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If it feels like you are spending more for health care through higher deductibles or premiums, you may be right. Under the Affordable Care Act, insurers are required to post rate increases if they exceed 10 percent, and, in many cases, the price spikes for the coming year range from 20 percent to 85 percent. And another study shows people who are covered by their employers are also paying more through higher out-of-pocket costs that leave as many as 31 million people underinsured. (6/3)

Insurance companies in Montana are requesting double-digit rate increases next year for the health plans of more than 77,000 people covered through the online exchange created by President Barack Obama's health law. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana is asking state regulators to approve an average increase of about 22 percent over the rates approved in 2015 for its individual plans. PacificSource is asking for an average 32 percent increase. The Montana Health Cooperative is requesting an average 34 percent increase. (Volz, 6/3)

Health insurance companies have made their requests to the state Department of Financial Services for premium rate increases for individual and small-group policies to be offered on and off the state-run online market in 2016. On average, insurers asked for a 13.5 percent increase in rates on individual policies in 2016, and a 14.3 percent increase in rates for small-group policies. (Hughes, 6/4)

Eight health insurance companies in Minnesota are proposing double-digit increases in average premiums and some want to raise rates by more than 50 percent, according to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (Zdechlik, 6/3)

Health insurers are seeking large premium increases for 2016 in Minnesota, with average jumps of more than 50 percent proposed by one of the state’s largest health plans. The proposed rates were released by the federal government Wednesday, a few days after similar data for most other states prompted widespread talk about how medical costs are running higher than expected for many insurers. (6/3)

Coventry Health Care is seeking approval for double-digit premium increases for its 2016 individual health plans, according to rate information made public Monday by the federal government. Insurance brokers had considered the health plans sold by the Maryland-based insurer to be among the cheapest with the most extensive provider networks available to Missouri consumers. But Coventry’s strategy appears to have caught up with it, and the insurer is now asking federal regulators to approve an average rate increase of 23 percent for plans sold in the St. Louis area. (Shapiro, 6//1)

A pair of states this week have taken major steps toward running their own Obamacare exchanges, potentially shielding their residents from a Supreme Court ruling this month that could eliminate insurance subsidies in the 34 states that haven’t set up their own marketplaces. (Pradhan, 6/3)

Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration said Tuesday it has formally applied to take over the operation of Pennsylvania’s health insurance marketplace as the Democrat seeks a bulwark against the potential loss of health insurance subsidies for hundreds of thousands of state residents. Wolf’s Department of Insurance submitted the application to the federal government on Monday, the deadline if Pennsylvania is to move to a state-based marketplace in 2016. (Levy, 6/3)

A ruling against the Affordable Care Act could end insurance subsidies for millions of people who live in the 37 states - including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware - that rely on the federal marketplace. The 13 that set up state marketplaces two years ago would not be affected. Pennsylvania on Tuesday became the only additional state to announce that it had applied to set up an exchange by Monday's federal deadline. (Sapatkin, 6/3)

House conservatives are hinting at support for a temporary extension of Obama-Care subsidies if the Supreme Court cripples the law, even as they set up a working group to develop their own plan. The high court is set to rule later this month in the case of King v. Burwell, which could invalidate subsidies for millions of people in at least 34 states using the federally run marketplace. Republicans say they need to be ready to address people losing their coverage, but have yet to coalesce around a plan. (Sullivan, 6/4)

The Supreme Court could wipe away health insurance for millions of Americans when it resolves the latest fight over President Barack Obama's health overhaul. But would the court take away a benefit from so many people? Should the justices even consider such consequences? By month's end, the court is expected to decide a challenge to the way subsidies, in the form of tax credits, are given to people who get their insurance through the Affordable Care Act. The legal issue is whether Congress authorized payments regardless of where people live, or only to residents of states that established their own insurance exchanges. (Sherman, 6/3)

The Affordable Care Act is once again before the Supreme Court. This time it’s not about whether the government can force you to have health insurance or pay a penalty. It can. That is so “2012.” (6/4)

