Viewpoints: Health Law ‘Off-Ramp’; GOP’s Tough Choices; Negotiating Medicare Drug Prices

The Wall Street Journal: An Off-Ramp From ObamaCare
On Wednesday the Supreme Court will take on yet another legal challenge to the president’s health-care law, when the justices hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell. If the court rules against the administration, as any fair reading of the law would demand, millions of individuals and families will hit a major roadblock: They’ll be stuck with health insurance designed by Washington, D.C., that they can’t afford. Americans should have an off-ramp from ObamaCare—a legislative alternative that leads them away from an expensive health-care wreck and toward a patient-centered system. (Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich, 3/2)

The Wall Street Journal: The Plain Text Of ObamaCare
The Obama Administration’s abuse of executive power—dispensing with its duty to faithfully execute statutes to become a law maker unto itself—has become the most consequential dispute across the three branches of government. The Supreme Court rejoins this debate on Wednesday with oral arguments in the challenge to the White House’s illegal Affordable Care Act subsidies. Unlike the 2012 ObamaCare cases, King v. Burwell is not a challenge to the constitutionality of the health law. To the contrary, the plaintiffs are asking the Justices to vindicate the law’s plain text and uphold the statute that Congress passed in 2010, rather than the version the Administration rewrote. (3/2)

The New York Times' The Upshot: A Polarized Court, Weighing A Reversal Of The Safety Net
The Supreme Court has become a more partisan institution in recent decades, more closely resembling the other branches of government than it once did. This week will start to show just how partisan the court has become. On Wednesday, it will hear arguments in the latest challenge to the health care law, a case that has received less attention than the 2012 challenge did but also is of great consequence. Of the 10 million people who have health insurance thanks to the law, the court could effectively take it from about five million of them. There are few if any historical precedents for a rollback of the social safety net as large as this one would be. (David Leonhardt, 3/3)

Bloomberg: Republicans And An Obamacare Apocalypse
If you liked the fiasco in the House of Representatives late Friday -- as its leaders scrambled to avoid a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security -- Republicans are setting things up for an even bigger imbroglio. This time, health care is on the line. (Jonathan Bernstein, 3/2)

Bloomberg: Hurting Obamacare Hurts Conservatives
If the U.S. Supreme Court rules against the government in the latest challenge to Obamacare, conservatives will have done more than undercut the Affordable Care Act. They will also have crippled a cause they have long supported: weakening the link between health insurance and employment. (Christopher Flavelle, 3/3)

The Washington Post: Morning Plum: Republicans Won’t Have Any Contingency Plan If Court Guts Subsidies For Millions
With the Supreme Court set to hear oral arguments this week in the lawsuit that could do severe damage to the Affordable Care Act, some Republican lawmakers are working hard to convey the impression that they have a contingency plan for the millions who will likely lose subsidies — and coverage — if the Court rules with the challengers. Senators Orrin Hatch, Lamar Alexander, and John Barrasso have published a Washington Post op ed with an oh-so-reassuring title: “We have a plan for fixing health care.” ... Yet even if this game works on the Justices in the short term, any eventual failure to come through with any contingency plan could saddle Republicans with a political problem, perhaps even among GOP voters. (Greg Sargent, 3/2)

The Washington Post's The Volokh Conspiracy: Lobbying The Chief Justice (Again)
Now that we have reason to believe that the Chief Justice Roberts did change his vote after the progressive onslaught, the left has been encouraged to think that its pressure worked, and might work again in King v. Burwell. But this time, they aren’t waiting until after oral argument to launch their political lobbying campaign. Instead, in advance of oral argument, they are making a preemptive appeal to the Chief Justice with varying degrees of subtlety. (Randy Barnett, 3/2)

The Washington Post's The Volokh Conspiracy: Have The Practical Effects Of A Plaintiffs’ Victory In King Been Exaggerated? (And Does It Matter?)
An analysis produced by the Urban Institute estimates a ruling for the plaintiffs would result in 8.2 million more uninsured and substantial premium increases. Several amicus briefs filed in support of the federal government paint even more dire scenarios. Such scenarios generally assume that the political process fails to respond to a court decision recognizing that the PPACA’s text only authorizes tax credits in state-established exchanges. Yet it’s possible that Congress will swing into action, that states will reconsider whether to create exchanges, and even that the administration, when push comes to shove, discovers ways to ease the effects of ending illegal subsidies. (Jonathan H. Adler, 3/3)

Los Angeles Times: Costco-Visa Deal Shows Why Medicare Should Negotiate Drug Prices
Costco's deal to replace American Express with Visa as its exclusive credit-card company highlights an economic principle that should surprise no one. Consumers benefit when a business uses its market power to negotiate lower prices and passes along the savings to customers. Conservatives have championed such market forces for decades, arguing that if government regulators just got out of the way of businesses, consumers would be the big winners. That is, unless we're talking about drug prices. Medicare, the federal healthcare program, is prohibited by law from haggling with makers of prescription drugs over the prices paid by its 54 million beneficiaries. (David Lazarus, 3/2)

The Wall Street Journal: The Diseases We Spend Our Health Dollars On
People worry a lot about their health-care costs, such as the share they pay of their health premium or the size of their deductible. But they tend to have a harder time getting their heads around the measures experts use to talk about the national health-cost problem .... But there is good news for those who want to understand more. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has made a real contribution to making health spending more comprehensible by analyzing health spending and price growth by common diseases and diagnoses such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and even the common cold. Doing that makes the problem of health-care costs much more understandable for everyone. (Drew Altman, 3/3)

The New York Times' The Upshot: If Patients Only Knew How Often Treatments Could Harm Them
If we knew more, would we opt for different kinds and amounts of health care? Despite the existence of metrics to help patients appreciate benefits and harms, a new systematic review suggests that our expectations are not consistent with the facts. Most patients overestimate the benefits of medical treatments, and underestimate the harms; because of that, they use more care. (Austin Frakt and Aaron E. Carroll, 3/2)

Bloomberg: The Politics Of Aging
Who will take care of all the old people? That's the theme of Nicholas Eberstadt's latest piece on demographics, which I highly recommend to all of you. The core problem of the welfare state is that it relieves people of the need for family to take care of them, but it does not relieve society of the need for caretakers. ... And, of course, there is the question of who will provide the actual hands-on care that people need. Here, the usual solution proposed is immigration. There are a couple of problems with that. ... But there's another problem, which is that old people are often vulnerable. This is why stories of abuses in nursing homes are so common; it is not that the state doesn't care about the people in its charge, but that "the state" does not actually provide the care -- individual people do, some of whom are badly motivated. (Megan McArdle, 3/2)

The New York Times: Are You Really Allergic To Antibiotics?
Allergic reactions to antibiotics can be severe, including symptoms ranging from hives and wheezing to anaphylactic shock. People with such allergic reactions are right to steer clear. The problem is that many, and probably most, people who say they’re allergic to antibiotics actually aren’t. For penicillin, the most commonly reported allergy, many studies have estimated that up to 90 percent of claims of allergies are not legitimate. (Victoria Dooley, 3/3)