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Republicans seem set to start muscling legislation through Congress reshaping the country’s health care system after seven years of saber rattling. Don’t confuse that with GOP unity or assume that success is guaranteed. Unresolved disputes over taxes and Medicaid rage and conservatives complaining that Republican proposals don’t go far enough could undermine the effort, or at least make GOP leaders’ lives difficult. (Fram, 3/4)

House Republicans, despite stiff political headwinds, are readying an ambitious push this week to begin moving legislation to replace major parts of the Affordable Care Act, a crucial test of their ability to fulfill one of their party’s main campaign promises. The plan marks the first time GOP lawmakers will do this since Obamacare was enacted seven years ago and will provide an early indication of whether President Trump can rally his party’s members of Congress, many of whom are anxious about how to repeal and replace the healthcare law. (Levey and Mascaro, 3/5)

Republicans who have vowed for years to “repeal and replace” ObamaCare are now seeking to turn their campaign pledge into reality, with markups of legislation potentially beginning this week. With narrow majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans won’t be able to pass healthcare legislation unless they remain united. That could prove difficult, as there are several knotty issues raised by the repeal effort that threaten to push lawmakers into opposing camps. (Hellmann, 3/6)

Republican U.S. lawmakers expect to unveil this week the text of long-awaited legislation to repeal and replace the Obamacare healthcare law, one of President Donald Trump's top legislative priorities, a senior Republican congressional aide said on Sunday. Since taking office in January, Trump has pressed his fellow Republicans who control Congress to act quickly to dismantle former Democratic President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act and pass a plan to replace it, but lawmakers in the party have differed on the specifics. (Cornwell, 3/6)

Conservative groups are raising alarms over central provisions of the House GOP’s emerging plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, pushing lawmakers to buck House Speaker Paul Ryan and oppose the Republican blueprint. The groups—including Heritage Action, the Club for Growth and Freedom Partners, an organization funded by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch—are troubled by the notion of refundable tax credits to help consumers pay for health insurance, a central tenet of Mr. Ryan’s plan that President Donald Trump appeared to endorse in his address to Congress last week. (Hackman, 3/5)

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Friday blasted Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) hunt for House Republicans’ closely held draft bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare as a “publicity stunt.” “I like Rand, but I think he’s looking for a publicity stunt here,” Ryan told Fox News' Bret Baier. “The things he described are just not accurate.” Paul tweeted on Thursday that the ObamaCare legislation was being kept under “lock and key” in a “secure location.” He then went to the House side of the Capitol to try and enter the room where he said the bill was located — with a copier in tow to distribute the draft. (Hagen, 3/3)

While final legislation has yet to be unveiled, an outline and a leaked draft from last month give a general idea of where House Republicans are headed. Their bill would dismantle the central elements of ObamaCare, including its subsidies to help people afford coverage, its expansion of Medicaid, and its mandates and taxes. Democrats warn the bill would jeopardize coverage for the 20 million people who have gained it from ObamaCare, while Republicans argue the health law has failed and needs to be replaced with a less intrusive system. (Sullivan, 3/4)

Some people “just don’t want health care,” according to Rep. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who cited the Bible while arguing against former President Obama's Medicaid expansion. “Just like Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us,’” Marshall, a doctor and freshman lawmaker, told Stat News on Friday. ... Marshall argued that ObamaCare’s expansion of Medicaid had not helped. “Just, like, homeless people. … I think just morally, spiritually, socially, [some people] just don’t want health care,” he said. (Sullivan, 3/3)

As Republicans dive into their politically risky push to undo the Affordable Care Act, Rep. Greg Walden is emerging as a key figure in the party’s attempt to rally around a new health-insurance system. Mr. Walden, a gregarious Oregon congressman first elected to Congress in 1998, became chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee in January after a successful run as coordinator of the Republican House campaigns. His political savvy will now be tested as he stewards legislation that could result in millions of Americans losing health coverage, while also facing pressure from conservatives not to water down any bill by retaining a significant government role in insurance. (Hackman, 3/6)

