The New York Times: Seeking Rate Increases, Insurers Use Guesswork
In a sign of the tumult in the health insurance industry under the Affordable Care Act, companies are seeking wildly differing rate increases in premiums for 2016, with some as high as 85 percent, according to information released on Monday by the federal government for the 37 states using HealthCare.gov as their exchange. The data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services included only proposed rate increases of 10 percent or more, and federal officials emphasized that it would be months before final rates were set. Regulators in some states have the authority to overrule rate increases they deem to be too high. (Abelson, 6/1)

The Wall Street Journal: More Health-Care Insurers Seek Big Premium Increases
The Obama administration published more information Monday about hefty premium increases for 2016 sought by large insurers selling plans under the health law. Major carriers from around the country are proposing big increases in the premium rates paid by consumers who buy insurance policies on their own. (Radnofsky and Armour, 6/1)

Politico: Insurers Seek Double-Digit Obamacare Hikes
Health insurers are asking federal and state regulators to sign off on double-digit rate hikes for hundreds of Obamacare plans next year, increases that are being driven by skyrocketing drug costs and better data on how healthy or sick their customers are. On Monday, the Obama administration posted proposed premium hikes from a wide range of carriers — including major players like Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans — and their rate requests provide the most comprehensive preview yet of what insurers expect for the 2016 enrollment season. (Demko, 6/1)

The Associated Press: Many Health Insurers Go Big On Initial 2016 Rate Requests
Dozens of health insurers say higher-than-expected care costs and other expenses blindsided them this year, and they're going to have to hike premiums for individual policies well-beyond 10 percent for 2016. The proposed double-digit hikes would apply to plans sold on the health insurance exchanges created under President Barack Obama's law, as well as individual coverage sold through brokers and agents. (Murphy, 6/1)

The Detroit Free Press: Some Michigan Insurers Seeking Hefty Price Hikes
Several health insurers in Michigan are seeking double-digit rate hikes for plans they sell to individuals, as industry representatives cite pricey drugs and pent-up demand for health care among the newly insured. Insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is requesting permission for an average 11.3% jump in rates and 9.7 % jump in its Blue Care Network plans. Those plans cover 310,000 individuals in the state. (Reindl and Erb, 6/1)

The Charlotte Observer: Blue Cross Proposing 25.7% Rate Hike For ACA Plans In NC
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, the state’s largest health insurer, said Monday it is seeking an average 25.7 percent rate increase for customers covered under the Affordable Care Act. The proposed rate hike is double last year’s 13.5 percent increase approved for Blue Cross, an indication that health insurance costs continue to rise despite the federal health care law. The Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010 to expand coverage and also to stem runaway health care costs. (Murawski, 6/1)

Chicago Tribune: Some Steep Increases In Health Premiums Expected In Illinois In 2016
Health insurance premiums could rise more than 30 percent next year for some people in Illinois who have bought individual plans, a hefty increase that insurers say is driven by the costs of members' medical bills. The largest average rate increases in the state were proposed for certain plans offered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, Coventry Health Care and Assurant Health, according to a list of proposed increases exceeding 10 percent that was posted Monday on the healthcare.gov website. (Venteicher, 6/1)

The Wall Street Journal: State Officials Had Secret Huddle On Health-Law Subsidies
Officials from states across the nation flew to Chicago in early May for a secret 24-hour meeting to discuss their options if the Supreme Court rules they have to operate their own exchanges in order for residents to get health-insurance subsidies. Over the course of an evening reception, a day’s presentations and a Mexican buffet at the O’Hare International Airport’s Hilton hotel, some of those officials concluded their options are likely unworkable. (Radnofsky and Armour, 6/1)

Los Angeles Times: A Look At The Important Cases Pending Before The Supreme Court
The Supreme Court is heading into the final month of its annual term. ... Another much-anticipated decision will be whether the Obama administration may continue to subsidize health insurance for low- and middle-income people who buy coverage in the 36 states that failed to establish an official insurance exchange of their own and instead use a federally run version. If the court rules against the Obama administration, about 8.6 million people could lose their subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Between now and late June, the court will hand down more than two dozen decisions on matters such as politics, civil rights, free speech and air pollution. Several of these cases have been pending for months, suggesting the justices have been sharply split. (Savage, 6/1)

