Reuters: Some Public Hospitals Win, Others Lose With Obamacare
A year and a half after the Affordable Care Act brought widespread reforms to the U.S. healthcare system, Chicago's Cook County Health & Hospitals System has made its first profit in 180 years. Seven hundred miles south, the fortunes of Atlanta's primary public hospital, Grady Health System, haven't improved, and it remains as dependent as ever on philanthropy and county funding to stay afloat. The disparity between the two "safety net" hospitals, both of which serve a disproportionate share of their communities' poorest patients, illustrates a growing divide nationwide. (Respaut, 7/23)

News outlets also report on developments in some states implementing the expansion.

The Associated Press: Bullock, Health Secretary To Talk Medicaid Expansion Waiver
Gov. Steve Bullock will discuss with a federal official Montana's plan to expand Medicaid that recently entered a public-comment period. The Democratic governor traveled with his health policy adviser and deputy chief of staff to Washington, D.C., Wednesday morning to meet with U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell .... They will discuss the premiums and copays that are expected to receive particular scrutiny before the federal government's decision to support or deny the state's waiver for expanding government-subsidized health insurance. (7/22)

Fairbanks News-Miner: Budget Committee Still Weighing Medicaid Vote
They have no power to stop Gov. Bill Walker’s plan to unilaterally expand Medicaid by the end of the summer, but some members of the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee would still like to hold a meeting about it. The committee met in Anchorage on Wednesday to discuss a number of issues related to education but held a brief discussion at the end about holding a meeting on Medicaid expansion. ... Ultimately the decision rests with committee chairman Rep. Mike Hawker, an Anchorage Republican who supports Medicaid expansion. He told the committee that he asked for legal opinions on the matter and that everything confirmed the governor’s ability to act alone in expanding Medicaid. (Buxton, 7/22)

Bismark (N.D.) Tribune: Medicaid Cost Increase Was Expected
North Dakota's costs for the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act have increased since the original estimate during the 2013 legislative session. The North Dakota Department of Human Services' initial estimate of $2.9 million to $8.2 million for the 2017 fiscal year. "We knew when we prepared those estimates that it was an estimate," said Maggie Anderson, executive director of the the Department of Human Services. "You have to start somewhere." (Magee, 7/22)

Meanwhile, in Connecticut, officials are examining issues about the state's marketplace and insurance enrollment.

The Associated Press: Connecticut Health Exchange Officials Worried About Coverage Gaps For 1,300 People
Officials at Connecticut’s health insurance exchange say they’re trying to limit any coverage gaps for the 1,300 people who will no longer be eligible for Medicaid starting September 1. James Michele, director of operations at Access Health CT, said Wednesday that letters will be sent to recipients later this week, followed by robo-calls informing people about how to get replacement, private insurance coverage through the exchange. The state’s new two-year, $40.3 billion budget reduced the income levels for certain people to qualify for Medicaid. The group includes parents and caregivers of children in the HUSKY insurance program. About 18,000 more will lose coverage next year. (Haigh, 7/22)

The Connecticut Mirror: Survey: 36% Of CT Obamacare Customers Haven’t Used Their Insurance
More than 100,000 people bought private health plans through the state’s health insurance exchange for this year, but a survey of customers found that more than one in three haven’t used their coverage and more than one in four don’t have a primary care physician. (Levin Becker, 7/22)

Kaiser Health News: HHS Pushes States To Negotiate Lower Obamacare Rates
Some analysts who have looked at health insurers’ proposed premiums for next year predict major increases for policies sold on state and federal health exchanges. Others say it’s too soon to tell. One thing is clear: There’s a battle brewing behind the scenes to keep plans affordable for consumers. Now the Obama administration is weighing in, asking state insurance regulators to take a closer look at rate requests before granting them. Under the Affordable Care Act, state agencies largely retain the right to regulate premiums in their states. So far only a handful have finalized premiums for the coming year, for which enrollment begins in November. (Rovner, 7/22)

The Hill: Small Business Owners Swarm DC To Oppose Obamacare Fines
Small-business owners are descending on Washington this week to lobby Congress to roll back an ObamaCare rule that could hit companies with thousands of dollars’ worth of penalties. About 150 small-business owners, organized by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), will head to Capitol Hill on Thursday to make the case to members from their states on legislation that would change the rule. (Sullivan, 7/23)

