The New York Times: Trump Administration Wants To Stabilize Health Markets But Won’t Say How
A Trump administration official said Wednesday that the administration wanted to stabilize health insurance markets, but refused to say if the government would promote enrollment this fall under the Affordable Care Act or pay for the activities of counselors who help people sign up for coverage. The official also declined to say whether the administration would continue paying subsidies to insurance companies to compensate them for reducing deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs for low-income people. Without the subsidies, insurers say, they would sharply increase premiums. (Pear, 8/30)

In other news from the administration —

Reveal: Empty Seats: Trump’s Top Science Jobs Vacant; Others Tied To Industry
Dozens of federal agencies – overseeing issues from the census to endangered species and the nation’s space program – remain without leaders to advise the White House and cabinet secretaries on science, engineering, health and technology. These officials also are responsible for overseeing the work of agency scientists and billions of dollars in spending on research, education and equipment. (Gertz, 8/30)

The Wall Street Journal: Leaders Of A Dozen State-Run Insurance Exchanges Call For Preservation Of Subsidies
Leaders of a dozen state-run health insurance exchanges threw their support Wednesday behind congressional efforts to bolster the individual insurance markets while giving states more leeway over implementing the Affordable Care Act. The state health leaders warned that premiums would continue to climb, and state budgets would suffer, if the federal government didn’t commit to preserving payments to insurers that offset out-of-pocket costs for some consumers, and if states didn’t get more flexibility. (Armour, 8/30)

Politico Pro: Governors Home In On Obamacare Stabilization Plan
A bipartisan Obamacare stabilization plan spearheaded by Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is poised to call on Congress to fund the law's cost-sharing subsidies and promote other strategies to boost competition and affordability. (Pradhan, 8/30)

The Wall Street Journal: Voters Urge Bipartisanship As Congress Returns To Washington
On a swing through western Iowa this week, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley told constituents he is committed to working in a bipartisan way when Congress returns next month to provide storm relief, stabilize the health-care system and fund the government without drama. It is a message that has resonated with many voters as Mr. Grassley tours the state during Congress’s August recess. It comes as President Donald Trump, a fellow Republican, has criticized lawmakers in his own party and said this month that he is willing to risk a government shutdown if the GOP-controlled Congress declines to appropriate money for additional border fencing between the U.S. and Mexico. (Tau, 8/30)

CQ Roll Call: Probe Of Zinke Call About Murkowski Health Care Vote Is Dropped
The Interior Department’s watchdog has dropped a probe into whether agency Secretary Ryan Zinke violated federal ethics rules by calling Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan to express the Trump administration's displeasure after Murkowski voted to halt progress on the GOP health care repeal bill. In letter to two Democrats who requested the probe on Wednesday, Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall wrote that the it would be dropped because Murkowski and Sullivan declined to be interviewed by the office. (Nawaguna, 8/30)

Los Angeles Times: Sen. Kamala Harris Plans To Back Medicare-For-All Legislation
Sen. Kamala Harris will co-sponsor a Medicare-for-all plan proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), she told Californians at a town hall in Oakland on Wednesday. The freshman Democratic senator from California has previously said she supports the concept of universal healthcare, but this is the first time she has explicitly said she would join Sanders when he files the bill. The House version of the measure, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), has 117 sponsors, including 27 California Democratic House members. (Wire, 8/30)

Politico: Harris To Co-Sponsor Sanders' Single-Payer Bill
To the delight of a hometown crowd at a packed town hall meeting Wednesday in Oakland — where she was raised — Harris announced for the first time that she intended to co-sponsor “Medicare for All,’’ the single-payer health care bill which has the strong support of progressives and groups including National Nurses United, saying it was “the right thing to do.” But that stated position puts her at odds with Feinstein, who has publicly expressed concerns about the costs and details of single payer, and who this week at the Commonwealth Club of California said she favored a public option for health care instead. (Marinucci, 8/31)

The Hill: Kamala Harris Announces She Will Co-Sponsor Single-Payer Healthcare 
"It's not just about what is morally and ethically right, it also makes sense just from a fiscal standpoint," she said. (Seipel, 8/30)