After a passionate debate, the Florida Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would let a half million people use billions in federal dollars to buy health insurance, and added new measures to address criticism from the House, chiefly that the program would end in three years. A majority of Republicans supported the controversial health care bill. Earlier this week, a state economist said the plan would save the state money. A top state health official warned it was unclear whether more or less people would gain coverage under the bill. (Kennedy and Fineout, 6/3)

Senators issued a series of dire warnings in fervent speeches Wednesday before amending and passing a bill offering health insurance to up to 800,000 Floridians, all with the aim of getting House support. But so far, House leaders have resisted every Senate attempt to change the measure to make it more acceptable. The House is poised to vote on the bill by Friday, and chamber leaders have indicated there aren’t enough votes to pass it. (Rohrer, 6/3)

The Florida Senate capped one of the most politically divisive debates in decades Wednesday and gave bipartisan approval to a plan that draws federal Medicaid money into a privately run program to provide subsidized health insurance to low-income, working Floridians. ... The Senate adopted a series of last-minute changes aimed at quieting concerns from House Republicans and Gov. Rick Scott. But, despite the revisions and an appeal by Senate leaders to show this was a "Florida plan" and not traditional Medicaid expansion, Scott did not budge. "He has not revised" his opposition, said Scott spokesman Jackie Shultz after the Senate vote. (Klas, 6/3)

The Obama administration weighed in on Florida’s legislative debate over Medicaid expansion Thursday with an updated version of a report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers, first released in summer 2014 and updated for this year, counting the ways the Sunshine State would gain by opening eligibility for the government healthcare program to nearly all low-income adults. Most of the projected gains have been trumpeted before: billions of dollars in federal funding and fewer people uninsured or facing medical debt. But, in a reflection of how intense the debate has become, the state-by-state report adds a new measure this year: fewer deaths. (Chang, 6/4)

Key Republicans on Tuesday asserted that the administration of Florida Gov. Rick Scott was playing politics in a continuing fight over health care that has already derailed one legislative session this year. Scott, who has changed his stance on whether to expand Medicaid coverage twice now, is opposed to a plan pushed by Senate Republicans that would use federal money to provide private insurance to low-income Floridians. (Fineout, 6/3)

Gov. Rick Scott picked a good time to be far from the Capitol Tuesday as House members slashed his tax cuts and angry senators accused his top Medicaid expert of playing politics with health care. ... A House committee approved a fraction of the $700 million in tax cuts Scott sought, and senators berated the governor’s point man on Medicaid, Justin Senior, for more than an hour. Months of simmering frustration by Republican senators erupted. They accused Senior, deputy secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration, of manufacturing phony arguments to side with the House in an effort to mobilize opposition to a Senate plan to expand health coverage to 800,000 Floridians. (Bousquet and Klas, 6/2)

Hospitals in states that expanded their Medicaid programs last year saw a significant reduction in bad debt, but even providers in non-expansion states still improved their operating margins. The average reduction in bad debt last year was 13% in Medicaid expansion states, according to an analysis of not-for-profit and public hospitals by Moody's Investors Service. In non-expansion states, bad debt rose in the first nine months of the year, and only started to come down in the fourth quarter. (Kutscher, 6/3)

Health researchers and lawmakers are mulling how to overhaul medical privacy rules in a world where health data is increasingly shared. The House this month may consider a bill from the Energy and Commerce Committee that includes language intended to clarify the boundaries set by the main federal medical privacy law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. A provision in the so-called 21st Century Cures package passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee addresses misunderstandings about HIPAA that now sometimes impede the flow of information among medical practices caring for the same patient. (Young, 6/3)

The Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday advanced a bipartisan bill to reform the Medicare appeals process with the hopes of reducing the ever-growing backlog of requests. Legislation from chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and ranking member Ron Wyden (R-Ore.) would create new layers of oversight while also creating new ways for patients to expedite their cases through the system. (Ferris, 6/3)

When seven senators on the Judiciary Committee announced proposed legislation in April to rewrite the rules of patent litigation, they promised prompt enactment of the changes they prescribed. One of the sponsors, Republican Whip John Cornyn of Texas, called the bipartisan sponsorship the legislative equivalent of "shock and awe" and said he was confident that President Barack Obama would sign it into law this year. (Zeller, 6/3)

