The Fiscal Times: How Scrapping The Cadillac Tax Will Drive Up Health Care Costs
From Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side to key Republican lawmakers in Washington, including Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, there is a growing bipartisan push to repeal the so-called “Cadillac Tax” on high-cost health insurance plans that is due to kick in in 2018 under the Affordable Care Act. (Garver, 10/2)

CNN Money: Big Shortfall In Obamacare Risk Program Could Hurt Insurers
A key federal program designed to cushion health insurers' risks in the Obamacare exchanges has a massive shortfall, which could throw some insurers into financial turmoil. Insurers requested $2.87 billion in so-called "risk corridors" payments for 2014, but will only receive $362 million, or 12.6%, said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which oversees Obamacare. (Luhby, 10/2)

In state Medicaid news, Arkansas' plans for a hybrid expansion move forward, Virginia's governor again urges state lawmakers to expand and 1 in 4 Connecticut residents who lost Medicaid coverage signed up for private insurance. Also in thenews, on Arizona's health insurance marketplace next year, companies are dropping their PPOs -

The Associated Press: Arkansas Panel Moves Closer To Medicaid Proposals
A much-anticipated report to lawmakers on Arkansas' hybrid Medicaid expansion won't resolve the muddied future of a program providing coverage to more than 200,000 people. But it could at least provide some clarity on the options the Legislature faces, and how difficult finding consensus on the program will be. The task force formed to look at the state's "private option" is expected to hear from the Stephen Group, the consultant lawmakers hired to study the expansion and the overall Medicaid program. Wednesday's report by the consultant marks a turning point for the 16-member panel, with a December deadline fast approaching to issue recommendations on the Medicaid expansion. (DeMillo, 10/3)

The Washington Post: McAuliffe Beats Drum On Gun Control And Medicaid After Oregon Shooting
In a replay of the aftermath of the August slaying of two broadcast journalists in southwest Virginia, Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Friday said stricter gun laws and an expansion of Medicaid to treat the mentally ill could curtail gun violence such as the deadly Oregon college shooting. (Portnoy, 10/2)

The Connecticut Mirror: About One In Four Who Lost HUSKY Signed Up For Insurance
About one in four low-income parents who lost Medicaid coverage in September signed up for a private health plan through the state’s health insurance exchange before the deadline last week – a total of 166 people. Officials had hoped to boost the number who signed up in the final weeks before the deadline, but just 26 people signed up between early September and the end of the month. (Levin Becker, 10/5)

The Arizona Republic: Why 4 Major Arizona Insurance Carriers Are Dropping PPO Plans In Favor Of HMO Plans
Four major health insurance companies will discontinue preferred-provider plans for tens of thousands of Arizonans next year on the federal marketplace. Instead, they’ll sell pared-down, health maintenance organization plans that limit the doctors and hospitals that consumers can visit at lower, in-network rates. (Alltucker, 10/3)

In other news related to Medicaid and the safety net -

McClatchy: GAO: Safety Net Programs Account For Billions In Improper Payments
Three health and safety net programs for the poor and elderly accounted for most of the federal government’s $124.7 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2014, the Government Accountability Office reported Thursday. The figure, which represents improper payments across 124 federal programs, is up roughly 20 percent from $105.8 billion in fiscal 2013, according to a new GAO report. (Pugh, 10/3)

The New York Times: Supreme Court Prepares To Take On Politically Charged Cases
The last Supreme Court term ended with liberal victories, conservative disarray and bruised relations among the justices. The new one, which opens on Monday, marks the start of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s second decade on the court and will reveal whether the last term’s leftward drift and acrimony were anomalies or something more lasting. The court will decide major cases on politically charged issues, including the fate of public unions and affirmative action in higher education. It will most probably hear its first major abortion case since 2007 and revisit the clash between religious liberty and contraception coverage. (Liptak, 10/4)

The Associated Press: Familiar, Divisive Social Issues On Supreme Court Agenda
The Supreme Court is starting a new term that promises a steady stream of divisive social issues, and also brighter prospects for conservatives who suffered more losses than usual in recent months. ... Future cases will deal with abortion, religious objections to birth control, race in college admissions and the power of public-sector unions. Cases on immigration and state restrictions on voting also could make it to the court in the next nine months. The term will play out against the backdrop of the presidential campaign, in which some candidates are talking pointedly about the justices and the prospect of replacing some of them in the next few years. Four justices are in their 80s or late 70s, led by 82-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Sherman, 10/5)

Los Angeles Times: Why Liberals Fear New Supreme Court Term Could Hurt Abortion Rights And Unions
After legalizing same-sex marriage and upholding provisions of President Obama’s legacy healthcare program for a second time, the Supreme Court justices return to work Monday in a new term that will put liberals on the defense. If the five conservative justices prevail in the year ahead, they could deal a severe blow to labor unions, rein in abortion rights under Roe vs. Wade, restrict college affirmative-action programs and shift political power away from Democratic-controlled election districts by redefining who gets counted as an eligible voter. (Savage, 10/5)

