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One of the ideas behind the Affordable Care Act was to enable more Americans to afford health care coverage. But it turns out that some consumers are snubbing the ACA and picking another path: short-term coverage. (Picchi, 4/12)

Twenty-one states opted to add a new option for choosing insurance coverage to their small business insurance exchanges -- a move that regulators hope will encourage more participation from employers. The Small Business Health Option Program, or SHOP, exchanges, created under the health overhaul (PL 111-148, PL 111-152) to help small business owners offer their employees more options for health insurance coverage, have until now focused on letting employees choose between different insurers. Under the new option, called "vertical choice," employers can select a specific insurer and let employees choose from among different benefit levels that the company offers on the exchange. Those levels include bronze, silver, gold and platinum plans. (Mershon, 4/11)

New York is requiring insurers providing individual coverage through the state health exchange to allow victims of domestic violence or abandonment to enroll at any time. The Department of Financial Services says those enrollments should be available starting Friday for coverage outside the state-operated exchange. (4/11)

The staff at Your Health Idaho issued a bulletin to insurance agents on March 29, telling them what to do if a client cannot get treatment for a life-threatening illness or injury because of problems with health insurance. ... Your Health Idaho, the state's exchange, is not an insurance company. It is a conduit, responsible for helping Idahoans buy health plans that comply with the Affordable Care Act. ... Idaho's exchange operated with little turbulence and received praise for being lean and efficient after it opened in 2013, at first piggybacking on the federal exchange until Idaho built its own machinery to process tens of thousands of insurance applications each year. Now, however, some Idaho consumers and agents say the exchange is struggling to do its job. (Dutton, 4/11)

Massachusetts is marking the tenth anniversary of a landmark health care law that would later serve as a model for the federal Affordable Care Act. On April 12, 2006, then-Republican Gov. Mitt Romney signed the law during a Faneuil Hall ceremony, calling it a big step forward in health care reform. At Romney's side were Democratic leaders including the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, who championed universal health insurance on a national level. (4/11)

Ten years ago today, then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed into law a bill with an ambitious goal: health coverage for virtually every Massachusetts resident. To mark the 10th anniversary, we asked health experts of all stripes to assess the law’s first decade. Links to the commentaries are gathered here and at the bottom of this post. But first, 12 facts and figures. (Bebinger, 4/12)

Funding for public schools, higher education, prisons and other state needs would be cut under a budget proposal released Monday by House Speaker Jeremy Gillam in anticipation of a possible legislative failure to reauthorize funding of the state's expanded Medicaid program in the coming fiscal session. The speaker said the cuts would be necessary to fill a $122 million shortfall created from the state no longer accepting federal Medicaid dollars to purchase private health insurance for low-income Arkansans. (Willems, Fanney and Wickline, 4/12)

The Legislature last week approved Gov. Asa Hutchinson's plan to keep and rework the expansion, which uses federal funds to purchase private insurance for the poor. The votes were shy of the three­-fourths support that the Medicaid budget bill funding the expansion will need. Lawmakers will take up that measure at a legislative session set to begin Wednesday. Gillam said most state agencies would see a cut of about 3 percent if the program ends. (4/11)

Two House bills meant to save kynect and the state's current Medicaid expansion died in a Senate committee Monday after an unusual move to pass the bills "with no expression" failed. The vote prompted objections from Democrats on the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, who called the attempt to move the bills along without actually voting in favor of them a political stunt to spare Republicans from having to vote in support of "Obamacare." (Yetter, 4/11)

Long-shot efforts to keep the state's health insurance exchange and Medicaid expansion intact had an anticlimactic ending Monday, when a legislative committee couldn't muster enough votes to send the politically charged issue to the full Senate for debate. The Republican-led panel took up Democratic-backed bills aimed at preserving the state exchange, kynect, and Medicaid expansion, both created under the federal Affordable Care Act. The measures stalled in the Senate Health and Welfare Committee after efforts to advance them to the Senate floor to allow a fuller debate failed to muster enough support. (Schreiner, 4/11)

Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration is reworking its approach to hiring the staff needed to handle his Medicaid expansion effort, after getting pushback from lawmakers who bristled at adding employees to a state government brimming with budget problems. (Deslatte, 4/16)