A House committee is proposing a new way to reshape the Medicaid program, an effort to resolve one of the most divisive issues in the debate among Republicans over how to replace the Affordable Care Act. Under its plan, which the committee expects to unveil in legislation next week, states that grew their Medicaid programs under the health law could maintain their expanded programs until 2020 before federal funding would decrease. (Peterson, Hackman and Armour, 3/3)

A Republican senator from West Virginia is insisting that Medicaid expansion be preserved in the GOP's Obamacare replacement proposal. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito's comments on CNN's "New Day" Friday morning highlight the persistent divisions among conservatives over how to address the health law. She defended her state's expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act -- an especially divisive component of the health law among Republicans. (Wright, 3/3)

Until recently, much of the debate over health care's future has focused around skyrocketing prices for insurance bought through exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. But other proposed changes to the health care law and Medicaid under discussion in Washington have the potential to affect far more people in Illinois than an overhaul of the exchanges. More than 3 million Illinois residents — about 1 of out of every 4 people in the state — have health insurance through Medicaid, which is funded by state and federal dollars. Any changes to the program could affect consumers and some hospitals and doctors, which use the money they get from Medicaid to bolster their services. This year, the federal government is sending Illinois an estimated $14.1 billion for its share of the program. (Schencker, 3/3)

The “Save Our Care” Bus Tour made a stop Friday in Tampa so doctors, patients and caregivers advocate against repealing the Affordable Care Act, and against the congressional Republican push for Medicaid block grants.  Opponents like [Michael] Phillips say Medicaid block grants -- which would let the federal government set each state's Medicaid spending amount in advance --  would limit access to care. (Miller, 3/3)

Vice President Mike Pence joined House Speaker Paul Ryan on Friday in his Wisconsin hometown, promising during an invite-only speech that a replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act would come within days while dismissing recent protests at Republican town halls by people opposed to repealing it. “Despite the best efforts of some activists at some town halls around the country, the American people know Obamacare has failed and Obamacare must go,” Pence told about 350 employees of Blain Supply at the company headquarters in Janesville. (Bauer, 3/3)

Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, has voted more than 50 times in Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act. She plans to do it again this spring. But talking with voters in her impoverished state, which has a high rate of drug addiction, obesity and poor health, has given Ms. Capito a new sense of caution. “I met a woman the other day with a terrible illness,” she said. “She is really sick and really scared.” (Steinhauer, 3/5)

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham told a rowdy town hall in South Carolina that health care is going to change in the United States. Just don’t ask him for details. “Can I let you in on a little secret? I don’t know what the GOP plan is,” the Republican Graham told the roughly 1,000 people who packed a theatre at Clemson University on Saturday. (Collins, 3/4)

In a rare congressional town hall in North Texas on Saturday, U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, withstood two hours of booing from hundreds of angry constituents at a local high school. It was notable that Burgess was there in the flesh; many of his colleagues have avoided such events during the congressional recess, choosing virtual discussions over rowdy and combative public forums with residents outraged over the Trump administration's recent policies. (Silver, 3/4)

As candidate Donald Trump hammered the Affordable Care Act last year as “a fraud,” “a total disaster” and “very bad health insurance,” more Americans than not seemed to agree with him. Now that President Trump and fellow Republicans show signs of keeping their promise to dump the law, many appear to be having second thoughts. (Hancock, 3/3)

Republican plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act have encountered a new obstacle: adamant opposition from many older Americans whose health insurance premiums would increase. AARP and its allies are bombarding congressional offices with objections as two House committees plan to vote on the Republicans’ bill this week. If the law is repealed, the groups say, people in their 50s and 60s could see premiums rise by $2,000 to $3,000 a year or more: increases of 20 percent to 25 percent or higher. (Pear, 3/5)

From the moment the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, most elected officials in this sturdily Republican state have been eager to squash it. But something surprising is happening here. Despite deep uncertainty about the law’s future, Utah recorded one of the biggest increases of any state in residents who signed up for coverage under the act this year. Now, the state is seeing a surprising burst of activism against repealing the law — including from Republicans. (Goodnough, 3/3)

