Bloomberg: Obamacare Enrollment Poised To Exceed 9.1 Million Projection
A working website and more new customers than expected has Obamacare headed toward enrollment that will blow past the lowered projections of its managers. With the program’s first deadline looming on Dec. 15, when people who want coverage beginning Jan. 1 must sign up, little has gone wrong so far in the second enrollment season for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Technical problems have been scattered and largely resolved. Consumer interest is strong, with 1.4 million people signed up through Dec. 5 in 37 states using the federal healthcare.gov system. (Wayne, 12/12)

USA Today: State, Federal Insurance Sites Seem Ready For Late Rush
The first big Affordable Care Act 2015 open enrollment deadline is here and this time it looks like it won't be a bust. The federal HealthCare.gov website and state sites seem to be working well enough to get people enrolled or re-enrolled by midnight Monday if they want coverage to be effective on Jan. 1. The final deadline for enrollment for coverage in 2015 — and to avoid penalties at tax time in 2016 for not having insurance — is Feb. 15. (O'Donnell and Ungar, 12/14)

The Associated Press: Crunch Time Again For Health Insurance Sign-Ups
President Barack Obama’s health insurance program faces another big test Monday. This time it’s more than just getting the website to work. Monday is the deadline for new customers to pick a health plan that will take effect Jan. 1. For current customers, it’s the deadline to make changes that could reduce expected premium increase ahead of the new year. (12/14)

Fox News: Federal, State Health Insurance Sites Brace For 2015 Sign-Up Deadline
President Obama's healthcare reform push faces the biggest test of its second year in existence Monday, the deadline for customers to choose an insurance plan for 2015. Midnight Pacific time is also the deadline for current enrollees to make changes that could reduce premium increases ahead of the new year. (12/15)

The Fiscal Times: Obamacare Enrollees Could Get Hit With Surprise Costs
Returning Obamacare enrollees have until next Monday to decide whether they want to keep or switch insurance policies for next year. If they do nothing, they will be renewed automatically in their old plans. (Ehley, 12/12)

The Associated Press: NY Health Exchange Extends Registration Deadline
New York's health exchange is extending its registration deadline for the coming year by five days until Dec. 20. The state Health Department says the extension applies to enrolling or renewing health insurance coverage for the second year of the state-run marketplace. (12/14)

The Oregonian: Health Insurance: Monday Deadline Looms To Tap Tax Credits For Jan. 1
Oregonians hoping to tap federal tax credits to reduce their monthly health premiums must buy coverage by Dec. 15 to ensure their policy kicks in Jan. 1. The deadline applies to people buying coverage for themselves or their family but who are not on Medicare. It is an important date for those hoping to keep costs down and coverage uninterrupted. (Budnick, 12/14)

Arizona Republic: Deadline Nears To Sign Up For ACA Coverage
The Obama administration's top health official visited Arizona on Saturday and said consumers should take action on their Affordable Care Act plan before a key deadline Monday to avoid being routed to health coverage that does not fit. (Alltucker, 12/13)

Miami Herald: Monday Is Key Deadline To Sign Up For Health Insurance Under The Affordable Care Act
December 15 is the last day for consumers to sign up for Affordable Care Act health coverage that starts Jan. 1. First-time Obamacare customers who miss the deadline will have to spend January without insurance. They’ll need to sign up for coverage by Jan. 15 for coverage that starts Feb. 1. The final day to enroll is Feb. 15. (Nehamas, 12/12)