The Charlotte Observer: High-Deductible Trends Keeps Growing And Posing Challenges
Don’t expect the grousing about high-deductible health insurance to ebb anytime soon. A spate of recent reports confirms what many of us have been reporting: More and more, having health insurance doesn’t mean you’re protected against crippling bills. In the past year and a half, the Affordable Care Act has gotten millions more Americans covered and stopped insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. But it has also helped drive up premiums by adding coverage requirements. The result: Employers and individuals trying to cut premiums often shift to plans with higher out-of-pocket costs. (Helms, 6/1)

CQ Healthbeat: Government Watchdog Agency Examines CO-OP Health Plans
Nonprofit insurance plans designed to be an alternative for consumers under the 2010 health care overhaul generally succeeded in offering lower rates last year, but a majority of them struggled to meet enrollment projections, according to a new Government Accountability Office report. The average premiums for consumer operated and oriented plan, or CO-OP, programs – which are consumer governed, nonprofit health plans – were lower than premiums for other issuers in more than half of the rating areas in the 22 states where CO-OPs participated in the health insurance exchange during 2014, a GAO report said Monday. (Zanona, 6/1)

Other outlets look at how accountable care organizations help some primary doctors and the travails of a Pennsylvania couple who sought a subsidy to buy insurance -

Orlando Sentinel: ACOs Help Primary Care Doctors Stay Independent
Dr. Cara Jakob has worked in all types of practice models: she has been part of a large group, she has been employed by a health system, and now she's an independent physician in a small practice in Clermont. Jakob has also been part of practice model that's starting to gain traction, an Accountable Care Organization, first with a group called Primary Partners and now with Aledade Central Florida ACO. (Miller, 6/1)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: They Say They're Paying For ACA Misrepresentation
Myra Kodner has spent most of her career helping people qualify for programs such as food stamps and Social Security benefits. She knows qualifying people for a government program means submitting the right information in the correct format. So when her husband, Don, lost his job in customer service - and with it the couple's health insurance - in March 2014, Kodner swung into work mode. She gathered the couple's information and called the Affordable Care Act's healthcare.gov help line to buy insurance. ... But when the couple filed their 2014 income taxes, they were shocked to discover they did not qualify for a subsidy - and owed the government $8,000. (Calandra, 6/1)

Tampa Bay Times: Legislators Offer Up Concessions As Session Opens
A contrite Legislature returned to the capital Monday with a series of concessions and the goal of quieting the bitter intraparty feud over health care that sent lawmakers into overtime. The House, which left the regular session three days early, gaveled open the session as loudspeakers blared the Beatles tune Come Together, and then politely convened a workshop on the Senate proposal to create a privately run alternative to Medi­caid expansion. But leaders in both chambers acknowledged that, ovations aside, the House may not have the votes to approve the Senate's Florida Health Insurance Exchange plan, or FHIX, which would create a privately run premium assistance program to provide health insurance coverage under Obamacare to as many as 385,000 uninsured Floridians. (Klas and Bousquet, 6/1)

Tampa Tribune: Crisafulli: If It Quacks Like A Duck ... It’s Medicaid Expansion
As state lawmakers Monday kicked off a 20-day special session to finish a budget for next year, Medicaid expansion supporters took a different tack to get it passed: Using terms other than “Medicaid expansion.” ... "The House has made it clear they’re not interested in expanding Medicaid, and the good news is, neither are we,” said Dale Brill, a Tallahassee-based business consultant and former state tourism director under then-Gov. Charlie Crist. “We need a plan that doesn’t bend to the will of the federal government,” he added. “We need a plan that we can call a Florida solution.” ... Their reframing of the issue didn’t win over House Speaker Steve Crisafulli .... "It’s still Medicaid expansion,” Crisafulli told reporters. “It uses the Medicaid population, it uses the Medicaid dollars, and it uses the program’s rules. You know the saying, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. It’s Medicaid expansion … and it’s fiscally irresponsible.” (Rosica, 6/1)

