The New York Times: Tough Going For Health Co-Ops
Late last month, the Nevada Health Co-op became the third casualty among 23 insurance start-ups created under the federal health care law to inject competition for coverage in certain parts of the country. Set up as nonprofits with consumer-led boards, the co-ops were designed to provide affordable insurance coverage to individuals and small businesses. They were intended under the law to offer alternatives — and hopefully cheaper prices — to the plans sold by large established insurance companies in some regions. (Abelson, 9/15)

Modern Healthcare: Premium Subsidies Flow Heavily To Populous, Poor States
More than half of this year's $27 billion in Affordable Care Act premium subsidies are going to five states, which has created a big but risky business opportunity for health insurers. Many Republican-led states with high numbers of low-income residents are also among the leading recipients of the law's premium subsidies, according to recent CMS data. (Herman, 9/15)

The Fiscal Times: Auditors Accuse Feds Of Mismanaging $600 Million In Obamacare Contracts
Last July, as the price tag for the Obamacare enrollment system climbed to $2.1 billion, a scathing report by the Government Accountability Office accused the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) of negligent management practices and lack of oversight of contractors hired to create and fix Healthcare.gov—the primary portal to enroll Americans in Obamacare. Today, the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services went further. They reviewed 20 of the 62 contracts that were awarded to create the federal marketplace for Obamacare—worth a cool $600 million—and found that CMS failed to manage each contract properly. (Leo, 9/15)

The Huffington Post: Is Obamacare Punishing Hospitals The Wrong Way?
Under the Affordable Care Act, hospitals are fined up to 3 percent of their Medicare payments if too many Medicare patients return to the hospital within 30 days of discharge. By giving hospitals a financial incentive to reduce readmissions, the idea is to encourage better quality care. ... Yet a study published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that many readmissions are unavoidable, especially those involving patients like our hypothetical homeless man with pneumonia. The authors of the paper, who are all affiliated with Harvard Medical School, examined 29 patient characteristics -- including race, education, disability, alcohol intake and prescription drug benefits -- to see whether they had an impact on readmissions. (Satran, 9/15)

In state news about the health law --

Minnesota Public Radio: At Community Clinics, Underinsured Replace Uninsured
A few years ago, community health clinics routinely offered care to people with no health insurance. Today, offering care to people who have insurance — but still can't afford care — is becoming more common. (Zdechlik, 9/16)

The Washington Post: Rates For Health Plans On D.C. Marketplace To Rise 4% On Average
Most D.C. residents who buy health insurance through an online marketplace under the federal Affordable Care Act will see a modest increase in prices next year. Insurance plans for individuals will cost, on average, 4 percent more — a gentler increase than in Maryland, where the most popular plan will cost on average 26 percent more starting in January. (Zauzmer, 9/15)

The Associated Press: Lawmaker: Hold Off On Vendor Request For Insurance Exchange
A state legislator asked an Arkansas panel Tuesday to hold off on looking at vendors for setting up a state-run insurance exchange as lawmakers look at broader reforms to Medicaid and health care. Sen. David Sanders asked the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace's board of directors to delay releasing to vendors a request for qualifications for information technology for the insurance exchange for individual consumers. Sanders co-chairs the marketplace's legislative oversight committee. (DeMillo, 9/15)

And the Obama administration announces new funding for community health centers.

The Hill: Community Health Centers Get Another $500M Boost Under ObamaCare
The Obama administration is injecting another half-billion dollars into community health centers across the country, which are facing growing demands under ObamaCare. The government-backed health centers, which have expanded massively under the Affordable Care Act, have been put into a new political context this summer as Republicans in Congress try to defund Planned Parenthood. Republicans are arguing that the 1,300 community health centers nationwide could absorb the millions of women who could lose their doctors if Planned Parenthood loses its federal or state funding. (Ferris, 9/15)

The New York Times: Republicans Vow To Erase Obama’s Record, But Such Promises Are Rarely Kept
For all the talk of Republican fractiousness, the party’s 2016 presidential field has united around one principle: erasing President Obama’s record. ... The candidates gathering to debate on Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library merely start with the Affordable Care Act as a target.On larger initiatives, constitutional checks and balances pose high barriers. To repeal the Affordable Care Act, a Republican president would need to persuade Congress to disrupt existing health insurance for millions of Americans. Even policies subject to more executive control, under presidents with sharp ideological edges, often prove resistant to change. (Harwood, 9/15)

