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More people will be enrolled in Medicaid than predicted a year ago, fewer will be covered through the new public insurance marketplaces and the overall cost of insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act will be higher than expected last year, the Congressional Budget Office said Thursday. But the cost of insuring people will be substantially lower than the budget agency expected when the law was passed, on party-line votes, in 2010. It now estimates that the cost will total $465 billion in 2016-19, which is 25 percent less than its original estimate. (Pear, 3/24)

Expanded health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's signature legislative legacy, will cost the government more, according to an official study released Thursday. Still, on balance, the measure more than pays for itself. (3/24)

The budget office attributed the vast majority of the expected cost increase to greater-than-expected Medicaid enrollment numbers. Overall, CBO projected, the cost to the government of those enrolled in Medicaid and in the marketplaces created under the law will be $1.4 trillion over 10 years, which is $136 billion more than the scorekeeper previously expected. (Snell, 3/24)

The cost is also going up by about $28 billion because of Congress's recent legislation that postponed what's called the "Cadillac tax," on high-cost insurance plans. That bill also made the tax deductible to employers, further decreasing the amount of money the Affordable Care Act pulls in. (Ferris, 3/24)

Between 2016 and 2025, the federal government will spend $1.34 trillion on the ACA's primary health coverage provisions. That mostly includes subsidies for the marketplaces and Medicaid expansion, and is partially offset by revenue-generating measures such as penalties tied to the individual and employer mandates. That total is up from the CBO's projection last March of $1.2 trillion but nearly identical to the $1.35 trillion estimate made in January 2015. The shift underscores how difficult it is for economists to predict the costs of a healthcare law that has evolved every year. (Herman, 3/24)

Enrollment under the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges is projected to reach about 12 million people in 2016, congressional budget analysts said in a report Thursday that illustrates the Obama administration’s ongoing challenge in getting the remaining uninsured covered. The projection, from the Congressional Budget Office and staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, was down from an estimate of 13 million in January and 21 million a year ago. (Armour, 3/24)

The Congressional Budget Office on Thursday slightly lowered its projections for ObamaCare enrollment, trimming its tally by about 1 million people. About 12 million people are now expected to have ObamaCare coverage by the end of 2016, according to the nonpartisan budget office. Just three months ago, the office had predicted that 13 million people would have coverage. (Ferris, 3/24)

But two years after winning office with 55 percent of the vote, [Arkansas Gov. Asa] Hutchinson has executed a surprising political turnabout and become the leading rescuer of the one of "Obamacare's" most embattled elements, the expansion of Medicaid. He's now imploring Republican lawmakers to keep Arkansas' hybrid version of the expanded insurance program for low-income people, which was pushed through by his Democratic predecessor, Mike Beebe, and is warning about the potential impact of ending it for a rural state with limited revenue and many living near the poverty line. (DeMillo, 3/24)

Arkansas lawmakers got their first look Thursday at legislation outlining Gov. Asa Hutchinson's plan to keep and rework the state's hybrid Medicaid expansion and to have private companies manage services for the developmentally disabled and mentally ill. (DeMillo, 3/25)

Rejecting action by the House a day earlier, the Idaho Senate on Thursday resurrected a proposal to begin prompt negotiations with federal officials for a way to provide subsidized health care for 78,000 poor Idahoans who have none. ... Gov. Butch Otter told the Times-News Thursday that he supports beginning the Medicaid expansion waiver application process as soon as possible. “The sooner that we can start that, the better prepared we’re going to be,” he said. (Dentzer, 3/24)

The Idaho House will meet again on Good Friday to vote on a bill that would have the director of the Department of Health and Welfare apply for a Medicaid expansion waiver, paving the way for an Idaho-run health program designed for the state’s working poor. The Senate finished up for the year Thursday evening after passing both the waiver bill and a related funding bill. The House also passed the funding bill 40-29 Thursday evening before adjourning for the day, setting up Friday’s expected waiver debate. (Brown, 3/25)

Idaho House lawmakers on Thursday punted on approving a proposal to allow the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to apply for a Medicaid waiver to provide health insurance for people who have incomes below 100 percent of the federal poverty line. House Speaker Scott Bedke says the House will take up the contentious legislation on Friday, the same day the Legislature would adjourn for the year. (Kruesi, 3/25)