Los Angeles Times: Uninsured Rates Fell Under Obamacare, But Who's Reaping The Benefit?
Hospitals and health insurers have reaped a financial windfall from the 2014 rollout of the federal health law, even beyond what was expected. Now, employers and consumers are seeking a share of the Obamacare dividend. For years, insurance companies and hospitals told Americans that one reason their insurance bills were so high was because they were paying the hidden cost of medical care for the uninsured. The Affordable Care Act sought to remedy much of that by unleashing the biggest expansion of insurance coverage in half a century. Ten million Americans became newly insured, and federal officials estimate that $5.7 billion in uncompensated care was wiped out this year as hospitals received more paying patients. Now it's time to share the bounty from Obamacare, said Bill Kramer, director of national health policy at the Pacific Business Group on Health, which represents big employers like Wells Fargo and Chevron. (Terhune, 12/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Health Law Hurts Some Free Clinics
Some free health clinics serving the uninsured are shutting their doors because of funding shortfalls and low demand they attribute to the Affordable Care Act’s insurance expansion. Nearly a dozen clinics that have closed in the past two years cited the federal health law as a major reason. The closings have occurred largely in 28 states and Washington, D.C., which all expanded Medicaid, the federal-state insurance program for low-income people, and are being heralded by some clinic officials as a sign the health law is reducing the number of uninsured. But the closures have irked some patients and left pockets of uninsured people not covered by the law with fewer venues for care. Some of the roughly 1,200 U.S. free and charity clinics are struggling with a drop in funding because donors believe there is no longer a need for free or low-cost care in the wake of the health law. (Armour, 12/12)

Earlier, related KHN coverage: Obamacare Creates ‘Upheaval’ At Free Clinics (Galewitz, 8/7)

Kaiser Health News: Small Businesses Drop Coverage As Health Law Offers Alternatives
For two decades Atlanta restaurant owner Jim Dunn offered a group health plan to his managers and helped pay for it. That ended Dec. 1, after the Affordable Care Act made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Health-law subsidies for workers to buy their own coverage combined with years of rising costs in the company plan made dropping the plan an obvious – though not easy – choice. (Hancock, 12/15)

The San Jose Mercury News: California Health Insurance Exchange Aims To Increase Latino Enrollment
Many low-income Latinos say they're just scraping by and can't afford health insurance while others fear that signing up could alert immigration authorities to the undocumented family members who live with them. And some Latinos seem hesitant to enroll after seeing last month's uproar when President Barack Obama announced his controversial plan to give temporary legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. (Seipel, 12/14)

In other news, Senate staff members stand to be forced out of the health plan for federal workers under a policy adopted by the Senate Republican Conference -

The Washington Post: More Senate GOP Staffers Face Losing Federal Worker Health Care Coverage
More Senate staff members stand to be forced out of the health plan for federal workers under a policy adopted Wednesday by Senate Republicans. The Senate Republican Conference accepted a resolution from Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) to add to the number of Capitol Hill staff already made ineligible for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program because of the Affordable Care Act. The resolution makes it the policy of Senate Republicans to make staff members they employ ineligible for the FEHBP “regardless of whether they work in a member’s personal office, committee office, leadership office, the cloakroom or any other office.” (Yoder, 12/12)

The Associated Press: Medicaid Expansion Could Be Months Away
[Alaska] health commissioner Valerie Davidson said it could be July before the state is in a position to begin enrolling Alaskans under expanded Medicaid coverage. Davidson said issues need to be worked out with a Medicaid eligibility system as well as with a Medicaid payment system that has been plagued by problems since going live in 2013. Both are being converted from one technology system to another, she said. (Bohrer, 12/14)

Norfolk Virginian-Pilot: For Many In Va., Medicaid Coverage Gap Is Unaffordable
Many of the disappointed fall into the so-called "coverage gap," those whose incomes are below the lower limit for subsidies on the marketplace but above the Medicaid eligibility line. Virginia decided not to expand Medicaid, the state-federal insurance for low-income and disabled people -- which would have covered up to 400,000 Virginians -- and it already had one of the toughest eligibility standards in the country, sixth-most stringent by one report. "In some cases, they would have to pay 25 to 50 percent of their salary [to buy insurance], and that is not affordable," said Virginia Beach Health Director Heidi Kulberg, who was overseeing a recent ACA sign-up session at the city's library. "We try to take the time to explain, in a nonpartisan way, that they would have been covered, but the Supreme Court ruling on Medicaid expansion came out, and the state decided to opt out. People look at us like, 'Why won't you help me? Obamacare is no good because it's not helping me.'" (Simpson, 12/15)

In other news, The Fiscal Times explores how obesity treatments are straining the budgets of the Medicaid and Medicare programs.