Saying their patience is at an end, conservative activist groups backed by the billionaire Koch brothers and other powerful interests on the right are mobilizing to pressure Republicans to fulfill their promise to swiftly repeal the Affordable Care Act. Their message is blunt and unforgiving, with the goal of reawakening some of the most extensive conservative grass-roots networks in the country. It is a reminder that even as Republicans control both the White House and Congress for the first time in a decade, the party’s activist wing remains restless and will not go along passively for the sake of party unity. (Peters, 3/5)

What's keeping him and other healthcare industry CEOs up at night is the huge uncertainty created by the Republican drive to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. They fear a new GOP-crafted system would reduce premium subsidies and Medicaid funding, drive up the number of uninsured Americans, spike uncompensated-care costs, and threaten their organizations' financial viability. (Meyer, 3/4)

On Monday, President Donald Trump addressed a joint session of Congress (and the nation). In his speech, he shared his blueprint for the country’s future. Many of his remarks centered on national security, jobs and taxes, but the item on many minds was health care. Following a spate of town hall meetings in which angry constituents confronted their Republican representatives, Trump laid out his vision for replacing the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also called Obamacare). (Marquit, 3/3)

If the ACA is entirely repealed without any replacement for people like her, Emma will be at the mercy of insurers that, prior to the health law, were legally allowed to discriminate against cancer patients, refusing to cover them or charging them exorbitant prices. Several ideas are swirling through Congress right now as a Republican majority aims to keep its promise to repeal the health law. But several pieces of it — such as the patient protections that helped Emma — remain popular, and President Donald Trump has said he would like to keep some of them. (Demeria, 3/3)

Mayor Martin J. Walsh sat down Friday with leaders of the city’s biggest hospitals to talk about the potential impact of a repeal of President Obama’s signature health care law. What he heard wasn’t comforting. The executives told Walsh that policies Republicans in Washington are considering to replace the Affordable Care Act could destabilize their organizations and lead to job cuts. Hospitals are among the city’s largest private employers and a powerful engine driving the local economy. (McCluskey, 3/4)

President Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services on Sunday said the White House believes Medicare should be guaranteed for senior citizens. Tom Price told CBS’s “Face the Nation,” that the White House believes Medicare is a guarantee for seniors when asked about Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) recent comments that cuts to Medicare remain an “open question.” Trump during his presidential campaign promised not to cut Medicare and Social Security. (Shelbourne, 3/5)

“I’ll tell you what’s not an open question, is that we believe in the guarantee of Medicare for our seniors,” Price told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “The challenge that we have, as you well know and your viewers know, is that Medicare is, as some folks have said, going insolvent or going broke. … So we believe strongly in the guarantee of Medicare and make certain that it’s a viable, financially secure program going forward so that seniors now and in the future know that it will be there for them.” (Schultheis, 3/5)

Divining what President Trump is thinking is not always an easy task, but biotech executive John Crowley believes he may have some insight — at least when it comes to Trump’s views on the Food and Drug Administration. Earlier this week, Trump gave a major speech vowing to “slash restraints” at the FDA to speed drug approvals and he has previously promised to get rid 75 percent to 80 percent of regulations. Crowley is no mind reader, but after a private meeting with Trump at the White House before the speech, he came away with the impression that the president does not really want to unravel the FDA. (Silverman, 3/3)

President Trump’s plan to dramatically hike defense spending would mean cuts for almost every other department — including the National Institutes of Health, an agency that many Republicans would rather invest more money into. Congressman Tom Cole, a Republican who chairs a key appropriations committee that has overseen recent boosts to NIH’s funding, sounds worried. Trump is expected to propose increasing defense spending more than $50 billion in the next fiscal year and making offsetting cuts to other parts of the federal budget. (Scott, 3/3)

Gov. Charlie Baker has promised that Massachusetts will plug any holes in the budget of the state chapter of Planned Parenthood if Congress moves to block the use of Medicaid funding for treatment at the women’s health care organization. The move by Mr. Baker, a Republican governor of a Democratic-leaning state, is intended, in part, to signal the gap between his positions and those of the Republican-controlled Congress, many of whose members oppose Planned Parenthood because the organization provides abortions. (3/3)