The Wall Street Journal: GOP Candidates Must Win Over Dissatisfied Voters
Anti-Washington sentiment has been churning for years—especially among Republicans—but no one candidate has emerged at a national level to harness it. Voters angry about the economy, President Barack Obama, and his health care law helped propel Republicans into control of the House in 2010 and of the Senate in 2014. Now, one reason many Republicans say they are chafing at the status quo is because they are disappointed in the GOP-controlled Congress, which they say hasn’t brought enough change or more effective opposition to the president. (Hook and O'Connor, 9/16)

And in news about Democratic candidates -

NBC News: Bernie Sanders Defends Price Tag Of His Agenda
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders told NBC News/MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell that a Wall Street Journal report that found his proposals will cost $18 trillion was "significantly exaggerated." ... The newspaper reported that Sanders calls for a government run health care program would alone total $15 trillion. When combined with his ideas for expanding social security, making tuition free at public colleges and investing in infrastructure, the total price tag comes to about $18 trillion over ten years, according to The Journal. (Rafferty, 9/15)

Politico: Shutdown Watch: Reid, McConnell On Same Page
The must-pass [government funding] measure has gotten tangled up in the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood, with conservative lawmakers pressuring Republican leaders to cut off federal funding for the women’s health group. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, trying to stave off the specter of a shutdown from the GOP-controlled Congress, has said he wants a funding bill free of provisions such as defunding Planned Parenthood that would be broadly, if not unanimously, opposed by Democrats. (Kim, 9/15)

The New York Times: With Possible Shutdown Nearing, Obama Looks To Take Budget Fight To G.O.P.
Congress hurtled toward a government shutdown on Tuesday, with Republicans threatening to block a budget deal if it includes financing for Planned Parenthood, as President Obama prepared to join the fight by pushing Republicans to scrap a multibillion-dollar tax advantage for private equity managers. In a speech on Wednesday, Mr. Obama is expected to call on Republicans to end the tax break and use the funds to pay for spending increases on domestic and national security programs, and he will enlist business leaders to help him make his case. (Herszenhorn and Hirschfeld Davis, 9/16)

Politico: Government Shutdown: How Close Are We?
Congress has just 15 days left in September to reach a budget agreement and the stakes are high: Without a deal, the government will shut down for the second time in three years. ... How do these last-minute negotiations affect government agencies? And is there a better way for lawmakers to reach a budget deal? To answer these questions, The Agenda’s Danny Vinik sat down with renowned budget expert Stan Collender. (Vinik, 9/15)

The New York Times: Pennsylvania Republican Offers Compromise On Planned Parenthood
As the House and Senate return on Tuesday to begin confronting a spending impasse, Representative Charlie Dent, a moderate Republican from Pennsylvania, says he has come up with a way to avert a possible government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding: a bill that would take away money only from clinics involved in selling tissue from aborted fetuses. That program came under fire after a series of undercover videos surfaced this summer claiming that affiliates of the group profit from it illegally. (Planned Parenthood has denied the charges.) Some Republicans now say they will not vote for a short-term spending measure unless Planned Parenthood is cut off. (Steinhauer, 9/15)

The Associated Press: House Chairman Subpoenas Uncut Planned Parenthood Videos
A House committee chairman issued a subpoena Tuesday for an anti-abortion group’s unedited videos about Planned Parenthood’s provision of fetal tissue for research. The subpoena by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who heads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was the GOP’s latest move in its escalating battle against Planned Parenthood. The party has long battled that group, which performs abortions and provides birth control in clinics from coast to coast. (Fram, 9/15)

The Hill: Oversight Subpoenas Unedited Planned Parenthood Footage
The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena for hundreds of hours of secretly recorded footage of Planned Parenthood and its partners as part of an ongoing investigation into the use of fetal tissue donations. The panel announced legal action Tuesday to obtain footage from the Center for Medical Progress, which has been barred from releasing it because of a pending lawsuit by the National Abortion Federation. (Ferris, 9/15)