San Jose Mercury News: Sen. Kamala Harris Announces Support For ‘Medicare-For-All’ Bill
Single-payer health care has become one of the key issues of the progressive movement. More than half of Democrat House members support a single-payer bill written by Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan. Other Democratic senators who are talked about as potential 2020 presidential contenders, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand have also supported single-payer without publicly endorsing Sanders’ bill. (Tolan, 8/30)

Sacramento Bee: Sen. Kamala Harris Backs Single Payer Heatlh Care
In a follow-up interview, Harris told The Sacramento Bee that public attention on the national health care debate, following two failed Republican attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare, could be a signal that the time is right to adopt a single-payer system. “As we talk about moving toward a single-payer system, I think that there’s certainly momentum and energy around that, and when I get back to D.C., I’ll have a better sense of where people are now that they’ve been home,” Harris said. “I think that the recent history on the issue of health care is very telling ... Americans are making it very clear when they defeated the repeal of the (Affordable Care Act) that they don’t want us playing politics with their health care.” (Hart, 8/30)

The Hill: Bernie Sanders Thanks Kamala Harris For Endorsing Single-Payer
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) thanked fellow Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) on Wednesday for signing on to co-sponsor his upcoming bill to replace America's healthcare system with a single-payer Medicare-for-all system. The Vermont progressive thanked Harris for calling the single-payer system "the right thing to do," and declared that the Democrats would make healthcare a right, not a privilege. (Bowden, 8/30)

The Hill: Five Public Health Crises Facing Houston After Harvey 
Texas is reeling from Hurricane Harvey, with thousands of residents displaced by flood waters and a climbing death toll. But the dangers go beyond the rising waters, as the storm brings an array of public health dangers, from mosquitoes to mold.  Here are five public health threats facing authorities in Houston. (Sullivan and Weixel, 8/31)

The New York Times: A Sea Of Health And Environmental Hazards In Houston’s Floodwaters
Officials in Houston are just beginning to grapple with the health and environmental risks that lurk in the waters dumped by Hurricane Harvey, a toxic stew of chemicals, sewage, debris and waste that still floods much of the city. Flooded sewers are stoking fears of cholera, typhoid and other infectious diseases. Runoff from the city’s sprawling petroleum and chemicals complex contains any number of hazardous compounds. Lead, arsenic and other toxic and carcinogenic elements may be leaching from some two dozen Superfund sites in the Houston area. (Tabuchi and Kaplan, 8/31)

NPR: Need For Dialysis Soars For Harvey Evacuees In Houston
Among the most pressing medical needs facing Houston at the moment: getting people to dialysis treatment. At DaVita Med Center Dialysis on Tuesday afternoon, nurses tended to dozens of patients on dialysis machines while another 100 people waited their turn. Some were clearly uncomfortable, and a number said they hadn't been dialyzed in four days. Those delays can be life-threatening. (Hersher and Hsu, 8/30)

The Washington Post: Trump Could Seek Billions In Harvey Recovery Aid Next Week
President Trump could request a package of emergency funding to deal with the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey as soon as next week, a senior administration official said, reshuffling the political agenda as the White House scrambles to deal with devastation left by the storm. The funding package is expected to only be a partial down payment and serve in part to backstop depleted reserves that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had on hand to respond to disasters. (Paletta, O'Keefe and DeBonis, 8/30)

Houston Chronicle: Public Health Threat From Hurricane Harvey Just Beginning 
More than 30 people are dead in the wake of Harvey, but the longest lasting impact of the hurricane turned tropical storm is just beginning: the public health threat. From the bacteria, viruses, and fungi harbored in floodwaters to new breeding grounds for disease-carrying mosquitoes to a potentially staggering mental health toll inflicted on those hardest hit by Harvey, the risks are expected to be great. (Ackerman, 8/30)

Texas Tribune: Texas Chemical Plant Could Explode Amid Harvey Flooding
A fire or explosion looks likely in Crosby, where a chemical plant owned by Arkema Inc. currently sits submerged under six feet of floodwater. The organic peroxides used in the site’s manufacturing process have begun to heat up after the plant lost its primary source of power, then the power from its back-up generators. (Platoff, 8/30)