On the heels of a first-ever White House forum on antibiotic resistance, two House members have introduced bipartisan legislation to speed approvals of new antibiotics. Reps. John Shimkus, R-Ill., and Gene Green, D-Texas, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, introduced on Wednesday the Antibiotic Development to Advance Patient Treatment Act, which would allow approval of antibiotics for life-threatening illnesses based on smaller clinical trials. (Gustin, 6/3)

Senate legislation is looking to empower nurse practitioners across the Veterans Affairs Department to practice independently of physicians, regardless of laws in individual states. The goal is to mitigate physician shortages and reduce patient wait times that have been plaguing the VA. The provision would allow nurse practitioners—including midwives and mental healthcare clinical nurse specialists—to prescribe some drugs and treat patients without a supervising physician. (Robeznieks, 6/3)

Rep. Donna F. Edwards' campaign for Senate criticized Rep. Chris Van Hollen on Wednesday for not signing a letter opposed to Medicare cuts included in a trade bill pending in Congress, her latest effort to draw a distinction with him in the state's high-profile contest. At issue is a letter crafted by House liberals that calls on congressional leaders to reconsider how the trade bill pays for an expanded Trade Adjustment Assistance program. The program is used to help workers displaced by trade agreements such as the one the Obama administration is negotiating with Pacific Rim nations. (Fritze, 6/3)

Laura Markowski used to worry every time a text alerted her that a patient had posted a negative review online of a doctor at her health-care system. She’s in charge of “reputation management” at a group of hospitals and clinics in Virginia, and it’s her job to monitor complaints about rudeness, long waits, lack of face time with a doctor or something more serious. ... Markowski is part of a new and urgent effort by hospitals and health systems to track and control their online reputations. (Sun, 6/3)

Video or telephone visits with doctors — the practice known as telemedicine — have survived one of their biggest legal challenges yet in Texas, but hurdles remain in Arkansas and some other states. The challenges come as telemedicine is gaining widespread support among major employers and many consumers. (O'Donnell, 6/3)

It took 10 years and $1 billion for MannKind Corp. in Valencia to get its breakthrough inhaled-insulin drug approved by U.S. regulators. Now comes the hard part: getting people with diabetes to use it. If Cynthia Goldstein's experience is any indication, it's not going to be easy. (Pfeifer, 6/3)

It's no secret that health care costs are on the rise, and have been for years. From monthly premiums to co-pays and now coinsurance for prescription drugs, consumers are being squeezed financially as a result of trying to keep their families healthy. A relatively new factor in this cost-versus-care debate are biologic drugs, complex medicines made from living cells that treat deadly and debilitating diseases. Doctors are increasingly prescribing them to treat everything from cancer to rheumatoid arthritis to multiple sclerosis. (Greenberg, 6/3)

A new, international panel of experts has studied the most recent evidence on mammograms to screen for breast cancer and says they do the most good for women in their 50s and 60s. Women 70 to 74 also benefit to a lesser extent. But evidence that screening helps women in their 40s is "limited," the panel said, although some members disagreed this was true for women 45 to 49. The panel's report was published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine. (6/3)

A federal health task force that has been criticized for its mammography recommendations now has scientific support from the World Health Organization. The WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer has just finished its review of mammography to screen for breast cancer, and it, too, concludes that the value of these screening X-rays is "limited" for women in their 40s. (Harris, 6/3)

Oregon lawmakers are considering a bill that could make their state the easiest place in the nation for women to access birth control. The proposal advancing through the Legislature would allow pharmacists to write prescriptions for contraceptives after women pass a risk-screening assessment. (Kuman, 6/4)

A D.C. bill to expand access to birth control could become the next big battle between city leaders and conservatives in Congress. The bill would allow women to get a full year of birth control at once and is likely to draw fire from Republicans who have already tried to block a D.C. statute offering legal protections to women who have had abortions or use contraception. (Ferris, 6/3)

