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Premiums for midlevel health plans under the Affordable Care Act will increase by an average of 25 percent next year, while consumers in some states will find significantly fewer insurance companies offering coverage, the federal government said Monday. (Pear, 10/24)

Premiums will go up sharply next year under President Barack Obama's health care law, and many consumers will be down to just one insurer, the administration confirmed Monday. That's sure to stoke another "Obamacare" controversy days before a presidential election. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 10/24)

As concerns grow about much higher rates in many states, officials emphasized that the vast majority of people shopping on Healthcare.gov will pay less than $100 a month for premiums when tax credits are included. More than 70% of people will pay less than $75 a month after tax credits. (O'Donnell, 10/24)

"We think they will ultimately be surprised by the affordability of the premiums, because the tax credits track with the increases in premiums," said Kevin Griffis, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services. During a media briefing Monday, Griffis said the 2017 rates are roughly at the level the Congressional Budget Office forecast when the law was proposed. "The initial marketplace rates came in below costs," he said. "Many companies set prices that turned out to be too low." (Kodjak, 10/24)

The figures, announced by federal officials Monday, injected a new round of uncertainty into the future of the insurance exchanges that are a core feature of the 2010 health-care law. Health policy experts said the rising prices and shrinking insurance options add tumult to the coming ACA enrollment season. The data immediately touched off a fresh round of criticism among the ACA’s persistent Republican congressional opponents. (Goldstein, 10/24)

The White House’s report was released the same day as data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which found that the cost of a benchmark plan will rise 145 percent in Phoenix, Ariz., to $507 per month for an average 40-year-old person. That same plan will increase 71 percent in Birmingham, Ala., and Oklahoma City, Okla. (Ferris, 10/24)

The Department of Health and Human Services report, released just two weeks before Election Day, is sure to provide fresh fodder for Donald Trump and Republicans in down-ballot races to attack the law. Democrats, who have increasingly warned about the escalating costs of Obamacare coverage in some areas, have pushed for Republicans to give up on repeal and work on fixes to the law. (Pradhan, 10/24)

House Republicans are questioning how much taxpayer money is going into federal subsidies meant to make insurance coverage more affordable for low-income Americans. Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.) and Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), all leaders of the Energy and Commerce Committee, sent a letter Monday to Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, requesting information about the amount of taxpayer money that will go toward Obamacare subsidies next year. (McIntire, 10/24)

Hundreds of thousands of consumers whose health insurance plans are being discontinued for 2017 will get some flexibility when signing up for a new plan during the Affordable Care Act’s open enrollment, a sign of continued turmoil in the exchange markets. (Armour, 10/24)

The Affordable Care Act has put the nation’s uninsured rate to a historic low, but there are still roughly 24 million uninsured people in the United States. Of that group, the Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 10.7 million will be eligible for financial assistance this year. Officials expect about one-third of that group to sign up for an Obamacare plan during the three-month open enrollment period beginning Nov. 1. HHS is countering news of median 16 percent premium increases for silver-level plans with messages about the subsidies that may make coverage affordable for a majority of marketplace consumers. (McIntire, 10/24)

Minnesota’s 59 percent premium increases on its individual health insurance market have been shocking consumers and politicians alike, but they’re not even the highest in the country. ... Among the 43 states with available data, Minnesota has the fourth-highest premium increase, behind Tennessee, Oklahoma and the 116 percent increase in Arizona. All three states use HealthCare.gov. Despite Minnesota’s huge increase, it’s not among the states with the highest 2017 premiums, though it is now above-average in costs. (Montgomery, 10/24)

The wait is over: People who want to buy health insurance on the state's Obamacare exchange can go online to see their options and prices, but they may not like what they find. The plans unveiled online Monday contain far fewer choices and significantly higher prices, and arrive toward the end of a presidential campaign in which Republican candidate Donald Trump has called for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has said she wants to fix it. (Schencker, 10/24)