The Washington Post: Supreme Court Faces Politically Charged Election-Year Docket
The contraceptives-coverage mandate of the Affordable Care Act is also making a return. The court already told the government last year, in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, that the mandate impinged on the religious freedoms of some employers directed to carry it out. And, because the court long ago decided that states may impose some restrictions on abortion, the question in a coming case will be, how far may they go before it becomes an “undue burden” on a woman’s right? The court has provided little guidance on what that term means. (Barnes, 10/4)

Politico: 5 Cases To Watch As Supreme Court Term Begins
Litigation over state efforts to limit abortion by regulating clinics and doctors is making its way to the high court. And the justices are already facing a batch of petitions involving the rights of religious institutions to opt out of providing contraception under Obamacare. Both issues seem likely to land on this term's docket, although the justices haven’t formally taken up either. (Gerstein, 10/4)

USA Today: On High Court's Docket: Race, Labor, Politics -- And Abortion?
The Supreme Court embarks on a new term Monday that would make Yogi Berra proud: It truly is déjà vu all over again. The justices will rule on affirmative action for the third time in four years. They will rule on public employee union fees for the third time in five years. They will deliver verdicts on class-action lawsuits and death penalty appeals, as they do virtually every year. Before the term is out next June, they likely will consider the Affordable Care Act's so-called "contraceptive mandate" for the second time in three years and update what they meant a generation ago in ruling that states could not place an "undue burden" on women seeking abortions. (Wolf, 10/4)

The Washington Post: Rep. Jason Chaffetz Launches Bid For House Speaker, Shaking Up GOP Leadership Race
The Republican chairman of a high-profile House committee on Sunday shook up the race to succeed outgoing Speaker John A. Boehner, launching a challenge to the heavy favorite, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The bid by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah), chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, comes amid unrest from conservatives driven by doubts that McCarthy (Calif.) will be any more inclined than Boehner to embrace the right flank of the House Republican Conference. ... [Chaffetz] is well versed in the hand-to-hand political combat of cable news and talk radio and has become the party’s face on a variety of issues, including Secret Service failures and government funding for Planned Parenthood. (DeBonis and Viebeck, 10/4)

The Associated Press: Obama Nominates Veteran Lawyer As VA Watchdog
President Barack Obama has nominated Michael J. Missal, a lawyer with extensive experience in the federal government and private sector, to serve as the next inspector general for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The nomination of a permanent inspector general for the VA has been long sought by members of Congress who say it will bring more accountability to an agency that has struggled to meet some veterans' health care needs and provide timely decisions on benefits. (Freking, 10/2)

Meanwhile, House Democrats are expressing their opposition of the creation of a select committee to investigate Planned Parenthood -

The Hill: Dems Pressure GOP To Call Off Special Panel On Planned Parenthood
Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.) and 17 other Senate Democrats, including the chamber’s No. 3 Democrat, Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), wrote to Republican leaders in both chambers on Friday asking that the committee not be created and linking it to the coming election of a new Speaker. (Sullivan, 10/2)

And more than 20 mental health organizations are urging Congress to repair the nation's broken mental health system -

USA Today: Groups Call On Congress To Reform Mental Health System
A day after a mass shooting in Oregon, 23 mental health groups are calling on Congress to pass legislation aimed at repairing the USA's broken mental health system. The groups delivered a letter to congressional leaders Thursday, just hours before the attack at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. left 10 people dead. The shooting was the latest in a series of mass killings perpetrated by unstable young men, many of whom were mentally ill. (Szabo, 10/2)

The New York Times: Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal Is Reached
The United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations on Monday agreed to the largest regional trade accord in history, a potentially precedent-setting model for global commerce and worker standards that would tie together 40 percent of the world’s economy, from Canada and Chile to Japan and Australia. ... But the accord — a product of nearly eight years of negotiations, including five days of round-the-clock sessions here — is a potentially legacy-making achievement for President Obama, and the capstone for his foreign policy “pivot” toward closer relations with fast-growing eastern Asia, after years of American preoccupation with the Middle East and North Africa. (Calmes, 11/5)

Reuters: Pacific Trade Negotiators Reach Landmark Deal, Fight For Approval To Follow
Leaders from a dozen Pacific Rim nations are poised to announce the pact later on Monday. The deal could reshape industries and influence everything from the price of cheese to the cost of cancer treatments. ... The final round of negotiations in Atlanta, which began on Wednesday, had snared on the question of how long a monopoly period should be allowed on next-generation biotech drugs, until the United States and Australia negotiated a compromise. ... Although the complex deal sets tariff reduction schedules on hundreds of imported items from pork and beef in Japan to pickup trucks in the United States, one issue had threatened to derail talks until the end – the length of the monopolies awarded to the developers of new biological drugs. (Hughes and Krolicki, 10/5)