The Associated Press: Financing Plan For Medicaid Expansion Receives Final Passage
If Louisiana's next governor wants to expand the state Medicaid program to tap into billions of available federal health care dollars, state lawmakers have given him a way to help pay for it. The Senate voted 31-8 Monday for the financing tool contained in legislation by Republican House Speaker Chuck Kleckley. The vote gave final passage to the measure, which was earlier approved by the House and can't be vetoed by Gov. Bobby Jindal. (DeSlatte, 6/1)

The Dallas Morning News: Downtown Dallas Rally Presses For Texas Medicaid Expansion
As Texas legislators concluded their 2015 session in Austin, protesters gathered Monday in downtown Dallas to call for a special session that would consider a statewide Medicaid expansion. (Jacobson, 6/1)

Deseret News: Koch Brothers Group Launches Campaign Against Healthy Utah
Americans for Prosperity Utah announced Monday it has launched a "thank you" mail campaign to support state lawmakers who opposed Gov. Gary Herbert's Healthy Utah alternative to Medicaid expansion. The campaign is the first action by the new Utah chapter of the main political advocacy group for the Koch brothers, the billionaire industrialists pouring millions of dollars into conservative and libertarian causes. The mailer is going out in the districts of 11 GOP House members, who last session helped defeat the governor's plan to provide health care to low-income Utahns using $258 million available under President Barack Obama's health care law. (Roche, 6/1)

The Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire: Rep. McCarthy: No Obamacare Bill Until After Supreme Court Ruling
House Republicans likely won’t introduce their response to a possible Supreme Court ruling striking down part of the Affordable Care Act until after the court’s decision, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) said Monday. Some Republicans had hoped to unveil a GOP plan ahead of the high court’s ruling, expected later this month, on whether people can continue to receive subsidized insurance coverage in as many as 37 states where residents use the federal HealthCare.gov website to obtain insurance because their states didn’t create exchanges. (Peterson, 6/1)

MarketWatch: House To Take Fresh Aim At Obamacare's Medical Device Tax
House lawmakers are gearing up to take fresh aim at the Affordable Care Act’s tax on medical devices. The House Ways and Means Committee will consider a bill Tuesday to repeal the 2.3% excise tax on sales of devices including pacemakers and stents. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Erik Paulsen, a Minnesota Republican. (Schroeder, 6/1)

Meanwhile, on the public opinion front -

The Huffington Post: Obamacare Hasn't Affected Republicans As Much As They Expected
With the onset of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, a vast majority of Republicans feared they would end up with worse coverage as a result of the law often called Obamacare, but a recent Economist/YouGov poll finds that most now say it hasn't affected them for the worse. (Velencia, 6/1)

CQ Healthbeat: NIH Supporters Worry About Potential Downside Of Mandatory Spending Boost
A $10 billion boost for the National Institutes of Health in a package expected on the House floor this month is widely supported as a way to spur medical cures, but some health advocates fear it could actually depress agency funding over the long run. The so-called 21st Century Cures legislation (HR 6), which the Energy and Commerce Committee endorsed 51-0 before recess, provides $2 billion in annual mandatory funding from fiscal 2016 to fiscal 2020 for an NIH Innovation Fund. The language restricts how the money can be spent and requires that it “be used to supplement, not supplant the funds otherwise allocated by the National Institutes of Health for biomedical research.” (Attias, 6/1)

The Wall Street Journal's Pharmalot: Senators Complain FDA Guidelines May Restrict Use Of Roche’s Avastin
In a bid to tighten regulation of compounding pharmacies, the FDA issued draft guidelines this year that, among other things, would place restrictions on the amount of time that some drugs can be used by patients. Specifically, the agency would not permit a biologic medicine to be used more than five days after it has been repackaged by a compounder, but only if a study confirms the drug is protected. (Silverman, 6/1)

The Washington Post: ‘Paradigm Change’ In The Development Of Cancer Drugs
The National Cancer Institute’s announcement Monday that it will soon begin a nationwide trial to test treatments based on the genetic mutations in patients’ tumors, rather than on where the tumors occur in the body, highlights a profound shift taking place in the development of cancer drugs. Researchers increasingly are using DNA sequencing, which has become far faster and cheaper over time, to identify molecular abnormalities in cancers. (Dennis and Bernstein, 6/1)

