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When it comes to the Affordable Care Act, you have two choices about what to believe. You can go with objective statistics from Gallup, a respected survey organization, which indicate that the law has increased the number of Americans with health insurance by more than 10 million. Or you can go with self-interested partisanship from the likes of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who states that the law is "beyond repair" and backs that up with manifestly bogus and dishonest assertions. (Michael Hiltzik, 1/7)

Much of the attention regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is focused on Americans signing up for health insurance, the cost and services covered. Largely lost in this dialogue is the fact that the ACA is the most significant change to the tax code in 20 years. It has made filing a tax return more complex for the more than 147 million individual tax filers — insured and uninsured alike. (Bill Cobb, 1/7)

Surely, between [Democratic Gov. Steve] Bullock's plan and the GOP's plan, our legislators can figure out which solutions are best for our state. And surely, expanding Medicaid to include as many low-income individuals as possible is best. Remember, 138 percent of the federal poverty level is only $16,100 for a single person. Low-income Montanans are not all jobless or caring for dependent children. Many are hard-working, low-paid individuals who simply earn too much to qualify for Medicaid now but too little to afford any other health insurance plan. Many others are struggling with struggling with circumstances and conditions that prevent them from working. All deserve health care. (1/5)

In New Jersey, the ACA has helped provide approximately 500,000 residents with health insurance, and the peace of mind that comes with that insurance. But despite those successes, nearly 1 million of our residents remain uninsured, and many of the newly insured are covered under a system that does not fully reimburse hospitals for the treatment they provide. This is a looming issue with serious consequences for all New Jersey hospitals, especially safety nets. (Suzanne Ianni, 1/7)

For more than five decades, the blood thinner Coumadin was the only option for millions of patients at risk for life-threatening blood clots. But now, a furious battle is underway among the makers of three newer competitors for the prescription pads of doctors across the country. (Charles Ornstein and Ryann Grochowski Jones, 1/7)

If the phrase “too much of a good thing” applies to anything, it surely applies to antibiotics. No medical invention has done more to save lives, but overuse has eroded their effectiveness. There’s widespread agreement on the need to speed up development of new antibiotics, and to discourage doctors from prescribing them for infections they’re not needed for. Another side of the issue is more contentious: roughly 80 percent of antibiotics are fed to farm animals. (Anna Edney, 1/7)

As a health care payer, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) focuses primarily on health care delivery for our beneficiaries. The agency has, however, articulated a commitment to improving broader population health through the CMS Quality Strategy, which aims to “improve the health of the U.S. population by supporting proven interventions to address behavioral, social, and environmental determinants of health in addition to delivering higher-quality care.” (William J. Kassler, Naomi Tomoyasu andPatrick H. Conway, 1/8)

During a 2-year review of the [maintenance of certification] program, it became clear that both the public and the profession valued a rigorous program of assessment and self-regulation and that many physicians saw value in the concept and philosophy of MOC. However, valid concerns and even anger were expressed about program elements, including the breadth and scope of the periodic secure examination for physicians whose practices have narrowed over time, the experience of testing in secure computer-based testing facilities, the financial and emotional costs of preparing for and taking the examination, and the challenges of finding performance-improvement activities that are relevant to physicians' practice and easily integrated into their clinical environments. The results of this review process indicated that MOC standards could be further refined. (Drs. Mira B. Irons and Lois M. Nora, 1/8)

My personal frustration in trying to fulfill the new MOC requirements ultimately led me to create a Web-based petition that now has more than 19,000 anti-MOC signatures and contains thousands of comments against the new MOC requirements .... Although the ABIM argues that there is evidence supporting the value of MOC, high-quality data supporting the efficacy of the program will be very hard, if not impossible, to obtain. In fact, close examination of the reports cited by the ABIM reveals that the data are ambiguous at best. (Dr. Paul S. Teirstein, 1/8)