Bloomberg: Pacific-Rim Nations Led By U.S. Agree To Historic Trade Accord
The agreement will provide duty-free trade on most goods, and reduced tariffs on others. It will also provide mutual recognition of many regulations, including an exclusivity period for biologic drugs, which are derived from living organisms, and patent protection for pharmaceuticals. That was one of the final topics that was settled in marathon talks, as developing nations sought to have quicker access to generic medications. ... The 12 TPP countries are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the U.S. (Bracken and Brevetti, 10/5)

NPR: U.S., Other Nations Reach Agreement On Trans-Pacific Partnership, Sources Say
A years-long process to ease trading between 12 Pacific nations is closer to being finalized, as negotiators have apparently cleared hurdles on how to handle everything from dairy products and drug patents to car factories. (Chappell, 10/5)

The New York Times: Valeant’s Drug Price Strategy Enriches It, But Infuriates Patients And Lawmakers
J. Michael Pearson has become a billionaire from his tough tactics as the head of the fast-growing Valeant Pharmaceuticals International. And consumers like Bruce Mannes, a 68-year-old retired carpenter from Grandville, Mich., are facing the consequences. Mr. Mannes has been taking the same drug, Cuprimine, for 55 years to treat Wilson disease, an inherited disorder that can cause severe liver and nerve damage. This summer, Valeant more than quadrupled its price overnight. Medicare will now have to cover about $35,000 for the 120 capsules he takes each month, and he will have to pay about $1,800 a month out of pocket, compared with about $366 he paid in May. (Pollack and Tavernise, 10/4)

Reuters: US Insurers Hold Back Lilly's Death-Defying Diabetes Drug
America's largest health insurers are urging doctors to stick with current standard treatments for diabetes instead of flocking to a new drug from Eli Lilly & Co that is showing it can provide life-saving results for one-third of patients. Aetna Inc, CVS Health Corp and Molina Healthcare Inc said they would need further clinical data and a change in medical society guidelines on Lilly's Jardiance before agreeing to make it easier for patients to receive the $4,800-a-year treatment. That's a process that could take anywhere from 18 months to several years. (Humer and Pierson, 10/2)

Reuters: Novartis Biosimilar Copycat Takes Aim At Amgen's Drug Enbrel
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has accepted Novartis unit Sandoz's regulatory submission for approval of a biosimilar copy of Amgen's blockbuster Enbrel drug, the Swiss drugmaker said on Friday. Biosimilars aim to copy biologic products, which are made inside living cells, but they can never be exact duplicates, so biosimilar manufacturers need to conduct clinical trials to show their products work as intended. (10/2)

Reuters: Amicus To Delay Filing For U.S. Marketing Rights For Lead Drug
Amicus Therapeutics Inc said it was unlikely to submit a U.S. marketing application for its lead drug, to treat Fabry disease, by the end of 2015 as expected, after U.S. health regulators asked for a more comprehensive analysis of trial data. Amicus's stock slumped as much as 59 percent to $5.69, at which point about $956 million had been wiped off the biotechnology company's market capitalization on Friday. (Grover, 10/2)

Bloomberg: AARP Starts $40M Venture Fund For Technology For Seniors
AARP, the 37 million-member organization for people 50 and older, is establishing a $40 million venture capital fund to boost innovation and technology that will serve its constituents. The fund, administered by a unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co., will invest in enabling aging at home, improving access to health care and expanding the market for preventive health services, said Jo Ann Jenkins, AARP’s chief executive officer. (Lauerman, 10/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Why Teladoc Needs Medical Attention
Technology holds great promise in many fields, especially health care. But it isn’t a cure-all. Investors in Teladoc learned that the hard way Friday. Shares in the largest and oldest telemedicine company fell by more than one-fifth after a report noted that health insurer Highmark won’t be renewing its contract with Teladoc for fully insured members. (Grant, 10/4)

The Associated Press: Fiorina Makes Distortion Of Planned Parenthood A Centerpiece
Republican presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina has spent the last two weeks repeating an erroneous description of videos secretly recorded by anti-abortion activists. That seems bound to continue as she makes her opposition to Planned Parenthood a centerpiece of her 2016 campaign. Campaigning in South Carolina on Friday, Fiorina said she "absolutely" stands by her criticism of Planned Parenthood. She accused the women's health organization — it's also the nation's largest abortion provider — of pushing "propaganda" against her while being "aided and abetted by the media." (Barrow, 10/3)

NBC News: Planned Parenthood President: Fiorina Repeats 'Same Lie'
The president of Planned Parenthood chastised Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina for comments she made that were based on a series of videos claiming that Planned Parenthood is illegally selling fetal tissue. (Peligri, 10/3)

