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As the Republicans hold their 56th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act on Tuesday, the White House will play host to 10 people who it says demonstrate the health law’s impact on ordinary Americans. “The individuals meeting with the president today highlight how important it is to spread the word and ensure that all Americans have the opportunity to sign up for the health care they need,” a White House official said. (Tau, 2/3)

President Barack Obama gathered with beneficiaries of his health care law Tuesday to argue that the persistent effort to wipe it out “makes absolutely no sense,” as the House was poised to take the first repeal vote of the new Congress. (2/3)

President Barack Obama invited 10 Obamacare enrollees to the White House on Tuesday to fulfill two aims: guilt Republicans out of voting for repeal and goad procrastinators into signing up. ... Most of Obama’s guests in the Roosevelt Room were from states that use the federal exchange, meaning their tax credits would be invalidated if the Supreme Court rules against the administration in the King v. Burwell case it will hear soon. (Wheaton, 2/3)

President Obama met Tuesday with supporters who have benefited from the health care law, and mocked congressional Republicans for again trying to repeal it. "My understanding is the House of Representatives has scheduled yet another vote today to take health care away from the folks sitting around this table," Obama said. "I don't know if it's the 55th or the 60th time that they are taking this vote, but I've asked this question before: Why is it this would be at the top of their agenda?" (Jackson, 2/3)

President Barack Obama enlisted the aid of a Dallas teacher with a brain tumor on Tuesday to showcase his contested health care plan, even as House Republicans voted yet again to repeal it. (Gilman, 2/3)

The House passed a bill on Tuesday to repeal the Affordable Care Act for the first time in the new Congress, but Democrats appeared to show more zeal in defending the law than Republicans did in trying to get rid of it. The measure goes now to the Senate, where the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, has said that the chamber will vote on legislation repealing the health law but has not announced a schedule. (Pear, 2/3)

Pledging anew to replace the federal health law that President Obama signed five years ago, House Republicans passed yet another bill Tuesday to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The repeal bill, the first of the new Congress, faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where Democrats will almost certainly filibuster it. Obama has indicated he will veto the legislation if it makes it to his desk. (Levey, 2/3)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell started the parliamentary process to bring up an Obamacare repeal bill for a vote, but it's unclear when the Senate will vote on the issue. One by one on the House floor, Democrats mocked the repeated efforts by Republicans as a waste of time, saying it was "Groundhog Day," since any repeal legislation lacks enough votes to pass in the Senate, and would be vetoed even if a bill could pass. Democrats also pointed out that after so many attempts to get rid of the Obamacare over the last four years, the GOP still hasn't offered up their own alternative proposal to replace it. (Walsh, 2/3)

Tuesday's vote gave House Republican freshmen their first chance at repealing the law, and this is the first full repeal vote since millions of Americans signed up for coverage under the program. (Summers, 2/4)

The influential conservative group Heritage Action for America called the House vote "the beginning of a multi-month effort" to send a full repeal legislation to President Barack Obama's desk. The White House threatened to veto the House bill, saying it would take away critical benefits from middle-class families and increase the federal deficit. (Morgan, Rampton and Cornwell, 2/3)

A trio of Republicans bucked their leadership Tuesday and voted against the GOP’s latest effort to fully repeal Obamacare — the first time any Republican in Congress has ever voted against total repeal. (Mershon, 2/3)

President Obama already has threatened to veto the legislation -- and like past bills to repeal ObamaCare, it is unlikely to go far under the current administration, despite Republicans now controlling the Senate and having a bigger majority in the House. But the vote serves as an opening shot in the 114th Congress’ efforts to chip away at the law. Several lawmakers have introduced bills to change or undo parts of the Affordable Care Act, and some could garner bipartisan support. (2/3)

A Republican House committee chairman says he and two GOP senators are preparing to release a plan for replacing President Barack Obama's health care law. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton declined to discuss details Tuesday, but said the proposal will give Republicans a proposal that they can stand behind. The Michigan Republican said he, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah and Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina will unveil their proposal Thursday. (2/3)

House lawmakers are planning to vote for a 60th time today to repeal the president’s health care law – a vote that’s legislatively pointless but politically symbolic. Many of the 47 GOP freshmen who were elected last November won at least in part because their constituents were anti-Obamacare. (Ehley, 2/3)

A bill co-sponsored by New Hampshire Republican Kelly Ayotte to prevent suicide among veterans has cleared the U.S. Senate. The bill, which is aimed at improving mental health care and expanding suicide prevention resources for service members, previously passed the House and now goes to the president. (2/4)