Houstonians who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act's exchange will have dramatically fewer options in 2017, with half the number of carriers participating as last year. And premium prices will rise by more than $200 per month for some plans. With a week to go before the fourth enrollment season opens on Nov. 1, the healthcare.gov website on Monday publicly previewed a slimmer array of plans that will be available for next year. The plans are generally more expensive, too. The national average increase of 25 percent in benchmark silver-plan premiums. (Deam and Najarro, 10/24)

Price increases for many Affordable Care Act health insurance plans sold on New Jersey's exchange won't be as steep as those announced last week for Pennsylvania, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data showed. Two insurers, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey and AmeriHealth New Jersey, a unit of Independence Blue Cross, are still selling health insurance on the state's ACA exchange. (Brubaker, 10/24)

People with individual insurance plans can browse options on healthcare.gov in advance of open enrollment — which is encouraged for any one who may have to switch physicians because their insurance carrier is leaving the market. Open enrollment begins Nov. 1 but healthcare.gov is having a window shopping period that allows people to look at potential out-of-pocket costs, likely tax credits and additional cost savings features for some. Perhaps the most critical feature in the window shopping period is the ability to filter by physician or facility. (Fletcher, 10/24)

If you buy health insurance on your own, or plan to, your chance to sign up for 2017 coverage starts next week. This year’s open enrollment period is coming after several months of turmoil for the state’s health insurance exchange, including the departure of two insurance companies, big price hikes and a major change in the availability of insurance agents and brokers who have helped many people pick health plans in the past. Here’s what you need to know about the open enrollment period, in two parts: What’s new this year and, for those new to the process, the basics on buying insurance. (Levin Becker, 10/25)

The Obama administration on Monday asked a federal appeals court to overturn a lower court ruling that found the White House was funding an Obamacare program that Congress never paid for. The Justice Department told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that the health law properly funded Obamacare’s cost-sharing subsidies and that the dispute between the legislative and executive branches shouldn’t be resolved by the courts anyway. (Haberkorn, 10/24)

In the past six years, we’ve seen the rise of Accountable Care Organizations, now numbering more than 800, where doctors or hospitals work together to streamline care. For physicians that means they now get some compensation through contracts that reward improving health and controlling costs, as opposed to simply making money for every service provided regardless of the outcome or expense. There are now an estimated 28 million Americans enrolled in these ACOs, and that means, at least for some, their care looks radically different than even just a few years ago. That’s particularly true for some of the sicker people in the country. (Gorenstein, 10/24)

Hospital operator Catholic Health Initiatives, which has struggled after rapid expansion and a foray into health insurance, is in merger talks with Dignity Health to create one of the nation’s largest nonprofit hospital systems by revenue. Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health said in a statement they are in talks regarding “aligning their organizations.” A person familiar with the matter said the talks involve a merger. (Evans, 10/24)

Dignity Health and troubled Catholic Health Initiatives are in merger talks, the health systems announced Monday. The not-for-profit giants have signed a nonbinding agreement to evaluate “an alignment” between the systems, according to a release. A full merger would create the nation's largest not-for-profit hospital company with combined revenue of $27.6 billion ahead of the $20.5 billion posted by Catholic-sponsored Ascension. (Barkholz, 10/24)

In a devilish case of unintended consequences, sinks have been linked to a number of outbreaks of serious infections in hospitals from Baltimore to Shanghai and many places in between in recent years. In one notable case, a hospital in the Netherlands took sinks out of the patient rooms in its intensive care unit in a bid to slow the spread of bacteria. (It worked.) At a time when concern is mounting about antibiotic resistance, and when the specter of untreatable infections threatens the advances of modern medicine, finding ways to slow the development and spread of drug-resistant bacteria is a major preoccupation of infection control teams. As a result, evidence that hospital sinks could exacerbate the problem presents health care specialists with a quandary. (Branswell, 10/25)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned open-heart surgery patients recently that they were at risk of a deadly infection linked to a medical device used during their operations. Now, worried consumers say they are having a hard time getting information from hospitals and doctors about what they should do. (Sun, 10/24)