Reuters: Clinton Blasts Patriot Coal Bankruptcy Plan
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Friday that a bankruptcy plan proposed by Patriot Coal Corp. is "outrageous and must be stopped" because it diverts money intended for coal miners’ retirement benefits. "Patriot Coal is trying to take $18 million of the $22 million put aside for retired coal miners, wives and widows and use it to pay its lawyers instead," Clinton said in a statement provided exclusively to Reuters. "Ensuring healthcare and retirement security should be the first priority in a bankruptcy proceeding, not the last." (Becker, 10/2)

The New York Times: Hillary Clinton Says Coal Company’s Bankruptcy Plan Hurts Miners
Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday criticized a coal company’s bankruptcy plan as detrimental to the families of the miners who work for the company. The comment, made in a statement to the Reuters news service, came as Mrs. Clinton is facing opposition within some major labor unions. (Haberman, 10/3)

The Associated Press: Again? Health Care Debate Expands For 2016
America’s health care debate has been called an unhealthy political obsession. But if the 2016 presidential hopefuls have any say, it’s about to get bigger. The candidates in both parties are offering options across the political spectrum, from a system wholly run by the federal government to dialing back Washington’s commanding role. Behind the rhetoric, each approach has its pitfalls. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 10/2)

News Service Of Florida: Judge To Hear Abortion Clinic Disputes
High-profile disputes about whether Florida abortion clinics improperly performed second-trimester abortions will be argued before administrative law judges. Cases involving Planned Parenthood clinics in St. Petersburg, Fort Myers and Naples and the Aastra Women's Center in Plantation were sent this week to the state Division of Administrative Hearings, records show. (10/2)

The Associated Press: Utah To Send Planned Parenthood Federal Funds Through 2015
Utah says it will continue sending federal money to the state's Planned Parenthood organization through the end of the year. State Department of Health spokesman Tom Hudachko said Friday that contracts Utah sought to cancel or allow to expire will remain in place through 2015 as a legal challenge over the funding continues. (10/2)

The Associated Press: Judge: Arkansas Must Fund Some Planned Parenthood Benefits
Arkansas will block most Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Friday, after a judge ordered the state to continue paying for services only to the three women who are suing over the governor's decision to end payments to the organization. U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker issued a preliminary injunction requiring the state to pay for the services for three unnamed women, referred to in the suit as Jane Does, challenging the contract's termination. Baker last month reinstated the contract for all Planned Parenthood for two weeks, and that order expired late Friday afternoon. (DeMillo, 10/2)

Reuters: U.S. Judge Orders Arkansas To Pay Planned Parenthood In Narrow Ruling
A U.S. district judge on Friday ordered Arkansas to continue payments to Planned Parenthood for its treatment of three women who challenged Governor Asa Hutchinson's directive cutting off Medicaid reimbursements to the organization. The order applied only to the cases of the three plaintiffs, although the judge suggested that Planned Parenthood as an organization might successfully challenge the cutoff. (Barnes, 10/2)

In California, an arsonist sets fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic -

The Associated Press: Arsonist Hurled Object To Ignite Fire At Planned Parenthood
An arsonist threw a container with flammable liquid through the window of a Southern California Planned Parenthood facility, setting off a small fire, authorities said. Authorities have not made any arrests, identified a suspect or discussed possible motives behind the fire. (10/2)

Los Angeles Times: Lab Tests Could Offer Clues In Planned Parenthood Arson
A large stone and samples of an accelerant used to set fire to a Planned Parenthood facility in Thousand Oaks have been sent to a laboratory for testing, authorities said. No arrests have been made in the arson, but detectives expect the test results will offer information on the type of accelerant used and possibly clues about the arsonist, said Capt. John Reilly of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department. (Rocha, 10/2)

The Seattle Times reports on a dramatic decrease in fetal tissue donations to one lab -

The Seattle Times: Fetal Tissue Uproar Affects 'Under-The-Radar' UW Lab
As undercover videos released by anti-abortion activists roiled the nation this summer, sparking outrage directed at Planned Parenthood and reigniting questions about the use of tissue from aborted fetuses, the Birth Defects Research Laboratory at the University of Washington quietly continued the work it has done for more than 50 years. Since 1964, the Seattle lab has been a federally funded hub for the collection and distribution of tissues for research, obtained from miscarriages, stillbirths and abortions — including, recently, donations from a Planned Parenthood clinic in Washington state. (Aleccia, 10/3)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Geisinger Health Completes Deal With AtlantiCare Health
Geisinger Health System completed its acquisition of AtlantiCare Health System Inc., the dominant health-care system in Atlantic County, the two organizations said Thursday. The deal, which was announced nearly two years ago, adds to Geisinger's acute-care operations. Based in Danville, Pa., Geisinger already owned six acute-care hospitals in Pennsylania and this deal expands its licensed acute-care bed count by 36 percent. (Brubaker, 10/2)