The New York Times' DealBook: Anthem Said To Be Close To Deal To Buy Cigna For $48 Billion
The American health insurance market might soon become even smaller. Anthem, one of the country’s biggest health insurers, is closing in on a deal to buy Cigna after slightly sweetening its previous takeover offer, people briefed on the matter said on Wednesday. (de la Merced, 7/22)

Los Angeles Times: Cigna Shares Jump As Rival Anthem Reportedly Nears Deal
Shares of Cigna Corp. soared late Wednesday on a report that rival Anthem Inc. was nearing a deal for the health insurer after a months-long pursuit. Cigna's stock shot up 6% during extended trading after the Wall Street Journal reported that a merger could be announced as early as Thursday. (Terhune, 7/22)

The Wall Street Journal: Anthem Nears Deal To Buy Cigna For $48 Billion
Anthem Inc. is nearing a deal to buy Cigna Corp. for more than $48 billion in a transaction that along with a previously proposed combination of rivals would shrink the five largest U.S. health insurers to just three. Anthem, based in Indianapolis, is expected to pay about $188 a share for Cigna, of Bloomfield, Conn., according to people familiar with the matter. A deal between the two companies could be announced as soon as Thursday afternoon, one of the people said. The agreement hasn’t been signed, and it is possible that the timing could be delayed or deal terms changed. (Mattioli, Hoffman and Wilde Mathews, 7/22)

Reuters: Anthem Set To Announce Deal For Cigna This week
Health insurers have been in a race to consolidate, arguing that being larger would help them negotiate better prices with doctors and hospitals as well as cut administrative costs following President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law that was passed in 2010. Many healthcare providers are concerned, however, that further consolidation will decrease competition in the insurance industry. (Roumeliotis, 7/22)

The Washington Post's Wonkblog: With Anthem-Cigna Deal Near, The Health Insurance Industry Is Headed Toward A ‘Big Three’
A merged company would serve 53 million people and is part of a dramatic, long-predicted reshaping of the health insurance landscape as a result of the Affordable Care Act. UnitedHealthcare has 45 million members, and Humana and Aetna announced they would merge in July, creating a company serving 33 million people. (Johnson, 7/22)

The New York Times: Drug Companies Pushed From Far And Wide To Explain High Prices
As complaints grow about exorbitant drug prices, pharmaceutical companies are coming under pressure to disclose the development costs and profits of those medicines and the rationale for charging what they do. So-called pharmaceutical cost transparency bills have been introduced in at least six state legislatures in the last year, aiming to make drug companies justify their prices, which are often attributed to high research and development costs. (Pollack, 7/23)

The Wall Street Journal: Doctors Object To High Cancer-Drug Prices
More than 100 oncologists from top cancer hospitals around the U.S. have issued a harsh rebuke over soaring cancer-drug prices and called for new regulations to control them. The physicians are the latest in a growing roster of objectors to drug prices. Critics from doctors to insurers to state Medicaid officials have voiced alarm about prescription drug prices, which rose more than 12% last year in the U.S., the biggest annual increase in a decade, according to the nation’s largest pharmacy-benefit manager. (Whalen, 7/23)

The Washington Post: Cancer Experts Call For Curbs On Rising Drug Prices
Top cancer experts called Thursday for steps to curb the rapidly escalating price of oncology drugs, warning that the current trajectory “will affect millions of Americans and their immediate families, often repeatedly.” The commentary in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, signed by 118 physicians from cancer centers across the country, cited startling, if now familiar, evidence of the dramatic rise in cancer-drug prices. (Bernstein, 7/23)

Reuters: Experts Support Call For Lower Drug Prices
A group of 118 leading cancer experts have developed a list of proposals designed to reduce the cost of cancer drugs, and support a grassroots patient protest movement to pressure drug companies to charge what they deem a fair value for treatments. The experts include former presidents of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Society of Hematology. (Steenhuysen, 7/23)

Politico Pro: Top Cancer Docs Want Patients To Join Pushback On Drug Costs
More than 100 of the country’s most prominent cancer doctors are calling for a mass mobilization of patients to fight the escalating cost of new cancer drugs, which are routinely topping $100,000 a year. (Norman, 7/23)