Employers have raced to offer workers a hefty financial incentive to sign up for programs meant to improve their health, submitting personal medical details in the process. But as these programs have spread, so has resistance from employees dubious about sharing that information with employers. On Monday, that tension erupted in a federal lawsuit against the government agency that handles the rules on these so-called wellness programs. (Abelson, 10/24)

Aging can take a toll on teeth, and for many seniors paying for dental services is a serious concern because they can’t rely on their Medicare coverage. Low-income seniors, in particular, are struggling. More than a third with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level (about $23,000 annually) had untreated tooth decay between 2011 and 2014, according to an analysis of federal data by the American Dental Association. (Andrews, 10/25)

Laura Sweet had no idea that she had contracted a virus that would leave her daughter, Jane, deaf by her first birthday. During her second pregnancy, doctors had warned her against alcohol and changing kitty litter. They had said to avoid sushi and cold cuts. But nobody — not her obstetrician, nor her midwife — mentioned cytomegalovirus. (Saint Louis, 10/24)

Is your child up-to-date at the pediatrician’s office? Regular well-child visits during the first three years of childhood are critical to identify health, behavioral and developmental problems that could have long-lasting effects into adulthood. But parents don’t always follow the recommended schedule, which includes about a dozen appointments by the time children turn 3. And children who miss out on visits are more likely to be admitted to the hospital with preventable problems, studies show. (Landro, 10/24)

Cigarette smoking can be blamed for at least 167,133 cancer deaths in the U.S. in a single year, according to a new report. That’s more than the total number of people who will attend the first four games of the World Series in Cleveland and Chicago. It’s also more than the entire population of Salem, Ore. (Kaplan, 10/24)

Not so very long ago, colonoscopy was the gold standard for colon cancer screening. But times are a-changing. Last month when I went in for a checkup, my primary care doctor handed me a FIT test, a colon cancer test you can do at home without the unpleasantness and risk that turn people off to colonoscopy. The FIT test, or fecal immunochemical blood test, is a newer and more accurate way to test for blood in stool, which can be a symptom of colon cancer. (Shute, 10/24)

Just one of every 100 new cancer diagnoses in the United States is a childhood case. Still, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) says there has been a significant increase in the overall rate of childhood cancers in recent decades — up 27% since 1975 in kids under age 19, according to data collected by the NCI’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program. The news comes as the overall incidence of adult cancers has fallen. (Miller and Goodman, 10/24)

Vice President Joe Biden opened this year's Cleveland Clinic medical innovation summit with a talk about what he deemed "the only bipartisan thing left in the United States of America"-- the fight against cancer. Speaking about his Cancer Moonshot initiative, launched in January, Biden told a roomful of doctors, healthcare executives and entrepreneurs that for millions of people across the country affected by cancer, this work is urgent. (Zeltner, 10/24)

When people tell small fibs, she and her colleagues reported on Monday in Nature Neuroscience, their brain becomes desensitized to the emotional twinge that dishonesty usually causes. Lying becomes easier and telling ever-bigger self-serving whoppers becomes more likely, they found: that may be why nickel-and-diming on tax returns sometimes balloons into massive fraud, why spousal white lies become deeper secrets, and why scientific misconduct escalates from “losing” data to faking findings. Neuroscientists who have studied the neural basis for moral decisions and were not involved in this research generally praised it, but questioned how well it described the real world. (Begley, 10/24)

A little dishonesty goes a long way. Scientists who studied the brain activity of people who told small lies to benefit themselves found that these fibs appeared to pave the way to telling whoppers later. The findings, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, demonstrate how self-serving lies can escalate and offer a window into the processes in the brain at work. (Khan, 10/24)