The Associated Press: Diabetes Costs New York's Medicaid System $1.2B Annually
A New York state spent more than $1.2 billion on diabetes-related medical services last year, according to a new report that suggests the costs associated with the chronic disease are likely to impose ever greater burdens on the state. Total Medicaid spending related to diabetes surged 31 percent in the past five years, the report from Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found. Some 1.6 million New Yorkers — or 10 percent of the state's adult population — have been diagnosed with either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, and 460,000 of them are covered by the state's Medicaid program. (Klepper, 10/2)

Los Angeles Times: Bill Awaiting Brown Would Subsidize Farmworker Union's Health Plan For 5 Years
Last year, the budget writers in Gov. Jerry Brown's administration held their noses when Democrats pushed through the Legislature a $3.2-million subsidy for a union healthcare plan. It was something the state would "hopefully get out of the business of doing next year," Keely Bosler, the chief finance deputy, said at the time. But the governor approved an additional $2.5-million subsidy in June, and now Democratic lawmakers want a longer financial commitment. They passed legislation last month that would provide similar funding for the union — the storied United Farm Workers once led by Cesar Chavez — for five more years. (Megerian, 10/3)

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Highmark Cuts Medicare Advantage Premiums; Looks To Regain Market Share
Highmark is throttling back premiums for most of its Medicare Advantage plans across Western Pennsylvania, a year after spiking prices and losing market share, the Downtown-based company announced Thursday. Seven of nine Medicare Advantage plans sold by the region’s largest health insurer will carry lower monthly rates in 2016, with premiums slipping between 3 percent and 35 percent, Highmark vice president Tim Lightner said. Rival UPMC Health Plan revealed premium increases that will range from about 6 percent to roughly 22 percent for several competing plans. (Smeltz, 10/1)

The San Jose Mercury News: California Lawmakers, Activists Anxiously Await Gov. Jerry Brown Action On Legislation
With less than a week to go before Sunday's deadline for Gov. Jerry Brown to act on a bevy of bills, lawmakers and activists are anxiously awaiting word about the fate of some of the year's highest-profile legislation. Brown is widely expected to sign bills his administration worked behind the scenes to craft, including measures to combat climate change and regulate the state's medical marijuana industry. But he's been tight-lipped about other measures, including legislation that would better protect foster youth who are over-prescribed potent psychotropic drugs and allow terminally ill Californians to end their lives with a lethal prescription obtained through a doctor. (Calefati and Seipel, 10/4)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Protecting The Elderly Amid Big Health Care Changes
With major changes to long-term care for the elderly underway in Pennsylvania, the advocacy group Diane Menio leads is working on overdrive. "The state is moving very quickly to change all of long-term services and supports to managed-care organizations," said Menio, 60, executive director of the Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, a statewide advocacy group based in Philadelphia. (Von Bergen, 10/4)

Health News Florida: Governor Calls For Hospital Transparency But Should Proposal Extend To Others?
Governor Rick Scott is pushing for greater healthcare cost transparency in hospitals. The move comes as Florida faces the loss of more federal health care funding next year, and growing concerns about the state’s healthcare costs. Scott and the hospitals have been at odds all year. Now the Governor is accusing them of price-gouging patients. Scott founded one of the largest hospital chains in the United States, but when asked what he’s done to increase transparency, Scott is pointing instead to his urgent care company. (Hatter, 10/3)

News Service Of Florida: South Florida College Challenges State Over Nursing Program
A Miami Gardens-based college is challenging a decision by the Florida Board of Nursing that could shut down the school's nursing-education program. Azure College filed a legal challenge that was sent this week to the state Division of Administrative Hearings. The Board of Nursing in July issued a notice of intent to terminate the nursing program, pointing to low passage rates for the school's graduates on licensure exams. But in the challenge, Azure argued that it showed progress under a remediation plan. (10/2)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Emergency: Volunteer Ambulance Corps Fight For Lives
Ruth von Minden's life revolves around family, church, and the Springfield Ambulance Corps. At age 66, von Minden proudly shows off a "Dinosaur of EMS" T-shirt she wears under a comfortable blue long-sleeved overshirt. She started in the Delaware County community 41 years ago as a "swoop and scoop," when medics would grab the patient and rush to the hospital for any care, and through 4,000 runs, she's seen childbirths, deadly car crashes, heart attacks, and life-altering burns. Now she's a veteran of the last all-volunteer ambulance company in Delaware County. Fewer stations than ever rely on volunteers such as von Minden. For decades, volunteer ambulance companies were part of the fabric of community life. Generations of good Samaritans stepped up to donate their time, money, and skills to help their sick or injured neighbors. But the emergency-services landscape has changed, across the region and the country. (Schaefer, 10/4)