The Wall Street Journal's Pharmalot: Anthem Plan For Containing Cancer Drug Costs Shows Promising Signs
Last year, Anthem started changing how it paid for cancer care, aiming to blunt costs and push oncologists to adhere to standardized treatment guidelines. Its program, which began last July in six states and has since expanded, offered oncologists a $350-a-month payment for each patient who was on one of its recommended regimens. (Mathews, 6/1)

And a speech by a leading oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center criticizing the costs of cancer drugs has reverberations -

Bloomberg: This Cancer Doctor Is Leading The Attack On Astronomical Drug Prices
As the one-year cost of cancer drugs edges up to $200,000 per patient, a top doctor from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center used his speech before a massive gathering of colleagues to call for limits on the cost of cancer therapies. “These drugs cost too much,” Dr. Leonard Saltz, a gastrointestinal oncologist, said in an unusual speech at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting on Sunday. (Langreth and Koons, 6/1)

NPR: High Price Of Cancer Treatment Drugs Is 'Unsustainable,' Doctor Says
NPR's Audie Cornish speaks with Dr. Leonard Saltz, chief of Gastrointestinal Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, about his concerns regarding the high price of cancer treatment drugs. (6/1)

The Associated Press: Judge Bars Texas Telemedicine Rules From Taking Effect
A federal judge has determined claims made by the Texas Medical Board in adopting new telemedicine rules were "suspect" and barred the rules from taking effect until a civil trial can be held in lower court. Friday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman hinges largely on a revised rule the board adopted in April that requires a patient to have a "face-to-face visit or in-person evaluation" before a prescription can be dispensed. The board has argued such a measure is crucial to ensuring patient safety and quality care. (Warren, 6/1)

Kaiser Health News: Texas Puts Brakes On Telemedicine — And Teladoc Cries Foul
In Texas, hundreds of employers offer Teledoc’s services to more than 2 million employees, Gorevic said. Nationwide, Teladoc reaches 11 million people. But new rules from the Texas Medical Board could make it a lot harder for people like Broyles to get antibiotics through the service. In response to the board’s restrictions, Teladoc has filed a lawsuit that accuses the medical board of artificially limiting supply and increasing prices. (Silverman, 6/2)

And teens change their health habits after searching online --

The Washington Post: Study: Nearly Third Of Teens Changed Health Habits Based On Online Search
Some good news about teens and the Internet: Many switch to healthier habits after consulting the Web. In the first national study in more than a decade to look at how adolescents use digital tools for health information, nearly one-third of teenagers said they used online data to improve behavior — such as cutting back on drinking soda, using exercise to combat depression and trying healthier recipes — according to a study to be released Tuesday by researchers at Northwestern University. (Sun, 6/2)

The Connecticut Mirror: Cheat Sheet: What’s In The Big Health Care Bill
The state Senate unanimously passed a wide-ranging health care bill Monday that could have significant implications for hospitals, insurance companies, doctors and patients. Proponents say it will help control health care costs and improve transparency for patients. Critics say it contains problematic new regulations and could jeopardize the ability of struggling hospitals to find buyers to help them survive. (Levin Becker, 6/1)

The Associated Press: CT Legislature Approves Hospital Sales Oversight Measure
The Connecticut Senate unanimously passed legislation that brings more oversight of hospital sales and adds consumer protections such as notices of costs for nonemergency services. The Connecticut Hospital Association opposed the legislation, saying it would increase regulations and expand the review process for hospitals seeking state approval for significant changes in health care service. (6/1)

The Associated Press: Proposal Would Cut Medicaid Coverage For Some Pregnant Women
State senators are taking a hard look at a proposal in Republican Gov. John Kasich's budget that would eliminate Medicaid health coverage for certain pregnant women and others who the administration says can get insurance through the federal marketplace. Democrats and several Republican senators have questioned the plan, suggesting that rolling back coverage for some low-income, pregnant women conflicts with the state's efforts to combat infant mortality. (Sanner, 6/1)

The Denver Post: Children's Hospital Colorado Must Resolve Issues Or Lose Medicaid
Children's Hospital Colorado could lose Medicaid certification systemwide if it does not correct deficiencies cited in a state and federal investigation of its satellite facility at Memorial Hospital Central in Colorado Springs. "We have every reason to believe that Children's certification with Medicaid will be reinstated," said Dr. Larry Wolk, chief medical officer and director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. "But we have some work to do, as do they." (Draper, 6/1)

