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It’s one of the most important economic questions today: Is the snail-like growth of health costs over the last several years a real trend, or is it merely a temporary part of the Great Recession’s aftermath? The data experts who compile the government’s official numbers on health spending lean toward the more pessimistic view. (David Leonhardt, 12/5)

Here’s a dirty little secret about recent attempts to fix ObamaCare. The “reforms,” approved by Senate and House leaders this summer and set to advance in the next Congress, adopt many of the Medicare payment reforms already in the Affordable Care Act. Both favor the consolidation of previously independent doctors into salaried roles inside larger institutions, usually tied to a central hospital, in effect ending independent medical practices. Republicans must embrace a different vision to this forced reorganization of how medicine is practiced in America if they want to offer an alternative to ObamaCare. (Scott Gottlieb, 12/7)

For the apparent crime of wearing a hoodie in public, an 18-year-old black man was approached by a sheriff’s deputy in Stafford County four and a half years ago. A caller had reported that the man, sitting on the grass across the street from an elementary school, might be armed. As it turned out, the suspicion was unfounded; the man, Reginald Latson, who has an IQ of 69, was doing nothing more than waiting for a public library to open its doors. (12/7)

It is unlikely that a majority of Virginia lawmakers will suddenly have an epiphany in the upcoming legislative session and move to expand Medicaid coverage to more low-income, uninsured Virginians. ... Nevertheless, few days pass without an opportunity to reflect on the folly of that resistance, and the harm that such partisan intransigence has on working class people across the commonwealth. (12/8)

Wyoming is negotiating with the Obama administration to draw down federal dollars to provide affordable, private health insurance to its low-income citizens who earn too little to qualify for premium assistance under the Affordable Care Act. ... And it’s not just Wyoming’s Republican Gov. Matt Mead who wants to pull down federal dollars to close its state health insurance coverage gap. The Republican governors in Indiana, Tennessee and Utah are also negotiating with the White House. ... So what about South Carolina’s coverage gap that has swallowed up over 200,000 of our low-income citizens? Over half of these uninsured are working. Nearly 10,000 are veterans. Forty-seven thousand are between the ages of 50 and 64. (Frank Knapp Jr., 12/7)

[W]hen it came to getting the zealots in Florida's House of Representatives to consider health care expansion, only one strategy was ever going to make sense: Playing the fiscal responsibility card. It is the bullet they can't easily dodge. The argument they are powerless to ignore. And that simple reality seems to be the driving force behind a new bipartisan group called A Healthy Florida Works. This statewide coalition recently unveiled a plan to use billions of dollars in federal funds — money our state Legislature has foolishly refused — to help nearly 800,000 low-income residents purchase health insurance. (John Romano, 12/6)

A stolen credit card can be canceled, as Jim Routh, Aetna's chief information security officer, pointed out. Erasing traces of your medical history once it's online, though, is much harder. What's troubling is that despite the volume of sensitive data health-care companies hold, they lack the robust security you might expect. A multitude of companies make up the health-care ecosystem -- providers, payers, pharmaceutical and medical-device makers and diagnostic laboratories -- and they have varying levels of security expertise. (Katie Benner, 12/5)