The Associated Press: Anti-Abortion Videos Draw Scrutiny To Fetal Tissue Brokers
Covert videos released by an anti-abortion group have opened a window on a largely unknown corner of science: the middlemen who supply researchers with human fetal cells from elective abortions. For decades, these typically small companies or nonprofits have been quietly processing human tissue and filling orders for fetal cells from scientists studying eye disease, HIV, autism and other conditions. Until recently, their biggest challenge was finding an adequate supply because of a nationwide drop in the number of abortions. (Johnson, 9/16)

The Hill: Obama Chooses Cardiologist As Next FDA Commissioner
President Obama on Tuesday nominated cardiologist Robert Califf to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has been without an official head since the beginning of April. Califf, a renowned researcher who spent most of his career at Duke University, joined the FDA in February to become the deputy commissioner for medical products and tobacco. (Ferris, 9/15)

The Washington Post: Cardiologist And Researcher Robert Califf Nominated As Next FDA Commissioner
The nomination comes after the resignation this spring of Margaret A. Hamburg, who left the agency in March after a six-year tenure marked by a wave of new drug approvals, as well as legislation to overhaul the nation's food safety system and begin regulating tobacco products for the first time. Stephen Ostroff, previously the FDA's chief scientist, has served as acting commissioner in recent months. (Dennis, 9/15)

The Associated Press: Obama Nominates FDA’s No. 2 Official To Lead Agency
President Barack Obama has nominated the Food and Drug Administration’s second-highest ranking official, Dr. Robert Califf, to lead the agency, which regulates consumer products ranging from medications to seafood to cigarettes. The White House made the announcement late Tuesday in a statement naming officials nominated for various federal posts. (Perrone, 9/15)

Meanwhile, the FDA also orders a sales halt for four types of R.J. Reynolds cigarettes -

The New York Times: FDA Bans Sales Of 4 Cigarette Products By R.J. Reynolds
The Food and Drug Administration halted the sale of four types of R. J. Reynolds cigarettes on Tuesday, saying the company failed to prove that they were not more harmful than products already on the market. The agency ordered retailers who sell any of the cigarettes to stop immediately and to dispose of them within 30 days or face financial penalties or criminal prosecution. (Tavernise, 9/15)

The Wall Street Journal: FDA Orders Reynolds To Stop Selling 4 Cigarette Products
The affected cigarettes — Camel Crush Bold, Pall Mall Deep Set Recessed Filter, Pall Mall Deep Set Recessed Filter Menthol and Vantage Tech 13 — have a combined U.S. market share of less than 1% and aren’t expected to have a significant impact on sales. But the move could signal a tougher regulatory stance as the FDA reviews thousands of applications for new tobacco products. It comes after the FDA sent warning letters last month to three companies, including Reynolds American, for violating federal law by marketing some of their brands as “additive-free” or “natural.” (Esterl, 9/15)

NPR: FDA Orders 4 Cigarette Products Pulled From The Market
For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration has ordered a major tobacco company to stop selling several types of cigarettes. The FDA on Tuesday ordered the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to stop selling four products: Camel Bold Crush, Vantage Tech 13 and the regular and menthol versions of Pall Mall Deep Set Recessed Filter cigarettes. The FDA has ordered other cigarettes off the market before, but those actions involved much smaller companies selling much less popular cigarettes. (Stein, 9/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Google Backs Startup Oscar Health Insurance
Insurance startup Oscar Health Insurance Corp. has a powerful new ally in its uphill battle to win customers from entrenched insurance giants: Google Inc. Google Capital, the Internet company’s growth-equity fund, has invested $32.5 million in Oscar, the startup’s CEO said in an interview. The deal values two-year-old Oscar at $1.75 billion, up from a valuation of $1.5 billion when it last took funding in April, said a person familiar with the transaction. (MacMillan, 9/15)

The San Jose Mercury News: Google Hires Top Neuroscientist To Lead Mental Health Project
After visiting Silicon Valley this summer for a tour of tech companies including Apple, Google and IBM, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health is coming back — this time to work. Google’s life-sciences division, now its own subsidiary of parent company Alphabet, said Tuesday that it has hired Thomas Insel, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist who since 2002 has run the branch of the Maryland-based National Institutes of Health that works on understanding and treating mental disorders. (9/15)