Virginia's Board of Health voted on Monday to remove contested regulations on abortion clinics that included meeting hospital-like building standards, a spokeswoman said. The 11-4 vote lifted restrictions imposed under a 2011 law that the board found were an undue burden on abortion providers, the spokeswoman said. (Simpson, 10/24)

The decision follows a Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down abortion-clinic regulations in Texas. It also fulfills a central campaign promise of Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who said during the 2013 campaign that he would be a “brick wall” against abortion restrictions. (Vozzella, 10/24)

The Virginia Board of Health voted Monday to remove contested regulations on abortion facilities that board members deemed an undue burden on abortion access. The 11-4 vote repealed regulations that required facilities that provide five or more abortions a month to meet hospital-like building standards, among other restrictions. Proponents argue that the standards keep women safe. Opponents claim they limit abortion access for women. (Demeria, 10/24)

[Mary] Giliberti, chief executive officer of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said 2 million people with serious mental illness were booked into U.S. jails each year. Half receive no treatment in jail, she said. The experience of most of those people in the criminal justice system, she said, ought to shock the conscience...The growth of mental health courts designed to provide an alternative to incarceration has inspired academic research into the unconventional attempt to slow jailhouse revolving doors for the mentally ill. Research by the U.S. Department of Justice indicated prison and jail inmates with mental health problems were more likely to have co-occurring drug or alcohol addictions, to have a background of physical abuse and homelessness, and to be involved in fights or be disciplined for rule violations while incarcerated. (Carpenter, 10/25)

Few Kansas counties have tried to establish their own mental health courts. But Hennepin County provides lessons for others that might try in the future: To successfully keep people with mental health issues in treatment and out of jail, it takes partnerships with organizations outside the judicial branch and dedicated case workers. Everyone [Judge Kerry] Meyer saw in her courtroom that morning had been diagnosed with a severe and persistent mental illness, a traumatic brain injury or an intellectual and developmental disorder — including the college student who stole the vitamins. Instead of going to criminal court, the student had agreed to abide by a treatment plan and check in regularly with Meyer and a probation officer for a set amount of time. (Marso, 10/25)

In a handful of Kansas cities — Topeka, Lawrence, Kansas City and Wichita — there are independent movements to sculpt judicial programs channeling low-level offenders diagnosed with an illness of the mind to a separate court docket. It’s a recognition that old-school punishments often fell short. The objective in alternative courts has been to help people step beyond an adversarial process into a program to improve access to services for those with mental illness, promote participation in treatment and reduce recidivism. Ingredients of change range from medication and therapy to housing and vocational rehabilitation. The judge regularly meets behind closed doors with lawyers and mental health staff to talk about the status of each case before meeting participants in open court. (Carpenter, 10/25)

Federal officials Monday opened their regional office in Kansas City to take feedback on several changes to disability support policies in Kansas — including one they’ve instructed state officials to put on hold. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told leaders of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services earlier this month they cannot implement a change to the “capable person” policy — one of two changes to home and community-based disability support services made in May to help balance the state budget. Federal officials also have instructed the state to provide more information about the elimination of a waiting list for Kansans with physical disabilities who requested such services. (Marso, 10/24)

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Monday ordered the state's employee insurance plan and its Medicaid plan to limit narcotic painkiller prescriptions in an effort to cut future drug addiction. The order signed by the Republican governor limits the initial prescription of opioid drugs for adults to a 7-day supply. Children are not prescribed more than a 7-day supply unless they have cancer, other chronic disease or a traumatic injury. (10/24)

The recently concluded Allina Health nursing strike could be the start of a change in hospital labor relations nationwide. Allina took a hard line saying there would be no deal unless the nurses accepted give-backs on health benefits. The nurses' 37-day walkout ended only after the rank and file reluctantly agreed to give up their generous union-only health insurance and transition to Allina's still generous, but less-expensive corporate health plans. (Benson, 10/24)