When federal lawmakers wrote the act overhauling the nation’s health-care system six years ago, they ruled out any possibility of extending health insurance to illegal immigrants. Local officials where many of those immigrants live are treating them anyway. A Wall Street Journal survey of the 25 U.S. counties with the largest unauthorized immigrant populations found that 20 of them have programs that pay for the low-income uninsured to have doctor visits, shots, prescription drugs, lab tests and surgeries at local providers. ... County politicians figure it is cheaper, safer and easier to give basic health services to immigrants who can’t get insurance than to treat them only in the county’s emergency rooms. (Radnofsky, 3/24)

For the second time in two years, the Supreme Court justices tangled over a question about personal beliefs and birth control: Must employers who are religiously opposed to it cover it in their health plans? A prominent group of pediatricians hopes the answer will be yes. Erecting hurdles to the pill, in this case, could jeopardize the health of America’s children, said Benard Dreyer, president of the the American Academy of Pediatrics. It could even encourage the next Disneyland measles outbreak. ... “There’s no discernible difference between a religious objection to contraception and a religious objection to a vaccine,” said Dreyer. (Paquette, 3/24)

Federal officials have been lucky until now, but the Affordable Care Act’s Internet web portal could become a hacker’s playground — with plenty of sensitive data compromised — without a significant tightening of security, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office. (Pianin, 3/24)

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday gave guidance to support the development of generic versions of approved abuse-deterrent opioids, the agency’s latest step to reduce deaths from abuse of the powerful drugs. As the FDA pushes the industry to develop pain medicines that are more difficult or less rewarding to abuse, it is recommending studies to demonstrate that a generic opioid is no less abuse-deterrent than the brand name product. (Steele, 3/24)

The Food and Drug Administration published draft guidelines outlining testing standards for harder-to-abuse generic painkillers. The agency has already approved five brand-name opioid pain drugs which are designed to discourage abuse. The current version of OxyContin, for example, is difficult to crush, discouraging abusers from snorting or dissolving the tablets to get high. But these abuse-deterrent painkillers represent a small fraction of the market for opioid pain drugs, which is dominated by low-cost generics. (3/24)

Ninety-nine percent of primary care doctors routinely prescribe potentially addictive opioid painkillers for longer than the three-day period recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to survey results released Thursday by the National Safety Council. (Keilman, 3/25)

Massachusetts hospitals are seeing evidence that the opioid epidemic is affecting the next generation, with an increasing number of babies being born exposed to drugs. The most recent state hospital data suggest that the rate of drug dependent newborns has skyrocketed to about 16 in every 1,000 births — about three times the national average. (Becker, 3/25)

Indiana’s governor signed a bill on Thursday that adds broad limits to women’s access to abortions, banning those motivated solely by the mother’s objection to the fetus’s race, gender or disability, and placing new restrictions on doctors. The law, which passed both chambers of the Republican-controlled General Assembly with large majorities, builds on Indiana’s already restrictive abortion rules, and was cheered by anti-abortion groups that had encouraged Gov. Mike Pence to sign it. (Smith, 3/24)

Republican Gov. Mike Pence signed a bill into law Thursday making Indiana the second state to ban abortions because of fetal genetic abnormalities such as Down syndrome. Pence signed the measure just hours ahead of his deadline to take action on the proposal approved by the Republican-dominated Legislature two weeks ago, the governor’s office said. It is due to take effect in July, but Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky said it will ask a court to block the measure before that can happen. (Chokey, 3/24)

Ohio is often considered a success story for opponents of abortion rights and an oppressive state for abortion-rights supporters. Yet voters listening to Kasich on the campaign trail may never know the significance of Ohio in the abortion debate. As he acknowledges, Kasich doesn’t like to like to talk about the issue or answer questions directly when asked about it. That’s where we come in. We took a deeper look at Kasich’s record on passing laws related to women’s access to abortions and whether his record reflects his antiabortion view with the exceptions of rape, incest and the life of the mother. (Lee, 3/25)

The American public has enormous confidence in the progress being made against cancer — perhaps more than warranted by actual treatment gains — and their faith is translating into overwhelming support for the Obama administration’s proposal to increase cancer research spending, a new STAT-Harvard poll finds. (Nather, 3/25)

The number of older Americans at risk for a potentially life-threatening drug interaction doubled between 2005 and 2010, according to a new study -- but not just from the prescriptions they fill at the pharmacy or the medicines they buy over the counter. The study of more than 2,000 people between ages 62 and 85 found that the majority of potentially dangerous drug combinations came from interactions between conventional drugs, such as a blood pressure drug and a cholesterol drug that together can increase risk of muscle damage and kidney failure. But there was an alarming uptick in the number of older Americans taking unproven vitamins and supplements, too -- a scary trend since the safety of those combinations is poorly understood. (Johnson, 3/24)

Scientists now have evidence the Zika virus was spreading in South America long before health officials detected it. The findings suggest Zika could be hiding out in other corners of the world, and Southeast Asia may be the next region to see a big outbreak.