Stateline: As Insurers Probe Consumers' Spending, States Begin To Probe Them
When Fred and Donna Wolden’s biannual car insurance premium went up by $90 last month, they wanted to know why. The Wisconsin retirees hadn’t had an accident or bought a new vehicle. In fact, they say not much has changed in the two-plus decades they’ve insured their home and cars through AAA. The couple is used to premium increases of 5 to 8 percent, but this year’s 20 percent increase has them wondering if it is the result of “price optimization,” a rate-setting method rooted in consumer spending habits that is drawing the scrutiny of state insurance regulators around the country. (Breitenbach, 10/2)

Health News Florida: How Much More (And Less) Floridians Pay For Health Care
The true cost of health care is notoriously secret, but an analysis out this week from the Health Care Cost Institute offers a glimpse into how insurance companies spend money in Florida. “Inpatient prices and outpatient prices can differ within the same area,” says Eric Barrette, director of research for HCCI. “The mix of services isn’t always related to the prices.” (Mack, 10/4)

WBUR: Coming To A Clinic Near You: The $50 IUD With A Fascinating Backstory
The Liletta, which is just starting to roll out at clinics and hospitals here in Boston and around the country, is not only a device for the lucky — quite the opposite. Its whole reason for being is to serve poor and uninsured women, to make IUDs — which can cost $1,000 or more — affordable to all, and available on demand at publicly funded health centers. (Goldberg, 10/2)

The Chicago Sun-Times: Heroin Overdoses Remind Ex-Supt. Cline Of 2006 Epidemic
As investigators work to pinpoint the cause of a rash of heroin overdoses that sent at least 74 people to hospitals in 72 hours last week, the flareup triggered memories of a deadly 2006 overdose epidemic. “Fentanyl was the first thing that popped into my mind,” former Chicago Police Supt. Phil Cline said about hearing of the recent overdoses. Heroin laced with Fentanyl, a painkiller that is 30 to 50 times more powerful than heroin, was responsible for a rash of fatal overdoses in early 2006. (Dudek, 10/4)

The News Service Of Florida: Feds, Pharmacies Grapple With Pain Pill Dilemma
Susan Langston wiped away tears as she spoke of a 40-year-old woman who had struggled with cancer for a decade before a Fort Myers pharmacy refused to fill a prescription for pain medication. The prescription was rejected because it was written by a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic, a facility 100 miles away from the woman's home and where she sought cancer treatment after her own doctors told her she was going to die. (Kam, 10/3)

Reuters: Incomplete Transport Policies, Payment For Risky Births In U.S.
U.S. states need better policies for transporting high-risk pregnant women and newborns to the specialized care they need - and then back to their local hospitals for continuing care, researchers say. Focusing on transportation policies as a measure of how easily women and infants can reach the right care centers and receive ongoing care, they found that where state and territorial policies exist at all, most are incomplete and inadequate. (Neumann, 10/3)

Kaiser Health News: Telemedicine Expands Despite Uncertain Financial Prospects
Watching the video nurses in action, it’s a little hard to shake the Jetsons vibe, but this kind of health care is already alive and growing. On October 6, Mercy Hospital will open a new telemedicine mothership that will treat thousands of patients in 5 states. The new facility will provide even more patients in remote parts of the Midwest and South with health monitoring that is comparable to what you could get in a big hospital, said Tom Hale, the executive medical director of Mercy Virtual. (Smith, 10/5)

New England Center for Investigative Reporting: More Harm Than Good?
Genetic tests to identify the most effective psychiatry drugs are the hot new technology in the race to create personalized treatments based on people’s DNA. More than 600,000 of these tests likely have been administered in the last three years, based on company websites and research data, to better treat conditions ranging from depression to attention deficit disorder to anxiety. In a nod to the tests’ growing acceptance, the federal Medicare program agreed last year for the first time to pay for the GeneSight test for some depressed patients. But a review by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting has found that virtually all the evidence that these psychiatric tests work is based on limited studies funded by the companies themselves or researchers they fund, including all five studies used to promote GeneSight on the company’s website. (Daly, 10/4)

The Wall Street Journal: Tax On Expensive Health Insurance Plans Could Cut Care Along With Costs
The Affordable Care Act took enormous strides toward providing access to health-care coverage to the tens of millions of uninsured Americans and reining in the skyrocketing costs of health care that heavily pressured households and public budgets, addressing what we consider the most glaring shortcomings of the U.S. health system. When it comes to cost control, however, the policy virtue of one provision of the ACA–the excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health insurance plans, frequently called the Cadillac tax–is often overstated. (Josh Bivens and Elise Gould, 10/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Why The Health Care ‘Cadillac Tax’ Is Really Under Fire
Love it or hate it, the Affordable Care Act was at least paid for. That was something of a triumph after years in which a new prescription drug program, massive tax cuts, and multiple wars were not paid for. And that’s why bipartisan efforts to repeal the “Cadillac tax”–a provision to help pay for the Affordable Care Act–are so troubling. ... the real reason politicians on the left and right don’t like the Cadillac tax is not that it won’t work well enough but that it will work too well in controlling health-care costs. That presents a problem for entrenched interests that rely on ever growing health-care benefits. Remember how health-care reform was supposed to help control costs? Well, this tax is a big part of that equation. (Maya MacGuineas, 10/2)