In other industry news, Dentsply will acquire Sirona Dental Systems for $5.5 billion, and UAW and Fiat Chrysler reach a tentative contract deal -

The New York Times' DealBook: Dentsply To Acquire Sirona Dental For $5.5 Billion
Two of the biggest makers of dental products said on Tuesday that they had agreed to combine, betting on bigger scale to take advantage of growing demand for dentistry work. Dentsply said it would acquire Sirona Dental Systems for $5.5 billion in what the two companies called a merger of equals that would create a dental health giant with a combined market value of about $13.3 billion. (de la Merced, 9/15)

The Associated Press: Fiat Chrysler, UAW Reach Tentative Contract Deal
A tentative contract agreement reached Tuesday between the United Auto Workers and Fiat Chrysler addresses pay and health care issues, but neither side would give specifics about the pact. ... At a hastily called news conference after the deal was announced early Tuesday evening, Williams said the agreement meets the union's goals but still keeps Fiat Chrysler competitive with other automakers. He told reporters he had three goals for the contract: giving entry-level workers a path to higher pay, rewarding members for sacrifices they made while Fiat Chrysler struggled financially, and dealing with escalating health care costs. (9/16)

PBS NewsHour: A Doctor’s Memoir Shows Race Matters In The Hospital Room
In medical school, Dr. Damon Tweedy says he learned about health problems being more common in the black community, but he didn’t hear the reasons why. In “Black Man in a White Coat,” Tweedy examines racial disparities in medicine, for both patients and medical professionals. (9/15)

CQ Healthbeat: Doctor Training Overhaul Threatened By Squabbles
A House panel is expected to reignite debate on the federally-subsidized system for training doctors once they graduate from medical school, though consensus may be elusive due to tight budgets and disagreements among physicians groups and hospitals over how to update residency programs. The Ways and Means Health Subcommittee plans a hearing to explore the issue after it finishes a still-developing legislative package to revamp the way Medicare pays hospitals. Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, wants to include in the package a plan (HR 3292) that would overhaul payments covering the indirect costs associated with training medical residents, such as the expanded use of tests. Major teaching hospitals fear the bill could cut their payments. After considering that measure, Brady plans to go further. (Attias, 9/15)

Kaiser Health News: The Gender Gap Persists In Academic Medicine, Studies Find
Academic medicine is still a man’s world, according to two studies and an accompanying editorial published Tuesday in the journal JAMA. Despite growing numbers of women doctors and researchers, the top echelon at U.S. academic medical facilities is still heavily skewed to favor men, the studies suggest. (Luthra, 9/15)

Kaiser Health News: Under Pressure, Hospitals Push Physicians To Improve Their Bedside Manners
A doctor’s training hasn’t historically focused on sensitivity. And too often while juggling heavy workloads and high stress, they can be viewed as brusque, condescending or inconsiderate. A 2011 study, for instance, found barely more than half of recently hospitalized patients said they experienced compassion when getting health care, despite widespread agreement among doctors and patients that kindness is valuable and important. (Luthra, 9/16)

The Hill: CDC Urges Nursing Homes To Step Up 'Superbug' Prevention
Federal health officials are urging nursing homes to step up their oversight of antibiotic use to prevent outbreaks of “superbugs” that are on the rise nationally. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new recommendations Tuesday aiming to crack down on the improper use of the medications, which can spur antibiotic-resistance illnesses known as “superbugs.” (Ferris, 9/15)

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Group Demands U.S. Senate Release Records On Opioid Industry
A coalition of organizations and doctors concerned about the overuse of prescription narcotics has called on the U.S. Senate to release records it obtained three years ago as part of an investigation into financial ties between the opioid industry and nonprofit groups that advocated for use of the drugs in treating pain. (Fauber, 9/15)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: DHH Notifies Planned Parenthood Of New Termination Of Medicaid Funding
The Department of Health and Hospitals has notified Planned Parenthood Gulf States the organization is being kicked out of the state's Medicaid program again, this time because of a $4.3 million whistleblower settlement in Texas. This is the second time in two months that Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration has notified Planned Parenthood it will lose funding for about 5,200 patients in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. It backed off an attempt to kick Planned Parenthood out of the program without cause after the administration faced aggressive questioning in a federal court hearing over Planned Parenthood's effort to seek an injunction to block the defunding. (Litten, 9/15)

