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House Republicans are considering small-bore changes to ObamaCare even as they prepare to release an outline for replacing the entire law. The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Friday held a hearing on five bills that would make relatively small changes to the health law, such as changing the documentation required to enroll in coverage or changing how insurers can use someone's age in setting premiums. The moves indicate that Republicans have not ruled out making adjustments to the existing law despite preperations to tout their long-awaited replacement plan for all of ObamaCare, coming from Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) task force later this month. (Sullivan, 6/10)

Millions of people who pay the full cost of their health insurance will face the sting of rising premiums next year, with no financial help from government subsidies. Renewal notices bearing the bad news will go out this fall, just as the presidential election is in the homestretch. "I don't know if I could swallow another 30 or 40 percent without severely cutting into other things I'm trying to do, like retirement savings or reducing debt," said Bob Byrnes, of Blaine, Minnesota, a Twin Cities suburb. His monthly premium of $524 is already about 50 percent more than he was paying in 2015, and he has a higher deductible. (6/13)

Six years after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, the health reform law has gained acceptance from a majority of California voters, but the cost of getting healthcare remains a major concern, eclipsing worries about having insurance, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. The widespread worry about costs indicates a potential shift in the debate over healthcare, at least in this heavily Democratic state. (Lauter, 6/10)

About 1,000 health care economists from around the country descend on Philadelphia this week for the biennial conference of the American Society of Health Economists. (Gorenstein, 6/10)

“I really felt like the roof had caved in on me,” Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. said the other day, recalling the low point of his five years as the Obama administration’s top appellate lawyer. Mr. Verrilli, 58, is preparing to step down from the job this month after a tenure that included 37 Supreme Court arguments and a string of major victories on behalf of a Democratic president facing a court dominated by conservative justices. But the scathing reviews of his most important Supreme Court argument, in the 2012 case challenging the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care law, still sting. (Liptak, 6/11)