Two years after passing some of the strictest abortion regulations in the country — and with a state Legislature considered even more conservative than in years past — Republican lawmakers are leaving their 2015 session having passed just one piece of legislation to further restrict the procedure. Some attributed it to a lack of interest in such a divisive social issue from top leadership in the chambers. Others think there was some fatigue on the issue after the sweeping measures that passed in 2013 — some of which are still tangled up in court. (Ura, 6/3)

An abortion bill that would require women in North Carolina to wait 72 hours before having the procedure cleared the state Legislature on Wednesday and is now heading to the desk of Gov. Pat McCrory. The bill, which triples the state's mandatory 24-hour waiting period, cleared the house by a vote of 71 to 43. Under the law, doctors would be required to counsel patients on alternative options at least 72 hours before an abortion could take place. (Queally, 6/3)

The budget calls for a wide range of cuts to health care and social service programs for seniors, poor families, and people with developmental disabilities or mental health needs, although many of the reductions are far less than the deep cuts Malloy proposed in February. The cuts include reducing Medicaid eligibility — a move expected to cause 20,000 to 25,000 poor parents to lose coverage — and requiring seniors to pay more for home care. Programs that serve people with intellectual or developmental disabilities would face modest cuts, not the huge reductions Malloy proposed. (Phaneuf, Rabe Thomas and Levin Becker, 6/3)

On the spending side, the budget restores $49.2 million in funding that was proposed to be cut from state departments focused on developmental, mental-health, addiction and social services. Those funds would pay for more Medicaid care, drug and addiction services and other programs. The budget will spend a total of $151.9 million more than what Mr. Malloy had proposed to spend earlier. (De Avila, 6/4)

A battle that has pitted doctors against nurse anesthetists has resulted in a win in the Supreme Court for the nurses and for rural Colorado hospitals. (Kerwin McCrimmon, 6/3)

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) is requesting public comment on the amendment for the MI Choice waiver. The MI Choice waiver program provides Medicaid-covered long term care services and supports in a home or residential setting for participants meeting specific medical/functional criteria for nursing facility level of care. (Khan, 6/3)

Jennifer Vargas’ path toward becoming a doctor took her from UCLA to Guadalajara before it ultimately led back home, to California’s vast Inland Empire east of Los Angeles. When the Chino Hills, Calif. native graduated from medical school in Mexico, her first choice for residency training was Riverside County’s public medical center, which serves among the fastest growing and most medically deprived parts of California. It was just what she wanted: To serve a vulnerable patient population facing high barriers to care, particularly immigrant patients from Mexico who would benefit from a Spanish-speaking physician. (Wang and de Marco, 6/4)

The city of Providence is extending transition-related health coverage for employees and retirees who identify as transgender or gender non-conforming. Officials say the city is extending health insurance coverage for gender reassignment surgery, hormone therapy, and behavioral health care in order to be more inclusive. (6/3)

An anonymous donor has given UCSF $50 million to build a center at its new Mission Bay campus dedicated to integrating the clinical treatment and research of psychiatric illnesses, UCSF officials said Thursday. (Colliver, 6/4)

In a study last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that hepatitis C cases across four Appalachian states — Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia — more than tripled between 2006 and 2012. Kentucky leads the nation in the rate of acute hepatitis C, with 4.1 cases for every 100,000 residents, more than six times the national average, according to the CDC. (Galofaro, 6/4)

In 2013, a New Orleans college student went to the hospital at the urging of first responders after she awoke disoriented and naked in a public place and feared that she had been drugged and raped. They assured her that she wouldn’t be charged to be examined. But a year later, a $2,254 bill arrived in the mail, according to an extensive Times-Picayune investigation last year. There were many more women like her. (Phillip, 6/3)

Despite decades of lawsuits and settlements aimed at forcing the Baltimore City Detention Center to provide proper health care to those recently arrested or serving short sentences, advocates for detainees returned to court because they say conditions remain inhumane. Detainees were put at serious risk because of poor care, which might be linked to seven deaths since 2013, according to a review by lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Justice Center who filed a motion Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for Maryland. (Cohn, 6/3)