Stat: Houston Hospitals May Not Be Back To Normal For A Month
Amid the evacuation of approximately 1,500 patients from Houston-area hospitals, officials are commending the emergency response by health providers — while also cautioning that it may be weeks before the facilities are back to business as usual. The SouthEast Texas Regional Advisory Council — which has overseen catastrophic medical operations since Hurricane Harvey as part of Houston’s emergency command center — estimates that nearly two dozen hospitals have evacuated patients by ambulance and airplane over the course of the past week. (Blau, 8/30)

The Washington Post: Some Hospitals Evacuated, But Houston’s Medical World Mostly Withstands Harvey
The first ambulances finally arrived at Ben Taub Hospital, in the heart of Houston’s vast Texas Medical Center, to remove five patients clinging to life on ventilators. The county hospital had initially planned to transfer all of its 350 patients. As the remnants of Hurricane Harvey continued to unleash epic rains, a foot of water was rising in the hospital’s basement from a burst pipe and wet seeping in from the city’s inundated streets. The kitchen was knocked out, as well as the pharmacy and the area where supplies such as linens and needles are stored. (Goldstein and McGinley, 8/30)

NPR: After Harvey, Most Houston Hospitals Up And Running
In southeastern Texas, about two dozen hospitals remained closed as of midafternoon Wednesday, and several Houston hospitals remain under threat of flooding from nearby reservoirs. But things are looking up. Some hospitals that had been evacuated have reopened, and others are restoring services they had temporarily suspended. Many never closed at all. (Hsu and Sullivan, 8/30)

Houston Chronicle: Bayshore Medical Center Reopens 
Bayshore Medical Center reopened on Wednesday after suspending services and evacuating patients on Sunday, hospital officials said. The 364-bed facility in Pasadena had taken the preemptive measure due to rising waters and patients were evacuated to sister facilities within the HCA Healthcare Gulf Coast Division. While the deadly flooding that followed Tropical Storm Harvey continued to plague other parts of the Houston area, the immediate vicinity around Bayshore had cleared. (8/30)

Stat: Clues Point To Inflammation's Role In Many Diseases. Will Treatments Follow?
Inflammation has become one of the hottest buzzwords in medical science, pointed to as a culprit in causing or aggravating conditions ranging from allergy to autism to Alzheimer’s disease. But it’s far from clear that standard anti-inflammatory drugs, which have been around for decades, will help patients with those conditions, especially since they often come with dangerous side effects. So in labs across the country, scientists are trying to puzzle through the basic biology, understanding how inflammation leads to disease — and whether it’s possible to develop drugs that could interrupt that process. (Keshavan, 8/31)

Stat: Scientists Question Key Finding In Landmark Genome-Editing Study
A group of prominent scientists, including pioneers in genome-editing, have questioned the key finding of a headline-making study in which researchers reported using CRISPR to repair a disease-causing gene in viable human embryos. In the new, unpublished paper, posted this week to the biology preprint site bioRxiv and not yet peer-reviewed, scientists led by Maria Jasin of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center took aim at a startling claim in the embryo study. (Begley, 8/30)

The New York Times: Breast-Feeding May Lower Risk Of Endometriosis
Breast-feeding is linked to a reduced risk for endometriosis, a new study reports. Endometriosis — the growth of uterine tissue outside the uterus — can cause severe pain and excessive bleeding during menstruation, among other problems. It is a chronic disorder with an unknown cause. (Bakalar, 8/30)

NPR: Turtles Tied To Salmonella Outbreak In 13 States
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series has been around for decades and has raked in millions of dollars in merchandise. Why? Because turtles are cool. Warnings about real live turtles giving salmonella to the people who handle them have also been around for decades, but people keep getting sick, and that's not cool. (Fulton, 8/30)

Stateline: Protecting Student-Athletes From Heat, Head Injuries
Nearly 8 million kids participated in high school sports last year, the most in U.S. history. The shocking deaths of young student-athletes have prompted some states to weigh major changes. The California Legislature is considering a bill that would bring athletic trainers under state regulation. Others, including Texas and Florida, are strengthening policies on training during high heat and humidity and on the use of defibrillators during sporting events and practices. They are also moving to require schools to devise emergency plans for managing catastrophic sports injuries. And in response to growing concerns about concussions, the state of Texas recently embarked on the largest study ever of brain injuries to young athletes. (Ollove, 8/30)

