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Remember all the mockery, from the media and White House, when House Republicans sued President Obama for rewriting ObamaCare without proper legislative authority? Well, what do you know, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that the House has legal standing to sue and pursue the case on the merits. (9/9)

Judge Rosemary Collyer of the federal district court for the District of Columbia entered an order refusing to dismiss the complaint of the House of Representatives in House v. Burwell. ... she refused to dismiss the central claim — that the administration is illegally, indeed unconstitutionally, paying out billions of dollars to insurance companies that are reducing cost-sharing for low-income marketplace plan enrollees, as the insurers are required to do under the Affordable Care Act. ... The case will certainly be decided ultimately by the D.C. Circuit, perhaps by the Supreme Court. In the meantime, however, insurers that participate in the marketplaces will be subject to considerable uncertainty, and if there is anything that health insurance markets do not need now, it is uncertainty. (Timothy Jost, 9/10)

After September 11, volunteers from all corners of the United States came to ground zero. These men and women stepped forward to confront the horror of that day for days, weeks and months to come. Killed on 9/11 were 2,977 men, women and children, and the wounds our nation suffered will never be forgotten. The victims we forget are those first responders who still suffer serious health problems — like respiratory illnesses and cancers caused by toxins and carcinogens inhaled at the terror sites. Many of those first responders who suffer in silence today are right here in Illinois. (Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., 9/9)

Several states have passed laws allowing terminally ill people to commit suicide with help from a physician, and more states are considering it. Some nations, though, have gone further, by permitting such assistance to people with serious, nonfatal, health problems, even severe depression. Is that a dangerous step on a slippery slope toward euthanasia, or an appropriate way to help people who suffer unbearably? Should some people who are not dying be permitted assistance in killing themselves? (9/10)

Each year, almost 90 percent of the 30 million kids 18 years or younger who end up in the Emergency Department are treated in general community hospitals. Unfortunately, many emergency rooms are not equipped well enough to treat children, and doctors and nurses there may not have training in pediatric care. EDs which cared for 14 children or less per day, had a median weighted pediatric readiness score of only 69, out of a 100 point scale. The median score jumped to 90 for EDs which cared for more than 27 children per day, according to the results of a national assessment of 4,000 U.S. hospitals on the readiness of their pediatric EDs published in JAMA Pediatrics earlier this summer. (Hazel Guinto-Ocampo, 9/10)