Bloomberg: Clinton Runs On Obamacare Benefits, Not Costs
Democrats writing the Affordable Care Act in 2009 took Congressional Budget Office cost estimates seriously, and changed their bill to ensure it was projected to lower the federal budget. Meanwhile, Republicans have spent the last six years attacking every funding mechanism and other cost of the law while in most cases promising that their (still unseen) alternative would somehow provide all the benefits that the reform has brought. Every Republican politician claims the conservative alternative to Obamacare will cover those with pre-existing conditions, for example, but not one of them has suggested how to pay for it. So it was a surprise when [Hillary] Clinton came out this week for repeal of the “Cadillac tax” -- the Obamacare provision that tries to cut overall health-care spending by limiting the current tax advantages for gold-plated employer-linked health insurance. (Jonathan Bernstein, 10/2)

The New York Times: The Candidates On Health Care
While the Republican presidential candidates have been busy railing against Obamacare, the two leading contenders for the Democratic nomination have staked out radically different ideas on how to improve the American health care system. Hillary Rodham Clinton has proposed adding useful consumer protections to the Affordable Care Act. Senator Bernie Sanders wants to create a single-payer system that would essentially expand Medicare to cover people of all ages. (10/2)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Trump Health Care Plan Not Yet Coherent
Guess who supports universal health coverage? "Everybody's got to be covered," Donald Trump declared on CBS's 60 Minutes last weekend. The Donald, always full of surprises, promised, "I am going to take care of everybody. I don't care if it costs me votes or not." Courageous words, indeed. Trump, along with all of his opponents for the Republican presidential nomination, calls for repealing Obamacare. But unlike most of the others, he has gone so far as to put forth a plan to replace it. (Robert I. Field, 10/4)

The Washington Post: Appeal House V. Burwell
As general counsel of the House of Representatives in 2008, I brought the first successful lawsuit by the chamber against the executive branch. But I do not celebrate the recent House victory in federal District Court allowing it to proceed with its ill-considered litigation over appropriations under the Affordable Care Act, known colloquially as Obamacare. If not overturned, this decision could have seriously adverse consequences for our democracy, as well as for millions of needy Americans. (Irvin B. Nathan, 10/4)

Los Angeles Times: How A $500 UCLA Hospital Copay Turned Into A $3,900 Bill — For 1 Injection
[Michael Krival's] 9-year-old daughter was diagnosed by a UCLA specialist with a hormone disorder. She was prescribed a series of injections of a specialty drug called Lupron Depot. ... Krival said ... they received a written estimate from the hospital that their copay would be $500 for the first shot. ... The bill arrived this month. Krival's copay wasn't $500. It was $3,908.71. ... "What they did was literally a bait and switch," he said. There's the crux of it: Patients are placed at a significant disadvantage by a healthcare market that lacks clear pricing, and often are denied the opportunity to choose more affordable options. (David Lazarus, 10/2)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Pricey Pills And The Law That Makes Them So
Turing Pharmaceuticals' recent decision to raise the price of a drug from $13.50 to $750 per pill, a 5,455 percent increase, was viewed as nothing but corporate greed. But the issue is not morality. The focus of attention should be on the drug industry's monopoly pricing power and how it might be offset through unified consumer buying power. With Medicare turning 50 this year and its costs continuing to rise, it's an opportune time to allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices. (Joel L. Naroff, 10/4)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: U.S. Public Complains About Drug Prices But Takes No Action
Drug prices are rising faster than most other health care costs and while surveys show that the American public resents the situation – 73 percent now favor price controls – the costs still keep going up. It seems that unaffordable medications have now taken their place in American life alongside deranged mass murderers with firearms and enormous disparities of income and wealth. The American public despises all those trends, but not enough to fix any of them. For starters it is worth asking why the U.S. pays two to three times more for the same drugs than other advanced nations? In most cases a few basic factors account for it. (Daniel R. Hoffman, 10/5)

The New York Times: The Biggest Questions Awaiting The Supreme Court
When the Supreme Court’s most recent term ended in June, same-sex marriage was legal nationwide, and two major pieces of federal legislation — the Affordable Care Act and the Fair Housing Act — remained intact, despite carefully coordinated legal attacks meant to destroy them. The court’s new term, which starts Monday, will jump right back into high-profile constitutional battles like voting rights, affirmative action and the death penalty, as well as a new attack on public-sector labor unions. And the justices may well agree to take up issues of abortion and contraception again, in cases that could further strip away reproductive rights. The decisions last term showed a court willing to take into account the effects of the law on individual lives. This term, the justices have many opportunities to show that same type of awareness. (10/5)