WBUR: 7 Things I Learned While Reporting On Lyme And Other Tick-Borne Diseases
I’ve spent a lot of time in recent months reporting on Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, talking with experts and public health professionals, and listening to more lectures about ticks than anyone who isn’t an entomologist should. I thought I had learned a lot about Lyme and tick-borne diseases in medical school, but we really only scratched the surface. (Scales, 8/31)

The New York Times: Moving When Young May Strengthen The Adult Brain
Being active in youth may change the inner workings of brain cells much later in life and sharpen some types of thinking, according to a remarkable new neurological study involving rats. The study suggests that the effects of youthful exercise on the brain could linger deep into adulthood, potentially providing a buffer against the declines in brain health and memory that otherwise occur with age. (Reynolds, 8/30)

Kaiser Health News: Soul Purpose: Seniors With Strong Reasons To Live Often Live Stronger
After making it through the maelstrom of middle age, many adults find themselves approaching older age wondering “what will give purpose to my life?” now that the kids have flown the nest and retirement is in the cards. How they answer the question can have significant implications for their health. (Graham, 8/31)

Iowa Public Radio: Study: Babies Born To Mothers Living In Areas Of Very High Pesticide Exposure See Problems
Applying large amounts of pesticides to farm fields can have negative effects on babies born to mothers living nearby, according to new research. The data-crunching study published in Nature Communications looked at the farm-heavy San Joaquin Valley in California, where a variety of pesticides get applied to dozens of different crops including fruits, vegetables and nuts. (Mayer, 8/30)

Bloomberg: More Drugmakers Get Subpoenas From Missouri Attorney General 
Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley expanded his probe into the promotion of opioids by pharmaceutical companies, sending subpoenas to seven more drugmakers seeking information about how they market the painkillers. Allergan Plc, Depomed Inc., Insys Therapeutics Inc., Mallinckrodt Plc, Mylan NV, Pfizer Inc. and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. were sent subpoenas from Hawley, a Republican. In June, he sued Purdue Pharma Inc., Endo International Plc and Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. for allegedly misrepresenting the dangers of the opioids they sell, according to a statement from the attorney general. (Dolmetsch, 8/30)

The Philadelphia Inquirer/Philly.com: Bensalem To Be First Philly-Area Town To Sue Drugmakers Over Fueling Opioid Epidemic
Bensalem Township plans to sue pharmaceutical manufacturers in the hope of recouping tens of millions of dollars spent fighting an opioid epidemic that officials say was fueled by greedy drug companies. Officials of the Bucks County township  said they looked forward to becoming the first municipality in the Philadelphia region to join a small but growing list of states, counties, and towns seeking to slow the epidemic by forcing drug companies to pay. (Sapatkin, 8/30)

NPR/ProPublica: Hawaiians Are Less Likely To Use Prescription Drugs
If you think you would be healthier if you lived in Hawaii, you may be right. People in Hawaii appear to be much less likely to overuse problematic prescription drugs, including opioid pain medications and antibiotics, than people in the mainland United States. (Jones and Ornstein, 8/31)

KCUR: Deadly Opioid Fentanyl Making Inroads In Kansas City Area 
In May, local Drug Enforcement Administration agents, along with Kansas City police, raided a house in Kansas City, Kansas. What they found surprised them: 16 pounds of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. ...In contrast to the East Coast, which has been hit hard by fentanyl over recent years, the Midwest has remained relatively unscathed. Based on recent seizures, however, [DEA special agent Troy] Derby says that’s changing. He says the seizure in KCK was the first time law enforcement in the metropolitan area had encountered such a large amount of fentanyl. (Tudhope, 8/30)

The Washington Post: Fentanyl Drives Another Record Year Of Ohio Overdose Deaths
Ohio says a record 4,050 people died of drug overdoses in the state last year, driven in large part by the emergence of stronger drugs like the synthetic painkiller fentanyl. The data released Wednesday mean on average, 11 Ohioans are dying each day by overdosing on pain pills, heroin, fentanyl or other drugs. Overdose deaths rose 33 percent over the 3,050 deaths in 2015. (Welsh-Huggins, 8/30)