Reuters: Republicans Seek Probe Of Abortion Rules After Planned Parenthood Videos
Republican presidential candidates and lawmakers are calling for Planned Parenthood to be investigated and its federal funding eliminated after two videos that critics said showed the reproductive health care group is involved in the illegal sale of aborted fetal tissue. White House hopeful Senator Rand Paul introduced an amendment to a highway bill Wednesday that would cut the nearly $500 million in taxpayer funding that goes annually to Planned Parenthood. (Cassella, 7/23)

Politico Pro: Republicans Offer Legislation Defunding Planned Parenthood
Congressional Republicans began working Wednesday to defund Planned Parenthood as House Democrats called for Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the California attorney general to investigate the group that produced the undercover sting videos at the center of the controversy. (Ehley, 7/22)

Politico: Planned Parenthood Does Damage Control As GOP Demands Answers
House Republicans are threatening to subpoena a top Planned Parenthood official unless the group voluntarily makes her available for an interview about alleged sales of fetal tissue from abortions. But the women’s health group is ramping up its own efforts to contain political damage from the controversy. The dispute over Dr. Deborah Nucatola and her comments in a video secretly taped by anti-abortion activists means abortion - not a dominant issue in American politics for several years - could move front and center this fall as Republican lawmakers try to score political points on Planned Parenthood. Several Republican presidential candidates have already attacked the organization, meaning abortion rights could be part of the struggle for the White House as well. (Palmer and Bresnahan, 7/22)

Politico Pro: Planned Parenthood Controversy Derails Veterans Bill
Senate Democrats pulled a bill from a scheduled committee markup Wednesday after Republicans threatened to force a vote on prohibiting the Veterans Administration from “harvesting” or “selling” fetal tissue. (Haberkorn, 7/22)

The Associated Press: Dem Senator Withdraws Vets Fertility Bill, Cites GOP Attacks
With partisan battling over abortion on the rise, a Democratic senator withdrew a bill Wednesday expanding government fertility services for wounded veterans and blamed what she said was a Republican attack on women's health care. A GOP senator said the changes he was pushing were designed to set priorities for an overburdened Department of Veterans Affairs. Meanwhile, the White House went further than it had since the uproar began last week over secretly recorded videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing how they provide organs from aborted fetuses for research. White House spokesman Josh Earnest suggested President Barack Obama would veto legislation erasing federal funds for Planned Parenthood, as many Republicans want to do, and said the videos could have been "selectively edited to distort" Planned Parenthood's procedures, as the group has claimed. (Fram, 7/22)

In other news around the halls of Congress -

The Associated Press: Both Parties United In Their Criticism Of VA
Lawmakers from both parties Wednesday accused the Department of Veterans Affairs of hiding details of a budget crisis that could force the shutdown of some VA hospitals next month. The VA last week said it may shutter hospitals unless Congress closes a $2.5 billion shortfall caused by a sharp increase in demand by veterans for health care, including costly treatments for the deadly hepatitis C virus. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs committee, said he was shocked at the magnitude of the VA's problems and outraged that Congress was not notified until nearly 10 months into the budget year. The possible closure of hospitals was not mentioned as recently as last month, when the VA first told Congress about the potential budget shortfall, Miller said. (Daly, 7/23)

The Washington Post: Experimental Treatments Raise Cautious Hope In Alzheimer’s Fight
Pharmaceutical researchers on Wednesday presented new data from the clinical trials of three drugs that, the scientists said, show promise for slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. (Kunkle, 7/22)

The Associated Press: Alzheimer's Drug Goes Through Testing
Eli Lilly & Co. on Wednesday reported that an experimental medication might slow mild Alzheimer's if people take it early enough, one of a handful of drugs in late-stage testing in the frustrating hunt for a better treatment. The new findings don't prove that Lilly's solanezumab really works; a larger study is underway that won't end until late 2016. On Wednesday, researchers at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference updated ongoing research into Lilly's effort, and those of two competitors, that aims to fight Alzheimer's with injections targeting a sticky protein that clogs the brain. (Neergaard, 7/23)

Meanwhile, an Alzheimer's advocate tells KHN that in addition to finding new ways to screen and treat, public health officials should increase the number of skilled nursing homes and home health aides. And NPR reports on younger adults suffering from the disease -

Kaiser Health News: Advocate For Alzheimer’s Research Says Aging Baby Boomers Face Big Threat From Disease
Dr. Maria Carrillo, chief scientific officer at the Alzheimer’s Association, which paid for research on Medicare projections that was released Monday at a major conference for Alzheimer's researchers and health policy experts, talked with Kaiser Health News staff writer Lisa Gillespie about what the growth of Alzheimer’s will mean for the nation. (7/23)

