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Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton brought down the hammer on drug makers last week, promising to “take on” drug companies that charge Americans the highest prices in the world for drugs developed in part with government funds. ... That just raises the question: What could she do as president? And could she do it by herself, without congressional approval?The answer may well be yes. (Michael Hiltzik, 8/24)

Unfortunately, Mr. Trump, 70, has taken the same nondisclosure stance on his health records as he has on his taxes, asserting there is nothing to hide while hiding everything. Ms. Clinton, by contrast, has released some test results, which, as far as they go, indicate good health. That hasn’t stopped Mr. Giuliani from trading in scurrilous and debunked theories about the Democratic candidate. Come to think of it, he should see a doctor. (8/25)

The best argument for a single-payer health care plan is the recent decision by giant health insurer Aetna to bail out next year from 11 of the 15 states where it sells Obamacare plans. Aetna’s decision follows similar moves by UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, and by Humana, another one of the giants.All claim they’re not making enough money because too many people with serious health problems are using the Obamacare exchanges, and not enough healthy people are signing up. The problem isn’t Obamacare per se. It lies in the structure of private markets for health insurance, which creates powerful incentives to avoid sick people and attract healthy ones. Obamacare is just making this structural problem more obvious. (Robert Reich, 8/24)

Gov. Rick Scott has worked hard to keep the spread of the Zika virus in the news and on Floridians' minds. He has visited affected areas, held roundtables with local health officials and bashed Congress for failing to approve funding to deal with the outbreak. And yet the governor and the Florida Department of Health consistently refuse to release basic information. Now Scott's omission du jour hits home: He won't say where in Pinellas County a locally transmitted case of Zika has been confirmed. A public health scare is no time to leave out the details. Scott needs to provide residents with basic information to ease their concerns, not withhold information and spread apprehension. (8/24)

Imagine your mom has a stroke. Once she is stabilized, she is sent to a skilled nursing facility for rehab. Then she goes home and gets some home health care and additional physical therapy. Medicare may pay, but for how long? For many years, that was decided by the “improvement standard.” In other words, as long as this care helped mom become more mobile or improve her speech, Medicare would pay at least some of the cost (up to a maximum of 100 days per spell of illness). But once she stopped getting better, Medicare would stop paying. To the surprise of many, the improvement standard was an urban myth. (Howard Gleckman, 8/24)

Last year, Gov. Terry Branstad’s spokesman told The Des Moines Register the governor believed Obamacare “is unaffordable, unsustainable and creates too much uncertainty for Iowans. The implementation of this law has been flawed from the very beginning.” Oh, the irony. Iowans currently are mired in the disaster of the Medicaid privatization plan Branstad foisted upon the state this spring. (8/24)

The dire straits of Kentucky’s fiscal situation vis-à-vis its expanding Medicaid program has gotten much attention lately. It is fair to say that the rest of the Commonwealth’s budget was cut to make room for Medicaid’s anticipated needs. The growth in the portion of the budget for Medicaid benefits funded by General Fund tax revenue over the next two years is over half the amount of new General Fund revenue forecast to be collected over the same period. However, it is unfair either to claim this is necessary, or to blame this solely on Medicaid expansion. Like most states, Kentucky levies taxes and fees on health care providers to help fund Medicaid and relieve the burden on the rest of the state’s revenue sources. However, Kentucky’s funding from these sources, called restricted funds, has fallen off as a percentage of expenditures to roughly half of what it was a decade ago. (Justin Tapp, 8/24)

My 10 years of holding public office has taught me to expect surprises. However, I was completely surprised — actually shocked — to learn that a Cole County prosecutor had suggested I’d been the victim of the group of clergy protesters known as the “Medicaid 23.” When the protesters began their chants in the Senate gallery, I was on the floor filibustering a separate but similar attack on working people. The truth is, prosecution of the protesters was nothing more than the latest politically motivated smokescreen aimed at preventing what they, I and so many other Missourians are fighting for: Medicaid expansion across our state. (Jamilah Nasheed, 8/24)

The U.S. House recently passed H.R. 2646 to make the federal government accountable, on an outcomes basis, for the $130 billion spent annually on mental-health treatment. Multiple mental-health organizations and media outlets, including The Seattle Times, support the bill, called the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act. The U.S. Senate is expected to pass similar legislation. ... People with mental illnesses range from well-functioning individuals to those with severe disabilities. The role of government is to serve as a safety net and to help dysfunctional, impaired people who may do harm to themselves or others. (Roger Stark, 8/23)

The genius in Beckers’ company’s innovation is that its practical applications extend far beyond analyzing blood flow. His team has created a new platform for patient evaluation, analysis and treatment based on artificial intelligence and deep learning, which could one day help treat brain damage, cancer and other major illnesses. It could also be used to detect and prevent possible future illness as the visualization, data aggregation and predictive capabilities improve daily. The bigger the database, the better the results. ... I can't help but wonder what would have happened if Fabien [Beckers] had been forced to leave the U.S. Other countries don't have the capital investment pool or willingness to invest in risky ventures. His efforts may never have been funded. (Gary Shapiro, 8/24)