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Across the country, countless workers in the nail salon industry, mainly immigrant women, toil in misery and ill health for meager pay, usually with no overtime, abused by employers who show little or no consideration for their safety and well-being. It is a world of long days and toxic chemicals, where the usual protections of government have failed, at all levels. (5/11)

Republicans have already signaled (as the Plum Line’s Greg Sargent detailed) that their basic strategy will be to pass something combining the one-page fix (probably with a time limit set after the 2016 election) with some partial repeal of Obamacare, and then dare the president to veto it. The first question is if they can even get that far. Few if any Democrats would vote for a bill that combines, say, the restoration of subsidies with the repeal of the individual mandate. Some Republicans, on the other hand, would prefer chaos, even if they take the blame, to anything that could be interpreted as support for (or, worse, “saving”) Obamacare. And then, as Karl Rove points out, even those who want to follow the hostage-taking strategy can't agree on the demands to make. (Jonathan Bernstein, 5/11)

In Utah, Indiana, Arkansas, and several other states, conservative governors or legislatures want to make work requirements for newly covered beneficiaries a condition of expanding their Medicaid programs. ... So far the administration has opposed these efforts, saying work requirements are inconsistent with the purposes of Medicaid, and the National Health Law Program says it is not permissible to impose work requirements on people who get coverage under Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions. But the disagreement over tying work requirements to Medicaid expansion goes much deeper than partisan politics or legal interpretations of what the Medicaid statute allows. (Drew Altman, 5/11)

The state Senate supports Medicaid expansion; the House doesn't. Tallahassee has been paralyzed by the dispute. In a snit, the House packed up and adjourned the session early, leaving Florida with no budget. ... And where was the newly re-elected Republican governor, leader of the party? Gone is where he was — jetting to crucial functions such as the grand opening of a Wawa gas-and-convenience store in Fort Myers and the debut of a humongous Ferris wheel in Orlando. It's impossible to imagine any of the fully functioning governors in Florida's past — Lawton Chiles, Bob Graham, Jeb Bush, to name a few — vanishing from Tallahassee during a Code Red meltdown of the Legislature. But Scott isn't a functioning governor. (Carl Hiaasen, 5/11)

Senator Rand Paul wants to be president, vowing to “defeat the Washington machine.” But Paul’s recent vote at the Senate Small Business committee has many wondering whether Paul has, in reality, already transformed into a D.C. insider. At issue are illegal Congressional health care benefits under the Affordable Care Act and how Rand Paul is defending them. (Ken Hoagland, 5/11)

In the coming days, Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Daudt, Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk and Gov. Mark Dayton will make decisions about the future of MinnesotaCare. As they do, we hope they remember the history of why, and how, it was created. Those reasons continue today, as does the success and sustainability of MinnesotaCare. End-of-session negotiations will be contentious as they grapple with how to bridge wildly divergent priorities. But MinnesotaCare must not become a casualty. (Arne Carlson And Lee Greenfield, 5/11)

In September 2013, just as Covered California was preparing to enroll a million new patients in the state's healthcare system, the state Senate caved to pressure from the California Medical Assn. and voted down a bill that would empower nurse practitioners to see patients without supervision by a medical doctor. Last week, it corrected its error, passing a similar bill despite renewed opposition from the state doctors' guild, which whined, as it has for years, that allowing nurse practitioners to operate independently would put patients at risk. (Christopher Glazek, 5/11)

The U.S. of House of Representatives is preparing to consider a bill — the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (PUCPA) — that would prohibit most abortions performed after 20 weeks from conception. Specifically, the bill would prohibit a doctor from performing (or attempting to perform) an abortion “if the probable post-fertilization age . . . of the unborn child is 20 weeks or greater.” The bill further outlines how the “probable post-fertilization age” is to be determined and contains exceptions for cases of rape, incest involving minors, and threats to the mother’s life. (Jonathan H. Adler, 5/11)

Too often, calling the cops is the go-to option for families trying to cope. Yet by that point, many better options — options a family might not even know existed — are out of reach. That’s why two just-launched websites deserve a neon-lights introduction. Among the first of their kind nationally, the two provide a complete and user-friendly list of resources for people from all walks of life, from all over North Texas, to use to secure help. (5/10)

Last Thursday, a federal court considered a challenge to the U.S. Department of Labor's important decision to extend minimum wage and overtime protections to the nation's home-care workforce. As a member of the Colorado legislature and a home-care worker, we strongly believe our state shouldn't use this lawsuit as an excuse to delay extending the same basic protections that most of us take for granted. Home-care workers help older Coloradans and those with disabilities live and age in their homes, surrounded by those they love. The work is both challenging and critical, including everything from helping clients shower and dress to helping them keep track of medications to taking them to doctors' appointments. (Jessie Danielson and Marilyn Sorenson, 5/10)

In the United States, the majority of deaths occur unexpectedly, outside hospitals or in emergency departments. Rarely do these deaths provide opportunities for organ donation. In Europe, unexpected deaths provide substantial numbers of transplantable organs through uncontrolled donation after circulatory determination of death (UDCDD). UDCDD considers decedents candidates for donation even when death is unexpected, regardless of location, as long as preservation begins after all life-sustaining efforts have been exhausted. ... European programs initiate organ preservation without requiring explicit consent, a concept the US public will not allow despite supporting UDCDD. (Stephen P. Wall, Carolyn Plunkett and Arthur Caplan, 5/11)