NJ Spotlight: New Federal Medicaid Rules Present Opportunity To Advance Reforms In NJ
Efforts by advocates to increase access to healthcare may have received a major boost from the federal government this week in the form of the largest overhaul of rules relating to insurers and Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program in 13 years. The regulatory proposal could ease the transition as Medicaid recipients move to the federal individual health insurance marketplace; change Medicaid’s definition of care coordination to include social supports outside of healthcare; and encourage the expansion of healthcare-delivery models that have proven successful in other states, according to healthcare experts. (Kitchenman, 6/1)

Los Angeles Times: Prison Overseer Says Inmate Medical Care Lacking In Private Lockups
Though healthcare within the state's 34 prisons continues to improve, problems persist in contract prisons where the state pays to house its overflow inmate population. "Little progress has been made in resolving, much less improving," the care provided to 4,200 inmates in seven contracted lockups, medical receiver Clark Kelso said in a report filed Monday with the three federal judges who oversee the state's prison system. Four of the seven prisons in Kern and San Bernardino counties are owned by the GEO Group; three are owned by small communities. (St. John, 6/1)

The Associated Press: Court Officials Say Contract Prisons Offer Poor Health Care
Contract prisons in California provide such poor health care that a federal official on Monday questioned Gov. Jerry Brown's plans to bring additional inmates back from private prisons in other states. While care in the 34 state-operated prisons has generally been improving, there has been little progress for the more than 4,000 patients housed at seven publicly and privately operated prisons, J. Clark Kelso, the federal receiver who controls the state's prison health care system, said in a report. (Thompson, 6/1)

Connecticut Health I-Team: School Mental Health Programs See Increased Use In Connecticut
More Connecticut students report feeling sad and hopeless, and they are seeking help at school-based health clinics, as more students become aware of the services, counselors say. Their problems range from bullying to family issues to anxiety. (Mozdzer Gil, 6/1)

The Associated Press: Addison County Focuses On Treatment For Opiate Addiction
Nearly a year after the governor held a community forum on opiate addiction, volunteer teams around Vermont have been working to fight the problem at home. Addison County now has three doctors providing medically assisted treatment to opiate addicts, so some patients don't have to travel to Burlington or Rutland. (6/1)

The Associated Press: Police Allow Addicts To Turn In Drugs If They Seek Treatment
Heroin users seeking help for their addiction won't be arrested if they turn over their drugs and needles to police under a unique policy launched Monday in the Massachusetts city of Gloucester. Drug addicts - including those abusing morphine, oxycodone and other opioids - will instead be taken by an officer to the local hospital emergency room where they'll be connected with substance abuse clinicians and, eventually, be referred to a treatment facility. (Marcelo, 6/1)

The Associated Press: N.C. Senate Gives Final Approval To Expand Abortion Rules
The Senate gave its final approval late Monday to additional rules surrounding abortion in North Carolina, primarily one extending the waiting period for a woman to obtain the procedure from 24 hours to 72 hours. The Republican-led chamber voted 32-16 largely along party lines for the bill after agreement on two amendments, including one that eased a requirement that only physicians who are board certified or certifiable in obstetrics or gynecology could perform abortions in most cases. (6/2)

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Walker Would Sign Abortion Bill With No Rape, Incest Exception
Gov. Scott Walker said Monday he's prepared to sign a 20-week abortion ban bill that has no exception for cases of rape or incest. Asked Monday about the bill following a speech at a Boys & Girls Club event in Delavan, Walker said he would sign the measure banning the procedure after 20 weeks whether or not it had those exemptions. The Republican governor and likely presidential candidate made his comments before a public hearing scheduled for Tuesday on the fast-moving bill before committees of both the Assembly and Senate. (Stein, 6/1)

The Associated Press: State Wins Court Order In UPMC-Highmark Fight Over Medicare
Gov. Tom Wolf and Attorney General Kathleen Kane hailed a court decision Friday that they had sought in a bid to protect Medicare Advantage enrollees caught in the middle of a feud between two western Pennsylvania health care giants. The ruling by Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini orders the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's health system to maintain in-network rates until 2019 for people insured by Medicare Advantage plans sold through insurer Highmark Inc. (6/1)