Governor Charlie Baker is pledging to boost state funding for Planned Parenthood clinics in Massachusetts if his fellow Republicans in Washington push ahead with a plan to slash the flow of federal dollars to the organization. Massachusetts’ five Planned Parenthood clinics stand to lose a total of about $2 million a year, from a budget of $21.5 million, if the federal cuts take place. (McCluskey, 3/3)

Already the federal government prohibits any federal dollars from paying for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or to save the mother’s life. But the new effort seeks to block federal funds from paying for any other kind of health care by providers who also perform abortions. If they succeed, the impact would be particularly strong in California — a state where legislators over the years have interpreted federal laws and rules in ways that have allowed more federal dollars to flow to Planned Parenthood clinics. (Young, 3/5)

Cutting off funding for Planned Parenthood is a priority for many congressional Republicans, but that effort is likely to stumble because other GOP lawmakers are hesitant to take aim at health clinics that are popular with their constituents. Although the abortion services Planned Parenthood provides are bitterly opposed by conservative Republicans, polls show a majority of Americans support the organization. (Radelat, 3/6)

Nationwide, family planning clinics are seeing a surge in demand for contraceptive services, particularly long-acting IUDs and implants. In Indiana, appointments for long-acting birth control methods have jumped by more than 50 percent compared to last year, said Kristin Adams, CEO of the Indiana Family Health Council, which oversees federal and state funding for family planning clinics in the state, including at the Warsaw center. (Vestal, 3/6)

A company that sells a new opioid-addiction medication is a secret funder of an advocacy group fronted by Newt Gingrich and Patrick Kennedy that is pushing for more government funding and insurance coverage of such treatments. Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker and a Trump confidant, and Kennedy, a former congressman and son of former US Senator Edward Kennedy, are paid advisors to Advocates for Opioid Recovery. They have generated a flurry of media attention in those roles, including joint interviews with outlets ranging from Fox News to the New Yorker. (Armstrong, 3/3)

California is looking to impose a surcharge on prescription opioids to fund treatment for addicts. The move in such a large state could have a ripple effect through the rest of the country dealing with spiking rates of overdoses. The proposed measure introduced Wednesday by California Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, of Sacramento, would place a one-cent-per-milligram tax on prescription opioids. Prescription opioid wholesalers would be responsible for paying the tax, but it is likely those charges would fall onto the shoulders of insurers and consumers. (Johnson, 3/3)

More doctors than ever in the United States are armed with a medication scientifically proven to fight the heroin and opioid epidemic. Yet many don't prescribe it to as many patients as they are authorized to help. Research published in the American Journal of Public Health in June 2015 found that 43 percent of potential patients who could have received the drug were not offered it. And while more doctors are asking to prescribe the drug in 2017, experts worry that the gap – the one between those who qualify for the drug and those who actually get it  – is not being addressed. (DeMio, 3/5)

All too often, however, [Camile] Paglia and her staff are forced to tell patients just saved from overdosing that there are no beds in the rehab system for them. Many return to Episcopal the next day and the next, hoping for better news. Others go back to the needle right away; they need walk only a short distance to what law enforcement considers the biggest open-air drug market on the East Coast. Some don't survive the night — police have found the bodies of addicts, still wearing hospital wristbands, out near the tracks. (Giordano, 3/5)

In an effort to curtail the number of deaths in St. Charles County related to heroin and opioid use, the county ambulance district has created a program to help addicts gain immediate access to rehabilitation programs. Meanwhile, the parents of a young woman who died of a heroin overdose in O’Fallon, Mo., last year are planning their own crusade nearly 100 miles southwest of there in St. James to save others from a tragic fate that officials say is becoming increasingly common. Ambulance district data show calls concerning overdoses from heroin and opioids — a group of drugs that includes highly addictive prescription painkillers like oxycodone — have increased steadily since 2008, and ratcheted up noticeably after 2013. Calls increased from about 300 in 2014 to a record of about 425 last year. (Lisenby, 3/5)

New Hampshire providers say the insurance department’s examination of how the state’s top three insurance carriers cover treatment for substance misuse is "a good start." But they say the long-awaited report, released last week, doesn’t fully answer the real question: Are insurers abiding by state and federal “parity” laws that require them to cover mental health services the same way they cover medical and surgical treatments? (Wickham, 3/5)