The state of Kansas incurred nearly $300,000 in legal fees in just three months to defend a lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood challenging the state’s decision to boot the organization from the Medicaid program. Invoices obtained by KCUR show that outside law firms representing the state billed it $282,477 in legal fees and $2,725 in expenses between May 29 and Aug. 31. The invoices were provided by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment in response to a Kansas Open Records Act request. KDHE Secretary Susan Mosier is the defendant in the lawsuit, which seeks to overturn her decision in May to block Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood. (Margolies, 10/24)

Across Maine, volunteers are stepping up to help rural seniors like [Dianna] Haller who want to remain in their homes as they age. Some work with local governments or nonprofits. Others have simply gotten together to offer a hand. Many of them are seniors themselves. And what they are doing can be emulated by the rest of the nation, as the number of people 65 and over is projected to explode from 48 million to 77 million between now and 2035. Maine’s rural population is older than that of most other states. Demographers project that a third of the state’s population will be 65 and over by 2032. And the challenges confronting Maine as it deals with an aging population are turning up elsewhere. Rural America is aging faster than its urban counterparts, as fewer children are born and younger, working-age adults are moving away. (Bergal, 10/25)

Dana-Farber executives have high hopes for “Lucy,” one of the newest technologies in use at Boston’s best-known cancer center. Lucy is being developed to deliver prescription drugs directly to patients while they sit in infusion rooms receiving chemotherapy — a treatment that can take many hours. If the system works, it will save patients the time and trouble of having to stand in line to pick up their prescriptions at a pharmacy after an already long and draining day of treatment. (Dayal McCluskey, 10/24)

An Atlanta-based physician was sentenced Monday to federal prison for filing more than $1 million in false claims for services he did not perform, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Robert E. Windsor, 55, of Cumming, claimed for more than three years between January 2010 and July 2013 that he had monitored the neurological health of patients during surgery when he actually had an unqualified medical assistant do the work, U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Bob Page said in a news release Monday. (Eldridge, 10/24)

UCF could get the green light from the state as early as January to build a teaching hospital through its joint venture with the hospital chain HCA, university officials said during a trustee meeting on Monday. That's if the UCF-HCA Certificate of Need application for a 100-bed hospital in Lake Nona adjacent to the medical school is not contested by other hospitals or doesn't face letters of concern by competitors. In those cases, the process can drag on for several months or years before the application is approved or denied. (Miller, 10/24)

City school administrators are looking at the possibility of offering transgender-inclusive health-care benefits to school district employees. The discussions come on the heels of a vote last week by city aldermen to offer benefits — such as sex-change surgery — to municipal employees and their families covered under city health insurance plans starting July 1. The aldermen were acting on a request from city Human Resources Director Jane Gile asking aldermen to approve requesting health insurance provider Anthem “remove all transgender exclusions or limitations of coverage for all health services related to gender transition from the templates of the city’s medical benefit plan,” opening the door for Manchester to offer the health benefits to municipal employees. (Feely, 10/24)

Making those kinds of connections is what makes Teen Aspirations, a program started in 2002 by the OSU Department of Neurology and the Nisonger Center, so special, parents say... The goal of the eight-week program, which is held several times a year, is simple: Help teens with a high-functioning autism spectrum disorder learn how to go after their “aspirations” in school, at work and in life. This includes developing self-awareness so they can see how their strengths will help overcome any challenges that come up, learning to experience positive social interactions and relationships, and realizing the importance of being successful at school or at work, now and into the future. (Pyle, 10/25)

As of Monday, the Florida Department of Health reported seven new travel-related Zika cases in the state — three in Miami-Dade, two in Broward and two involving pregnant women, bringing the statewide total of infected people to 1,058. Of those, 113 pregnant women have tested positive for Zika statewide, the health department said Monday. In June, [Yessica] Flores learned she was seven weeks pregnant. (Flor, 10/24)

Most of us will never truly know what it’s like inside the mind of someone afflicted with dementia or Alzheimer’s. But there are ways to get a glimpse. On a recent afternoon at Atria El Camino Gardens, a senior living and memory care facility in Carmichael, staffers and family members took a “virtual dementia tour” to experience what those brain impairments can feel like. (Buck, 10/24)