The more researchers learn about the Zika virus, the scarier it appears, federal health officials say, as they urge more money for mosquito control and development of vaccines and treatments. Scientists increasingly believe the Zika virus sweeping through Latin America and the Caribbean causes devastating defects in fetal brains if women become infected during pregnancy. "Everything we look at with this virus seems to be a bit scarier than we initially thought," Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at a White House briefing. (Neergaard, 4/12)

"Everything we look at with this (Zika) virus seems to be a little scarier than we initially thought," Dr. Anne Schuchat, CDC principal deputy director, told reporters during a White House briefing on Monday. (Goldschmidt, 4/11)

Doug Andres, a spokesman for Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), said Monday in response to the briefing that the White House is trying to “politicize” Zika. He noted that the White House last week shifted about $500 million of Ebola funds over to Zika, as Republicans requested. Any additional funding, he said, should come through the regular appropriations process, which means waiting until the fall. (Sullivan, 4/11)

The Zika virus has been linked to a second type of autoimmune disorder, according to a small study released today. Doctors have known that Zika is associated with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a condition in which the immune system attacks the nervous system, causing paralysis, since the Zika outbreak in French Polynesia in 2013-2014. Now, scientists have linked Zika to a condition similar to multiple sclerosis, called acute disseminated encephalomyeltis, or ADEM, a swelling of the brain and spinal cord that affects the myelin, the coating around nerve fibers, according to a paper to be presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Vancouver. (Szabo, 4/11)

Brazilian scientists studying 151 patients who recently sought help at a local hospital for symptoms similar to those caused by Zika have made a worrisome discovery — that the virus may be associated with a second serious brain issue in adults. ... [Doctor Maria Lucia Brito] Ferreira was cautious in interpreting her findings, emphasizing that most people who experience nervous system problems with Zika do not have brain symptoms and that a definitive causal link between Zika and the ADEM has not been made. (Cha, 4/11)

In one of the first studies that sheds light on exactly how Zika attacks, researcher Patricia Garcez of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro took human neural stem cells and infected them with virus taken from a Brazilian patient. Neural stem cells -- which are able to turn into three major cell types that make up our central nervous system -- are the key players in embryonic brain formation. ... Under control conditions, the neurospheres flourished, with hundreds of them growing. But when they added Zika, the virus ended up killing most of the neurospheres within a few days. A similarly disturbing thing happened with the brain organoids. The infected organoids grew to only 40 percent of those that were not exposed to the virus. (Cha, 4/11)

Scientists say they've figured out how to track down people they call "genetic superheroes." These are people who remain healthy even though they were born with genetic mutations that would usually lead to devastating disorders. If enough of these people can be identified and studied, the researchers hope they could yield important new insights into the causes of many genetic disorders and possibly lead to new ways to prevent or treat them. (Stein, 4/11)

A new analysis of genetic data from nearly 600,000 people has detected a tiny subset of disease-resistant “superheroes,” individuals who have mutations that should have caused devastating disease — but didn’t, a Seattle scientist reported Monday. Dr. Stephen Friend, president of Seattle’s Sage Bionetworks, and his colleagues at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, sifted through a massive data set pooled from a dozen previous genetic studies. (Aleccia, 4/11)

For Julie Hadduck, a smartphone app that could diagnose cancer seemed like a miracle. When Hadduck photographed one of her daughter's moles, the app offered a diagnosis within seconds. "It came back red, and I was freaked out," said Hadduck, who lives in Pittsburgh. She took her 9-year-old to a dermatologist, who reassured them the mole was benign. Hadduck, 47, deleted the app. The app that Hadduck tried is one of more than 165,000 involving health and wellness currently available for download — a blending of technology and healthcare that has grown dramatically in the last few years. Experts see almost unlimited promise in the rise of mobile medical apps, but they also point out that regulation is sometimes lagging the pace of innovation, which could harm consumers. (Karlamangla, 4/12)

You've just been diagnosed with cancer. One of your first questions, after the shock wears off, is most likely: How much could all this cost? The answer may be hard to pin down. Of the almost 1.7 million Americans who will learn they have cancer this year, the "lucky" ones will have a single episode mostly covered by generous insurance. But others may face prolonged illness and daunting medical bills. (McGinley, 4/11)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a new type of drug that targets a subset of leukemia patients with a genetic abnormality that makes the cancer harder to treat. Venclexta was approved for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia who relapsed or weren't helped by a prior treatment and are missing part of chromosome 17. The drug indirectly makes cancer cells die. (4/11)

