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With the Supreme Court due to rule on a major ObamaCare legal challenge by next summer, thoughts in Washington are turning to the practical and political response. If the Court does strike down insurance subsidies, the question for Republicans running Congress is whether they will try to fix the problems Democrats created, or merely allow ObamaCare’s damage to grow. (12/14)

The opponents of the Affordable Care Act have filed another long-shot lawsuit that could undermine health care reform and force many consumers to pay more for health insurance if the suit succeeds. ... The new suit, filed late last month by the Republican-dominated House, aims to block another important subsidy: federal payments to insurance companies to keep deductibles, co-payments and other cost-sharing low for the poor. The Affordable Care Act specifies the maximum amounts people will have to pay in cost-sharing based on their incomes, and federal subsidies make up the rest. If the government is blocked from reimbursing insurers for the subsidies, the insurers will have to absorb the costs. But companies might well raise their premiums for everyone else in the individual market to recoup the loss. (12/12)

Underscoring how much mischief can result when Congress acts in haste and in secret, hidden away in the year-end omnibus spending bill being acted on this week is an attack on a key provision of the Affordable Care Act long targeted by the GOP. The provision involves risk corridors, which are designed to stabilize insurance premiums in the first few years of the law. The year-end spending bill, which was passed by the House on Thursday and is now before the Senate, quietly erodes funding for the provision. Republicans have chosen to label the provision a "bailout" for insurance companies. I've labeled that position the most cynical attack on Obamacare, because those who advance it -- notably Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) -- obviously know it's a lie. They know it's actually a consumer protection feature. (Michael Hiltzik, 12/12)

Has the monster of exploding health costs finally been slain? After five years of slow spending growth, it’s tempting to think so. This would be a momentous development, because rising health spending has had damaging side effects. It has reduced workers’ take-home pay, as employers devoted more compensation dollars to insurance and fewer to wages and salaries. Growing government health spending (mainly through Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor) has had a similar effect. It has squeezed other public programs. (Robert J. Samuelson, 12/14)

If we have learned anything from the Ebola epidemic, it’s that managing and treating infectious disease globally and at home is a continual commitment — not just the latest issue in the news cycle. As we search for a vaccine, rapid diagnostic test or wonder drug, the best-known strategy is still containment and access to adequate healthcare resources. The chink in our infectious-disease armor is preparedness and training, not the lack of a blockbuster drug. The White House’s recent Emergency Funding Request to Enhance the U.S. Government’s Response to Ebola would provide $6.2 billion. Given what we have learned, we must demand that Congress be a good steward of this money and ensure it is directed toward solutions that can end the Ebola outbreak now — while improving surveillance and rapid response to prevent outbreaks in the future. (Bill Frist, 12/12)

Utah ought to not accept federal funds to expand Medicaid to their low-income residents. Gov. Herbert has had a tough time convincing the Legislature to accept any form of Medicaid expansion. In response, this week he officially announced his much-anticipated plan titled "Healthy Utah" that seeks to retain state control of federal funding. The governor’s plan, however, makes the faulty assumption that such federal funding even exists in the first place. (Ryan M. Yonk and Megan Hansen, 12/13)

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambitious plan for cutting the number of mentally ill people in New York’s jails will require a great deal of ingenuity and a big shift in priorities by the police, the courts, and social service and housing agencies. If the effort succeeds, it will improve the lives of mentally ill people by getting them treatment and places to live instead of locking them into the “frequent flier” syndrome, in which they are repeatedly jailed for minor offenses, even when they present no threat to public safety. (12/12)

In a clinical assessment that could have implications for the United States, Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has concluded that it is safer for healthy women with uncomplicated pregnancies to give birth under the supervision of midwives than in a hospital maternity ward run by doctors. The reason: Doctors are much more likely than midwives to use interventions like forceps deliveries, spinal anesthesia and cesarean sections — procedures that carry risks of infection and surgical accidents. (12/14)