Nashville Tennessean: Health Care Companies Pay $6.5M In Whistleblower Case
A group of home health care companies known as Friendship paid $6.5 million in a settlement resolving claims they improperly billed TennCare and other assistance programs, officials said Monday. A nurse, Kay Flippo, previously worked at one of the companies and filed the claims under the federal False Claims Act. As a whistleblower, she is eligible for an as-yet-undetermined amount of the settlement money. (Barchenger, 6/1)

The Press Enterprise: Health Care: Big Money For Medical Records System
Riverside County officials want to spend as much as $53.1 million over the next three years on a new electronic records system for the county hospital, a move they say will improve patient care through better coordination with other Inland medical centers. The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, June 2, will be asked to approve a preliminary budget and an agreement with Loma Linda University Health to share Loma Linda’s Epic medical records system. Epic, which has corporate headquarters in Wisconsin, provides records software for hospitals nationwide. (Horseman, 6/1)

Nashville Tennessean: Lawmakers Pay $5.1M In Premiums, Get $13.6M In Care
While current and former lawmakers paid a combined $5.1 million in health insurance premiums from 2010 to 2014, the state paid $13.6 million on health care claims for those lawmakers and their eligible dependents over that same time period, according to new records obtained by The Tennessean. On average, that's roughly $51,400 in health care claims for every applicable lawmaker during that time span. That doesn't mean health care claim payments are distributed equally among lawmakers and doesn't account for the number of eligible dependents who may have received care. (Boucher, 6/1)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Adult-Care Law Limiting Employment Candidates
West Philadelphia's Tyrone Peake, two national trends have converged. The first: As baby boomers both arrange care for their elderly parents and grow older themselves, they are likely to need home health-care aides. Thus, domiciliary-care homes and long-term-care nursing facilities will need qualified workers. In Pennsylvania alone, it is projected that between 2012 and 2022, the direct-care workforce will need to grow by 33 percent. The second: Nearly one in three adults in the United States, about 70 million people, have arrest or conviction records, according to an April report by the New York-based National Employment Law Project. Yet in Pennsylvania alone, 200,000 people with clean records after 10-year-old felony convictions are prohibited from working full time in nursing or group homes, known as "covered facilities" under existing law. (Arvedlund, 6/1)

The Connecticut Mirror: Former CT Insurance Official Dowling To Lead Illinois Agency
Anne Melissa Dowling, a former top official in Connecticut’s insurance department, has been picked to lead the Illinois Department of Insurance. Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner announced the appointment Friday. Dowling said she hadn’t sought the position, but got a call from Rauner’s office about the job. (Levin Becker, 6/1)

The New York Times: Medical Marijuana Feeds Familiar Hopes Of Renewal Around New York State
Don Crawford comes from a long line of Orange County farmers. Though he no longer tends dairy cows, he still cuts hay for the thriving equestrian industry, and cringes at the creep of the suburbs. So when a stranger came to town and announced plans to grow marijuana on the fallow land next to his, Mr. Crawford was thrilled. (Hartocollis, 6/1)

The Associated Press: Registration Begins Monday For Minn. Medical Marijuana
Registration begins Monday for those looking to become medical marijuana patients in Minnesota. Though the medicine won't be legally available via state-sanctioned dispensaries until July, the state is now accepting applications from patients. (Hill, 6/1)

Bloomberg: What The Abercrombie Bias Case Might Mean For Obamacare
In an 8 to 1 ruling, the high court used a suit by a young woman in a Muslim headscarf to remind businesses they have to take the initiative to avoid religious discrimination. Apart from the immediate result—a victory for employees who favor devotional garb—the most interesting passage in Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion teed up the central issue in a ruling on the fate of Obamacare expected by the end of June. ... Abercrombie had urged the justices to adopt a lower-court ruling that plaintiffs in religious-bias suits must show they alerted a potential employer to their religious needs. ... “The problem with this approach is the one that inheres in most incorrect interpretations of statutes: It asks us to add words to the law to produce what is thought to be a desirable result [Scalia wrote.] That is Congress’s province." ... The latest conservative attack on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) could turn on whether five words in that statute, enacted in 2010, are read literally—as Justice Scalia urged in the Abercrombie case—or with some contextual finesse. (Paul Barrett, 6/1)