Kate Banfield and Tammy ­Romo-Alcala have never met. But more than 25 years ago, the two women found themselves in the same position: freshmen in college, pregnant and scared of derailing all they had worked toward. Both women, on a day each recalls vividly, walked into a Dallas abortion clinic. It’s what happened when they walked out, and in the weeks and decades that followed, that places them on opposite ends of the most significant abortion case to be heard by the Supreme Court in a quarter of a century. (Vargas, 4/11)

At least 11 people have been killed in violence against abortion providers in the U.S. since 1993, according to the National Abortion Federation. Here are some details of those attacks. (4/12)

A legislative proposal to place new limits on abortion in the state was left in limbo Monday after Republican House leaders pulled it from a final vote amid a veto warning from the Democratic governor. The measure would ban elective abortions after 20 weeks, compared with 24 weeks in current law, and outlaw procedures that abort fetuses by removing body parts. The legislation had been on a fast track since it was introduced a little over a week ago. (Scolforo and Levy, 4/11)

Pennsylvania Physician General Rachel Levine on Monday morning joined the chorus of voices against HB 1948, the hastily moved bill that would ban most abortions after 20 weeks, four weeks earlier than the current limit. It would also sharply curtail use of dilation and extraction, a medical procedure used to terminate a second-trimester pregnancy. (Dribben, 4/11)

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his GOP-led legislature want to put their health department between Planned Parenthood and the federal funds it gets to provide family planning services in the state. Walker signed a law in February that requires the state Department of Health Services to apply for federal family planning service funds that are now sent to Planned Parenthood. If the state wins the grant, the law prohibits the department from contracting with providers like Planned Parenthood that also perform abortions. (Evans, 4/11)

[Missouri] State senators have trimmed about $28 million of Medicaid spending from a mid-year increase to Missouri’s budget. The Senate appropriations committee on Tuesday lowered the planned funding boosts for Medicaid’s hospital care, medicine and physician services. Most of the nearly $500 million supplemental budget would still go to health care for people with low incomes. (4/11)

Legislators voted Monday to allow the state to move toward outsourcing case management work in a Medicaid program for people with acquired brain injuries, four months after rejecting a similar proposal. (Levin Becker, 4/11)

State officials called a news conference when they inked a $188 million contract in the summer of 2011 for a new high-tech Medicaid enrollment system with Accenture, a Dublin-based multinational professional services giant. They said the new Kansas Eligibility Enforcement System, or KEES, would replace a clunky paper-based enrollment system that sometimes took up to 45 days. The new system, they said, would allow Kansans who provided the correct information through an online portal to enroll within a day or two. That hasn’t happened. (Marso, 4/11)

A preliminary injunction blocking the state from cutting off Medicaid payments for Planned Parenthood services obtained by three women who are challenging the cutoff in a lawsuit shouldn't be applied to anyone else, the Arkansas attorney general's office argued Monday. The state attorneys argued that there is no proof that a class represented by the three women would be "irreparably harmed" by waiting for a resolution of the suit. They also argued that the court lacks jurisdiction to expand the injunction while it is on appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. (Satter, 4/12)

Calling it a hopeful trend, Sacramento County public health officials announced Monday that local hospitals have reported no new overdoses related to the painkiller fentanyl in nearly a week. Also Monday, the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office confirmed that eight of the region’s 10 overdose deaths over the past month were related to fentanyl. (Buck, 4/11)

The state said at least 1,263 Tennesseans died from opioid overdose in 2014, the most recent figure available and one that points to rampant abuse, misuse and addiction impacting millions of Tennesseans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For every one person who dies there are 851 people in various stages of misuse, abuse and treatment, according to the CDC. That's at least 1,074,813 Tennesseans, or 1 in 6. More people died in 2014 from opioid overdose than in car accidents in Tennessee. (Fletcher, 4/11)

In recent years, Tennessee policymakers have enacted a series of measures to combat the state's growing opioid problem. (Wadhwani, 4/11)

The night before he learned about the Flint water crisis, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said he received a briefing "telling me that there really isn't a problem in Flint. That these outside experts aren't correct." The next day, Sept. 28, 2015, he had a conference call with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and Department of Health and Human Services. (Allen, 4/11)

A nurse volunteering at the free lead-testing clinic at a Flint school sensed immediately that the boy was nervous about being poked in the finger. Veronica Robinson explained to 7-year-old Zyontae that it would feel like a mosquito bite. (Householder, 4/12)

