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A quirk in the laws governing Medicare and Social Security will expose millions of Americans to a staggering 50 percent increase in their premiums for the part of Medicare that covers doctors’ bills, known as Medicare Part B. It is imperative that Congress pass legislation to protect low- and middle-income people who cannot pay that much. (10/10)

Benefits for older Americans — especially through Social Security and Medicare — account for the largest part of federal spending today and for the lion’s share of the spending growth that will occur in coming decades without changes in policies. ... cuts in Social Security or Medicare benefits, or increases in the taxes used to finance those programs, will almost certainly be needed to put federal debt on a sustainable path. ... To avoid significant across-the-board cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits, some of the standard arrows in reformers’ quivers should be a last rather than a first resort. For example, an increase in the eligibility age for full retirement benefits in Social Security would ... be especially harmful for lower-income people .... Instead, we should focus on reducing Social Security and Medicare benefits for high-income beneficiaries and raising payroll taxes on workers with high earnings. (Douglas Elmendorf, 10/11)

The public uproar about high drug prices has focused on outlandish cases such as single pills jacked up in price by 5,000%, miracle cures marketed for tens of thousands of dollars per treatment. But how will people feel when they're confronted with treatments that are even more astronomically expensive? That's certain to become a growing concern at California's incubator of some of the most advanced and potentially costly medical therapies under development. Biotech companies have launched late-stage clinical trials that could lead to federal approval of two marketable treatments backed by CIRM, the state's $6-billion stem cell program. (Michael Hiltzik, 10/9)

The question is not whether [Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is] pandering but how negative the real-world consequences of her pandering will be. ... The Cadillac tax is perhaps the most potent cost-containment mechanism in Obamacare, which is why unions don’t like it: They want to keep their handsome benefits packages, even if it means, in effect, using public subsidies to drive up unnecessary health-care costs. Even though even liberal economists back the Cadillac tax, Clinton surrendered to union pressure last month, saying that she favors repealing it. But she added a big caveat: Congress would have to find some way to replace the revenue that the tax would raise, which is necessary to fund Obamacare’s health-coverage expansion. (Stephen Stromberg, 10/11)

[Hillary Clinton] has decided to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, trade pact. She's against the Keystone oil pipeline. And she wants to repeal the so-called Cadillac tax on high-end health insurance plans. These initiatives are all opposed by vocal and well-organized constituencies, generally ones that reside in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. But all are economically beneficial .... As the architect of the ill-fated health care reform proposal offered during her husband’s administration, she is well aware that the Cadillac tax is widely supported by health care economists as a way of controlling costs. The positions she has taken are the easy way out. (10/11)

Hillary Clinton is one of the smartest people I know. The central goal of her presidency will be raising the incomes of working families, and she’s the only candidate with practical plans to achieve that goal. ... Hillary has also answered this question clearly when it comes to health care, trade and energy. She has called for repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s “Cadillac tax,” standing with working families who are seeing costs shifted onto their backs as their deductibles rise. (Howard Dean, 10/11)

[insurgent conservatives'] intransigence produced a series of fruitless crises. In 2011, they demanded that [Speaker John] Boehner refuse to allow a rise in the federal debt ceiling if Obama and the Democratic-led Senate didn't agree to all the spending cuts they wanted. The gambit failed. In 2013, they shut the federal government for 16 days in an attempt to force the repeal of Obama's health insurance program; that gambit failed too. After his decision to retire, Boehner denounced the GOP radicals as “false prophets” who misled their own voters. They “whip people into a frenzy believing they can accomplish things that they know — they know! — are never going to happen,” he said last week. But don't feel too bad for him: Boehner stood by while that whipping took place. (Doyle McManus, 10/11)

Last week, the New Hampshire Hospital Association trumpeted a new report touting the benefits of expanded Medicaid. Since New Hampshire opened its Medicaid rolls, there are fewer uninsured patients seeking care at New Hampshire hospitals. ... But the NHHA’s full report contains other statistics not included in the news release. Emergency room visits are way up. Uninsured ER visits are down 5,600 from the same three-month period a year ago. But total ER visits are up by 5,000. So federal taxpayers are presumably paying for an additional 10,600 costly ER visits every quarter. (10/11)

Somehow, it was no surprise that the Legislative Council emerged from a secret meeting in late September and refused to shut down its court fight against the Walker administration over whether the governor can approve Medicaid expansion this year. After all, the council members had decided during the summer it was smart strategy to pay the lawyers in advance. That might have something to do with it. ... Given the enormous financial challenges facing the state, this lawsuit ought to be abandoned, even with the $250,000 already committed to the D.C. lawyers. As a lawsuit over a narrow procedural question, the case does not address the future of Medicaid or the merits of providing health coverage to more Alaskans. That much is certain. (Dermot Cole, 10/11)

The issue of the expansion of Medicaid coverage to 150,000 low-income Kansans is perhaps the issue that best illustrates the callous indifference of the Brownback administration to the plight of the disadvantaged. The administration, speaking through its deputy director of communications, believes that support for expansion of Medicaid coverage is “morally reprehensible” (Oct. 7 Eagle). The scope of the governor’s indictment is, to be charitable, breathtaking inasmuch as 64 percent of Kansans and 58 percent of Kansas Republicans support expansion of Medicaid, according to a recent poll. (E.L. Lee Kinch, 10/10)

When the Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio unveiled a proposal last month to subsidize family leave via a system of tax breaks for businesses, Democrats scoffed. Expanding protection of mothers and infants? Isn't that Democratic turf? Before Democrats get too indignant, they should remember that when it comes to family leave -- and maternity leave in particular -- conservatives, not liberals, have historically taken the lead. (Stephen Mihm, 10/9)

Abortion clinics should be required to comply with all the regulations and standards of any other outpatient surgical unit. The Virginia Department of Health should enforce them, not amend them. The reason is simple: Abortion is surgery, and surgery knows no politics. (Rosemary Antunes, 10/9)

Finally, a completed Aurora VA hospital is in sight. In early October, Congress voted to fully fund its construction, and the president has signed the legislation. This was no small feat. Despite the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) gross mismanagement and negligence, I look forward to celebrating the completion of the VA hospital in Aurora thanks to a bipartisan effort from the Colorado delegation. (Mike Coffman, 10/10)