With Health Care Costs As A Top Concern Among Voters, State Legislatures Eye Ways To Make Care More Affordable

Sacramento Bee: Cheaper And More Accessible Health Care Sought By CA Bills
Twenty-two bills before the Legislature this year aim to make health care more affordable and accessible. It seems almost certain that some of them will pass. But even though all the bills are heading in the same direction, there are competing visions of what a health care expansion should look like in 2019. (Finch, Bollag and Caiola, 4/8)

Denver Post: Colorado Health Care: 8 Ways Lawmakers Want To Make It Cheaper
It seems like every state senator and representative is trying to pass a health care bill this session. Republicans, Democrats and the new governor all put lowering medical costs toward the top of their to-do lists in 2019, and the result of that has been dozens of bills — some of them overlapping — that seek to lower the cost of health care in different ways. “It looks like total scattershot,” said Rep. Dylan Roberts, a Democrat from Eagle who is behind several major health care bills this session. (Staver, 4/6)

Pioneer Press: Republicans And Democrats Want To ‘Fix Health Care.’ Will Disagreements Over How, Stymie Their Work?
If you take Minnesota political leaders at their word, they’re committed to making health care more accessible and affordable. ... Lawmakers spent the past week detailing their various health care policy and spending proposals as they moved through committees and floor votes. And when it comes to the way Republicans and Democrats want to make health care more accessible and affordable, they remain far apart. (Magan, 4/7)

The Oregonian: Oregon Democrats Want To Bring Back Double Health Insurance For State, School Workers 
Gov. Kate Brown and Democrats in the Oregon Legislature are looking at undoing one of the anticipated cost-saving initiatives they passed two years ago: ending double health insurance for couples who both work for the state or a school district. Chastened by blowback from public employees, the governor and Democratic lawmakers now say it might have been a mistake to pass that and some other cost-trimming health insurance changes. Those changes were predicted to save $178 million per biennium starting in 2019 and more in future budgets. (Borrud, 4/5)

Wyoming Public Radio: Wyoming Lawmakers Are Ready To Battle Over Health Care
President Trump is now backing a lawsuit that would invalidate the entire Affordable Care Act, and that's promising to make health care a major election issue next year. Wyoming Republicans are fine with that, even though they have failed to repeal and replace when they controlled both chambers of Congress. (Laslo, 4/5)

Politico Pro: Public Option Hits A Wall In Blue States
This was supposed to be the year blue states created government-run health insurance plans, after health care-fueled midterm election victories. But legislation around the country to craft a so-called public option — a longtime progressive goal — has stalled over political and financial roadblocks, underscoring the challenge of creating coverage expansions even less comprehensive than the "Medicare for All" plan championed by Democratic presidential contenders and progressives in Congress. (Pradhan and Goldberg, 4/7)

Meanwhile, the abortion debate continues to play out in state capitols —

The Washington Post: Florida Abortion Bill Would Require Minors To Obtain Consent
Stephanie Loraine Piñeiro was 17 when she discovered she was pregnant for the second time. She says her parents were livid about her first pregnancy a year earlier, though she never dared tell them she was raped. Her father took her to a clinic for an abortion. On the way home, she says, he threw birth control pills from the clinic out of the car window and ordered her to abstain. A year later, the circumstances were different. She said she became pregnant after having sex with a boyfriend, and was afraid her parents would force her to continue an unwanted pregnancy if she told them. She sought but was denied emergency contraception from a pharmacy. (Rua, 4/7)

Boston Globe: Too Young To Get Married — But Not To End A Pregnancy?
Take two bills now being considered on Beacon Hill: One would impose a new minimum age of 18 to get married. Currently, a child in Massachusetts can get married at any age, with at least one parent’s permission. The other would let a young woman get an abortion at any age. Currently, she can’t do so before 18, unless she has the permission of a parent or a judge. If both bills pass as written, they would seem to send conflicting signals on young women’s autonomy: You’re mature enough to choose an abortion, no matter what your parents say, but you are not mature enough to choose marriage, no matter what your parents say. (Ebbert, 4/6)