And ‘Incompletes’
Did Obamacare work? It’s worth asking as President Trump presses his promise to repeal and replace the “disaster” of Obamacare. Ever since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, it has been so contentious that it can be difficult to see beyond the partisan debate. But by looking at the many ways the law has changed health care, it’s possible to hazard some judgments. (Margot Sanger-Katz, 2/5)

The Washington Post: With No Allies, Republicans Step Away From Precipice Of Repeal
As they struggle to figure out how to deliver on the most important (and repeated) promise they made to their constituents over the last eight years — repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act — Republicans face two sets of problems, both of which are far thornier than they imagined. The first are the policy problems, which arise from the fact that health care reform is incredibly complex (and yes, they’re just realizing that now). The second are the political problems, which may be even more challenging. (Paul Waldman, 2/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Replace ObamaCare, Don’t Rename It
So powerful is the political appeal of entitlement programs that modern democracies routinely choose bankruptcy over curtailing them. That’s even true of ObamaCare. Despite surging premiums, lagging enrollment, the growing burden on the economy, and the enduring opposition of most voters, the debate is about replacing rather than simply repealing it. (Phil Gramm, 2/2)

RealClear Health: Repealing The Affordable Care Act: Bad For The Poor, Good For The Rich
President Trump and Republican leaders in Congress have made their intention to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) clear. Repealing the ACA without an immediate replacement would take health coverage away from tens of millions of Americans, remove popular protections for consumers against insurance companies, and unravel states’ individual insurance markets. And beyond these devastating impacts, the Republicans’ likely plan would also give a windfall tax cut to the highest-income Americans. At the same time, it would raise taxes significantly on millions of low- and moderate-income families due to the loss of their premium tax credits. (Brandon DeBot, 2/6)

The New York Times: Drop In Late Obamacare Enrollment Appears To Be A Trump Effect
In the waning days of this year’s Affordable Care Act sign-up period, the Trump administration declared war on the health law, releasing an executive order that could weaken its requirements and yanking advertisements and outreach off the air. Those actions appear to have made a difference. Sign-ups for health plans in the states managed by the federal government are down slightly compared with last year. About 9.2 million Americans picked an Obamacare marketplace plan for this year, according to a government report released Friday. Last year, that number was 9.6 million. (Margot Sanger-Katz, 2/3)

Health Affairs Blog: Uncertainty, Headwinds Hurt Final Marketplace Enrollment Total
On February 3, 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released its final snapshot of plan selections for the fourth Healthcare.gov open enrollment period, which ended on January 31, 2017. As of that date, 9,201,805 individuals had selected plans through Healthcare.gov in the 39 states that it serves. About 3 million of these were new consumers and 6.2 million were returning consumers. (Timothy Jost, 2/5)

The Wall Street Journal: It’ll Take More Than A Band-Aid To Fix Medicaid
One of the most fraught questions in Donald Trump’s Washington is how Republicans will reform health care. No aspect of the debate over ObamaCare presents as much risk, or opportunity, as what to do with the law’s expansion of Medicaid, which gave government health insurance to millions of Americans. It won’t be easy, but President Trump and Congress have an opportunity to control Medicaid costs, improve the health of enrollees—and also win bipartisan support. (Regina Herzlinger and Richard Boxer, 2/5)

The New York Times: How Would Republican Plans For Medicaid Block Grants Actually Work?
There are only so many ways to cut Medicaid spending.You can reduce the number of people covered. You can reduce the benefit coverage. You can also pay less for those benefits and get doctors and hospitals to accept less in reimbursement. Or you can ask beneficiaries to pay more. (Aaron E. Carrol, 2/6)

The Wichita Eagle: About Time Medicaid Expansion Had A Hearing
At long last, Medicaid expansion is finally receiving a full hearing in the Legislature. And with the defeat of many expansion opponents in last year’s elections, there is a good chance a revenue-neutral bill could clear both chambers. (2/5)