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Say conservatives have their way with Obamacare, and the Supreme Court deals it a death blow or a Republican president repeals it in 2017. Some people who got health insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act may lose it. In which case, liberals like to say, some of Obamacare’s beneficiaries may die. ... If these are the stakes, many liberals argue, then ending Obamacare is immoral. Except, it’s not. In a world of scarce resources, a slightly higher mortality rate is an acceptable price to pay for certain goals — including more cash for other programs, such as those that help the poor; less government coercion and more individual liberty; more health-care choice for consumers, (Michael R. Strain, 1/23)

In theory, Republicans are desperate to destroy the Affordable Care Act and take insurance and related benefits from millions. GOP lawmakers in Congress have demonstrated their commitment to this goal with literally dozens of votes to repeal “Obamacare.” But these efforts generally come with an important caveat: they’re hollow. Republicans know these efforts won’t become law, at least not anytime soon, so it’s all for show .... When the debate is less theoretical and more practical, Republican bravado isn’t quite so effortless. Take yesterday, for example, where Arkansas’ new GOP governor was weighing whether to kill the state’s Medicaid expansion policy. ( Steve Benen, 1/23)

For the better part of a year, the worlds of health-care finance and health-care politics have been scandalized by the specialty drug called Sovaldi. The $84,000 cost for a course of treatment of this hepatitis-C cure was said to reveal that pharmaceutical prices were irrational or abusive; that markets were helpless to respond; and that, absent government intercession, this new wave of complex biological therapies would bankrupt the nation. Then, this winter, all of a sudden, discipline and competition arrived. (Joseph Rego, 1/23)

I was diagnosed with cancer after giving birth to my third child. The tumor had grown especially large thanks to my body’s hormones that had been growing my baby. The medical community helped my disease, but could not help my despair. Then, five years after cancer -- and just after I finished my first triathlon -- I developed heart, liver and lung failure. My body was overtaken by damage from earlier cancer treatments. I remember one day vividly; I sat crying in my oncologist’s office after not being able to sleep for many nights, with wild mood swings, profuse sweating and persistent panic attacks. My doctor told me, “Well, at least we saved your life.” As if that was all I could hope for as I began to recover. He may well have said: “You’re alive. Be happy. Go away.” Who would save my mind? (Cindy Finch, 1/24)

Vaccines have done more than any other medical innovation to save lives and improve health. Yet the persistent and incorrect belief by a minority of parents that vaccines are more dangerous than beneficial is undermining those advances in the U.S. and parts of Europe. The challenge is how to protect communities against disease when some people won’t take part in public health measures that need everyone’s participation to be effective. (Makiko Kitamura,1/26)

The Martin Luther King challenge of economic justice is an important element in the so-called debate about Medicaid expansion in Montana. ... In this wealthiest nation in the world, part of the “fatigue of despair” he spoke of relates to the current inability of working families to afford to keep their families healthy. Uninsured families inhabit the emergency rooms of the system, if they seek healthcare at all. Preventative care is almost unheard of. ... If we believe that we should secure economic justice for all Montanans, then providing medical insurance options for the “last and the least” is the minimum of what we should do. (Evan Barrett, 1/26)

Karen Kelley has tried to kill herself several times, but she does not want to die. There was one way for her to get the mental health care that she desperately needed, even if it meant attempting suicide. Psychiatric hospital beds and treatment center slots are severely limited for the mentally ill, unless one poses a danger to herself or someone else. Kelley is one of many who suffers mental illness and can’t find help. One in five Americans experienced a mental illness last year. (Diane Bigler, 1/23)