Boston Medical Center has received a $25 million gift, the largest in its history, and plans to use the money to fight what it calls the “heartbreaking” public health crisis caused by drug addiction and the opioid epidemic. The donation to BMC, which serves more low-income patients than any other medical facility in New England, will create the Grayken Center for Addiction Medicine, named after billionaire investor and South Shore native John Grayken and his wife, Eilene. (Pfeiffer, 3/6)

While much of the recent attention on drug abuse in the United States has focused on the heroin and opioid epidemic, cocaine has also been making a comeback. It appears to be a case of supply driving demand. After years of falling output, the size of Colombia’s illegal coca crop has exploded since 2013, and the boom is starting to appear on U.S. streets. (Miroff, 3/4)

Paul Corby needs a new heart. On that there is no dispute. The same rare disease that killed his father at 27 is destroying his left ventricle. While there is no cure or surgery that might repair the damage, a heart transplant could extend his life considerably. But Corby, who lives in Pottsville, Pa., is autistic, suffers from several psychological conditions and takes 19 medications. When he applied to the transplant program at the University of Pennsylvania in 2011, he was rejected because of his “psychiatric issues, autism, the complexity of the process . . . and the unknown and unpredictable effect of steroids on behavior,” according to the denial letter sent to his mother. (Bernstein, 3/4)

Exposure to polluted environments is associated with more than one in four deaths among children younger than 5, according to two World Health Organization reports published Monday. Worldwide, 1.7 million children's deaths are attributable to environmental hazards, such as exposure to contaminated water, indoor and outdoor pollution, and other unsanitary conditions, the reports found. Weaker immune systems make children's health more vulnerable to harmful effects of polluted environments, the report says. (Naqvi, 3/5)

He loves dancing to songs, such as Michael Jackson’s "Beat It" and the "Macarena," but he can't listen to music in the usual way. He laughs whenever someone takes his picture with a camera flash, which is the only intensity of light he can perceive. He loves trying to balance himself, but his legs don't allow him to walk without support. He is one in a million, literally. (Naqvi, 3/5)

Scientists are only beginning to understand the millions of microbes that make up the human microbiome, said UC Davis microbiologist Jonathan Eisen, but researchers are finding that antibiotics, household disinfectants and other sanitizing products are also killing the “good bacteria” that help our bodies fend off disease. Many believe that the shortage of certain microbes explains recent spikes in childhood allergies and asthma. (Caiola, 3/4)

This spring and summer may be a doozy for Lyme disease, at least in parts of the Northeast. "We're anticipating 2017 to be a particularly risky year for Lyme," says Rick Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. Ostfeld has been studying the debilitating tick-borne disease for more than 20 years, and has developed an early warning system based on mice. (Doucleff, 3/6)

For those hoping to shed some wintertime weight gain, research suggests that going vegetarian — or even vegan — can help. When scientists looked at the body mass index of more than 37,000 Britons of all ages in 2003, they found that while the average male meat-eater had BMI of about 24.4, just shy of being overweight, the average vegan had BMI of 22.4. Among women, the patterns were similar. A 2009 study of Seventh-day Adventist church members across North America showed an even more striking difference in BMI: more than five points between those on an omnivorous diet (28.8) and those eating only plant-based foods (23.6). (Zaraska, 3/4)

Every day, in myriad ways, people tapping out their posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media may be sending out more information that even they imagine. What if those posts, taken together, constituted a kind of trail not just to their psyches, but to their overall health? What if researchers could use this to find ways to improve health care? That’s the focus of research led by the newly created Penn Medicine Center for Digital Health.  Its goal is to study and understand the vast amounts of information on social media and how it relates to health. (Bauers, 3/4)

Legislation to allow insurance brokers to charge customers a fee in absence of a commission passed a vote on the House floor. The legislation creates a path for compensation for brokers who help customers find a health insurance plan. Until the fall, brokers received a commission from insurers selling individual plans but drastic changes to the health insurance market eliminated the payments. The legislation, HB0428 and SB0561, is a welcome move for Nashville broker Joe Graves, and his peers, who saw a source of income vanish. (Fletcher, 3/3)