The Associated Press: Assembly Panel Approves Bills Targeting Planned Parenthood
A proposal that attempts to prevent Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin from qualifying for federal grant money has cleared a committee and could be debated by the full Wisconsin state Assembly as soon as next week. The Assembly Health Committee on Tuesday voted 7-4 to pass the proposal, with all Republicans in support and Democrats against. (9/15)

North Carolina Health News: Budget Provision Takes Aim At Planned Parenthood
Buried in page 163 of the 429-page final state budget bill is a seven-line provision limiting the use of state funds for “family planning services, pregnancy prevention activities, and adolescent parenting programs.” The provision doesn’t say the words “Planned Parenthood,” but that was the organization in the sights of budget writers, because the group also provides abortions. If the state budget is passed and signed into law, Planned Parenthood will lose funding for programs in Fayetteville and Wilmington that have helped teens avoid getting sexually transmitted diseases, encouraged them to delay sexual activity and helped teen moms get through high school. (Hoban, 9/16)

The Columbus Post-Dispatch: Charter Schools, Planned Parenthood Top Ohio Lawmakers’ To-Do List
Ohio lawmakers will return this month with a few significant issues left over from the spring, such as a charter-school overhaul bill and some new efforts on unemployment benefits and Planned Parenthood funding. (Siegel, 9/16)

The Washington Post: Planned Parenthood Is A Symbol. This Is The Reality Of One Ohio Clinic.
There they were [in a Planned Parenthood health center in Akron, Ohio], in a state whose attorney general had recently opened an investigation of Planned Parenthood, ... and in a universe where Planned Parenthood had again become a symbol for one of the most divisive moral battles of the modern era. ... This clinic sees nearly 7,100 patients a year, most of them young and poor. The clinicians administer 3,400 pregnancy tests, write 2,900 prescriptions for birth control and provide 13,200 screenings for sexually transmitted infections to the women and men walking into a boxy building between a restaurant-supply store and a used-car dealership. Inside the clinicians’ office, a ­pamphlet on the wall reads “Bomb Threat Checklist.” (Hesse, 9/15)

Los Angeles Times: Patients Scarred, Insurance Firms Duped In Massive Scam, L.A. County Prosecutors Say
The patients were told a board-certified orthopedic surgeon would conduct their operations. But the surgeries were instead performed by a physician's assistant who had never attended medical school and was not overseen by the surgeon during the operations, which were billed as the surgeon's work, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. The results for nearly two dozen patients were lasting scars, prosecutors said. Many had to undergo additional surgeries to repair the damage. (Winton and Hamilton, 9/15)

The Associated Press: California Doctor Charged In $150 Million Insurance Scam
An orthopedic surgeon was charged as the ringleader in one of the state's biggest health fraud schemes, which included unnecessary operations by an untrained assistant that scarred patients forever, according to indictments unsealed Tuesday. Dr. Munir Uwaydah and 14 associates, including another doctor and a lawyer, bilked insurance companies out of $150 million in the scheme, Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey said. (9/15)

The Associated Press: US, Broward Hospital Settle Physician Claims For $69.5M
The Justice Department has reached a $69.5 million settlement with a South Florida hospital district accused in a lawsuit of improper financial relationships with doctors who referred patients to the district. Federal officials said Tuesday the case involved inflated salaries to nine physicians by the North Broward Hospital District, which operates several health facilities. U.S. law restricts the financial relationships hospitals can have with referring doctors under Medicare and Medicaid. (9/15)

Modern Healthcare: Florida Health System To pay $69.5M Over Stark, False Claims Allegations
A Florida taxing district that operates hospitals in Broward County will pay the government a record $69.5 million to settle allegations that it illegally paid nine doctors for referrals. A whistle-blower accused North Broward Hospital District of violating the Stark law, governing physician financial relationships, by paying employed doctors at levels beyond the fair market value based, in part, on their referrals to Broward Health hospitals and clinics. That, in turn, led to the submission of false claims to the government, in violation of the False Claims Act, the whistle-blower alleged. (Schencker, 9/15)

