�鶹Ů��

Republicans failed in their latest futile attempt Tuesday to kill President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, a Groundhog Day vote by the House that was solely an exercise in election-year political messaging. Tuesday's near party-line vote to override Obama's January veto of legislation gutting much of the law was 241-186, but that fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to reverse a veto. (Fram, 2/2)

At least a two-thirds vote of the House was needed to knock down Obama's veto; the Republican-majority House fell short by more than three dozen votes. The vote was 241-186, and ends consideration of the bill; the Senate will not take it up. (Cornwell, 2/2)

"Regardless of the outcome, we have now shown there is a clear path to full repeal without 60 votes in the Senate," Speaker Paul Ryan said Monday ahead of the vote. "It is also just one in a number of steps we’re taking to hold President Obama accountable for the failures of this law." Ryan has vowed that House Republicans will offer an Obamacare alternative this year — a promise that GOP leadership has made but failed to deliver on for six years since the law passed. (Ehley, 2/2)

House Republicans are moving on to a new round of budget fights after failing on Tuesday to overturn President Obama’s veto of legislation to repeal Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood. ... Some hard-line Republicans are quietly complaining the new budget should jettison the increases agreed to in the two-year deal. In response, [Majority Leader Kevin] McCarthy and other House Republican leaders are discussing ways to again turn to the reconciliation process that set up the Obamacare repeal vote, allowing conservatives to vote on priorities like overhauling the tax code and reforming welfare policy as a consolation for spending hikes. (Snell, 2/2)

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that on Thursday the party will begin rolling out “task forces” to work on Republican solutions. Democrats repeatedly highlighted on Tuesday that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that the repeal bill would lead to about 22 million fewer people having health insurance in the years after 2017. (Sullivan, 2/2)

President Obama held a rare meeting Tuesday with the top Republicans in Congress to assess opportunities for compromise during his final year in office, even as the two sides continued partisan sniping that could undermine the prospect of serious legislative progress. ... In a statement about Tuesday’s meeting, Mr. Ryan’s office said he had “in particular, expressed hope that progress can be made to reform our criminal justice and mental health systems.” (Shear and Herszenhorn, 2/2)

President Obama met with Speaker Paul Ryan at the White House Thursday as lawmakers on Capitol Hill staged yet another attempt to repeal the president’s signature health care law. ... Ryan dismissed the coincidental timing in a press conference before going to the White House, saying he didn’t think it would be an issue. “I think he knows how I feel and I know how he feels,” the Wisconsin congressman said. “There are no bones about our differences of opinion. Look, I ran against the guy in the last election, so I think we definitely have different opinions, we have different philosophies and principles.” (Arkin, 2/2)

Amid growing questions over the future of insurance exchanges, the head of California’s marketplace said the nation’s largest health insurer should take responsibility for nearly $1 billion in losses and stop blaming the federal health law. In a blistering critique, Covered California’s executive director, Peter Lee, said UnitedHealth Group Inc. made a series of blunders on rates and networks that led to a $475 million loss last year on individual policies across the country. The company estimates a similar exchange-related loss of $500 million for this year. “Instead of saying we screwed up, they said Obamacare is the problem and we may not play any more,” Lee said. (Terhune, 2/3)

Starting in 2016, the federal health law requires small employers to offer their full-time workers health insurance. In anticipation of the change, some fast-food restaurants looked to get around the law by making more workers part time. Now some owners are rethinking that approach. (Dembosky, 2/2)

Most insurers have embraced the law now that it has survived two major U.S. Supreme Court threats. The law has helped many insurers financially through the tacit encouragement of products such as high-deductible plans, although the exchange market is a work in progress. But many are still trying to figure out how to pivot beyond what was the core of their business for so long: employer-based plans and holding down medical claims. Hospital consolidation also has raised alarms in the industry, with insurers arguing that larger health systems are jacking up prices at will. ... As a result, insurers are shifting their attention to taxpayer-funded coverage and finding ways to grow outside the bounds of traditional health plans, such as selling technology services. (Herman, 1/30)