The state Senate on Friday overwhelmingly approved a bill to require Georgia schools and child care centers to test for lead contamination in their water. The proposal, sponsored by Sen. Vincent Fort, an Atlanta Democrat, was passed by a 50-1 vote on Crossover Day. That’s the last day for a bill to move from one chamber of the Legislature to the other and thereby retain a path to becoming law this year. (Miller, 3/3)

[Ron] Plewa's family is worried about what will happen to him as Macomb County undergoes what authorities say will be ultimately total nearly $30 million in Medicaid funding cuts from the state, which is in the process of redistributing the money. Wayne County is among the areas that will benefit from the redistribution, while Oakland County is expected to lose money as well, although Macomb is getting hit the hardest. If the state goes through with a projected $12.5-million cut in funding to Macomb County on April 1, that could mean less money for those who provide services to help Plewa with his daily tasks and allow him to continue his independence. It could force him to move to a more restrictive environment with his older parents or in a group home. (Hall, 3/5)

A bill sponsored by state Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, to address a shortage of nurses in Georgia made its way across the Capitol to the House of Representatives this past week. Senate Bill 166, which was passed by the Senate on Tuesday, would allow registered nurses and licensed practical nurses use an enhanced Nurse Licensure Compact to hold one multistate license. Senate officials said this would make it possible for nurses to move across state lines quickly so they can help out in times of an emergency or disaster. (Yeomans, 3/4)

The leader of a national watchdog group, Brian Lee of Families For Better Care, calls the heavily censored reports — which cover inspections of nursing homes and assisted living facilities — “shocking.” He first noticed a difference in the amount of information withheld late last year... The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, which is responsible for the reports, denied that allegation, saying state officials are merely trying to “provide additional protection of personal health information” as required by federal privacy laws, which were bolstered in 2009. (Santich, 3/3)

The chief budget writer in the Texas House on Friday proposed using $1.4 billion from the state’s savings account to pay bills coming due for a wide array of the state’s health and human services programs. The proposal from state Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond, would continue pay raises for Child Protective Services workers that state leaders ordered last year. It would also pay for renovations at the state’s aging mental health hospitals and state-supported living centers for people with disabilities. (Walters, 3/3)

About 20 percent of Cleveland school district high school students say they have attempted suicide, a rate that's among the highest in the nation and which offers an alarming look at how teens in the high-poverty city view their lives. It's also an incomplete and fuzzy look that doesn't include hard data that can paint a different picture. There's no epidemic of suicides among Cleveland teens, with the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner handling a total of five suicides by Cleveland teens from 2012 through 2016. (O'Donnell, 3/3)

Arizona health officials are investigating four cases of E. coli infections in children under 5 years old that likely came from eating soynut butter-containing products from The SoyNut Butter Co. The cases reported in Maricopa and Coconino counties have been linked to day-care facilities, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. All four children in Arizona that were sickened had to be hospitalized but have since recovered (Restrepo, 3/3)

Many of the Medicare fraud charges against prominent Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen are complicated, but one is simple — federal prosecutors say he claimed reimbursement for treating both eyes of patients who have one prosthetic. Melgen is scheduled to go on trial Monday in West Palm Beach, facing 76 counts charging him with stealing up to $190 million from Medicare between 2004 and 2013. (Spencer, 3/5)

The National Alliance on Mental Illness - Franklin County and the Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Board of Franklin County are teaming up with faith leaders and clergy members to educate them so they can, in turn, educate church, synagogue, temple and mosque members... The board has been working with the faith community for more than 10 years, Dixon said, and it wants to support faith-based organizations and the work they do every day with the mental-health resources it can offer. ADAMH, for example, recently hosted a symposium on mental health, with a demonstration of acupuncture and other techniques for stress management given by health professionals. (King, 3/3)

A pair of stars from the MSNBC media firmament mocked former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear as the Democrats’ first responder to President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress. One of the Bluegrass state’s youngest Democratic Party officials is not amused. Neither is this senior citizen Democrat and lifelong Kentuckian. “Instead of listening to the content of his message, they focused on the superficial,” said Daniel Hurt, 23, a member of the state party’s executive committee. (Berry Craig, 3/3)

