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If we act [to expand Medicaid] now, we can expect to bring in $1 billion in new federal health care dollars over the next six years, and save more than $100 million in state general funds. Medicaid expansion also means up to 4,000 new jobs. ... This is an opportunity to help our friends and neighbors who may be forced to choose between life-saving medical treatment and bankruptcy. This is a chance to do something for those who cannot work because they’re sick — and can’t afford to see a doctor, because they aren't able to work. By helping people escape these terrible binds, this is an opportunity to strengthen the fabric of our communities. (Alaska Gov. Bill Walker, 7/16)

On Thursday morning, Gov. Bill Walker announced Alaska will become the 30th state to accept Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. The governor’s unilateral move, taken after the Legislature declined to act during their regular session and two special sessions called afterward, won’t likely win him friends in the Alaska House and Senate majority caucuses. But providing a health care option for 20,000 of the state’s most at-risk residents is worth taking some political heat. (7/17)

Arguments for and against expansion in Alaska were similar to those heard in other red states where this issue has been debated. But the politics underlying the debate are what really drives the decision–and those dynamics are unique to each state. Because each state’s politics are so different, when you have seen one state’s Medicaid expansion saga you have seen just that: one state’s Medicaid expansion saga. In Alaska, the debate involved a confrontation between an independent governor who made Medicaid expansion a top priority and a Republican-controlled legislature and influential committee chairman who opposed him. A role was also played by a Koch brothers-funded group working to oppose Medicaid expansion across the country. (Drew Altman, 7/16)

Healthy children come from healthy families. That’s why providing health insurance for parents has numerous benefits for children and, conversely, leaving those parents uninsured puts children at risk. A report released this week by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families shows that using federal Medicaid dollars earmarked for North Carolina to close the state’s coverage gap would provide health insurance coverage for over 125,000 parents, laying the foundation for better life and health outcomes for our state’s children. (Michelle Hughes and Joan Alker, 7/16)

One result of the Obama era is that big government and big business are often conjoined twins. For the latest proof, the health insurance industry has hired its ex-chief regulator and patron as its new chief lobbyist. This week America’s Health Insurance Plans announced that Marilyn Tavenner will be the trade group’s new CEO. (7/16)

Americans who purchase health insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges should buckle up. Within the month, state regulators will begin approving premium hikes for plans sold in every state. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has already released the premium increases that health insurers have requested for their 2016 plans. By law, insurers must receive regulatory approval for any increase more than 10%—and more than 10% is what many of them want. (Stephen T. Parente, 7/16)

Democrats were naturally declared the big winners of last month’s King v. Burwell Supreme Court decision. That ruling, after all, saved the party’s most significant legislative accomplishment in decades: The Affordable Care Act (ACA). But Obamacare has not simply been an ideological victory for the Democratic Party. The percentage of Democrats with health insurance has increased dramatically since the ACA’s marketplace went online in October 2013, according to weekly surveys conducted by YouGov for the Economist. In fact, the display below suggests that Democrats’ uninsured rates have essentially been cut in half under Obamacare. (Michael Tesler, 7/16)

At first, it seemed like an Internet hoax. A doctor, over a glass of wine and a salad, coldly describes the extraction and monetization of fetal body parts. Surely this is some kind of sick parody. But it is not a hoax. It is Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, Deborah Nucatola, caught in a sting video by an antiabortion group. Planned Parenthood’s reaction essentially confirmed the conversation as genuine, but insisted that it concerned the extraction of tissue for scientific research “under the highest ethical and legal standards.” (Michael Gerson, 7/16)

The Food and Drug Administration has been regulating the approval of medical devices since 1976, but its regulatory oversight has not kept pace with the increasing complexity of this technology. Many high-risk medical devices today are approved on the basis of just one clinical trial (as opposed to new medications, which usually require two trials). And only a small minority of clinical studies of medical devices are randomized, controlled and blinded — the gold standard for reliable evidence (and the benchmark to which studies of drugs are held). (Rita F. Redberg and Sanket S. Dhruva, 7/17)

Is genetically engineered food dangerous? Many people seem to think it is. ... Hundreds of organizations ... are demanding “mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods.” ... The World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have all declared that there’s no good evidence GMOs are unsafe. Hundreds of studies back up that conclusion. But many of us don’t trust these assurances. ... I’ve spent much of the past year digging into the evidence. Here’s what I’ve learned. First, it’s true that the issue is complicated. But the deeper you dig, the more fraud you find in the case against GMOs. (William Saletan, 7/15)

In ruling that the 14th Amendment requires states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Obergefell vs. Hodges, not only addressed a fundamental issue of equality, but may have unwittingly contributed to improved public health. Consider the research devoted to the health of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) populations. A growing body of work shows that their health is worse on multiple levels than the health of comparable majority populations. This work reflects a key foundation of public health that I have discussed previously: Context plays an ineluctable role in shaping the health of populations. (Sandro Galea, 7/15)

Since 2000, there has been a 58 percent drop in new [HIV] infections of infants, Unaids, the United Nations AIDS-fighting agency, announced this week. In 2000, only 1 million people worldwide took the antiretrovirals that make having H.I.V. a chronic condition rather than a death sentence. Today, 15 million do. ... Mothers and babies are now living because lifesaving drugs now reach far more of the world’s poorest mothers. Also, countries have adopted new medical protocols that better protect both mother and child. But for hundreds of thousands of women so far, there has been another difference — they have been helped by Teresa Njeri and other H.I.V.-positive mothers. (Tina Rosenberg,7/16)