The Senate Health and Welfare Committee took testimony Tuesday on a proposal to expand Medicaid, an option available to states under the federal Affordable Care Act. Expansion would provide health insurance to 78,000 working adults in Idaho who do not qualify for Medicaid but do not earn enough to obtain subsidized insurance on the state health insurance exchange. These people are in the so-called gap group. (Dentzer, 2/2)

The Idaho Legislature's first-ever hearing on expanding Medicaid eligibility attracted hundreds of supporters eager to testify in favor Tuesday, but lawmakers declined to vote on whether to send the measure forward after listening to a handful of testimonies. The Senate Health and Welfare Committee held an information hearing on a proposal that would expand Medicaid eligibility to cover everyone who earns less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level. The Legislature's refusal to pass Medicaid expansion has likely resulted in over 1,000 deaths in the state, said Dr. Kenneth Krell, director of critical care at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center. (Kruesi, 2/2)

Medicaid expansion got its first-ever hearing in the Idaho Legislature Tuesday, but with another health plan from the governor’s office in the mix, the outcome is still up in the air. Senate Health and Welfare Committee Chairman Lee Heider, R-Twin Falls, started the meeting by saying he wanted it to be an “information only” hearing with no motions. He said it would put the committee in an awkward position to vote on Medicaid expansion now, given that the governor’s Health and Welfare’s plan to extend primary-care coverage to the uninsured is also expected to come up soon. (Brown, 2/2)

Reauthorizing Medicaid expansion for two more years received a boost Tuesday when the House Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee voted 17-1 in favor of the bill. The committee did make changes to House Bill 1696, such as increasing exemptions to the work requirement, but left the core of the bill unchanged. (Rayno, 2/2)

The Obama administration said on Tuesday that it would ask Congress to spend an additional $1.1 billion next year to combat a growing epidemic of prescription painkiller and heroin abuse. Almost half of the new money would be used to expand treatment facilities, which are in short supply in much of the nation. (Harris, 2/2)

The centerpiece of the proposal is $1 billion in mandatory funding over two years to expand access to treatment for prescription drug abuse and heroin use, $920 million of which would go to the states. Another $500 million, some of which is a continuation of existing funds, would support work by the departments of Health and Human Services and Justice to expand not just treatment but access to the overdose-reversal drug naloxone, and support targeted enforcement activities. (Eilperin, 2/2)

President Obama will seek an extra $1.1 billion to pay for drug treatment for people addicted to opioid medications and heroin, which the White House says kills more people than automobile crashes, officials said Tuesday. This funding includes $920 million to support cooperative agreements with states to expand access to medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorders [and] $50 million in National Health Service Corps funding to expand access to about 700 substance use treatment providers. (O'Donnell, 2/2)

The White House is proposing more than $1 billion in new funding to fight heroin and opioid drug abuse. (Horsley, 2/2)

Congressional Republicans said on Tuesday that they’re open to boosting federal funding for cancer research, as the Obama administration proposed the day before. But they aren’t willing to simply rubberstamp the $755 million that the White House is asking for in the next fiscal year. (Scott, 2/2)

Martin Shkreli anticipated huge profits from raising the price of a decades-old drug for an infectious disease, belying any notion that helping patients was foremost in his mind, according to information released by congressional investigators on Tuesday. The investigators also provided evidence showing that Valeant Pharmaceuticals International carefully pondered how much it could raise the price of two old heart drugs, Isuprel and Nitropress, before buying them a year ago and increasing their prices overnight, by 525 percent for Isuprel and 212 percent for Nitropress. (Pollack and Goldstein, 2/2)

Two drugmakers have made a practice of buying and then dramatically hiking the prices of low-cost drugs given to patients with life-threatening conditions including heart disease, AIDS and cancer, according to excerpts from thousands of documents released by federal lawmakers. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, released the information Tuesday ahead of a hearing Thursday to examine exorbitant price spikes. Cummings has used his position atop the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to investigate several companies that have bought previously low-cost drugs and jacked up their prices many times over. (2/2)

A number of pharmaceutical companies have raised the prices of drugs after acquiring the rights to sell them in the U.S., a tactic that some Wall Street analysts say is contributing to higher spending on prescription medicines and has prompted criticism of price gouging. From 2014 to 2015, Valeant raised the price of more than 20 prescription products by more than 200%, [congressional] Democrats’ memos say. The company increased the prices of several of these products in some cases by as much as 800%, according to the memos. (Armour and Rockoff, 2/2)