Why did the national Democratic response to President Trump’s first speech to Congress come from former Gov. Steve Beshear, speaking from the downtown Lexington Diner? Mainly because national Democratic leaders think their best issue right now is health care, and they see Kentucky as an example of why Trump and Congress need to keep much of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care act. The state is a good example in some ways, but Republicans aren’t conceding any of the point. (Al Cross, 3/3)

If Republican politicians want credibility on health care they should dispense with the fabrications and exaggerations because Americans deserve decisions rooted in reality. In recent days, we’ve heard Gov. Matt Bevin claim that the Affordable Care Act has “resulted in a remarkable decline in health care coverage” and “fewer people able to actually even see a doctor.” What’s remarkable is how wrong he is. (3/3)

For much of Minnesota, particularly its rural reaches, nursing homes are more than just a care provider for aging or disabled loved ones. They’re also a critical part of the local economy, often serving as an area’s largest employer. The vital role long-term care facilities play in their communities ought to factor prominently as Minnesotans evaluate the intensifying efforts by Republicans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. A dramatic overhaul of Medicaid, the public health program for the poor, appears to be on the table. Regrettably, too many policymakers and supporters of the ACA’s repeal fail to realize how federal funding cuts could affect families and communities dependent on these critical care providers. (3/3)

President Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress have made it clear that repealing the Affordable Care Act will be one of their top priorities in 2017. Because Obamacare is such a complex piece of legislation that covers so many aspects of health care, especially for the people of Ohio, we must not rush a decision that could impact millions. The federal government's handling of hospital payments is just one aspect of health care legislation that has a great impact on the people of Ohio and is of importance to the Ohio State Grange. (Robert L. White, 3/3)

If congressional Republicans gut or freeze Ohio's Medicaid expansion, hundreds of thousands of Ohioans, including many who vote in Ohio's Republican-represented congressional districts, would lose health-care coverage, or never get any. And some hospitals might go broke. (Thomas Suddes, 3/4)

As Congress begins to consider health care reform, we urge our lawmakers to keep protections that are currently provided for people with disabilities. The Affordable Care Act includes important provisions that advance the health and economic security of people with disabilities — people who are part of our families, our neighborhoods, our communities. (Leah Rosenbaum, 3/3)

Public opinion about the Affordable Care Act is consistently favorable and on an upswing. Faced with the prospect of repeal, crowds of constituents are confronting lawmakers across the country to express their anguish in town halls. But still, Republicans are rushing to rip apart the health insurance coverage that millions of people depend on. (Topher Spiro, 3/3)

The debate over the future of Obamacare is taking place in secret meetings among Republican lawmakers. President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan have promised to bring forward a bill to modify the law soon. But before they do, they have to work out disagreements among their colleagues on the best way to proceed. (Margot Sanger-Katz, 3/6)

In the beginning, God created a health-care system. But she quickly found it to be a thankless and terribly complex endeavor, so she decided to create the heavens and the Earth. The Earth was covered in darkness, so she said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. “That was easy,” she thought, so she decided to go back to health care. (Jared Bernstein, 3/6)

Say what you will about Obamacare, the law has been a godsend for people with serious medical conditions who had been unable to find or afford coverage in the individual market. (3/5)

High-risk pools can help transition to a system that makes high-quality medical care affordable and secure for patients with high-cost conditions. Obamacare is utterly failing in this regard. And while congressional Republicans are eyeing state-run high-risk pools, their approach is also woefully inadequate. (Michael F. Cannon, 3/5)

President Donald Trump's core principles for health care include ensuring that Americans with pre-existing conditions have access to coverage, and that Americans should be able to purchase the health insurance plan they want, not one forced on them by the government. Each of these goals is laudable and achievable, taken separately. But President Trump and others are about to confront what others have learned the hard way: Achieving both goals simultaneously is extremely challenging. (Seth Chandler, 3/6)

As to consumers — Californians would need to be wary of buying insurance from firms based in states with weak consumer protections. California has some of the toughest protections for patients in the nation, and it can still be difficult to hold insurers to their promises. Good luck trying to convince a company in some far-flung state that it can’t, say, arbitrarily refuse to pay for treatment a patient was led to believe would be covered. (3/4)