The Fiscal Times: How The Obesity Epidemic Drains Medicare And Medicaid
Federal and state officials are growing alarmed over the mounting share of government-provided health care going toward treating obesity as the number of overweight Americans continues to rise. (Pianin, 12/15)

Bloomberg: Obama Says NFL Right To Address Domestic Violence After Rice
The interview on ESPN was the first of three radio spots Obama is doing live or taped today to promote enrollment in the nationwide health-insurance program that is his signature domestic initiative. He used a Dec. 8 appearance on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” to make the same pitch. ... The young men who dominate ESPN’s audience historically have been among the hardest to enroll in health insurance. Men ages 18 to 34 are more likely to be uninsured than the average person in the U.S. with 16.5 percent of them lacking insurance in 2014 compared with 11.3 percent of the population at large, according to Enroll America, a Washington-based group that organizes Obamacare enrollment efforts. (Greiling Keane, 12/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Obama Talks Health Care, Sports On The Radio
President Barack Obama is taking to the airwaves to remind Americans to sign up for health care, as the deadline for the second annual enrollment period nears. ... Mr. Obama appeared on ESPN Radio’s The Herd with Collin Cowherd on Friday morning. He is also scheduled to do interviews with Raleigh, N.C.’s WQOK-FM, and On Air with Ryan Seacrest. The Raleigh interview will air Friday afternoon, while the interview with Mr. Seacrest will air Monday. (Tau, 12/12)

The Hill: Stage Set For Weekend ObamaCare Blitz
The Obama administration is running a full-court press to promote healthcare sign-ups before the Monday deadline for coverage to start the new year. President Obama has made pitches on popular media ranging from ESPN to The Colbert Report this week, while Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell has crisscrossed the country with stops in Florida to Texas. The last-ditch effort to reach millions of people who remain uninsured after ObamaCare’s first year will put a strong focus on black and Hispanic communities. (Ferris, 12/13)

The Wall Street Journal: House Budget-Panel Chief: Debt-Ceiling Showdown Possible
Price said he will propose a budget in early 2015 that aims to eliminate the budget deficit over 10 years, meaning he will equalize the levels of government spending and revenue. ... He said, for example, that he would continue to propose changes to Medicare that create a “premium support” option, which would allow seniors to purchase private insurance with government stipends as opposed to using the Medicare program. (Paletta, 12/12)

Reuters: Paul Ryan's Bid To Overhaul Medicare To Resurface In New Congress
Price, a physician with four years on the Budget Committee, said a Republican-controlled Congress can now advance policies pioneered by Ryan, including his controversial Medicare plans. Those plans would scale back the popular social insurance program for the elderly and disabled by limiting beneficiaries to a set amount of money every year to buy private healthcare insurance. Known as "premium support," the program as envisioned by Ryan would mark a dramatic shift from the current Medicare system, under which the federal government helps pay for all medical services that an individual uses. "The issue of premium support, internally is now basically settled policy for the Republican conference," Price said. (Lawder, 12/12)

The Hill: Paul Ryan's Successor Maps Out Agenda
Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) has big shoes to fill as chairman of the House Budget Committee in the next Congress. Taking over from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee and leading voice on fiscal matters, Price is vowing to rein in federal spending, reform the budget process and potentially roll back Obamacare. ... With the Republicans in the majority next year, many in the GOP believe they can use a budget tool called reconciliation to repeal Obamacare. A reconciliation deal cannot be filibustered in the Senate and only needs 51 votes to pass instead of a supermajority. GOP leaders have not yet decided on how to use reconciliation, Price said, but the decision could be made by mid-January during their joint retreat to Hershey, Pa. (Shabad, 12/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Patty Murray To Become Top Democrat On HELP Committee
Sen. Patty Murray will become the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee next year, just as the GOP gains control of the Senate with plans to redouble its attention to the federal health law. Ms. Murray is taking the committee seat being vacated by Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, who is the panel’s current chairman and is retiring after nearly 40 years in Congress. With GOP takeover, Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee will be HELP Committee chairman. (Radnofsky, 12/12)