NPR: Younger Adults with Alzheimer's Are Key to Drug Search
The face of Alzheimer's isn't always old. Sometimes it belongs to someone like Giedre Cohen, who is 37, yet struggles to remember her own name. Until about a year ago, Giedre was a "young, healthy, beautiful" woman just starting her life, says her husband, Tal Cohen, a real estate developer in Los Angeles. Now, he says, "her mind is slowly wasting away." People like Giedre have a rare gene mutation that causes symptoms of Alzheimer's to appear before they turn 60. (Hamilton, 7/23)

Minnesota Public Radio: Nearly $2 Billion In ER Visits And Hospital Care Preventable
More than 1 million emergency room visits and more than 70,000 of hospital admissions in Minnesota possibly could have been prevented, according to a new Minnesota Department of Health Study. (Zdechlik, 7/23)

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Minnesota Tallies $2 Billion In Wasted Hospital Spending
Minnesotans receive as much as $2 billion in hospital care a year that could be avoided, according to a new analysis that also estimates two of every three emergency room visits in the state are potentially preventable. (Olson, 7/23)

Georgia Health News: Poll Finds Big Gaps In Rural Health Care
Most rural Georgia residents in a new survey say they have experienced problems with the affordability of health insurance and the cost of health care. When asked the biggest problem facing local health care, 68 percent named cost, with quality of care and access to care trailing far behind, according to the survey of 491 people. It was conducted by Opinion Savvy and commissioned by Healthcare Georgia Foundation. (Miller, 7/22)

The Kansas Health Institute News Service: Federal Investigation Of Kansas Medicaid Waiting Lists Ongoing
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday that the department is still investigating complaints about Medicaid waiting lists for disability services in Kansas. The services are daily living supports in home and community-based settings that people with disabilities would normally receive Medicaid coverage for if they were in assisted living facilities. In 2012, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which partners with states to administer Medicaid, referred complaints about long waits for the services in Kansas to the Justice Department, the legal arm of the federal government. (Marso, 7/22)

The Kansas Health Institute News Service: Incendiary Lawsuit Over KanCare Company's Practices Dismissed
A federal whistleblower lawsuit alleging that one of the companies running KanCare ordered employees to shift KanCare patients away from high-cost health care providers has been dismissed. A one-sentence document filed Tuesday in federal court in Kansas City, Kan., said that the plaintiff, Jacqueline Leary, and the defendants — Sunflower State Health Plan Inc., its parent company Centene Corp. and three other parties — had stipulated to the dismissal. Each party was to bear its own costs and attorneys’ fees. (Margolies, 7/22)

The Des Moines Register: Registry Aims To Ease Search For Mental Health Care
Mental health system leaders hope a new computerized registry of psychiatric beds will make what happened to Cynthia Shouse a bit less common. Shouse, 22, recalls spending more than two days in a Cedar Rapids emergency department, suffering a mental health crisis a few years ago. The staff determined that Shouse, who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, should be admitted to a psychiatric unit. But their unit was full, as usual, and their repeated calls to other hospitals couldn't locate any openings. (Leys, 7/22)

Stateline: No Escaping Medical Copayments, Even In Prison
Even going to prison doesn’t spare patients from having to pay medical copays. In response to the rapidly rising cost of providing health care, states are increasingly authorizing the collection of fees from prisoners for medical services they receive while in state prisons or local jails. At least 38 states now do it, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law and Stateline reporting. The fees are typically small, $20 or less. And states must waive them when a prisoner is unable to pay but still needs care, in keeping with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prisoners have a constitutional right to “adequate” health care. (Ollove, 7/22)

Reuters: More Retirees Flock To U.S. States For Legal Pot
When choosing retirement locales, a few factors pop to mind: climate, amenities, proximity to grandchildren, access to quality healthcare. Chris Cooper had something else to consider - marijuana laws. The investment adviser from Toledo had long struggled with back pain due to a fractured vertebra and crushed disc from a fall. He hated powerful prescription drugs like Vicodin, but one thing did help ease the pain and spasms: marijuana. (Taylor, 7/22)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Task Force Suggests Ways To Divert Mentally Ill From Jails
Cutting the number of mentally ill inmates in Los Angeles County's jail system would require spending tens of millions of dollars on new treatment facilities and housing for offenders who would otherwise be released into homelessness, a long-awaited report concludes. A task force of public officials and mental health advocates convened by Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey issued the report after spending more than a year studying how to divert mentally ill people from the criminal justice system. (Sewell and Gerber, 7/23)