In late May of last year, Turing Pharmaceuticals, then a little-known drug company, was nearing a deal to acquire Daraprim, a 62-year-old drug that fights a rare but severe parasitic infection. "Very good. Nice work as usual," the company's young chief executive, Martin Shkreli, wrote to the chairman of the board. "$1 bn here we come." In August, he wrote to someone outside the company that hiking the price of the drug would bring in $375 million a year — "almost all of it is profit," which he predicted would continue for three years. (Johnson, 2/2)

The House Committee on Oversight and Investigations is looking into Turing and other drug companies' price increases. [A] memo, released Tuesday, includes excerpts from the company's internal documents and emails. ... The company thought it could handle blowback from AIDS activists and doctors: "HIV patient advocacy may react to price increase ... we still come out ahead if we can frame this issue within the HIV/AIDS community as a fight between a drug company and insurance companies. As long as everyone who needs Daraprim can get it as soon as they need it, regardless of ability to pay, the community should have no issue. There is no love lost between HIV/AIDS activists and insurance companies, and they certainly don't want to be manipulated by them to fight on their behalf." (Kodjak, 2/2)

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, both under congressional investigation over skyrocketing drug prices, were focused on making money before helping patients, members of Congress said internal documents obtained from the companies show. “$1 bn here we come,” former Turing Chief Executive Officer Martin Shkreli said in an e-mail to the chairman of the board on May 27, after the company had made progress toward acquiring the antiparasitic drug Daraprim, according to a memo from House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s ranking Democrat Elijah Cummingsof Maryland. After buying the drug later that year, Turing raised the price by more than 50-fold, to $750 a pill. (Edney and Bloomfield, 2/2)

Former drug executive Martin Shkreli, who is under investigation for securities fraud and the subject of a congressional inquiry, has replaced his legal team with Benjamin Brafman, the same lawyer who helped get rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs acquitted of gun and bribery charges in 2001. The New York-based lawyer confirmed in an e-mail that he is representing Shkreli. Brafman’s client list also includes Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Michael Jackson, Gambino crime family underboss Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, rapper Jay Z and former New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress. Shkreli announced the legal change during an interview with Fox Business Network on Tuesday. (Edney, 2/2)

“Price-gouging.” “Predatory.” “Outrageous.” Those are just a few of the barbs presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, have thrown the way of the pharmaceutical industry this campaign season. That rhetoric helped sink drug and biotech stocks over the last six months and has overshadowed the candidates’ criticism of the rest of the health-care system, including insurers. Yet those businesses could be just as much at risk if the next president, whoever that may be, persists in calling out health-care companies on cost. (Tracer, 2/3)

Bernie Sanders‘s plan to pay for government-provided health care falls more than $3 trillion short of his campaign’s estimates, according to a budget watchdog group. The plan, which includes new taxes on employers, new income taxes on all Americans and steeply higher tax rates on high-income households, would raise about $10.7 trillion over the next decade, not the $13.9 trillion the campaign projected, according a report being released Wednesday by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan group. (Rubin, 2/2)

“President Obama told the American people that under Obamacare the average family’s premium would drop $2,500. In fact, the average family’s premiums have risen $3,000. Now, Chris [Wallace], if you’re a single mom, if you’re struggling to feed your kids, $5,500, that is real money that you can’t provide for your family.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), [said in an] interview on Fox News. A version of this claim was first made in the 2012 campaign. And yet it keeps popping up, presumably because it sounds like such a delicious talking point. But four years later, it still isn’t right. So, once again, here’s why this is nonsense math. (Kessler, 2/3)

After attacking Donald Trump over the weekend for his previous favorable remarks about single-payer healthcare, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz squeaked out a victory over the billionaire New York developer in the Iowa presidential caucuses Monday night, with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio trailing close behind. ... It's unclear whether healthcare policy issues played a role in the GOP caucus results, but some observers believe [Vermont Sen. Bernie] Sanders' support for single-payer helped him energize his supporters in the Democratic race. (Meyer, 2/2)