The New York Times: In Final Spending Bill, Salty Food And Belching Cows Are Winners
A typically arcane provision of the bill provides relief to nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, which have special tax breaks that were threatened by the Affordable Care Act. Blue Cross is not mentioned by name in the relevant section of the 2015 spending bill, titled “Modification of treatment of certain health organizations.” But the deduction in question is available only to Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, which have been lobbying Congress for a clarification since the Affordable Care Act was signed in 2010. (Pear, 12/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Pension Bill Seen As Model For Further Cuts
The measure “would set a terrible precedent,” said Karen Friedman, executive vice president of the Pension Rights Center, a group that advocates for wider pension coverage and opposes benefit cuts. The bill could encourage similar cutbacks in troubled state and local pension plans, and possibly even Social Security and Medicare, she said. (McKinnon, 12/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Rep. Issa’s Committee Subpoenas Gruber Over Obamacare Work
A congressional committee has subpoenaed Jonathan Gruber, seeking information on his work and income related to the Affordable Care Act. Mr. Gruber, the MIT economist who apologized this week on Capitol Hill for comments he made on the health law, declined at the same hearing to provide information on his income related to work on the Affordable Care Act. (Armour, 12/12)

The Washington Post: Issa Subpoenas MIT Economist Jonathan Gruber For Obamacare Documents
Economist Jonathan Gruber apologized before a congressional panel this week for controversial comments he made about the political process behind the Affordable Care Act, but he declined to say how much the Obama administration paid him for consulting work on the health-care law. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) isn’t letting him off the hook. As one of his final acts as chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, he issued a subpoena Thursday demanding that Gruber hand over all documents and communications with government officials related to his work on the health-care law. (Hicks, 12/12)

Politico: Darrell Issa Subpoenas Jonathan Gruber
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa has subpoenaed MIT economist Jonathan Gruber for all documents related to his government work on the Affordable Care Act. (Villacorta, 12/12)

Fox News: Issa Follows Up Gruber Grilling With Subpoenas
The powerful lawmaker who put loose-lipped ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber on the hot seat earlier this week isn’t quite finished with the MIT economist. Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican congressman who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform, has issued a subpoena demanding all of Gruber’s documents and communications with federal, state, or local government employees regarding his work on the controversial health care law. (12/12)

Reuters: U.S. Corporate Health Exchanges Find No New Blue Chip Clients
Healthcare companies including Aetna Inc, Mercer and Towers Watson Co have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build exchanges that allow company employees to buy their own insurance, betting that Corporate America wants to get out of managing workers' health benefits. By last year, blue chip names like Sears Holding and Walgreen Co had signed on and industry experts predicted that more than 20 percent of the nation's employees would soon buy their health insurance in this way, compared with less than 2 percent today. But Reuters interviews with nearly a dozen industry executives has found that no major U.S. company signed up their employees for the first time to a private health insurance exchange for 2015. (Humer, 12/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Centene Gives Strong Guidance For Next Year
Centene Corp. on Friday gave a stronger-than-expected outlook for next year, as the Medicaid-focused health insurer benefits from expansions into big states like Florida and Ohio and from surging membership rates. (Dulaney, 12/12)

Stateline: Some States Retreat on Mental Health Funding
Fewer states increased their spending on mental health programs this year compared to last year, when a spate of horrific shootings by assailants with histories of mental illness prompted a greater focus on the shortcomings of the country’s mental health system. (Ollove, 12/15)

Georgia Health News: Grady Says Figures Prove Blue Cross Is Unfair
Grady Health System has released financial data that it says buttresses its argument that it has been paid unfairly by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia. It’s the latest salvo in the contract battle between the major Atlanta safety-net provider and the state’s biggest health insurer. (Millers, 12/12)