The Seattle Times: King County Council Puts Comprehensive Children's Health Program To The Voters
King County could be one of the nation’s first metropolitan areas to adopt a wide-reaching plan to curb public-health problems through services for pregnant women, infants and children. Voters in November will decide on a proposal to raise property taxes to boost aid for early intervention programs, following the Metropolitan King County Council’s vote of approval on Wednesday. (Lee, 7/22)

The Seattle Times: State Appeals Order To Pay $1.3M In Competency Case
Washington state health officials are appealing a federal court order to pay $1.3 million in attorney’s fees to lawyers of mentally ill defendants who sued the state for warehousing them in jails. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman ruled in April that the state was violating the constitutional rights “of its most vulnerable citizens” by forcing them to wait for weeks or months in jails for competency services. (7/22)

The Detroit Free Press: Metro Detroit Battles Its Latest Scourge: Heroin
Law enforcement agencies said Tuesday they are stepping up efforts to stop a surge of heroin sales by dealers in Detroit’s Woodward Corridor mainly to suburban customers, many of them from Oakland County. In Pontiac, Oakland County officials announced they are launching several initiatives aimed at stemming the supply of prescription pain relievers, whose addictive lure is widely thought to underlie southeast Michigan’s spiraling problem with heroin. Countless abusers of the pain pills ultimately turn to stronger, cheaper heroin, said officials on both sides of 8 Mile Road. (Allen and Laitner, 7/22)

Politico Pro: North Dakota’s Six-Week Abortion Ban Struck
A federal appeals court has struck down the earliest state ban on abortion in the country, a move that could invite the Supreme Court to weigh in on one of the nation’s most controversial social issues in the middle of a presidential election year. (Haberkorn, 7/22)

The Richmond Times-Dispatch: Area Hospitals Deploy Room-Disinfecting Robots
Three Bon Secours locations — St. Mary’s Hospital, St. Francis Medical Center and Memorial Regional Medical Center — and the VCU Medical Center are using TRU-D to disinfect rooms using ultraviolet radiation technology. When humans clean an operating room, they eliminate only about 50 percent of surface bacteria, according to Khiet Trinh, chief medical officer at St. Mary’s, which purchased one TRU-D system in 2013 and another last year. The TRU-D system is placed in a room after hospital employees manually wipe and scrub surfaces. It scans the room’s dimensions and bacteria concentration and emits UV light which eliminates 99.99 percent of bacteria, according to Trinh and TRU-D SmartUVC President Chuck Dunn. (McQuilkin, 7/22)

Kaiser Health News: How Vandalism And Fear Ended Abortion In Northwest Montana
There has never been a welcome mat for abortion service providers in the Flathead Valley, a vast area that stretches over 5,000 square miles in the northwest corner of Montana. Susan Cahill began providing abortions in 1976 in the first clinic to offer the service in the Flathead. (Cates-Carney, 7/23)

The Associated Press: Democrats Propose Bills To Prevent Unintended Pregnancies
Democratic lawmakers are proposing legislation they say is aimed at preventing unintended pregnancies in Michigan. Bills unveiled Wednesday in the Republican-controlled state Capitol would require employers to inform workers and job applicants about reproductive health care coverage. Other measures would require the state to distribute information about emergency contraception and health facilities to make emergency contraception available to rape victims. (7/22)

Reuters: Mail-Order Pharmacy Accused Of Medicare Advantage Scam
A former compliance officer for Georgia-based Primrose Pharmacy has accused it of operating a multistate scheme to defraud the Medicare Advantage program by billing for diabetes testing supplies that patients never ordered. In a False Claims Act lawsuit unsealed on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Rosa Siler said Primrose, a mail-order pharmacy operating in 31 states and specializing in diabetes testing supplies, and consulting firm Diabetic Pharmacy Solutions, tricked the patients and doctors with the help of "lead generators" - outside sources that supplied patients' names, medical information, doctors, insurance providers and sometimes Social Security numbers. (Grzincic, 7/22)