Gilead Sciences Inc. posted a 34 percent increase in fourth-quarter profit, trouncing Wall Street expectations, as sales of its blockbuster hepatitis C drugs soared in Japan and offset lower sales in the U.S. The maker of Harvoni, the first once-daily, single-pill regimen for hepatitis C, and predecessor drug Sovaldi, has been propelled by the lucrative franchise since Sovaldi was launched at the end of 2013. They’re the main reason the company’s revenue has tripled in just two years, a rare accomplishment in the industry. (Johnson, 2/2)

Pfizer Inc. on Tuesday reported better-than-expected results for its fourth quarter thanks to last year’s acquisition of Hospira Inc. and strong sales of new drugs, but the pharmaceutical giant offered soft guidance for 2016. (Dulaney and Rockoff, 2/2)

Remember Axovant Sciences, Exhibit A in last year's biotech bubble? Its story is deflating, metric by metric. Axovant, the biotech creation of 30-year-old hedge-funder Vivek Ramaswamy, was last year's most controversial health care IPO, perhaps. It miraculously turned its $5 million purchase of an abandoned GlaxoSmithKline Alzheimer's drug into a valuation of nearly $3 billion on the day after its IPO in June. (Misen, 2/2)

Johnson & Johnson, already facing lawsuits over products from surgical mesh to antipsychotic drugs, began trial Tuesday over claims the talcum powder it marketed to women gave some of them cancer. The world’s largest maker of health-care products faces accusations by the family of a woman who died that it knew decades ago that talc, the Earth’s softest mineral, was linked to ovarian cancer. The verdict may set the tone for whether J&J fights or tries to settle 1,200 lawsuits over products such as baby powder. (Feeley, Fisk and Cortez, 2/2)

Before seeking care for a foot injury last year, Julie Beinhardt tried to do her financial homework up front. She said she contacted the Cleveland Clinic and her insurance company and was told her visits to a Clinic chiropractor in Willoughby Hills would be covered. She would only owe a $30 co-pay. (Ross, 2/2)

After Katie Gurzi woke in the middle of the night with excruciating chest pains, paramedics rushed her to the hospital. That part went smoothly: Gurzi, 85, was pleased with the care she received. And doctors determined she wasn’t having a heart attack, just a spasm in her esophagus. But then, in January of 2015, the city of La Habra, California sent her a $260 bill for “paramedic response” — after her insurers had already been billed for the November ambulance ride. That made Gurzi mad. (Gorman, 2/3)

David Morton figures he contracted hepatitis C back in the late 1980s, when the Ph.D. chemist was doing a dirty job: analyzing raw-sewage samples for toxins in Texas. “We were looking for priority pollutants on the Environmental Protection Agency watch list,” the 61-year-old Redmond man said. “I thought I was benefiting society. I sort of clenched my teeth and did it.” (Aleccia, 2/2)

A Montana mother is suing her health care providers because they failed to diagnose her unborn daughter's cystic fibrosis, denying her a chance to have an abortion. Kerrie Evans of Gardiner is seeking nearly $14.5 million in damages from Park Clinic in Livingston, Billings Clinic's Bozeman OB/GYN, nurse practitioner Peggy Scanson and Dr. William Peters - including $10 million for her daughter's medical and psychological care. The girl, nearly 6, has a severe form of cystic fibrosis and one medication needed to treat it costs up to $300,000 a year, court records said. (Hanson, 2/2)

Controversial rules that limit the hours young surgeons can work while in training aren't needed to protect patient safety, a nationwide experiment finds. Allowing surgical residents to work long hours at hospitals doesn't increase the risk that patients will die or suffer serious complications, researchers say. The residents didn't mind the longer shifts either. (Seaman and Emery, 2/2)

The New England Journal of Medicine study comes as the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education is reassessing requirements that prevent residents from working extremely long stretches or back-to-back shifts. Those rules were enacted in 2003 and strengthened in 2011 amid concerns that sleep-deprived residents were more likely to make serious errors. Since then there has been push back from residency program directors concerned that the rules created new dangers for patients by abruptly forcing interns to leave in the middle of treating a patient or surgery. They also complain the rules interfere with resident education because it is harder for a trainee to follow their patients. (Rau, 2/2)