The Wall Street Journal: King V. Burwell And Media Coverage
The Supreme Court’s King v. Burwell ruling will make headlines whenever it arrives. It will also be genuine news to much of the country. The Kaiser Family Foundation’s Health Policy News Index, which tracks how closely the public follows health stories in the news, found that 59% of Americans have not been paying much or any attention to news stories about the case, and only 16% have been following very closely. That means that when the verdict comes the media’s first job will be to explain what the case was about. (Drew Altman, 6/2)

The [Chattanooga] Times Free Press: Insurance Rate Increase? Look Beyond BlueCross
If BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee enrollees are surprised that their insurer wants to raise premiums next year by an average of more than 36 percent, they haven't been paying attention. The nonprofit insurer lost $141 million on its health exchange plans sold under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014, and its tax bill -- largely due to new taxes levied under provisions of the ACA -- increased 72 percent to a record $463 million. (6/1)

Alaska Dispatch News: Alaskans Want And Need Public Investment In Education And Health
As a physician fortunate enough to practice in Alaska since 1965, I want to share a long-term perspective about health care reform. Beginning in our shared distant past, we who make Alaska home have inherited and so far failed to solve the riddle of economic inequity. It has always been a fact that the poor do not get equal access or services in health care. ... My goal now is to convince our legislators that Medicaid expansion is a real investment in private system health care that will boost Alaska's economy in a time of budget crisis while improving individual and public health for all. (George W. Brown, 6/1)

Bloomberg View: Give Obesity The Tobacco Treatment
Americans are fat because we eat large portions, and because we eat foods that are high in sugar and fat. Perhaps it’s time for the surgeon general to put scary warning labels on sugary and fatty foods. And perhaps it’s time for Hollywood studios to consciously focus on depicting characters eating small portions and healthy meals. Behavioral economics cut smoking, and Americans are healthier, happier people because of it. We should try the same tactics against unhealthy eating. (Noah Smith, 6/2)

Bloomberg View: Where the Government Can Get Better Data
As the world grows ever better at gathering and making use of data, the question arises: Might the measurements and statistics that private businesses accumulate be used to help government statistical agencies that are under increasing budget pressure? Two recent studies suggest they can. One of these, from Express Scripts, an online pharmacy, examined patients with extremely high prescription drug costs. .... In 2014, the top 5 percent of patients ranked by drug costs accounted for more than 60 percent of total drug spending, the Express Scripts analysis found. ... The other study, from the health analytics and technology company Inovalon, examined how quality ratings within Medicare Advantage (the private insurance component of Medicare) differed between those beneficiaries who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid and those eligible only for Medicare. Plans serving the dual eligibles rank lower in quality than other plans in the program do. (Peter R. Orszag, 6/1)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: A Rational Approach To Health Care Delivery -- Let The Best Providers Prevail
Today, most hospitals try to deliver every sophisticated medical service and procedure they can. In Philadelphia, we have at least seven hospitals that do heart transplants and many more doing liver, kidney and bone marrow transplants. That’s a lot of redundancy. ... Why do we need more than one heart transplant program in a city like Philadelphia? Why shouldn’t one hospital be the designated center for each high-tech service? How many stroke centers do we need? The care of patients with complex conditions requires an extensive infrastructure with 24 hour access to skilled health care providers, technicians, imaging, laboratory and other services. Why should we allow some hospitals to dabble as dilettantes in the care of these patients when we can coordinate care in just a few major centers? (Paula L. Stillman, 6/1)

JAMA Pediatrics: Evidence, Politics, And The Future Of The Children’s Health Insurance Program
Since the creation of the program, states have implemented a diverse array of policy options under CHIP to serve children and have dramatically improved access to and continuity of insurance coverage for children in low-income families. In the short term, funding for CHIP is likely to be temporarily extended by Congress. In the long term, the future of CHIP should be part of a serious and bipartisan discussion among policy makers about how to best ensure access to health insurance for children in low-income families and develop a comprehensive health policy approach for children and families. (Marian Jarlenski, 6/1)