Scientists announced Thursday that they have built a single-celled organism that has just 473 genes — likely close to the minimum number of genes necessary to sustain its life. The development, they say, could eventually lead to new manufacturing methods. Around 1995, a few top geneticists set out on a quest: to make an organism that had only the genes that were absolutely essential for its survival. A zero-frills life. It was a heady time. (Bichell, 3/24)

A government advertising campaign led 104,000 Americans to quit smoking, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In addition, 1.4 million people attempted to quit smoking as a result of the 2014 ad campaign, the CDC said, citing survey results published in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease. (Sullivan, 3/24)

Nowhere has the tobacco fight been bigger, or more expensive, than in California, which has attracted at least two-thirds of tobacco companies’ state-level political donations since 2011. Public health advocates here say tobacco companies have used a potent combination of campaign contributions and behind-the-scenes lobbying to win enough friends in key places. The strategy is most apparent on the Assembly’s Governmental Organization Committee, which oversees an odd combination of issues, including public records, state holidays, gambling, alcohol and tobacco. (Kusnetz, 3/25)

The National Football League was on the clock. With several of its marquee players retiring early after a cascade of frightening concussions, the league formed a committee in 1994 that would ultimately issue a succession of research papers playing down the danger of head injuries. Amid criticism of the committee’s work, physicians brought in later to continue the research said the papers had relied on faulty analysis. Now, an investigation by The New York Times has found that the N.F.L.’s concussion research was far more flawed than previously known. (Schwarz, Bogdanich and Williams, 3/24)

On Thursday morning, the New York Times published a lengthy investigative piece on what the NFL knew about the link between football and degenerative brain disease and when the NFL knew it. ... The NFL, which usually responds with a brief statement to such stories, fired back this time, issued a strong rebuttal. (Boren, 3/24)

The University of New Mexico’s Health Sciences Center turned down a request during the closing days of the Legislature to give the Human Services Department $50 million to help with the state’s Medicaid funding shortfall. ... UNM’s Health Sciences Center has more than $200 million in reserves from its various operations, part of which it wants to use for a proposed new hospital to replace its aging facilities. (Quintana, 3/24)

Iowans with Medicaid health coverage will not be able to routinely use the Mayo Clinic after the state shifts the $4 billion program to private management next week. The three managed-care companies that will run Iowa’s Medicaid program told legislators this week they’ve been unable to negotiate contracts with Mayo’s famed hospital system, which is just across the border in Rochester, Minn. (Leys, 3/24)

Mississippi Senate committee has passed a narrower version of a bill that would require an electronic records system for Medicaid and regular audit of Medicaid recipients. House Bill 1116 would contract an outside company to build a computerized record of Medicaid recipients' information. The Senate version would have Medicaid officials then verify recipients' financial information and residency to determine if they're still eligible for aid. Any recipient found to have moved out of state would stop getting aid within three months. (Benchaabane, 3/24)

A day after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about a religious exemption to a requirement that employer-sponsored health plans provide coverage for contraceptives, the Vermont House defeated a narrower exemption on Thursday. (Gram, 3/25)

Hundreds of Iowans gathered on the Capitol steps Tuesday to tell state lawmakers that it's time to approve a comprehensive, safe medical cannabis program. The crowd of nearly 200 at the Rally for Compassionate Cannabis included patients, caregivers, legislators and local government officials. They stood with signs that read "Stop the Suffering" while speakers shared sometimes emotional stories about their experiences with medical cannabis. (Norvelli, 3/24)

Members of the management team of Southwestern Health Resources named Thursday said the massive new health care network will streamline services and patient care at some of the region’s largest hospitals. (Cowan, 3/24)

[Delis] Rivera is among a new cadre of health care workers enlisted in an ambitious Massachusetts experiment to improve care and reduce costs for some of the state’s sickest and poorest residents. The first-in-the-nation program, called One Care, is for people on both Medicare and Medicaid, those living with disabilities, and with little or no income. Their care is managed by one of two nonprofit health insurers, Tufts and Commonwealth Care Alliance. (Dayal McCluskey, 3/25)