With concern growing about the chemical known as PFOA contaminating drinking water systems in southern New Hampshire, residents are now looking for ways to test their own water. (Ganley, 4/11)

For the past several years, Clearwater residents have been drinking water with fluoride levels lower than what is widely accepted to be optimal by dental professionals. But in a sudden burst of urgency Monday, the City Council voted to accelerate its plans to add fluoride to the water supply that will meet recommended concentrations. (McManus, 4/11)

New York City has launched a $2 million advertising campaign meant to get people thinking and talking about mental health problems. City first lady Chirlane McCray unveiled the television, print, online and subway and bus ads Monday. They feature people talking about their experiences with bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety and addiction. (4/11)

Gov. Pat McCrory says he'd like to see more taxpayer spending on mental health, the elderly and children. McCrory on Monday talked about some of his priorities for the budget North Carolina lawmakers hammer out this summer. (4/11)

A federal judge [in Washington state] ordered the partial shutdown of a new treatment facility for mentally ill defendants in Yakima after learning that the renovated jail poses a safety risk. Lawyers for the defendants had sought a restraining order to stop the Department of Social and Health Services from sending mentally ill defendants to the Yakima Residential Treatment Facility to have their competency restored. They argued that a former jail was not an appropriate setting for treating the mentally ill, and said the facility hadn't been properly renovated to ensure that patients would not harm themselves or others. (Bellisle, 4/11)

Finding an available inpatient psychiatric bed in the state of California can be extremely difficult. Many patients with acute psychiatric conditions spend days deteriorating in hospital emergency departments while they wait. But how exactly to solve the problem has become a controversy in Sacramento. An Assembly bill backed by the California Psychiatric Association and the Steinberg Institute, a mental health policy organization, seeks to improve the process by establishing an online registry to collect and display information to help medical providers find psychiatric beds. (Gold, 4/12)

A fight is intensifying in the Arizona Legislature over the Senate leader's refusal to restore a program providing health insurance to poor children, a stance that would maintain the state's position as the only one in the nation that doesn't participate in the plan. Advocates who want the program restarted rallied at the Capitol on Monday in a last-ditch effort. Arizona froze its KidsCare program in 2010 to save money during a state budget crunch. It once covered more than 63,000 children, but fewer than 1,000 now have the insurance. (4/11)

Childrens' advocates used a rally at the state Capitol on Monday to call on lawmakers to support and pass a stalled health-care bill. (Faller, 4/11)

The Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County said in a news release Monday that it was victimized by a medical records breach affecting some clients of its health centers. (Sutton and Powell, 4/11)

Gov. Rick Scott has four more days left to sign a bill that would create a statewide telehealth advisory council, but health care providers aren't waiting. Tampa General Hospital next week will launch a mobile app to help patients connect with doctors any time and day of the week. (Miller, 4/11)

Hospitals in Milwaukee have implemented new measures in response to a new county policy that prohibits them from sending incoming ambulances to other hospitals. In Milwaukee County, hospitals used to divert ambulances to other facilities when their emergency departments had a high volume of patients. M. Riccardo Colella, director of medical services for the Milwaukee County Office of Emergency Management, said that critically ill patients were being diverted to more distant hospitals. (4/11)

An administrative law judge Friday ruled against the Public Health Trust of Miami-Dade County in one of a series of fights about Florida's trauma-care system. Judge John D.C. Newton issued a 22-page ruling that said the Public Health Trust, which oversees the Jackson Health System, did not have legal standing to challenge two proposed Department of Health rules. Those proposals would revamp rules for the creation and operation of agencies that coordinate trauma services in local areas. Miami-Dade County does not currently have such a coordinating agency. (4/11)

It happens all the time. You can’t recall the lyrics to a familiar song until you hear the music. Then the words come flowing back, as if you’d never forgotten. This phenomenon is at the heart of a new program at Southminster retirement community that uses personally meaningful music and digital technology to improve the quality of life for people whose memories are fading. (Garloch, 4/11)

The term “palliative care” has been bandied about quite a bit as of late. But what does it mean? On Monday’s St. Louis on the Air, three people joined host Don Marsh to discuss what palliative care means and how it differs from hospice care. (Moffitt, 4/11)