PBS NewsHour: Should A Federal Health Program Pay To House L.A.’s Homeless?
Since the federal health care law expanded Medicaid in some states, about seven million low-income Americans have gained new health insurance. But, in Los Angeles, health officials say that’s not enough and they want to try going further, using Medicaid dollars to pay for housing for the homeless. (Sreenivasan, 12/12)

The New York Times: Brownback’s Tax Cuts Not Set In Stone As Kansas Faces Budget Shortfall
Most of Mr. Brownback’s solution to fill the current hole comes through transferring more than $200 million from various state funds, such as one for highway projects and another for early-childhood education programs, into the state general fund. He also ordered a 4 percent budget cut to many, though not all, state agencies. He spared things like classroom funding and Medicaid, which would have sparked a lot of controversy if they were cut. (Eligon, 12/14)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Teaching Hospitals Left Out In The Push To Cut Insurance Premiums
[E]ven though two more companies have joined the marketplace this year, academic centers such as BJC [HealthCare] and St. Louis University Hospital continue to find themselves on the outside of many insurers’ provider networks. BJC, SLU Hospital and national groups representing medical colleges have many explanations for the exclusions. But experts say it all comes down to pricing. (Shapiro and Liss, 12/14)

Miami Herald: Miami Beach Considers Switching Health Plans
With Miami Beach employees and retirees locked out of the region’s largest healthcare system — Baptist Health South Florida — city officials on Friday said they will consider switching to a new health plan administrator, even if it costs more. Currently served by Humana, one of the largest health insurers in South Florida, an estimated 1,500 Miami Beach employees, retirees and their dependents enrolled in the city’s health plan essentially have become collateral damage in an on-going disagreement between Humana and Baptist Health. (Chang, 12/12)

The Washington Post: Johns Hopkins Team Wins U.S. Award For Improved Suit To Fight Ebola
For health-care workers taking care of Ebola patients in West Africa, one of the biggest logistical problems has been the “moon suits” they must wear to protect against being infected by the deadly virus. The suits are hot. Taking them off is a meticulous, multistep process that can leave no room for error. Now, a protective suit designed by a team from Johns Hopkins has been chosen as one of the winners in a global competition for solutions to increase the protection and comfort of front-line workers battling Ebola. (Sun, 12/13)

Miami Herald: After Inmate Deaths, Department Of Justice To Probe Florida Prison System
With 320 inmate deaths tallied as of Dec. 8, Florida’s prison system is on track to have the deadliest year in its history. This rise in prison deaths coincides with an aging of the prison population, but also with a doubling of incidents involving the use of force by officers over the past five years. Now, six months after the Miami Herald began an investigation into the questionable deaths of inmates in Florida’s state prisons, the U.S. Department of Justice is gathering evidence for a possible investigation into whether the agency has violated the constitutional rights of prisoners. (Brown, 12/13)

Miami Herald: CDC Data Track Hospital-Acquired Infections In Florida, Nation
Seven Miami-Dade hospitals fell below national standards for combating infections acquired by patients in hospitals, and patients at one hospital — North Shore Medical Center in Miami — were more likely to develop infections than patients at any other hospital in South Florida, according to data collected by the federal government as part of a national effort to reduce such infections. (Nehamas and Rau, 12/13)

The Wall Street Journal: A Post-ObamaCare Strategy
With the Supreme Court due to rule on a major ObamaCare legal challenge by next summer, thoughts in Washington are turning to the practical and political response. If the Court does strike down insurance subsidies, the question for Republicans running Congress is whether they will try to fix the problems Democrats created, or merely allow ObamaCare’s damage to grow. (12/14)

