Viewpoints: Nerves Getting Rattled On Health Subsidies; Battle On Abortion; Seniors In Poverty

Huffington Post: GOP Readies New Obamacare Hostage Plan As Supreme Court Drama Builds
The crux of the lawsuit is a dispute over how to interpret four words that appear in a key passage of the law. That’s why administration officials have said that the easiest, and most viable, remedy would be for Congress to pass a one-sentence amendment to clarify that tax credits should be available in all states. Republican leaders like [Rep. Paul] Ryan have made clear they won’t do that, instead dangling the possibility of some kind of “off-ramp” or “transitional” assistance that would allow people in those states to keep their tax credits -- but only for a little while and only if the Obama administration makes concessions. ... Neither Ryan nor other House Republican leaders have seen fit to produce a detailed proposal or even to hold hearings on what such a proposal should look like. (Jonathan Cohn, 6/11)

The Washington Post: On Capitol Hill, One Giant Obamacare Fight
Things clearly had gotten off on the wrong foot. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, wanted to know whether President Obama is going to work with Congress to rewrite health-care law if the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare — “or is he going to put concrete around his ankles and say, ‘It’s my law or nothing’?” ... Wednesday’s hearing, coming as the nation awaits word on whether the Supreme Court will strike down the law that defines the Obama presidency, was less a legislative forum than a pageant of ankle-biting. (Dana Milbank, 6/10)

The Chicago Tribune: A Republican Plan To Replace Obamacare
So, if the Supreme Court guts Obamacare, what will the GOP do? Simple. They'll do what they've been promising ever since hating Obamacare became their favorite pastime: Offer an alternative to the health care law that will help all Americans and satisfy the conservative base. That alternative was outlined in a recent tweet sent by Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota: "Six million people risk losing their health care subsidies, yet @POTUS continues to deny that Obamacare is bad for the American people." That's it, folks. That's the plan. Blame Barack Obama. (Rex W. Huppke, 6/10)

Los Angeles Times: Here's Another Way Obamacare Is Changing U.S. Healthcare For The Better
The Affordable Care Act aimed to go well beyond merely making health insurance more accessible to millions of people who couldn't buy it in the individual insurance market; many provisions were designed to fundamentally change for the better how healthcare is delivered in the country. A new study shows one way it's working by improving patient outcomes in a sample of New York hospitals. (Michael Hiltzik, 6/10)

Tampa Bay Times: Nonsense Talk From State House On Medicaid Expansion Could Rival Dr. Seuss
And now, a final word for opponents of Medicaid expansion: Touche. You did it. You won. Once again, you denied health insurance for hundreds of thousands of Floridians. And all it took was distortions, diversions, threats and cruelty. All in a day's work, am I right? (John Romano, 6/10)

Tampa Bay Times: The House Speaker's Hypocrisy On Health Care
From time to time I arrive home to discover Gracie the Goldendoodle has had her way with the garbage. It's not pretty, and yet the hound will look at me with those baleful eyes that shamelessly suggest, "Garbage? What garbage? I didn't create that mess. It must have been the cat, even though there is no feline anywhere in the house." And that is why I'm thinking of renaming her … Steve Crisafulli. Crisafulli, R-Eenie-Meanie-Moe-Larry-And-Curly, is the speaker of the Florida House. He defends the House's decision to stiff more than 800,000 low-income Floridians by denying them subsidized health coverage. ... Crisafulli's rather candid bottom line was simply this: If you are poor in Florida, even if you are working at a job at poverty-level wages and get sick, we don't care. (Daniel Ruth, 6/10)

The New York Times: Closing Off Abortion Rights
For the last several years, opponents of abortion rights have cloaked their obstructionist efforts under all manner of legitimate-sounding rationales, like protecting women’s health. This has never been more than an insulting ruse. Their goal, of course, is to end all abortions, and lately they’re hardly trying to pretend otherwise. (6/11)

The New York Times: Battle Of The Abortion Decisions
It’s been a dismal stretch for a woman’s right to choose. Not everywhere — I swear that if you stay with me there’s going to be a bright spot. But, first, I’m afraid we’re going to have to talk about Texas. Like many states, Texas has been on a real tear when it comes to women and reproduction. The Legislature keeps piling on indignities, like mandatory pre-abortion sonograms and a script that the doctor has to read to educate the pregnant patient about her condition. Which people in the State Capitol are sure she never thought through on her own. (Gail Collins, 6/11)

Bloomberg: Why the Texas Abortion Law May Stand
In the wake of the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upholding a Texas law that would close many of the state’s abortion clinics because they don’t comply with new regulations, you might be thinking that the conservative court’s decision can’t possibly survive Supreme Court review. Think again. The decision was reached under the legal standard of “undue burden” established in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision. Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O’Connor intended the standard to be pragmatic and flexible in evaluating the constitutionality of abortion laws. Now that O’Connor has been replaced by Samuel Alito, and the politics of abortion have continued to change, the content of pragmatism is changing, too. (Noah Feldman, 6/10)

The Charlotte Observer: Happy 50th To Legal Birth Control
Last Sunday marked the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut. On June 7, 1965, the Court declared an 1879 statute criminalizing the distribution and use of contraceptives in Connecticut unconstitutional. Violators of that law faced fines or imprisonment, and any individuals providing counseling on access to contraception were subject to the same penalties. It took the Griswold decision and the Court’s articulation of a “right to privacy” just 50 years ago to legalize access to birth control in the United States. The Griswold decision remains as relevant today as it was in 1965. Challenges to access to contraception remain and unfair characterizations of women who seek and use contraceptives are not extinct. (Susan L. Roberts, 6/10)

The Wall Street Journal: Seniors and Income Inequality: How Things Get Worse With Age
Income inequality has been rising on the political agenda, yet one group has been left out of the discussion: seniors. Older adults are somewhat less likely than working-age adults to be poor by the government’s traditional poverty measure, developed in the 1960s. But this official measure may understate the extent to which seniors live in poverty. (Drew Altman, 6/11)

The New York Times: Don’t Weaken The F.D.A.’s Drug Approval Process
The desperation of [the early days of the AIDS epidemic] led to the rise of an activist movement that took to the streets and pressed government officials to expedite research on drugs to treat AIDS. The danger of faster drug approval was that a devil’s bargain would be struck: quicker access to experimental drugs, but without first determining whether these drugs were safe and would improve health and extend life. How that danger was navigated in the AIDS battle offers essential warnings for Congress as it considers the 21st Century Cures Act. (Gregg Gonsalves, Mark Harrington and David Kessler, 6/11)

The Chicago Tribune: Protect Kids, Promote Vaccines
Parents in Illinois send a child to school with the expectation that he or she will be safe from common childhood diseases because the other students have been vaccinated. But in many classrooms, that's not true. Thousands of children in Illinois attend schools where vaccination rates have sagged. It's important to maintain what doctors call "herd immunity" — a critical level of protection that prevents an epidemic from taking hold and spreading rapidly. The lower the rates, the higher the risk. One reason more children aren't vaccinated in Illinois: Parents can easily opt out by claiming a religious exemption. (6/10)