A Texas-based Planned Parenthood affiliate on Thursday moved to join a federal lawsuit filed in California against the anti-abortion group behind undercover videos of the organization’s clinics. The lawsuit, filed in a San Francisco-based federal court in January, alleges the Center for Medical Progress engaged in conspiracy, fraud and other activities that violate organized crime law and other federal regulations in its pursuit of secretly recorded videos of Planned Parenthood. Citing recordings of staff at a Houston clinic, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast filed to join the lawsuit as a plaintiff. (Ura, 3/24)

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is calling on the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to answer questions into how the agency is handling a bacterial outbreak in Wisconsin tied at least 17 deaths and dozens of illnesses. (Rutledge, 3/24)

Emergency medical programs across the country are studying ways to get medical services to the people who need them, and community paramedicine is a program getting a lot of attention. EMS programs in Springfield Township and Colerain Township are both investigating how to best use a paramedicine model in their communities. (Key, 3/24)

More than $3 million of fraudulent Medicaid billings were recovered after an 18-month investigation revealed that eight Colorado anesthesia providers were allegedly charging patients incorrectly. A total of $3,020,953 was recovered by the Colorado Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, according to a news release from the AG's office Tuesday. (3/24)

New Jersey's Board of Medical Examiners has revoked the license of a doctor who bilked insurers of $280,000. Sixty-one-year-old Albert Ades of Englewood billed insurers, including Medicare and Medicaid, for face-to-face nonexistent office visits from 2005 through June 2014. He pleaded guilty last year to health care fraud and agreed to forfeit his medical license. (3/24)

A Minneapolis health clinic credited with helping the state drive the number of unwanted teen pregnancies to historic lows is changing with the times as patient demand wanes for its teen-only reproductive care. (Benson, 3/25)

A former home health care provider in Virginia has been sentenced to eight months in federal prison for defrauding the Medicaid program. U.S. Attorney John P. Fishwick said Thursday that 43-year-old Amanda Moye Randolph of Palmyra also was ordered to pay more than $136,000 in restitution. (3/25)

State officials Thursday announced plans to close by June 30 two state-run facilities that provide residential care for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. The move was pegged as a "change in strategic direction" as the state looks to outsource those services to private providers to save money. (Rabe Thomas and Levin Becker, 3/24)

The Affordable Care Act appears to have improved health insurance coverage for young adults (ages 18–30). But data from twenty national surveys conducted between 1977 and 2013 paint a more complex picture, showing coverage rates lower in 2013 than they were thirty-six years earlier. Racial and ethnic disparities in coverage have declined recently, while out-of-pocket expenditures remain low for most young adults. (Berk and Fang, 3/23)

We conducted a randomized trial of the effects of parent mentors (PMs) on insuring uninsured minority children. PMs were experienced parents with ≥1 Medicaid/CHIP-covered child who received 2 days of training, then assisted families for 1 year with insurance applications, retaining coverage, medical homes, and social needs .... PMs were more effective ... than traditional methods in insuring children (95% vs 68%), and achieving faster coverage (median = 62 vs 140 days), high parental satisfaction (84% vs 62%), and coverage renewal (85% vs 60%). PM children were less likely to have no primary care provider (15% vs 39%), problems getting specialty care (11% vs 46%), unmet preventive (4% vs 22%) or dental (18% vs 31%) care needs, dissatisfaction with doctors (6% vs 16%), and needed additional income for medical expenses (6% vs 13%). (Flores et al., 3/17)

Although the ACA requires many employers to provide nursing mothers with reasonable break time and private space to express breast milk, a recent study found that only 40 percent of women who gave birth in 2011 or 2012 and returned to work postpartum reported having access to both of these accommodations. A May 2015 report documented that women continued to face challenges in accessing no-cost lactation support and supplies under the new health insurance coverage requirement, and additional anecdotal evidence suggests significant variability in implementation of these provisions. ... statutes supporting breastfeeding vary markedly among states. (Yang, Saunders and Kozhimannil, 3/17)

Dental benefits for Medicaid adults are not required by federal law, but are offered at state option, and most states provide only limited coverage .... The progress that states have made in increasing children’s access to and use of dental care, by building stronger provider networks, leveraging accountability through contracts, and investing in care coordination efforts, provides a foundation for similar action for adults in Medicaid. States are also expanding the dental workforce by removing scope-of-practice barriers and through targeted efforts among dental schools to increase diversity among dental students, as under-represented minority students are more likely to provide care to the underserved. Finally, state Medicaid programs are implementing a host of payment and delivery reforms in pursuit of higher-quality care, better patient outcomes, and reduced costs. (Hinton and Paradise, 3/17)