The current Republican “plan” for replacing the ACA (aka “Obamacare,” aka “Romneycare”) fails on almost every point. Where there’s plenty of room to fix problems that do exist within the current system, GOP leadership instead aims to add to them, tenfold. The ACA’s subsidies, which expand as incomes decline, would be replaced instead by a system of fixed tax credits that increase only with a person’s age, regardless of income. Essentially, it would kill one of the fundamental underpinnings that allows the ACA to work at all: the individual mandate. (Emily Mills, 3/4)

Missouri is the only state in the nation that has not launched a prescription drug monitoring system. It’s a glaring lack of oversight and a gaping hole in the state’s health care safety net. Missouri’s inaction is inexcusable amid the rise in prescription drug overdoses, which are now considered an epidemic by national health experts. (3/3)

Medical professionals have the right to protect people — that’s what a federal appeals court in Florida unanimously ruled on Feb. 16 when it said doctors can’t be penalized for discussing gun safety with their patients. It was a well-deserved comeuppance for the gun lobby and its latest ploy to pit Second Amendment rights against the First Amendment. They sought to muzzle doctors when they talked to their patients about gun safety, but the court didn’t buy the argument. (3/6)

New Jersey’s next gubernatorial election is less than nine months away. Phil Murphy and Kim Guadagno are the current front runners for their respective parties, with the Democrat Murphy being the likely winner if the election were held today. Mr. Murphy is on the record that he supports the legalization of marijuana in New Jersey (Ms. Guadagno has not stated her position). State Senator Nicholas Scutari, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, led a bipartisan delegation of state legislators on a trip to Colorado in 2016 where they toured a number of marijuana stores and spoke with Colorado politicians. If Mr. Murphy wins, it is very likely that the Legislature will pass a bill for the full legalization of marijuana and that he will sign it. (Frank Greenagel, 3/5)

But even though 99 percent of sexually active, child-bearing-aged women have used contraception, Republicans in Congress and state legislatures dismiss the importance of access to reproductive care, including birth control and abortion, in effect dismissing the importance of women actively engaging in their own health care and controlling their own future, including when and if to have children. In their denial, they are ignoring basic economic realities that tens of millions of Americans face, forcing an agenda - like defunding Planned Parenthood, restricting access to women’s health care, and stripping publicly funded health programs - that runs counter to what their constituents value. (Celinda Lake, 3/4)

They say a good attorney never asks a question of a trial witness without first knowing the answer. The same could probably be said of senators and congressmen engaged in fact-finding missions. Congressional hearings are usually staged opportunities for grandstanding elected officials to deliver lengthy, scripted speeches. Even written congressional inquiries, made in the absence of television cameras, can be engineered to elicit a desired response. (3/5)

Two years ago, around 9 at night, my 18-year-old son came home after studying for a test. Luckily I was there to greet him. We talked briefly about the full moon, and then he gasped and collapsed. His heart had stopped. Another son heard my screaming and got my wife to call 911. Another started CPR. Then early responders, ambulance, intensive-care unit, induced coma, feeding tube, batteries of tests, neurologists, physical therapists, a defibrillator installed. Twenty days later he walked out of the hospital. The total bill was over $1 million, nearly all paid by insurance. (Andy Kessler, 3/3)

Multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis is a global scourge, and the first recorded deaths from TB untouchable by all known agents occurred in 2003. In 2015, E. coli displaying a novel resistance mechanism to the antibiotic colistin showed up in pigs, in raw meat, and in a handful of human patients in China — and colistin-resistant microbes have since spread to countries around the globe, including the United States. This is potentially disastrous. Colistin is a drug of last resort for several classes of infections. In the language of the commons, we have drastically overgrazed our communal field of antibiotics, and humankind will pay the price. (Thomas Levenson, 3/5)

The World Health Organization published a medical most-wanted list this week on 12 dangerous “superbugs,” and the warning spotlights the growing threat of bacteria that can resist all or nearly all antibiotics. Ominously, deadly microbes are outpacing science’s capacity to develop new human defenses. (3/5)