The Associated Press: W.Va. Pharmacy, Former Owner Sentenced In Fraud Case
A Charleston pharmacy will spend three years on probation for defrauding Medicare and Medicaid. U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin says Trivillian's Pharmacy and its former owner, Paula J. Butterfield, were sentenced on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Charleston. Butterfield will spend a year and a day in prison. Goodwin says the pharmacy admitted to dispensing compounded drugs and generic drugs and billing Medicare and Medicaid for brand name drugs, which are more expensive. Butterfield admitted to submitting false claims to Medicare on her own behalf. (9/16)

The Boston Globe: State Cites Nursing Homes For Misleading Ads On Alzheimer’s Care
State regulators are citing more than four dozen Massachusetts nursing homes for advertising dementia care services when they don’t actually offer the kind of care required to make such a claim, according to the Department of Public Health. (Lazar, 9/16)

Los Angeles Times: Hospital's Suit Could Hamper L.A. County's Effort To Expand Trauma Network
For the first time in several years, Los Angeles County officials are taking ambitious steps to expand the region's network of hospital trauma centers. But that plan could soon hit a roadblock. The county pays for 14 of the specialized emergency rooms, which treat only the most serious injuries, with help from a voter-approved parcel tax known as Measure B. The tax generates about $250 million a year, and officials recently pledged some of that revenue to develop a new, long-awaited trauma center in Pomona. (Karlamangla, 9/15)

The Associated Press: Alabama Legislature Approves Cigarette Tax
The Alabama Legislature on Tuesday approved a cigarette tax increase as lawmakers busted through months of deadlock over a looming budget shortfall. Lawmakers gave final approval to the 25-cent-per-pack increase and agreed to a separate proposal to shift $80 million in education dollars to shore up the state cash-strapped general fund budget. The 11th-hour agreement could stave off deep cuts to prisons, Medicaid and other critical state agencies when the fiscal year begins in two weeks. (Chandler, 9/16)

The Associated Press: Va. Hospital Association To Warn Of Financial Challenges
The Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association says the state's hospitals are under serious financial strain and need help. The association plans a news conference Wednesday at the Richmond Community Hospital to highlight the role hospitals play in Virginia's economy and the need for government action. Hospitals have tried unsuccessfully to convince the GOP-controlled General Assembly to pass Medicaid expansion. (9/16)

California Healthline: California Advocates Welcome Federal Plan To Deal With Disparities In Medicare
The executive director of the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network said a new report from CMS addressing health disparities in Medicare will help to deal with barriers faced by racial and ethnic minorities, rural residents and the LGBT population. (Gorn, 9/15)

Heartland Health Monitor: Sebelius Lays Down Health Challenge To KC Region
The Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City invited Kathleen Sebelius to help it celebrate its first decade of grant making, but the woman who has served as both U.S. health secretary and Kansas governor came armed with a big idea for the next decade. “I think the challenge over the next 10 years is: How do you make Kansas City the healthiest region in the country?” Sebelius said at the foundation’s Tuesday luncheon in Kansas City, Mo. “I think that is a very reasonable goal. I don’t think that is at all out of reach.” (Sherry, 9/15)

The Kansas Health Institute News Service: History Complicates Efforts To Preserve Health Care In Kansas County
People who live in small towns across Kansas are struggling to save institutions that in their minds define their communities. Schools are often at the heart of these efforts. But recent changes in the health care system are making it increasingly difficult for rural hospitals to make ends meet. That’s true of both hospitals in Harper County, located along the Oklahoma border southwest of Wichita, where a long-standing rivalry is complicating efforts to find a solution. The rivalry between Anthony and Harper dates back more than a century. Harper Hospital’s chief financial officer, Sandra Owen, has lived in the county for 20 years — which means she’s still a newcomer. But she knows the story. (Thompson, 9/15)

The State Journal-Register: Health Care Payments Stopped For State Employees' Self-insured Plans
Citing the state budget impasse, an agency controlled by Gov. Bruce Rauner has stopped paying health-care claims for at least 146,000 state workers, retirees and their families receiving coverage through self-insured plans. However, payments to other health-care providers will continue, for the time being, on behalf of at least 158,000 patients covered by the state’s managed-care plans. Those plans are Health Alliance HMO, HMO Illinois, Blue Advantage and Coventry Health Care HMO. (Olsen, 9/15)