Los Angeles Times: Social Security Trustees: Program Is Healthier, Congress Still Must Act
The [Social Security] trustees moved the projected exhaustion date for the combined trust funds of the program's old-age and disability segments one year further out, to 2034, from the 2033 date in last year's report. But this masks the dire condition of the disability program: Its trust fund, taken on its own, will run out of money at the end of next year. The trustees urged Congress ... to take the short-term action of reallocating payroll tax income from the old-age program to disability to keep it fully funded; that would keep both trust funds solvent through 2033. Conservatives in Congress have been resisting this obvious fix, last done in 1994, in favor of concocting some broader Social Security reform--which, given the tenor of the current Congress, undoubtedly would involve benefit cuts to retirees and the disabled. But the new report underscores that no comprehensive change to Social Security is necessary. (Michael Hiltzik, 7/22)

The New York Times: A Religion Case Too Far For The Supreme Court?
Now the post-Hobby Lobby cases have, inevitably, arrived at the Supreme Court’s door. Three appeals have been filed so far, and the justices will decide shortly after the new term begins in October whether to accept any of them. At that point, the spotlight will return to the court, along with the heated rhetoric about the Obama administration’s supposed “war on religion.” Not only is there no such “war,” but the administration has bent over backward to accommodate religious claims that are by any measure extreme. The problem is that the religious groups pressing these claims refuse to take yes for an answer. The question is whether their arguments go too far, even for the Roberts court. (Linda Greenhouse, 7/23)

The Wall Street Journal: Will The Iran Debate Defuse Partisan Battles Over Obamacare?
Debate about the Iran nuclear deal shows that issues besides the Affordable Care Act can suck up partisan oxygen, at least for a time. But the respite for the ACA is likely to be fairly short-lived. ... The Affordable Care Act escaped a political and policy crisis last month when the Supreme Court ruled for the government in King v. Burwell–and the ACA may catch a second break if conservative ire focuses on the Iran deal for the immediate future. But the health-care law is not likely to disappear for long as a political issue, and the politics of the ACA are not likely to change significantly until after the next election cycle. (Drew Altman, 7/23)

Forbes: The Hubris Of Gov. Bill Walker's Obamacare Medicaid Expansion In Alaska
Last week, Alaska Governor Bill Walker announced that he will bypass the legislative process and implement Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion by executive fiat. ... expansion may come as a shock to Alaska’s legislative leadership, who last month brokered an informal arrangement with the governor to put Medicaid expansion on hold until 2016. The press conference Walker held last week was heavy on promises, but light on specifics. ... Despite promises that Medicaid expansion will jumpstart the Alaskan economy, the governor’s Obamacare plan will actually discourage work and shrink the economy. (Josh Archambault and Christie Herrera, 7/23)

Alaska Dispatch News: Medicaid Expansion Is Good Business For Alaska
Expansion will bring in hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funds, which is cash flow that Alaska very much needs right now. ... Medicaid expansion will also allow the state to use Medicaid money to cover health care costs for prison inmates, which the state currently pays, resulting in millions of dollars in savings. It will also provide care for many recently released prisoners, some of whom can only receive health care if they’re incarcerated. Many prisoners are more in need of mental health care than prison and can receive this with Medicaid expansion. ... Expansion will also add jobs to the economy; not just well-paying health care jobs, but also spinoff jobs created by the boost that these health care jobs create. (Alaska State Rep. Adam Wool, D-Fairbanks, 7/22)

The Washington Post's Right Turn: The Left Goes Too Far On Abortion Again
Liberals should rethink their absolutist position on abortion. In the past, its biggest losses — on “partial-birth” abortion, for example — have come when pro-life advocates forced them to defend extreme, even gruesome conduct. Unlike gay marriage, opposition to unfettered abortion on demand has remained high, perhaps because scientific breakthroughs allow us to see and treat the unborn baby. By once again going into attack mode, pro-abortion advocates are doing themselves no good. For Republicans, the challenge will be to keep the country with them and not overstep so as to lose valuable allies. (Jennifer Rubin, 7/22)

The Charlotte Observer: Hospital Patients Need Advocates
A friend Jim DeBrosse recently posted a Facebook message about the experience he and his wife, Kathy, had at a Cincinnati hospital, where she was getting checked after suddenly losing vision in her left eye. Tests ruled out a retinal detachment or a stroke. But the experience reminded him to be alert to mistakes when you’re in the hospital. (Karen Garloch, 7/22)