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So, about those [Senate and House GOP] budgets: both claim drastic reductions in federal spending. Some of those spending reductions are specified: There would be savage cuts in food stamps, similarly savage cuts in Medicaid over and above reversing the recent expansion, and an end to Obamacare’s health insurance subsidies. Rough estimates suggest that either plan would roughly double the number of Americans without health insurance. But both also claim more than a trillion dollars in further cuts to mandatory spending, which would almost surely have to come out of Medicare or Social Security. What form would these further cuts take? We get no hint. (Paul Krugman, 3/20)

House and Senate Republicans say their budget proposals add up. It takes some creative math and logic to make that true. The budget plans unveiled this week call for the U.S. government to collect about $2 trillion in taxes in the next decade that Republicans have little or no intention of collecting. Some of that revenue would come straight from taxes to pay for the Affordable Care Act — which they want to repeal. (Richard Rubin, Erik Wasson and Heidi Przybyla, 3/20)

One of the perks of my job as governor is health insurance. For those of us who have insurance, it’s easy to forget what it’s like for the thousands of Alaskans who do not. They are one mishap away from financial ruin. Medical debt is now the top cause of personal bankruptcy filings in the U.S. No one should have to choose between life-saving care and losing their home. ... Medicaid coverage will enable Alaskans to get the care they need to join or stay in the workforce. It will help those coming out of prison get substance abuse treatment and stay out of trouble. It will reduce medical costs for all of us by reducing the amount of care hospitals provide that no one pays for. And it will pump millions of federal dollars into Alaska’s economy at a time when we can surely use it. (Gov. Bill Walker, 3/19)

Liberals are lobbying the Supreme Court to uphold ObamaCare’s illegal subsidies by claiming Republicans won’t fix any resulting problems. This claim is political, not legal, but it is also likely wrong. In recent months the GOP has made more intellectual progress on health care than any period since ObamaCare passed. The question is whether the GOP can cohere around a reform alternative before the High Court rules in June, or repeat its recent dysfunction. (3/19)

Some Americans have already got a taste of what President Obama’s fondness for government by mandate means. Before it won its Supreme Court case, the crafts chain Hobby Lobby was faced with fines of $1.3 million for every day it refused to obey the contraceptive mandate. This year, with the April 15 tax deadline approaching, many young and healthy Americans who have disobeyed the Obama mandate to buy health insurance from the government’s limited menu are going to have to deal with the IRS. (3/19)

My 2014 William Brennan lecture on NFIB v. Sebelius and its implications for the ongoing debate over constitutional federalism is now available on SSRN. ... But people can reasonably argue that the recent debate over federalism issues in King v. Burwell calls into question my conclusion that the debate over constitutional federalism is ideologically polarized and likely to remain that way for some time to come, with most conservatives and libertarians arguing for relatively strong judicial enforcement of federalism and most liberals arguing for little or none. (Ilya Somin, 3/19)

The average cost of developing a single new drug has reached $2.6 billion, according to a 2014 study by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. Is this figure accurate? It depends who you ask: Critics of the drug industry say companies use the expense numbers to justify high prices. But drug companies defend the estimates. (Gary Pisano, 3/19)