The mother of a North Dakota woman is suing the Indian Health Service regional office in South Dakota and three IHS doctors over what she alleges was her daughter’s wrongful death. Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa member Shiree Wilson, of Belcourt, died in January 2014 after giving birth via Cesarean section. Mother Christine Fluhrer alleges in court documents that the IHS and three doctors at the IHS hospital in Belcourt were negligent in Wilson’s care. Fluhrer is seeking unspecified money damages. (4/11)

In New Hampshire, there’s about a 5-year gap between the life expectancy for adult women at the top of the income bracket and those at the bottom. For men in the same age group, the gap’s more than nine years wide. That's according to new data released by The Health Inequality Project, which takes a sweeping look at the relationship between income and mortality across the country. (McDermott, 4/11)

Lifting the steam pan lid, Ivonne Rodriguez takes her thermometer, cleans it with a sanitary wipe and slides it into the mashed potatoes. She checks the temperature in two or three more places and makes a note on a form, neatly held by her metal clipboard. (Myers, 4/11)

A hearing on David Di Pietro's future as chairman of the Broward Health board ended Friday without a decision, after a judge in Fort Lauderdale heard two hours of arguments about his suspension by Gov. Rick Scott. Di Pietro and another board member, Darryl Wright, were suspended on March 18, on the advice of Scott's chief inspector general, who is conducting a broad inquiry into the board's conduct in running the public hospital district. (Fleshler, 4/11)

Almost half of South Carolina’s state parks are now equipped with heart defibrillators, through a combination of donations and funding from the state. As of last week, the life-saving portable devices were in 22 of the 47 properties, said Duane Parrish, director of the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism. (Prang, 4/11)

A Potomac physician who owned and operated a pain management clinic has been sentenced to 9 years in prison for a $3 million health care fraud scheme. Sixty-year-old Paramjit Singh Ajrawat was also ordered to forfeit and pay restitution of $3 million at sentencing Monday in federal court in Greenbelt. (4/11)

With less than a week to go before the state Department of Health announces the names of Hawaii's first medical marijuana dispensary owners, applicants are rushing to meet last-minute requirements for background checks. On Friday, the Hawaii Department of Health said it was having delays in the process of selecting medical marijuana dispensary owners because of an issue with background checks. The announcement came just days before the department is scheduled to announce the names of future dispensary owners on April 15. (Riker, 4/11)

Supporters of legalizing medical marijuana in Nebraska are switching their focus to the voters after a defeat in the Legislature, although a looming deadline to collect enough signatures could complicate efforts to get a plan onto the November ballot. The Legislature shot down a bill last week that would have allowed for a tightly regulated medical marijuana distribution program amid concerns that Nebraska physicians could not safely prescribe a drug that has not been approved by the Federal Drug Administration and fears that legalizing medical marijuana will pave the road for recreational use. (Gronewold, 4/11)

My recent column on the sixth anniversary of President Obama's Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, generated some energetic criticism -- or, rather, half a paragraph of it did. While I acknowledged that many Americans have benefited from the law, I also said that the Obama administration was too eager to give it credit for slowing the growth of health-care spending. This slowdown, I pointed out, had begun in 2002, years before Obamacare was enacted. (I could have added that the decline was not confined to the U.S.) (Ramesh Ponnuru, 4/11)

The Affordable Care Act was first and foremost intended to extend health insurance coverage to a broader segment of the population. It has largely succeeded, with the uninsured rate among the non-elderly population falling to 10.7 %, from more than 18% just before the law took effect. (Dean Baker, 4/11)

We hear it every day from supporters of the Affordable Care Act: The fact that more people have health insurance now than before the law was signed is proof that it’s working. But this is hardly the best measure of the law’s success — after all, what good is health-insurance coverage for middle- and low-income families if they can’t afford to use it? That’s the plight millions of Americans find themselves in today. And as a new analysis by my organization shows, it only got worse this year. (Nathan Nascimento, 4/12)

Hype springs eternal — certainly when it comes to Paul Ryan, whose media image as a Serious, Honest Conservative and policy wonk seems utterly impervious to repeated demonstrations that he is neither serious nor honest, and that he actually knows very little about policy. And here we go again. But what really amazes me about the latest set of stories is the promise that Ryan will finally deliver the Republican Obamacare alternative that his colleagues in Congress have somehow failed to produce after all these years. No, he won’t — because there is no alternative. (Paul Krugman, 4/11)