Patients’ rates of death, serious illness, infection, pneumonia and most other common post-operative complications were no worse in hospitals that permitted the novice doctors to work longer stints for the purposes of the nationwide study than in hospitals that limited work hours. The "residents," as they are known, said they valued the chance to follow patients for more than 28 hours because of what they learned and did not think that such extended shifts jeopardized their own health. (Bernstein and Dennis, 2/2)

A case of Zika virus infection transmitted by sex, rather than mosquito bite, was discovered in Texas on Tuesday, a development sure to complicate plans to contain a global epidemic. The Dallas County Health and Human Services Department reported that a patient with the Zika virus was infected after having sex with someone who had returned from Venezuela, where Zika is circulating. (McNeil Jr. and Tavernise, 2/2)

The first known case of Zika virus transmission in the United States was reported in Texas on Tuesday by local health officials, who said it likely was contracted through sex and not a mosquito bite, a day after the World Health Organization declared an international public health emergency. The virus, linked to severe birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil, is spreading rapidly in the Americas, and WHO officials on Tuesday expressed concern that it could hit Africa and Asia as well. Zika had been thought to be spread by the bite of mosquitoes of the Aedes genus, so sexual contact as a mode of transmission would be a potentially alarming development. (Herskovitz, 2/3)

“It’s very rare, but this is not new,” Zachary Thompson, director of the Dallas County Health and Human Services, told WFAA-TV in Dallas. “We always looked at the point that this could be transmitted sexually.” The CDC says it will issue guidance in the coming days on prevention of sexual transmission of Zika virus, focusing on the male sexual partners of women who are or may be pregnant. (Stengle, 2/2)

Drug companies are beginning early-stage research to develop a new vaccine against the rapidly spreading Zika virus, joining the race to control an outbreak that the World Health Organization said constitutes a global public-health emergency. It might be years, however, before any vaccine reaches the market, meaning the new wave of research is unlikely to help curb the current outbreak. (Bisserbe and McKay, 2/2)

With no specific federal guideline yet in place to control the spread of the Zika virus in the United States, some mosquito-heavy states like Florida are stepping up spraying and education programs. But the North and West have yet to boost prevention. Only one out of the more than 30 confirmed cases of Zika in the country appears to have been transmitted locally, in Dallas, Texas. Public health officials are bracing for the time when warmer weather increases the number of mosquitoes that can transmit the virus by biting an infected person and spreading it to others. (Gonzales, 2/2)

Facing several possible cases of the Zika virus, the Pennsylvania Department of Health said Tuesday it will release regular reports on any potential and confirmed infections of the tropical disease in the state. Blood tests for the mosquito-borne virus had been collected from 11 Pennsylvania patients as of Monday, according to the department. One turned out negative, seven had yet to yield results, and three were rejected for failure to meet federal testing criteria, state health officials reported on a Zika webpage at www.health.pa.gov. (Smeltz, 2/2)

State employees could lose an option to their health insurance and see costs rise under changes to be considered by the North Carolina State Health Plan board of trustees. WRAL-TV in Raleigh reports that executives who run the health plan have recommended to the trustees that they consider eliminating coverage for spouses, meaning they would likely have to seek coverage through the Affordable Care Act. (2/3)

Aetna Inc. has signed a contract with the Delaware Valley Accountable Care Organization expected to cover 70,000 commercially-insured Aetna members under the care of primary-care physicians in the Philadelphia-area ACO, the Connecticut insurer said Tuesday. The Aetna deal is the first commercial contract for the Delaware Valley ACO, which is owned by Main Line Health, Jefferson Health, Holy Redeemer Health System, Doylestown Health, and Magee Rehabilitiation Hospital. (Brubaker, 2/2)

Two announcements Tuesday illustrate the apparently inexorable trend in health care toward payment for results rather than payment for the quantity of care provided. Aetna Inc. announced a contract with the Delaware Valley Accountable Care Organization that will give hundreds of primary-care physicians the chance to earn extra money if they meet certain targets. (Brubaker, 2/3)