The Aurora Beacon-News: Some Early Intervention Service Providers In Danger Of Closing With No State Funding
The Nazimek children played with a speech and language pathology assistant on the floor of their Yorkville home on a recent morning, receiving services for speech and hearing deficits while they played. But the speech and language pathologist who oversaw those services, Paula Hamilton, says she will soon no longer be able to work with young children if [Illinois] does not pass a budget that provides funding for the services. Her company provides government-funded Early Intervention services to children with a variety of disabilities until they are 3 years old, and has not been paid since the fiscal year began July 1 without an approved state budget. (Freishtat, 9/15)

Los Angeles Times: Advocates Protest Latina Immigrant's Arrest At Texas Doctor's Office
Blanca Borrego has been living in the U.S. illegally for a dozen years, so she didn’t think she was risking arrest when she went to her gynecologist’s office this month. Her husband works and has private health insurance for the family. But sheriff’s deputies surprised the mother of three, handcuffing her in front of her 8-year-old, U.S.-born daughter and taking her to jail, where she was held in lieu of $35,000 bond. The charge: tampering with a government record, a felony. Borrego, 44, originally from Monterrey, Mexico, had given the staff at the clinic a fake Texas driver’s license as identification and they alerted deputies, who found a fake Social Security card in her purse, leading to the charges. ... She has no criminal record. County and hospital officials said they were simply enforcing the law. (Hennessy-Fiske, 9/15)

North Carolina Health News: Late-Entry Bill Would Loosen Sex Education Standards
A bill that would allow loosened standards for sexual and reproductive health education and could allow for the return of abstinence-only education in schools made it’s way through a House committee Tuesday and is headed to the floor of the House of Representatives. Senate Bill 279 originally created new standards for licensing counselors. But with new language added during the hearing, the bill could whittle away at some of the standards created under the 2009 Healthy Youth Act, which created a vetting process for sex education in North Carolina schools. (Hoban, 9/15)

Los Angeles Times: House Republicans' Obamacare Lawsuit Should Be Tossed Out
Just when it seemed the legal onslaught against the Affordable Care Act was over, another lawsuit against key provisions of the 2010 healthcare law has gained unexpected traction. Last week, a federal judge refused to dismiss a case brought by the House GOP majority, which alleged that the Obama administration damaged the House's constitutional prerogatives by spending money that Congress hadn't appropriated on health insurance subsidies. ... The courts have no business entertaining the House's lawsuit, which is really a political dispute gussied up to look like a constitutional fight over Congress' exclusive power to write laws and to spend money. (9/15)

Bloomberg: How HealthCare.gov Went So, So Wrong
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services inspector general has issued a new report on what went wrong with the Obamacare insurance exchanges. Or rather, one thing that went wrong: how the agency mismanaged the contracts so that they experienced significant cost overruns. You can take this report as a searing indictment of the agency and its contracting personnel. I took something rather different away from reading it: 1. The architects of the law were incredibly naïve. 2. Federal contracting rules are crazy. (Megan McArdle, 9/16)

The Washington Post's Volokh Conspiracy: 'King V. Burwell' And The Triumph Of Selective Contextualism
In King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court held that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) should be read to authorize tax credits for the purchase of health insurance in exchanges established by the federal government lest the ACA’s other reforms destabilize the individual health insurance market in states served by federal exchanges. In “King v. Burwell and the Triumph of Selective Constitutionalism,” Michael Cannon and I dissect the court’s reasoning in King, highlighting the court’s abandonment of textualist principles (as others have noted) and the court’s reliance on a highly selective use of context to support its ultimate conclusion. (Jonathan H. Adler, 9/15)

Bloomberg: Bernie Sanders Sounds Like A Republican
It's not particularly noteworthy that a presidential candidate should go to Liberty University, a conservative evangelical college, and deliver a tough critique of President Barack Obama's record. It is unusual when the critique is delivered by a Democratic candidate .... Even on health care, [Sen. Bernie] Sanders offered no credit to the Obama administration. He claimed that thousands of Americans die each year for lack of care, either because they have no insurance or have excessively high deductibles. If Obamacare had done anything to improve this situation, Sanders didn't think it worth mentioning. (Ramesh Ponnuru, 9/15)