The majority of nonelderly people get their health coverage through an employer-based plan. This issue brief uses data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) to examine trends in employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) for different types of people and households. While ESI remains the leading source of coverage for nonelderly people (those under age 65), the percentage covered by an employer plan has declined over the last fifteen years. A similar pattern exists with firm offer rates; fewer workers were offered health insurance from their employer in 2014 than in 1999. The decrease in offer and coverage rates has not been universal; families with low and modest incomes have been most affected by the decline. (Long et al., 3/21)

Anecdotal evidence has suggested that marketplace consumers are extremely sensitive to premium price when purchasing insurance. We have analyzed available insurer level enrollment data from the five state based marketplaces (California, Rhode Island, New York, Maryland, and Connecticut) which have released the relevant data. We find that consumers are generally quite sensitive to premium price and low cost insurers tend to enroll the largest share; however there are still a significant number of enrollees who have selected higher priced options indicating there are other significant motivations for selecting a particular insurer including brand name recognition, prior satisfaction, or perceived quality differences. (Holahan, Blumberg and Wengle, 3/23)

Most US voters view living kidney donations positively, according to a telephone survey, and most also said they would be motivated toward such a donation if they received $50,000 in compensation. A quantitative survey of 1011 registered US voters likely to vote found that 689 people (68%) would donate a kidney to anyone, and 235 (23%) would donate only to certain people; 87 (9%) would not donate. ... Thomas G. Peters, MD, from the University of Florida College of Medicine in Jacksonville, and colleagues report the survey results in an article published online March 23 in JAMA Surgery. (Frellick, 3/23)

Over the last 40 years, heart disease rates have dropped in the U.S. overall, but the changes varied widely by region, with the highest rates of the disease shifting from the Northeast to the South, researchers say. “Heart disease” refers to several conditions including coronary artery disease, which can cause heart attack. Despite the decline in deaths over time, heart disease is still the leading cause of death in the U.S., killing more than 600,000 people per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (Doyle, 3/21)

One in six seniors in the U.S. regularly uses potentially dangerous combinations of prescription and over-the-counter medications and dietary supplements, according to new research. The study, published today in JAMA Internal Medicine, showed a two-fold increase over a five-year period. (Welch, 3/21)

More than one-third of transgender women reported at least one mental health issue, with a fifth reporting two or more, according to a small study of this population in two major U.S. cities. (Walker, 3/21)

Too much sitting increases heart failure risk and disability risk, and shortens life expectancy, studies have found. But according to an analysis published Wednesday of 20 of the best studies done so far, there's little evidence that workplace interventions like the sit-stand desk or even the flashier pedaling or treadmill desks will help you burn lots more calories, or prevent or reverse the harm of sitting for hours on end. "What we actually found is that most of it is, very much, just fashionable and not proven good for your health," says Dr. Jos Verbeek, a health researcher at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. (Chen, 3/17)

Almost a third of U.S. cancer survivors face financial burdens, and physical and mental health tends to be worse for those who do, according to a new study. There are more than 14 million cancer survivors in the U.S., the authors wrote in a paper released by the journal Cancer. (Doyle, 3/14)

Telephone quitlines offer free and effective treatment for tobacco dependence, but for low-income smokers who only have a cell phone and don’t have unlimited minutes, calls to the quitline may take a substantial portion of their cell minutes for the month, according to a new study. The researchers didn’t ask smokers if this limitation affected whether or not they used the quitlines, but estimated for how many smokers this might potentially be an issue based on phone ownership and service plans. (Doyle, 3/11)

Many parents don't remember if their children were tested for hearing loss at birth, a new study found. Diagnosis and treatment of hearing loss at birth is critical to lowering the risk of impaired speech, language and literacy later in life, write the researchers in JAMA Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery. (Seaman, 3/11)

The Supreme Court looks like it's going to split 4-4 on whether religious organizations are entitled to have even their health insurance providers exempted from providing contraceptive care under the Affordable Care Act. That much was clear from the justices comments at oral arguments on Wednesday. (Noah Feldman, 3/24)

