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We’ve just entered the “sticker shock” season of healthcare reporting: News stories are brimming with reports of double-digit premium requests from insurance companies, amid dire warnings about the impact on consumers. Public health expert Benjamin Sommers of Harvard calls this “a new U.S. healthcare tradition: headlines about proposed premium increases under the Affordable Care Act and predictions of the law’s demise.” This year brings an additional theme — the trend’s putative effect on the presidential election. Some of the figures are certainly eye-catching — some insurers in some states are seeking increases of more than 30%. In California, where the state exchange negotiated increases of only 4.2% in 2015 and 4% this year, rates will rise by an average 13.2% next year. (Michael Hiltzik, 7/26)

Thousands of Illinoisans heeded federal law and bought health insurance last year via the state's Obamacare exchange. They signed up with Land of Lincoln Health, a state-approved insurer. They paid their premiums and deductibles. Many counted on that coverage to manage chronic illnesses or other long-term treatment. (7/26)

How did something that should have been uncontroversial – relatively modest funding to fight a new infectious disease in the U.S. – become so hard that Congress left Washington for the summer (mosquito season) without passing legislation to combat the Zika virus? The obvious answer – that our gridlocked political system cannot complete even the simplest task – does not fully explain things. ... The largest factor appears to be lawmakers’ failure to appreciate the risk Zika poses. (Ron Klain, 7/25)

It’s tempting to believe that scientific discoveries can be weighed for their value to society. Then the good ones could be pursued and the bad ones set aside. That’s obviously hard to do. Think about progress that happens by accident. Who’s to judge whether its eventual use is most likely for healing or killing? (Faye Flam, 7/26)

Americans aren’t very enthusiastic about using science to enhance the human species. Instead, many find it rather creepy. A new survey by the Pew Research Center shows a profound distrust of scientists, a suspicion about claims of progress and a real discomfort with the idea of meddling with human abilities. The survey also opens a window into the public’s views on what it means to be a human being and what values are important. (Gina Kolata, 7/26)

The US Senate recently passed legislation designed to address the nation’s opioid addiction epidemic, and President Obama is expected to sign it into law. Among other things, the bill promotes the use of opioid contracts. These are written agreements between doctors and patients about the conditions for prescribing opioids long term for chronic pain. This is great news. It could also harm patients. Opioid contracts clarify for doctors and patients how to prescribe these dangerous medications. By doing so, they can formalize safer approaches to opioid prescribing. That’s why they are already required by law in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. (Tim Lahey, 7/26)

This year, trust accounting shows that Social Security and Medicare have a combined surplus of $17.1 billion. Just above that, you'll see the federal budget accounting. It shows that in spite of employment taxes, taxes on Social Security benefits, trust fund interest and premiums for Medicare B and D, these programs were short $354.5 billion. Their cash shortage represented 80 percent of the entire federal deficit for 2015. All other government programs, after tax collections, operated at a loss of $83.9 billion. (Scott Burns, 7/26)

The health care world is full of colloquial terms like value or affordability that mean different things to different stakeholders. Often how you define them and what you think of them depends on your place within the overall health ecosystem. It’s a classic case of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” One such term is effectiveness. We all want medical treatment to be effective, and understanding what that word means to different stakeholders is critical to having a productive dialogue — whether you are in a hospital, a research center, or on the floor of Congress. Here is a brief history of the concept of effectiveness, a few insights about its many meanings, and the debates we can expect to have about it in the years ahead. (Murray Ross, 7/26)

CalPERS is responsible for the retiree pension and health benefits for 1.8 million current and former employees on the payrolls of the state and 3,000 local governments (but not those serving Los Angeles city or county) and school districts. Its funding comes from three main sources: about 13% from public employees, 22% from state and local governments and 65% from investment returns. The employees’ contributions are set by contract (and guided by state law), so the main variables are the contributions from state and local employers and the amount earned by the fund’s investments. (7/27)

The Republican-led General Assembly has a long list of actions that compete for the title of most outrageous, but there’s no contest in choosing the one that ranks as most mysterious. That is the unwavering commitment of Republican leaders to changing the state’s Medicaid system. ... The proposed changes call for Medicaid to be managed, at least in part, by private companies, but the reasons for the changes are melting away. Medicaid costs are coming in under budget and the non-profit that oversees much of the program, Community Care of North Carolina, has had remarkable success in finding ways to save money and improve health care for children, pregnant woman and disabled people who are covered by the state-federal health care program. (7/26)

In 1966, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhuman.” While major advances have been made in health care, ethnic and racial disparities remain in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of many illnesses, particularly prostate cancer. (Lannis Hall, Arnold D. Bulliock, Angela L. Brown and Graham Colditz, 7/27)

A concierge practice refers to a practice in which the physician charges each patient an annual retainer fee. There are several types of concierge primary care practices. So called “direct care” describes a practice in which the annual fee covers all primary care services. Within that types of practice, the physician does not bill health insurance for services. In another type of concierge primary care practice, the physician does contract with a health insurer and submits claims to the insurer for covered services. However, the annual fee goes toward providing extra amenities, such as longer clinic visits, direct access 24/7 to one’s personal physician by cellphone, email or text, and the guarantee of prompt access for appointments — meaning either same-day or next-day appointments. (Juliet Mavromatis, 7/26)

Ohio is now the 26th state to legalize medical marijuana -- a great accomplishment for advocates and patients. But does the bill go far enough? While the bill states that patient information will be kept confidential, there is a failure to protect patients working in zero-tolerance companies that perform drug testing. This is a clear inconsistency in the legislation's logic. By mandating that such information should be confidential, lawmakers acknowledge that stigma surrounding marijuana can threaten a patient's livelihood. However, because the law doesn't intervene with drug-testing policies, patients can be discovered anyway and fired from their job. (Samantha Santoscoy, 7/27)