Mental illness has arisen as a factor in the 2014 murder-suicide that left a vivacious Manchester woman dead at the hands of a former roommate in the Lincoln condo they once shared. A brother of killer Douglas Marsden said the family had been receiving disturbing telephone calls and text messages from the 48-year-old in the weeks before the murder-suicide. They tell a story of a man in the midst of a crisis. (Hayward, 10/24)

St. Louis is experiencing a public health emergency. This year, we are on track to break the record for the number of fatal prescription opioid and heroin overdoses. And while this problem doesn’t exist just in our city or just in Missouri; it’s here, and it’s killing our kids. Four of every five heroin users started with and became addicted to prescription opioids (e.g. hydrocodone, oxycodone, OxyContin, etc.), and almost all of those cases started with medication that was appropriately prescribed to someone else. While opioid pain medications are important for patients recovering from surgery or suffering from chronic pain, far too often, they are diverted and misused by family, friends or other acquaintances. Unlocked, unsecured prescription pain medication poses a terrible and measurable risk, especially to young people. A recent review of federal data found that the odds of a young adult becoming addicted to opioid medications increased 37 percent over the last decade. (Amy Tiemeier and Howard Weissman, 10/25)

We’ve had a tutorial on worry this year. The election campaign isn’t really about policy proposals, issue solutions or even hope. It’s led by two candidates who arouse gargantuan anxieties, fear and hatred in their opponents. As a result, some mental health therapists are reporting that three-quarters of their patients are mentioning significant election-related anxiety. An American Psychological Association study found that more than half of all Americans are very or somewhat stressed by this race. (David Brooks, 10/25)

By the time the police found him smoking crack in a Seattle parking garage one afternoon in late 2013, Roland Vasquez had been arrested more than two dozen times. Once a paralegal in his hometown, San Antonio, Vasquez says he started using drugs about 16 years ago after helping to negotiate bail for a dealer — and receiving a half-pound of heroin as a “thank you.” A father of three young children, he moved to Seattle in the mid-2000s to be closer to his own dad and farther from the people who got him hooked. But his cravings soon overwhelmed him, and he resigned himself to cycling between jail and the streets. (Caroline Preston, 10/25)

When smoking costs more, more people quit. That’s why higher cigarette taxes are almost always good policy, for smokers and the public health, too. There’s a catch, though -- and it’s one that voters in four states should keep in mind as they consider ballot initiatives next month to raise cigarette taxes: Sin taxes work only if they’re high enough. Voters in California, Colorado and North Dakota are being asked to raise state taxes to well over $2 a pack. Then there’s Missouri, where voters will choose from two increases so meager that they make a mockery of the very idea of sin taxes. (10/24)

Research has shown that epilepsy surgery is relatively safe. Most patients no longer have seizures afterwards. Pre-op testing can predict how patients will fare. Temporal resections -- where the piece of the brain’s temporal lobe that is causing the seizures is removed — are the most common type of epilepsy surgeries. (Letitia Browne-James, 10/24)

President Obama took a health-care victory lap last week in Miami, celebrating “all the progress that we’ve made in controlling costs” and portraying the law’s critics as “false and politically motivated.” Does that apply to the actuaries at the Health and Human Services Department too? On Monday they reported that ObamaCare premiums will soar 25% on average next year, and this is “progress” all right, in the wrong direction. (10/24)

Obamacare has substantially increased the number of Americans who have health insurance, as the president boasted. Some of his other claims -- notably, “This law has actually slowed down the pace of health care inflation” -- are more dubious. But the core problem with his speech was not that he overestimated the merits of Obamacare (as much as I believe that he did). Nor was it the partisan silliness in which the president sometimes indulged. It’s that he refused to acknowledge that conservatives have reasonable disagreements with him about the direction of health-care policy. (Ramesh Ponnuru, 10/24)