After Dave Connors' teenage son broke his leg, he was rushed to an Orange County hospital that Connors knew was in his insurer's coverage network. It was only after the bills recently started arriving that he learned the doctors and anesthesiologist in the operating room were out of network, requiring him to pay thousands of dollars more. (David Lazarus, 3/25)

Most voters say healthcare is either very or extremely important to them as they think about this year's presidential election, but what they actually mean by healthcare varies by party, a new poll shows. Most voters say healthcare is either very or extremely important to them as they think about this year's presidential election, but what they actually mean by healthcare varies by party, a new poll shows. The Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Wednesday found that 36% of registered voters surveyed said healthcare was "extremely important" and 42% said it was "very important." Voters cared most about the economy/jobs and more people said terrorism was extremely important than said the same about healthcare. (Shannon Muchmore, 3/23)

While we all acknowledge there is a persistent abuse of opiod painkillers that causes addiction and overdose in the U.S., having the FDA strengthen the warning labels on these drugs does not get to the root cause of the problem ("FDA adds boldest warning to most widely used painkillers," March 22). Many patients are in need of strong painkillers, and with an aging population we will see that need increase. While some physicians may prescribe too many painkillers, I don't believe that's the main cause of our current epidemic. (Mike Gimbel, 3/24)

More than 20 years ago, I became an associate at a big New York City firm and almost simultaneously spiraled into alcoholism and drug addiction. Top law firms are filled with academic overachievers who are realizing their dreams when they start work. Upon arrival, though, instead of making a brilliant argument before a judge, these young lawyers may find themselves competing with their similarly gifted peers for the privilege of proofreading documents for a high-ranking partner. If they do a great job, they may get to proofread all weekend. That’s what success can look like. Failure can look much worse. To cope with that life, many need an outlet. Over the years, I have known lawyers with eating disorders, out-of-control shopping habits and extreme exercise addictions. (Lisa F. Smith, 3/24)

We were enjoying a wonderful Christmas Day when it happened eight years ago. My son, Matthew Stoney White, was at the time 23 years old and in his final semester at the University of Kentucky. He had traveled back to Pikeville to enjoy Christmas break with his family. Driving down one of our curvy Eastern Kentucky country roads, he encountered black ice. The car went sideways into a large tree and Matthew received an acquired brain injury. (Mark White, 3/24)

There would be some cost increases if Kansas allows a federal expansion of Medicaid, as the state eventually would be responsible for 10 percent of the cost of expansion. But a new national report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation notes that expansion also saves money, in part because the federal government would pick up some costs currently paid by states. An expansion proposal by the Kansas Hospital Association is projected to save the state $151 million each year from 2017 through 2020. KHA also estimates that by not expanding Medicaid, Kansas has forfeited more than $1 billion in federal funds since Jan. 1, 2014. (Phillip Brownlee, 3/24)

An important new report makes clear the principal cause of the water crisis in Flint, Mich.: the state government’s blatant disregard for the lives and health of poor and black residents of a distressed city. The report released Wednesday by a task force appointed last year by Gov. Rick Snyder to study how Flint’s drinking water became poisoned by lead makes for chilling reading. While it avoids using the word “racism,” it clearly identifies the central role that race and poverty play in this story. “Flint residents, who are majority black or African-American and among the most impoverished of any metropolitan area in the United States, did not enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards as that provided to other communities,” the report said. (3/25)

The abundant deficiencies of Gov. Rick Snyder's administration are laid bare in a scathing report issued Wednesday by the task force the governor himself appointed to postmortem the Flint water crisis. The appointment of this task force was the governor's response, in the days after he finally acknowledged that the water in Flint was not safe to drink, to critics demanding accountability from an administration that for too long seemed unmoved by the events unfolding in Flint. (3/24)

A bill that proposes to carve out exceptions in the state’s Smoke-Free Workplace Act contradicts the will of Ohioans who voted overwhelming to enact the indoor smoking ban through a 2006 ballot measure. Today roughly 1 in 5 Ohioans smoke, about the same as then. But there’s even less tolerance for secondhand smoke given what has become a mountain of medical evidence about the serious health problems it causes bystanders. Among the risks, according to the Ohio Department of Health, are stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, emphysema, pneumonia and, for babies whose moms are exposed, premature birth and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. (3/25)

I recently wrote about a woman who is dying of lung cancer. Someone asked me if the subject of my story smoked. She didn't. The question is, in a way, a natural outgrowth of decades of anti-smoking campaigns. The link between smoking and lung cancer is scientific fact. (Daniel P. Finney, 3/25)