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The catastrophic ObamaCare rollout merely two years ago has disappeared into the distant political past, forgotten, with zero accountability for the taxpayer waste and disruption to individuals and business. Massachusetts may prove to be an exception. Late last week the administration of Republican Governor Charlie Baker confirmed that the FBI and U.S. Attorney for Boston have subpoenaed records related to the commonwealth’s “connector” dating to 2010. This insurance clearinghouse was Mitt Romney’s 2006 beta version for ObamaCare’s exchanges, but updating the connector to comply with the far more complex federal law became a fiasco rivaling any of the other federal and state ObamaCare failures. (5/10)

For all this, however, narrow networks are accepted within healthcare as a key to holding costs down. Most patients appear to be content with the tradeoff -- lower prices, less doctor choice. Surveys have shown that most new enrollees are happy with their healthcare -- more than 70% rating their coverage and quality of care "excellent" or "good" in a Gallup poll. A Commonwealth Fund survey in mid-2014 found more than 60% of the previously uninsured said they were "better off" than before with their coverage. For all the hue and cry in recent years about whether Obamacare enrollees could "keep their doctor" or "keep their hospital," relatively few people actually have "a doctor" they see consistently over years, and fewer have "a hospital" they go to for their care. (Michael Hiltzik, 5/8)

When the Affordable Care Act and its insurance plans made their disastrous debut on the Internet nearly two years ago, the last thing journalists might’ve expected was an offer from President Obama’s health-care secretary to drop by the newsroom for an in-person briefing on how things were going. But memories of the massive 2013 crash of the healthcare.gov website are fading, and the legislation known as “Obamacare” is settling into the fabric of the nation’s health-care system. (5/10)

Do government efforts to support low-income families work? Since the War on Poverty in the 1960s, skeptics have argued that even if these programs provide temporary relief, the only long-term impact is increased dependency — witness, they say, the persistent lack of mobility in places like inner-city Baltimore. But a growing body of research tells a very different story. ... Receiving Medicaid in childhood makes it substantially more likely that a child will graduate from high school and complete college and less likely that an African-American child will die in his late teens or be hospitalized at 25. For women, Medicaid participation in childhood is associated with increased earnings. (Jason Furman, 5/11)

Under the misnamed Affordable Care Act, the federal government covers the entire added cost of raising eligibility from 100 percent to 138 percent of poverty-level income for three years. Then a state’s share of that extra expense rises in increments to a maximum of 10 percent. ... So why shouldn’t South Carolina expand Medicaid, too? Again, because there’s no such thing as “free” health care — and because while a state’s eventual 10 percent might not sound like much, even if the share stays that low (don’t count on it), that would still rise to a considerable expense in an expanded program. As for overwrought charges that it’s “immoral” not to vastly expand Medicaid, ponder Medicare’s financial prognosis. Barring costly and apparently politically untenable reforms, it’s bound for a disaster with consequences far beyond that unsustainable entitlement behemoth. (5/11)

As the state stares down the barrel of perhaps a $4 billion budget deficit, it is beyond baffling that anybody -- even a liberal clinging desperately to freebie medical care as some sort of talismanic human right -- could justify adding even one person to Alaska’s Medicaid rolls, much less 40,000, as Gov. Bill Walker wants. Walker is hectoring Republican lawmakers at every turn to expand a program already plagued by fraud, abuse and lack of controls. It must be reformed simply to survive -- much less be expanded. Forget the touchy-feely nonsense the left is peddling. Alaska cannot afford Medicaid expansion. (Paul Jenkins, 5/9)

Given the hard feelings in the Legislature over the failure to complete a budget during this year’s regular session, we offer a modest hope for the upcoming special session: that lawmakers can engage in an honest discussion about Medicaid expansion and the Affordable Care Act. They owe at least that much to the people of Florida. Until this year, the very mention of “Obamacare” ignited a knee-jerk rejection of the law among the Legislature’s Republican leaders. They refused to consider the benefits that federal law bestows on eligible citizens who need health insurance. The result has been a callous denial of Medicaid services to 850,000 uncovered Floridians. (5/9)

Refusing to expand Medicaid may look reflexively anti-Obama and hardhearted, but Republicans say it’s a matter of fiscal responsibility. They say that Medicaid’s annual costs are prone to unpredictable surges and that its overall rate of increase means it will soon crowd out the state’s ability to meet its other obligations. But the Medicaid monster is a myth. A new analysis by the nonprofit Medicaid management organization Community Care of North Carolina found the health care program to be a steady expense. It’s expensive, yes, but it does a lot to improve the health of a vulnerable population and may well head off more expensive medical costs that would inflate premiums for everyone. (Ned Barnett, 5/9)

Most people are entirely unaware of Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act, colloquially referred to as Obamacare. That’s not surprising; the public can’t be expected to know all the particulars of a 1,000-page law. But Trish Riley, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy, noted that “you would be hard pressed to find a state that doesn't know what Section 1332 is.” That’s because Section 1332, known as the “state innovation” provision, allows individual states a great deal of flexibility in how they use revenue appropriated for Obamacare and, as Riley describes it, “provides some opportunity for taking the rough edges” off the controversial law. (5/8)

When California lawmakers created the CURES database to fight prescription drug abuse, they left out an important piece. Although pharmacists were required to list in the database any customers who received potentially dangerous and addictive drugs, doctors weren't required to check those records before prescribing more pills. State Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) has a bill that would finally require doctors to do what they should have been doing all along. His colleagues should pass it. (5/8)

Doctors have many tests and procedures to choose from when treating you. But is it possible to have too much of a good thing? (Allen Kachalia and Sanjay Saint, 5/10)

National media coverage of health care policy and innovation in North Carolina often focuses on the most dramatic headlines. There’s the ongoing battle over whether to expand Medicaid coverage here, for example, and a recent “60 Minutes” report on Duke University researchers using an altered polio virus to shrink brain tumors. Below the radar, however, other ground-breaking initiatives are under way with the potential to transform health and wellness in our state – and change the conversation about best practices nationally. (Christopher Gergen and Stephen Martin, 5/9)

Imagine you're a parent of a dying child in desperate need of a lung, kidney, or heart transplant and you're told by callous hospital administrators that, because of a physical infirmity or intellectual handicap, your loved one has been rejected for the life-saving surgical procedure. That dreadful scenario was experienced by Karen Corby of Pottsville, when she was informed by doctors at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania that her son Paul was refused a life-saving slot on the heart-transplant list because of his intellectual disability. Paul was found to have left ventricular non-compaction five years ago. His only hope is a heart transplant. (Cronin and Sabatina, 5/10)

Everyone knows that hot pink stands for breast cancer. The second-leading cause of cancer death among women has given rise to perhaps the most effective anti-cancer campaign in U.S. history. But widespread public awareness hasn’t tamped down misperceptions about breast cancer and how it operates. (Paige Winfield Cunningham, 5/8)

On Saturday, the World Health Organization declared Liberia to be Ebola-free, recognizing that there had been no new cases since the end of March. While its neighbors Sierra Leone and Guinea still wrestle with this virologic demon, this is a moment for reflection and cautious optimism in Liberia. The world must ensure that what happened in Liberia never happens again — there, or anywhere. (Judith Rodin and Bernice Dahn, 5/10)