The New York Times: A New Way To Tackle Gun Deaths
It’s time for a new approach to gun violence. We’re angry, but we also need to be smart. And frankly, liberal efforts, such as the assault weapons ban, were poorly designed and saved few lives, while brazen talk about banning guns just sparked a backlash that empowered the National Rifle Association. What we need is an evidence-based public health approach — the same model we use to reduce deaths from other potentially dangerous things around us, from swimming pools to cigarettes. We’re not going to eliminate guns in America, so we need to figure out how to coexist with them. (Nicholas Kristof, 10/3)

The Washington Post's Wonkblog: If You Want Mental Health Services To Prevent Violence, Medicaid Expansion Is Critical
Oregon’s mass homicide sparked the usual debate about whether guns or mental health is the best focus in preventing atrocities. ... Many conservatives place greater emphasis on the mental health system. In some ways, this rhetoric is misplaced. The fraction of American violence attributable to severe mental illness is quite low, on the order of five percent. We must also avoid reinforcing cruel stereotypes regarding millions of Americans who live with major depression, bipolar disorders, or related conditions. Still, it’s always wise to consider how our mental health systems could treat people more effectively, and more-reliably keep weapons away from dangerous individuals. (Harold Pollack, 10/2)

Sioux City Argus Leader: Governor’s Medicaid Expansion Plan Worth Pursuing
Gov. Dennis Daugaard is pursuing a plan to expand Medicaid coverage to more than 48,000 South Dakotans. Daugaard traveled to Washington, D.C. last week to meet with Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and outline the expansion proposal. Preliminary response from federal officials has been positive and we urge him and other officials to continue to work together to make the plan a reality. (10/3)

The Charlotte Observer: Lack Of Medicaid Expansion In NC A Scourge Upon Our Morality
Five years ago, Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, including Medicaid expansion that became effective in January 2014. Our legislature and governor’s willful rejection of expansion has cost North Carolina up to $6 billion in income and 50,000 new jobs and caused 4,000 to 5,000 North Carolinians to die unnecessarily and many more to become ill, stay ill or be diagnosed with later, more advanced diseases. Further delays will cost another $21 billion, 43,000 jobs and 10,000 lives by 2020. Now, like hot air balloon salesmen approaching the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, come the General Assembly and governor with a move to privatize Medicaid, passed and signed amid claims it will provide more consistent care and put some controls in the system, predictions that will prove untrue. (Kenneth J. Fortier, 10/3)

The Washington Post: Jamycheal Mitchell’s Ghastly Death
For want of an available bed in a state psychiatric hospital, Jamycheal Mitchell,a mentally ill young man in Virginia who shoplifted a soda and two snacks worth $5.05 from a 7-Eleven, wasted away behind bars for four months, all but ignored by jail staff who should have noticed his catastrophically deteriorating health. Incoherent, emaciated and filthy, he died in his cell in August. Police are now investigating. Mr. Mitchell’s ghastly death, at age 24, is all the more senseless given that the closest state psychiatric facility, Eastern State Hospital, in Williamsburg, should have had a bed available for him. (10/3)

The New York Times' Upshot: The Decline Of ‘Big Soda’
Five years ago, Mayor Michael A. Nutter proposed a tax on soda in Philadelphia, and the industry rose up to beat it back. ... The obvious lesson from Philadelphia is that the soda industry is winning the policy battles over the future of its product. But the bigger picture is that soda companies are losing the war. Even as anti-obesity campaigners like Mr. Nutter have failed to pass taxes, they have accomplished something larger. In the course of the fight, they have reminded people that soda is not a very healthy product. (Margot Sanger-Katz, 10/2)

Bloomberg: The Job Of The Future Is ... Home Health Care
The BLS has projected that by 2022 there will be 1.9 million home health care workers, making it the fastest growing industry in the land over the coming years, just ahead of the not entirely dissimilar categories of individual and family services and outpatient, laboratory and other ambulatory care services. You could say, then, that home health care services is the defining industry of our age. .... Jobs in home health care pay worse than average, and 87 percent are held by women. (Justin Fox, 10/2)

The New York Times: The Tools To Fight H.I.V.
Medical leaders have the knowledge and the tools to greatly curtail the global AIDS epidemic within the next 15 years. The question is whether the nations of the world will invest the resources to do it. The World Health Organization recommended last week that millions more people be given antiviral drugs than are now getting them. The agency recommended that everyone already infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, be given three antiviral drugs the minute they are diagnosed, much earlier than current practices. And they recommended that uninfected people at high risk of becoming infected be given a pill containing two antiviral drugs to protect them from the virus. (10/4)