The state Department of Health and Human Services would have to stop spending $2 million per year on advertising for the Healthy Michigan plan under a proposal the Senate Health Policy Committee considered on Tuesday. ... An analysis from the Senate Fiscal Agency states that currently the DHHS spends $2 million on advertising the Healthy Michigan plan, $1 million of which is state and $1 million of which is federal money. "This component is one part of a broader strategy to help educate consumers about other options, about how to get people engaged with their own health," said DHHS Medicaid Director Chris Priest. Original projections were that around 470,000 people would join the Healthy Michigan program. Now, Priest said, enrollment is hovering around 600,000. (Lawler, 2/2)

Wayne County’s retiree health care liabilities have dropped 64 percent, according to a news release from the office of County Executive Warren Evans. The reduction, from $1.3 billion in 2014 to $471 million in 2015, follows significant changes to retiree health care in the past year, including, among other changes, the settlement of a lawsuit with retirees that paved the way for stipends in place of more expensive employer-provided health insurance for many. The administration also eliminated employer-provided health insurance for new retirees going forward. (Lawrence, 2/2)

Consumers who missed the chance to sign up for health insurance on the state exchange after the website crashed Saturday can apply for an extension this week on a case-by-case basis, officials said. The window to enroll with special consideration will close at 8 p.m. Sunday, said Michael Marchand, spokesman for the Washington Health Benefit Exchange (WHBE). (Aleccia, 2/2)

Two bills targeting Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin in all likelihood are headed to Gov. Scott Walker for his signature. Both may do nothing. The two bills are designed to cut — though not eliminate — the funding that Planned Parenthood receives from the state and federal government. (Boulton, 2/2)

It was quick, albeit unorthodox, when Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin signed an abortion-related bill into law Tuesday after a delegation of lawmakers presented it to him in his Capitol office. The measure updates the state’s informed consent law requiring women seeking abortions be told of medical risks and benefits at least 24 hours beforehand. The bill’s supporters say some doctors circumvented the requirement by having patients listen to a recorded message on the phone with no interaction. (Schreiner, 2/2)

Florida is in need of a few good nurses. 12,493, to be exact. That's the number of vacant registered nursing positions across the state, according to a new report from the Florida Center for Nursing. Nursing shortages have come and gone for decades. But there's reason to believe this one could be a prolonged problem. (McGrory, 2/1)

State corrections officials have hired Centurion of Florida LLC to take over prison health services for more than three-fourths of Florida's 100,000 inmates after Corizon Health walked away from a five-year, $1.2 billion contract three years early. Centurion, a joint venture between Centene Corp. and MHM Services, will be paid a maximum of nearly $268 million to fill in for Corizon, which exercised a 180-day cancellation provision in its contract with the state. (Kam, 2/2)

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services has begun to investigate the rashes that have plagued many Flint residents since the city changed its water source to the Flint River in 2014. “A key message that I have for folks is that we’re taking the rash concerns very seriously because we know that this obviously is a worry,” Dr. Eden Wells, chief medical executive of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, told the Free Press Tuesday. (Shamus, 2/2)

As she pulled into the Force Road suburb, Trish Simonson felt her mother's intuition kick in. Something was wrong. The lights were off, but her son, Kaden, hated the dark. Her mind raced. Was it a robbery? What if someone had hurt Kaden? She rushed inside and flipped on the light. The dogs were huddled strangely on the floor. She called out, but Kaden didn't answer. What if ... ? She made her way toward the back of the home, to Kaden's room. The lights didn't work, and it was dark — but not enough to obscure the view. Kaden was dead. He had shot himself. He was just 15. "In half a second he was gone," she said. (Jarmusz, 2/2)

Last fall, I listened as a mother named Cary Dixon told her family’s story at a forum I convened in West Virginia. It was heartbreaking. Cary’s adult son has struggled with a substance use disorder for years, and she described the pain that families like hers have gone through. “We dread the next phone call,” she said. “We don’t take vacations for fear of the next crisis. We come back from vacations because there’s a crisis.” (President Barack Obama, 2/2)

In a political climate in which the two major parties don't always see eye to eye, one issue is bringing them together: Republicans and Democrats agree that we must address the tragedy of prescription drug abuse. With 44 people dying every day from overdoses of oxycodone, hydrocodone, and similar opioid pain relievers, there is growing awareness that misuse of these drugs can affect almost anyone. (Cynthia Reilly, 2/3)