State House News Service: Baker Seeks To Toughen Penalties For Dealing Drugs
A year after working with the Legislature to try to stem the flow of opioids and improve addiction treatment options, Governor Charlie Baker is targeting the peddlers of dangerous narcotics with a proposal to enhance penalties for dealing drugs that lead to overdose deaths. The governor, who sits on President Donald Trump's opioid task force, also wants to expedite the scheduling of new synthetic drugs, strengthen witness protection laws and make murder-for-hire plots a serious felony in Massachusetts. (Murphy, 8/30)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Schools Push Voluntary Drug Testing Concept
A growing list of Northern Kentucky schools is advocating voluntary drug testing clubs that ask students to go beyond pledging to be drug-free. Schools want students to prove they are drug-free by taking drug tests. (Mayhew, 8/30)

New Hampshire Public Radio: Former DHMC Doctor Can Resume Practice After License Suspended For Opioid Use
A former Dartmouth-Hitchcock doctor who had his license suspended earlier this year after faking medical records and diverting an opioid for his own use can now return to practice. The New Hampshire Board of Medicine ruled earlier this month that Dr. Christopher Manfred can begin practicing medicine again pending certain conditions. (Greene, 8/30)

The Philadelphia Inquirer/Philly.com: Wolf: All Kids Should Be Blood Tested For Lead By Age 2
Unlike some states, Pennsylvania doesn’t require children to be tested for lead exposure by age 2. As a result, thousands most at risk of effects from the toxic metal, including reduced IQ and behavioral problems, go undetected at a critical time in brain development. But on Wednesday, Gov. Wolf called on state health officials and lawmakers to work together to pass a law requiring physicians to test every child’s blood for lead by age 2. “Only with universal testing will we know the true scope of lead poisoning in Pennsylvania and be able to refer affected children to care,” Wolf said in a statement. (Ruderman, 8/30)

Georgia Health News: Report: Programs To Remove Lead Would Save Next Generation Of Kids
Preventing lead poisoning in children who will be born in 2018 would provide an estimated $84 billion in long-term benefits, said the report from the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts. The billions in savings would come partly from reduced health care costs. (Miller, 8/30)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Northside Hospital And Gwinnett Health System Reach Merger Agreement
Northside Hospital and Gwinnett Health System (the parent of Gwinnett Medical Center) recently announced that they have submitted their proposed merger agreement to the State of Georgia Office of the Attorney General for review and approval. Depending on the review process, the five-hospital Northside-Gwinnett Health combined system could be operational in early 2018. (Holman, 8/30)

Minnesota Public Radio: How Can Colleges Help Depressed Students?
Kaz Nelson of the University of Minnesota's Department of Psychiatry, and Gregory Eells of Cornell's Counseling and Psychology Services, shared what colleges are doing to help students and what signs of depression parents should look for in their children. (Miller, 8/30)

California Healthline: Why One California County Went Surgery Shopping
Retiree Leslie Robinson-Stone and her husband enjoyed a weeklong, all-expenses-paid trip to a luxury resort — all thanks to the county she worked for. The couple also received more than a thousand dollars in spending money and a personal concierge, who attended to their every need. For Santa Barbara County, it was money well spent: Sending Robinson-Stone 250 miles away for knee replacement surgery near San Diego saved the government $30,000. (Terhune, 8/31)

St. Louis Public Radio: Seek First To Understand: Lessons On Poverty Teach Medical Students To Be Better Doctors
Every year, for the past 15 years, first year students at Washington University’s School of Medicine have climbed on board three yellow school buses and headed north. They take a route that passes through the city’s poorest neighborhoods, in a bid to introduce medical students to the lives of their future patients. (Bouscaren, 8/31)

KCUR: Jury Convicts Former Physician Assistant At Leavenworth VA Of Sexual Abuse 
A former physician assistant was found guilty Wednesday of sexually abusing patients at the veterans hospital in Leavenworth. A Leavenworth County jury convicted Horton, Kansas, resident Mark E. Wisner, 66, of one felony count each of aggravated sexual battery and aggravated criminal sodomy and three misdemeanor counts of sexual battery. The crimes occurred between 2012 and 2014. (Margolies, 8/30)