For the past six years, Republicans have been voting to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). But they never actually came up with an alternative until June 22, 2016, when House Republicans unveiled their plan. It declares: “Obamacare simply does not work. It cannot be amended or fixed through incremental changes. Obamacare must be repealed so that Congress can move forward with the kinds of reforms that will give Americans the care they deserve.” Are the Republicans right? Does the ACA not work? No matter the metric — access, quality, or cost — the ACA has undeniably been a success. It may not be perfect — but it is still a success. (Ezekiel Emanuel and Emily Gudbranson, 10/24)

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is in serious trouble, and the next president and Congress may well have to gut or replace it. While many Affordable Care Act supporters remain optimistic, concerns are bipartisan. An article by two conservative writers proclaims, “ObamaCare’s Meltdown Has Arrived … half of Tennesseans covered under the plan are losing their coverage.” Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Mark Dayton says the law has "some serious blemishes and serious deficiencies" and is “no longer affordable to increasing numbers of people.” Former President Bill Clinton said, “the people who are out there busting it … wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It's the craziest thing in the world." (Robert Graboyes, 10/24)

Obamacare has been a failure for the many Kentuckians who lost their insurance despite the president’s promise that if you “like your plan, you can keep your plan.” The law’s red tape, mandates and taxes continue to drive up health-care prices forcing many Kentuckians to choose between insurance plans they cannot afford or government-run plans they do not want. Next year, health insurance premiums in Kentucky will increase an average of 27 percent. A report from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky found that only 26 percent of Kentucky small businesses will be able to offer their employees health insurance, a drop of 10 percent in the last year. And the collapse of the Kentucky Health Cooperative forced 51,000 Kentuckians to find new insurance, many for the second or third time since the law was enacted. (Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., 10/24)

Many are still unhappy with Obamacare. The main intent of the Affordable Care Act was to expand the safety net (Medicaid), regulate the non-employer-based private insurance market (the insurance exchanges) and help people buy that insurance (subsidies) in order to reduce the number of Americans who are uninsured. On those metrics, it appears to be succeeding. (Aaron E. Carroll, 10/24)

If you are about to retire or already retired, you are already thinking about your potential health care costs and wondering if you are going to have enough to pay the bills as you age. While costs can be staggering, some planning can help increase the likelihood that you will in fact have enough wealth to pay for things like doctor's visits, hospital stays and even long term care facilities. The numbers are big. Fidelity did a study in 2002 that showed a retired couple, both age 65, spends about $160,000 on medical expenses in retirement. (Byron Ellis, 10/24)

Last Week Tonight host John Oliver delivered one of his signature barnburners on Sunday. This time, the HBO comedian’s target was the pharmaceutical industry, and its role in America’s devastating prescription painkiller and heroin overdose epidemic, which has seen 165,000 prescription opioid-related deaths since 1999. But while Oliver nailed how drug makers’ marketing of powerful opioids, like OxyContin or Percocet, helped set the stage for 2.6 million Americans getting addicted, he missed a crucial part of the story: that Big Pharma and the U.S. health system, including insurance giants, which helped create the crisis, are now actively involved with coming up with answers to address it. (Sy Mukherjee, 10/24)

Many reasons have been offered to explain the gap between the salaries of male and female physicians and scientists, between their levels of federal funding for research and their academic promotions. One pervasive problem has been overlooked. I call it “the invisible woman” problem. In reality, female health care professionals are everywhere — women account for approximately 75 percent of hospital employees and health service managers, 50 percent of US medical school graduates, and 40 percent of the faculty of US medical schools. They hold positions at every level — including president, CEO, and other positions in the C-suite. Yet their names, faces, and voices are often not seen or heard. (Julie K. Silver, 10/24)

Kansas’ safety net for the disabled is strong and improving every day. The state is spending more now on its disability services than ever before, while still responsibly managing resources and improving the quality of care provided. (Tim Keck, 10/24)