As looted prescription drugs flood Baltimore streets, fueling a surge in violence, pharmacy chain Rite Aid warned customers Wednesday that their personal medical information could be on the streets, too. Store officials said the labels on prescriptions stolen during the late April riots included patient names, addresses and the names of medication, but not other sensitive data such as Social Security numbers or credit card numbers. The alert nonetheless raised concern among privacy advocates who said the information could be used for fraud. Rite Aid has hired a risk management firm to help protect customers from identity theft. (Dance, 6/3)

Tom Price, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, is the latest Republican to unveil a conservative health-care plan to replace Obamacare. It's a good plan, although it could be made better -- and it helps to clarify some of the trade-offs involved in health policy. Price's plan would give people tax credits to buy health insurance. The credits would be based on age but not on income. Everyone between 35 and 50 would get $2,100 a year, for example. Both the Affordable Care Act and some other conservative health-care bills, such as the one proposed by Senator Orrin Hatch and colleagues, instead phase out tax credits with income. (Ramesh Ponnuru, 6/3)

The Obama Administration has said that it is not working on a contingency plan in the event of the court siding with the plaintiffs in the case, and that, in fact, no such contingency plan is even possible. ... the Administration is suggesting it won’t swerve if headed towards a head-on collision with Congress over the future of health insurance subsidies for 6.4 million people. Obamacare opponents in Congress are also signaling their intentions in this potential game of chicken, introducing a variety of bills that would continue financial assistance under the ACA, but also make certain changes to the health law. (Larry Leavitt, 6/3)

Prepare to be shocked, shocked, shocked! It’s increasingly looking like Republicans won’t have any contingency plan in place if the Supreme Court guts subsidies for millions in three dozen federal exchange states. (Greg Sargent, 6/3)

Monday marked the start of a special session called to pass Florida’s budget. Right on cue, the heavily hospital-connected State Senate is pushing Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion again. With a slightly modified version now rebranded as FHIX 2.0 (or Florida Health Insurance Affordability Exchange Program), the Florida Senate is pushing against a resolute House and a Governor that has all but threatened a veto. Florida’s big hospitals are pulling out the stops to put a new shine to the Florida Senate plan. Sadly, the plan simply mirrors the same old Obamacare Medicaid expansion plans from other states. Yet, that has not stopped hospitals from dumping even more money into this fight—on top of the more than 250 lobbyists already deployed to Tallahassee. (Josh Archambault, 6/3)

How much should we pay for cancer drugs? The answer, in the past, has frequently been "How much you got in your pockets? That, plus 10 percent." Insurers and patients have been pushing back on the high cost of drugs, negotiating lower rates and switching to generic treatments. But cancer is special. It's hard to be a discriminating shopper when someone tells you that you have 18 months to live. (Megan McArdle, 6/3)

Mistakes happen in any business, but in some workplaces — such as nuclear plants, airlines, and laboratories that handle biological agents such as anthrax — the risks to the public are serious enough to require extraordinary care. Of those three, it's the biolabs that do by far the worst job of admitting and learning from their errors. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission routinely holds utilities accountable by publicly disclosing mishaps and the plants that make them on its website. NASA runs a program that grants pilots absolution if they confess errors for a public database that helps other pilots avoid the same mistakes. But a USA TODAY Network investigation found that though the elite labs handling deadly pathogens have made hundreds of life-threatening mistakes, the labs and their regulators routinely fight public disclosure and accountability. (6/3)

As USA TODAY stated, there are "historically low numbers of serious infections among lab workers generally (and) infections spreading into communities surrounding labs have been rarer still." This is a testament to the efforts of hundreds of safety-conscious employees and to the safety protocols that are in place. U.S. regulators and organizations such as ABSA are working to help make biological laboratories safer. (Marian Downing, 6/3)

The recent USA TODAY series on safety breaches at biolabs raises important issues that need to be addressed. However, it presents all biolabs as if they are the same, when in fact there are many different types of laboratories that work with select agents — substances that could be used as bioterror agents — including public health laboratories. (Scott J. Becker, 6/3)