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“The end of modern medicine as we know it” is a scary phrase coming from a respected world leader. We hope [British Prime Minister David] Cameron is exaggerating for effect, but we also hope his sense of urgency to develop powerful new antibiotics is, well, infectious. Developing more potent antibiotics is vital to vanquish a fast-encroaching army of superbugs — bacteria that have become resistant to current antibiotics. (6/3)

Six years after Obamacare became law, some 30 million Americans still lack health insurance. Louisiana has found a trick to get a great number of them to sign up for Medicaid. The policy is based on a simple coincidence: Medicaid and the federal food stamp program have almost the same income threshold, at least in the 31 states that have expanded their Medicaid programs under Obamacare. The Bayou State has decided to automatically check to see whether the residents who receive food stamps also qualify for Medicaid -- and if so, to reach out and sign them up. This approach will at once lower the state’s uninsured rate (one of the highest in the country) and cut Medicaid’s administrative costs. (6/3)

Every day, Missourians lose thousands of dollars because their neighbors do not have access to preventive care. Many individuals who fall in the “Medicaid gap” seek emergency care, a costly alternative. (Ed Shew, 6/6)

Healthcare providers shouldn't let the good news on shrinking bad debt distract them from dealing with one of the more pressing financial issues facing the industry—helping people saddled with unmanageable bills. Before the Affordable Care Act, bad debt was heavily concentrated among the uninsured. They faced financial ruin when hit by a major illness. (Merrill Goozner, 6/4)

Corporate executives, the management consultants who advise them, and the financial industry executives who help corporations finance their capital investments tend to believe that whenever their joint work enhances the wealth of a firm’s shareholders, they ipso facto enhance also the nation’s wealth. It is a soothing narrative, one routinely trotted out to college students in their textbooks of economics, which often slouch vaguely toward propaganda. (Uwe E. Reinhardt, 6/1)

Tiny mosquitoes of the genus Aedes are helping to demonstrate why the U.S. Congress so richly deserves its 11 percent public approval rating. Aedes mosquitoes carry the Zika virus, which is believed to cause serious abnormalities in fetuses, and may cause debilitating nerve disorders in children and adults. In February, President Barack Obama asked Congress for $1.9 billion to fight the spread of the disease. Congress still hasn’t acted. Given its vacation schedule, it may not act until this fall. (6/5)

An annual struggle between Maryland's hospitals and the state's Health Services Cost Review Commission is tradition dating back to the 1970s. Under a unique arrangement with the federal government that has allowed the state to collect larger reimbursements from Medicare than it otherwise would, Maryland for four decades maintained a system in which state regulators determined annually what each service a hospital provided would cost. (6/4)

As part of their continuing war on fetal tissue research, House Republicans are now accusing a tissue procurement company and three abortion clinics of violating federal privacy law. In a letter dated Wednesday, Representative Marsha Blackburn, chair of the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, charged that StemExpress and the clinics, two of which are Planned Parenthood affiliates, violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) by sharing information on patients receiving abortions. A separate letter accuses StemExpress of using improper consent forms, among other infractions. The letters ask officials at the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate whether the company and the clinics broke the law. (Anna North, 6/3)

Thirty-five years ago this week, our lives — and the lives of millions of people around the globe — changed forever with the publication of a report of five previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles diagnosed with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, a disease typically seen only in those with profoundly impaired immune function. (Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, 6/6)

It wasn’t until the state police and the DEA were sitting in my primary care office that I finally stopped denying that I was hopelessly addicted to prescription opiates. The DEA agent said, “Doc, cut the crap, we know you’ve been writing bad scrips.” The windows in my office didn’t open, otherwise I might have jumped out and fled. As it was, I was charged with three felony counts of fraudulent prescribing. Physicians are invested with awesome responsibility and trust. We are thought of as invulnerable, as miracle workers, and we're told, "Heal thyself." We're no better at that than the rest of you and in some ways, we're far worse. (Peter Grinspoon, 6/5)

A few weeks ago, shortly after The Des Moines Register reported that state lawmakers had just approved one of the biggest corporate giveaways in Iowa history, legislative leaders and the governor said they had no idea the House and Senate had even considered, let alone passed, the measure. (6/5)

A recently published op-ed by Herald-Leader parenting columnist John Rosemond questioned both the science and regulation of psychology. Rosemond made several unfounded assertions. Decades of rigorous scientific research have shown that psychotherapy works. Psychotherapy, or talk therapy, is a highly effective treatment for a wide range of mental health conditions, including depression, ADHD, PTSD and anxiety disorders. (Jennifer L. Price, 6/3)

We learned Thursday that Prince died of an opioid overdose—specifically from fentanyl, a synthetic opioid often prescribed to people who have built up a tolerance to oral opioids. (Fentanyl is more potent than powerful drugs like OxyContin and is most commonly administered via a patch.) While the toxicology report has not yet been made public—and may never be—it’s possible that Prince, who had a reputation for living substance-free but also suffered from debilitating hip and knee pain, got his drugs from his doctor, not a dealer. Why would the legendary recording artist have been prescribed a drug that put his life at risk? (Jeremy Samuel Faust, 6/3)

One of the most painful experiences of being a psychiatrist is having a patient for whom none of the available therapies or medications work. A while back, I was asked to do a consultation on just such a patient. This person had been a heroin addict in her early 20s. She had quit the opioid five years earlier, but her life was plagued with anxiety, apathy and self-doubt that prior treatments had not helped. At the end of the session, almost as an afterthought, she noted with irony that the only time in her adult life when she had been able to socialize easily and function at work was when she had been hooked on heroin. (Anna Fels, 6/4)

I've spilt more than you’ve smoked,” my brother-in-law, let’s call him Marty, bragged to my husband in the throes of his addiction. A measure to legalize recreational marijuana is heading toward the California ballot in November. Marty would have been thrilled — but then, he didn’t bother much with voting. My vote, too, would have been a no-brainer some years ago. Legalize it, tax it, make it safer, I would have said then, back when I felt more certain about everything, when I viewed addiction as a lack of self-discipline and personal weakness. I never dreamed it could take down an entire family. (Kerry Madden, 6/5)