The New York Times: Another Baseless Attack On Health Law
The opponents of the Affordable Care Act have filed another long-shot lawsuit that could undermine health care reform and force many consumers to pay more for health insurance if the suit succeeds. ... The new suit, filed late last month by the Republican-dominated House, aims to block another important subsidy: federal payments to insurance companies to keep deductibles, co-payments and other cost-sharing low for the poor. The Affordable Care Act specifies the maximum amounts people will have to pay in cost-sharing based on their incomes, and federal subsidies make up the rest. If the government is blocked from reimbursing insurers for the subsidies, the insurers will have to absorb the costs. But companies might well raise their premiums for everyone else in the individual market to recoup the loss. (12/12)

Los Angeles Times: The Secret GOP Swipe At Obamacare -- And You -- In The Year-End Spending Bill
Underscoring how much mischief can result when Congress acts in haste and in secret, hidden away in the year-end omnibus spending bill being acted on this week is an attack on a key provision of the Affordable Care Act long targeted by the GOP. The provision involves risk corridors, which are designed to stabilize insurance premiums in the first few years of the law. The year-end spending bill, which was passed by the House on Thursday and is now before the Senate, quietly erodes funding for the provision. Republicans have chosen to label the provision a "bailout" for insurance companies. I've labeled that position the most cynical attack on Obamacare, because those who advance it -- notably Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) -- obviously know it's a lie. They know it's actually a consumer protection feature. (Michael Hiltzik, 12/12)

The Washington Post: Health Spending -- Under Control?
Has the monster of exploding health costs finally been slain? After five years of slow spending growth, it’s tempting to think so. This would be a momentous development, because rising health spending has had damaging side effects. It has reduced workers’ take-home pay, as employers devoted more compensation dollars to insurance and fewer to wages and salaries. Growing government health spending (mainly through Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor) has had a similar effect. It has squeezed other public programs. (Robert J. Samuelson, 12/14)

Reuters: The Best Way To Spend The $6.2 Billion Congress Set Aside To Fight Ebola
If we have learned anything from the Ebola epidemic, it’s that managing and treating infectious disease globally and at home is a continual commitment — not just the latest issue in the news cycle. As we search for a vaccine, rapid diagnostic test or wonder drug, the best-known strategy is still containment and access to adequate healthcare resources. The chink in our infectious-disease armor is preparedness and training, not the lack of a blockbuster drug. The White House’s recent Emergency Funding Request to Enhance the U.S. Government’s Response to Ebola would provide $6.2 billion. Given what we have learned, we must demand that Congress be a good steward of this money and ensure it is directed toward solutions that can end the Ebola outbreak now — while improving surveillance and rapid response to prevent outbreaks in the future. (Bill Frist, 12/12)

Salt Lake Tribune: ‘Healthy Utah’ Still Medicaid Expansion That Will Cost State
Utah ought to not accept federal funds to expand Medicaid to their low-income residents. Gov. Herbert has had a tough time convincing the Legislature to accept any form of Medicaid expansion. In response, this week he officially announced his much-anticipated plan titled "Healthy Utah" that seeks to retain state control of federal funding. The governor’s plan, however, makes the faulty assumption that such federal funding even exists in the first place. (Ryan M. Yonk and Megan Hansen, 12/13)

The New York Times: Keeping The Mentally Ill Out Of Jail
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambitious plan for cutting the number of mentally ill people in New York’s jails will require a great deal of ingenuity and a big shift in priorities by the police, the courts, and social service and housing agencies. If the effort succeeds, it will improve the lives of mentally ill people by getting them treatment and places to live instead of locking them into the “frequent flier” syndrome, in which they are repeatedly jailed for minor offenses, even when they present no threat to public safety. (12/12)

The New York Times: Are Midwives Safer Than Doctors?
In a clinical assessment that could have implications for the United States, Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has concluded that it is safer for healthy women with uncomplicated pregnancies to give birth under the supervision of midwives than in a hospital maternity ward run by doctors. The reason: Doctors are much more likely than midwives to use interventions like forceps deliveries, spinal anesthesia and cesarean sections — procedures that carry risks of infection and surgical accidents. (12/14)