The Washington Post: Yes, The Price Tag For Bernie Sanders’s ‘Vision’ Is Too High
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) has been able to spend the campaign season so far promising people lots of nice-sounding things: free college for everyone, larger Social Security checks, Medicare for all, less inequality. But the Wall Street Journal just estimated the total cost of his various promises, finding that Sanders favors $18 trillion in new government spending over 10 years. At some point, all big numbers sound alike, but don’t fall into that trap. Sanders’s $18 trillion far surpasses the boundaries of the budget debates we’ve been having over the past decade. (Stephen Stromberg, 9/15)

The Washington Post's The Plum Line: No, Bernie Sanders Is Not Going To Bankrupt America To The Tune Of $18 Trillion
And there’s another problem with that scary $18 trillion figure, which is what the [Wall Street] Journal says is the 10-year cost of Sanders’ ideas: fully $15 trillion of it comes not from an analysis of anything Sanders has proposed, but from the fact that Sanders has said he’d like to see a single-payer health insurance system, and there’s a single-payer plan in Congress that has been estimated to cost $15 trillion. Sanders hasn’t actually released any health care plan, so we have no idea what his might cost. (Paul Waldman, 9/15)

Los Angeles Times: How Louisiana Became Ground Zero For The Attack On Planned Parenthood
No organization in the United States has come under such sustained attack in recent months as Planned Parenthood, and no place has demonstrated the fundamental dishonesty and absurdity of that attack like Louisiana. The anti-Planned Parenthood campaign mounted by Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration has become the one-stop shop for everything you need to know about the politicization of women's reproductive health rights. (Michael Hiltzik, 9/15)

Los Angeles Times: Why Adding Family Leave Could Save The GOP's Bill To Ban Abortion After 20 Weeks
A GOP-sponsored bill — the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act — which would ban abortion beyond 20 weeks except in cases of rape or when the life of the mother is at risk, has already passed in the House of Representatives. The Senate is expected to vote on it this month, perhaps timed to coincide with the arrival in the U.S. of Pope Francis. The act ought to be a shoe-in: According to a 2013 Washington Post-ABC News poll 64% of Americans support restricting abortion beyond 20 weeks. Perhaps counterintuitively, women are more likely to support it than men, and younger people more than older people. (Charles C. Camosy, 9/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Let’s Talk About The Racial Disparity In Abortions
But if we are destined for an autumn abortion row, Republicans might use the opportunity to educate voters on the fallout from Roe v. Wade and press Democrats on their commitment to President Bill Clinton’s notion that abortion should to be “safe, legal and rare.” Terminating an unwanted pregnancy has been lawful for decades and, statistically, is one of the safest surgical procedures for women in the U.S. But “rare”? Well, the U.S. abortion rate has declined somewhat steadily since the late 1980s, yet the rate for black women is nearly five times higher than the white rate and well above the national average. (Jason L. Riley, 9/15)

Los Angeles Times: How The 'Right To Die' Bill Made It To A Vote Was Wrong, But Brown Should Sign It Anyway
State lawmakers shouldn't have subverted their own rules to allow a “right to die” bill to pass Friday during a special session on healthcare for the poor. Nevertheless, Gov. Jerry Brown should sign it, no matter what he thinks about how it reached his desk. The process stunk, as the worst kind of sausage making does. The right-to-die proposal, which would allow terminally ill patients to hasten death along if they can't endure the pain or discomfort, stalled in committee during the regular session, only to be repackaged into a new bill for the special session on healthcare. It was an obvious charade. We didn't approve of this tactic and said it would be preferable to return to the issue next year. (9/15)

Los Angeles Times: Gov. Brown, Sign The Medical Marijuana Bills
Nearly 20 years after voters legalized medical marijuana, California lawmakers have finally passed legislation to regulate the growth and distribution of cannabis for patients' use. In the final hours of their session last week, legislators passed three bills that together establish a system to license, test and track medical marijuana from "seed to sale." Gov. Jerry Brown, who helped craft the deal, should not only sign the bills into law, but he should stay focused on ensuring their smooth, effective implementation. (9/15)