Which brings us to the meaning of Trumpism. One of his consistent bits of wisdom, voiced last April even before he launched his presidential campaign, goes like this: “I am actually disappointed with a lot of the Republican politicians. I am a conservative Republican. . . . Every Republican wants to do a big number on Social Security, they want to do it on Medicare, they want to do it on Medicaid. And we can’t do that. And it’s not fair to the people that have been paying in for years and now all of the sudden they want [it] to be cut.” Mr. Trump is a political harbinger here of a new strand of populist Republicanism, largely empowered by ObamaCare, in which the “conservative” position is to defend the existing entitlement programs from a perceived threat posed by a new-style Obama coalition of handout seekers that includes the chronically unemployed, students, immigrants, minorities and women. (Holman W. Jenkins Jr., 2/2)

The hot topic in economic policy discussions is inequality. Lots of kinds of inequality have been increasing in the U.S. -- income, wealth, housing, longevity and almost everything else. New data has caused economists and the public to become more alarmed about the extent of the rise, and has allowed people to start having a productive discussion about causes and solutions. People on the political right, especially libertarians, are always asking why we should even care about inequality in the first place. That might sound insensitive, but it’s actually a very good question. We might worry about inequality because an unequal society grows more slowly, or is more politically unfair or corrupt, or even is less healthy. But one big reason is simply that we care about our fellow citizens, and about other human beings in general. When one person has much more than another, it just feels wrong to many people. (Smith, 2/2)

A study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that 1% of physicians accounted for 32% of paid malpractice claims over the past 10 years. Some may spin this as good news, since almost all doctors can be trusted to meet at least the lowest acceptable standard of care. But the ugly truth is that little is being done to hold the dangerous doctors accountable. (Lawrence B. Schlachter, 2/2)

We’ve made great strides against mental-health stigma, largely due to the work of organizations like the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), as well as political efforts for mental-health parity. But too much stigma persists. And as I’ve learned in medical school, this stigma doesn’t just affect patients. It also affects providers. During my interviews for psychiatry residency, its pervasiveness has astonished me. Residency programs assure applicants that psychiatry is “respected” at their hospitals. It’s “just like any other department.” Yet the need to even say this speaks volumes. Do orthopedic surgery applicants worry about being “respected”? Do ophthalmologists’ friends and family suggest they do something else? (Nathaniel P. Morris, 2/1)

Last week, I reported on the problem of preventable harm in hospitals. It has been estimated that each year between 98,000 and 440,000 people die as a result of preventable errors in hospital. Many readers wrote in with comments about family members who were victims of flawed care. They revealed a sense of betrayal and hurt. How could hospitals — institutions we turn to for comfort when we are most vulnerable — so often increase pain and suffering? (David Bornstein, 2/2)

When a community hospital closes or is sold to a for-profit operator, there is a loss to the community. Despite protestations by for-profit operators, a community loses something of value by the conversion of a nonprofit hospital to a for-profit hospital. The mission statements are different. The question is how the loss gets valued and whether the community is compensated for the loss. Societal benefit played a role in the development of bankruptcy law in the U.S. And it should play a role in the allocation of proceeds from the sale of a nonprofit hospital. (Kenneth A. Rosen, 2/1)

California's new, more stringent law on childhood vaccinations, SB 277, doesn't fully kick in until July 1. But it started protecting the public months ago when parents heard from schools and doctors that they would no longer be able to claim a "personal belief exemption" from immunizations if they wanted to enroll their children. (2/2)

Like every legislative session, Iowa lawmakers will again this year engage in debates over the state budget. Some will want to cut programs or refuse to provide adequate funding for education and natural resources. They’ll talk about the need for government to be more efficient and use tax dollars wisely. Amid all this, here is a nugget Iowans should remember: In 2016, health insurance coverage for each lawmaker will cost taxpayers between $7,400 and $10,300, depending on the plan he or she selected. (2/2)

The World Health Organization and its director general, Dr. Margaret Chan, were right to declare the Zika virus an international public health emergency, even if its suspected link to severe birth defects has not been proved. The mosquito-borne disease is a serious threat: It is usually so mild as to be undetectable in adults, yet as it has exploded across South and Central America it has been followed by a surge in babies born with underdeveloped heads, a condition called microcephaly. (2/3)