JAMA Forum: Our Next Health Care Debate
It’s a perfect time to reflect on the national health policy debate over coverage. Not the one we’re having now, but the one we are destined to have sometime in the 2020s. Going back at least as far as Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, once a decade or so, we contemplate major national coverage reforms to the US health care system. While enthusiasm builds in some circles that the next debate has the potential to bring us full universal coverage, the lessons of our recent efforts tell us we often come away with far less than we should. (Andy Slavitt, 8/30)

Axios: How To Keep ACA Stabilization Narrow
When Congress returns next week, the health debate will shift from trying to pass sweeping legislation to stabilizing the non-group insurance market. This will be a different debate about a thorny but smaller problem. The weaknesses that need to be fixed are fairly specific, and they don't affect the majority of Americans. (Drew Altman, 8/31)

Los Angeles Times: Bringing Parental Leave Benefits To More Workers
California state law guarantees that new parents, biological or adoptive, can take 12 weeks off from work to care for their babies without worrying about losing their health care or having a job when they are ready to come back. But here’s the catch: These benefits are available only to parents who happen to work for a company that employs 50 or more people within a 75-mile radius. That’s about 41% of the state’s workforce. (8/31)

The Washington Post: Harvey’s Burdens Will Fall Hardest On The Poor
The catastrophe on the Texas coast makes little or no distinction between rich and poor — for now, anyway. ... But even this Noah-like deluge will stop eventually, and when the rain ends and the water drains from rivers and bayous, the differences will become stark. For those who get their ice in summer, the aftermath of Harvey will be various amounts of hassle and grief. ... But these challenges and disappointments will be eased by the emollient blessing of money: the insurance check, the savings account, the home-equity loan, the paid vacation days to devote to cleaning up. ... People who get their ice in winter are facing a total loss. Their neighborhoods are likely to be on low ground, because elevation goes for a premium in a land of bayous. After days or weeks under water, tens of thousands of their homes and cars will be not just damaged but destroyed. And the destruction of possessions will be followed by the loss of communities. (David Von Drehle, 8/30)

Bloomberg: UnitedHealth Shows Its Dealmaking Smarts Again 
When it comes to M&A, UnitedHealth Group Inc. is one of the health-insurance industry's most prolific dealmakers. Its latest purchase is a reminder that it's among the smartest in that category as well. The company agreed on Tuesday to acquire Advisory Board Co.'s health-care analytics, research and consulting operations for about $1.3 billion including debt. The merger is part of a two-way deal that will also see private equity firm Vista Equity Partners purchase Advisory Board's education arm for $1.55 billion. It's another win for Elliott Management Corp., which disclosed a stake in Advisory Board earlier this year and sought talks on strategic options. (Brooke Sutherland, 8/29)

The Washington Post: My Son Has Autism. Discrimination Almost Cost Him His Life.
Five years ago, when my son Lief was 9, he fell ill with a virus. The virus attacked his heart and flooded it with fluid. The pressure from the growing pool inside his heart tore the muscle fibers. In a matter of weeks, he was transformed from a healthy kid to a critically ill hospital patient with only one hope for survival: a heart transplant. ... Because of our son’s disability, the doctors at our local children’s hospital told us that no facility would perform the transplant, and we should prepare for him to die. (Sunshine Bodey, 8/30)

The Wall Street Journal: Democrats Inch Right On Abortion
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in May that the Democratic Party should not require its candidates to support the right to an abortion. “This is not a rubber-stamp party,” she told the Washington Post. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed. In July Rep. Ben Ray Luján of Texas, the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told the Hill he would be open to funding pro-life candidates in 2018 House races. California Gov. Jerry Brown said on “Meet the Press” that candidates’ positions on abortion “should not be the basis for their exclusion.” (Fred Barnes, 8/30)

Arizona Republic: Kelli Ward To Keynote Anti-Medicare Group Meeting
I’m wondering if Arizona Republicans who favor Kelli Ward over Sen. Jeff Flake realize how closely she is tied to a wacky, conspiracy-prone physicians group that believes Medicare and Medicaid should not exist and are, in fact, “evil.” The organization is the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. (EJ Montini, 8/30)