WBUR first started CommonHealth to track a law that had an ambitious goal: health coverage for virtually every Massachusetts resident. It’s been 10 years since that reform effort. To mark the anniversary, we asked a number of health experts to offer their takes on the law. (4/12)

The Affordable Care Act is now six years old. Perhaps more important for Massachusetts, this month marks the 10th anniversary of “Romneycare,” making it a good time to review that law’s impact. (Josh Archambault and Jim Stergios, 4/12)

As people age, the main valve controlling the flow of blood out of the heart can narrow, causing heart failure, and sometimes death. In the past the only way to repair the damage was risky open-heart surgery. But an ingenious medical device now allows the heart to be repaired using a catheter that introduces a replacement valve through a main artery in the leg—another miracle of modern medicine. (Scott Gottlieb, 4/11)

Four years ago, Dave deBronkart spoke at a medical conference, with his face displayed on a giant screen. Afterward, a doctor told him that a spot on his face looked like basal cell carcinoma. She was right. That cancer was unlikely to spread, but it needed to be treated, and deBronkart’s health insurance policy had a $10,000 deductible. Any treatment, then, would come out of his pocket. How would he find the right treatment at the right price? (Tina Rosenberg, 4/12)

Data from past clinical trials can be used to draw new conclusions about diseases and treatments long after a trial is over. But researchers rarely take advantage of this valuable resource even though access to a full data set, rather than published results alone, can help further research on how certain groups of people respond to a treatment or how people with an illness fare over time. In some cases, revisiting clinical trial data can also reveal problems with the initial analysis. (4/12)

Some healthy men and women should take aspirin every day to ward off heart attack, stroke, and colorectal cancer. That’s the final recommendation from the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) after more than a year of study and lively public comment. The recommendations were published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. (Patrick Skerrett, 4/11)

Miami-Dade County, in many respects, is a great place to live, but a new report reveals that for the poor and sick, it continues to be a harsh place where they can barely survive. On Wednesday, the Florida Community Health Action Information Network, will unveil its latest findings — and they are discouraging for our most vulnerable residents. Not surprisingly, they confirm the findings of similar recent reports. (4/11)

Some state-level efforts to reduce healthcare costs without sacrificing quality are working and should be replicated by others states, especially because local government is more poised to make changes than the federal government, according to a report released Monday. The Center for American Progress (PDF) studied successful state initiatives like bundled payments, all-payer claims databases and cost-growth goals. The authors say states are in the best position to try these methods because reform is more politically feasible and programs can be tailored to a state's specific demographics. (Shannon Muchmore, 4/11)

During my years of working in public life, I have witnessed countless ways in which unplanned pregnancy disrupts people’s lives. So one of the best ideas I’ve seen for how to help everyone reach the next rung on the ladder is providing access to effective contraception. Enabling women to become pregnant only when they want to is a shortcut to prosperity. According to new data, there are 6.1 million pregnancies a year in the United States. Of these, nearly half (2.8 million) are unplanned. In Delaware, that proportion is even higher, at 57 percent — partly because, like others, we haven’t focused on the issue until now, and partly because of poor access to good contraception. (Jack A. Markell, 4/12)

The national debate on immigration is ugly, anti-immigrant and full of facile soundbites and unworkable ideas. Many Republicans in Illinois do not agree with this rhetoric. I do not believe Mexican immigrants are rapists or criminals. My wife, Susan Crown, and I supported former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's presidential campaign. Like him, we believe many immigrants come to the United States out of an "act of love," and I would add that they come here to work hard. (William Kunkler, 4/11)

What Senate President Andy Biggs is doing with KidsCare is just plain wrong, and his explanation for doing it is hopelessly illogical. He’s blocking restoration of a program that would allow tens of thousands of kids to go to the doctor at no cost to the state. (4/11)

A ew days ago, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle announced new plans for the old Cook County Hospital building built in 1914. I worked there for three decades and knew people who worked there as far back as the 1930s. I took the news with mixed emotions: Any plan to revitalize the beautiful facade is better than how it sits now amid garbage, weeds and graffiti. But something bothered me. There are plans for a hotel, shops and apartments — but no provision for the thousands of ghosts living there. Many of those ghosts of the past I knew personally, others I learned about from my predecessors. (Cory Franklin, 4/11)

As warmer weather brings mosquitoes north to the USA, the guiding principle for political and public health leaders ought to be preparation without panic — a balance that has been difficult to achieve during similar challenges in the past. (4/11)