The Senate unanimously cleared for the president's signature Tuesday veterans mental health legislation that senators have described as a down payment on stemming the tide of veteran suicides. Similar legislation stalled in the waning hours of the last Congress on objections from then-Sen Tom Coburn, but this time the bill (HR 203) was cleared 99-0. The House passed the bill 403-0 on Jan. 12 and President Barack Obama is expected to sign it into law. (O'Brien, 2/3)

House Republicans have shown an interest in overhauling Medicare's policies so that makers of health devices can get paid more easily and earlier in the development process than they now do. The draft proposal from the House Energy and Commerce Committee's so-called 21st Century Cures initiative includes a provision regarding coverage of newer devices. Offered by John Shimkus, R-Ill., it would support an industry push toward streamlining the process through which Medicare decides which devices to cover and how much it will pay. The provision also would aid in allowing coverage for products still in testing through clinical trials, building on existing "coverage with evidence" policies now in place at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Shimkus told CQ HealthBeat. (Young, 2/3)

Legislation to ease Medicaid coverage in other states for children with complex conditions has captured bipartisan support in Congress, but could fall victim to Obamacare politics. The legislation, Advancing Care for Exceptional Kids Act of 2015 (S-298 and H.R. 546), is supported by the Children's Hospital Association. (Dickson, 2/3)

President Barack Obama requested a nearly 8% increase in funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs in his 2016 budget on Monday, but he drew far more attention on Capitol Hill for what he said about money Congress had already provided the agency. The administration said it will seek to reallocate part of the more than $16 billion in funds under the Veterans Choice Act passed last summer to help the agency recover from a scandal over long wait times at VA facilities. (Kesling, 2/3)

Republican governors in Indiana, Tennessee, Utah and other states are pushing Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act — something many at first resisted. (Allen, 2/4)

Republican-led states that blocked Obamacare's Medicaid expansion have found a way to embrace it, under pressure from businesses to tap the flood of federal dollars it brings. Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, R, called lawmakers into a special session this week to consider accepting federal money to extend public health-care assistance to more of the poor. Indiana announced its expansion last week. (Newkirk and Olorunnipa, 2/3)

There are inklings of Medicaid expansion in Kansas, but it’s not conservative Gov. Sam Brownback causing the stir. A legislative committee known as Vision 2020 has been holding hearings on expansion and is aiming to present legislation on Feb. 9, according to the chairman. Kansas hospitals have been drafting their own proposal, which draws on approaches pursued in other states such as Iowa, Indiana and Arkansas. (Pradhan, 2/3)

With less than two weeks remaining for people to buy health coverage for 2015, it’s going to be a scramble for the state insurance exchange to hit its goals. The good news is that since the Affordable Care Act kicked in, hundreds of thousands of formerly uninsured people have coverage in Washington through the expansion of Medicaid and sale of individual health-insurance plans. (Stiffler, 2/3)

Nearly five years after President Barack Obama signed his health care overhaul into law, its fate is yet again in the hands of the Supreme Court. This time it's not just the White House and Democrats who have reason to be anxious. Republican lawmakers and governors won't escape the political fallout if the court invalidates insurance subsidies worth billions of dollars to people in more than 30 states. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 2/4)

The fate of President Obama's health care law depends once again on how the Supreme Court interprets what Congress wrote — a task the justices have applied literally of late to laws affecting air, land and sea. Four words in the 906-page statute will be the focus of the high court's attention March 4, when opponents argue that tax credits received by millions of Americans are legal only in health insurance markets "established by the State." A literal reading of that phrase would seem to exclude health care exchanges operated by the federal government in 34 states. "It's a rather difficult textual argument for the government," said Kannon Shanmugam, who has argued 16 cases at the high court. (Jackson, 2/3)

Top Republican lawmakers on Tuesday strongly backed routine vaccination of children against deadly diseases, marking a shift in the political debate that has erupted around a multistate measles outbreak. An estimated 102 measles cases in 14 states have been tied to an outbreak that began at a Disneyland Resort in California in December. Experts say this doesn’t present a risk of measles spreading nationwide, because the vast majority of Americans are vaccinated against it. And the outbreak isn’t even the largest in the U.S. in recent years. (Hughes, Peterson and McKay, 2/3)

A slew of Republicans eyeing the White House rushed to praise the virtues of vaccination on Tuesday — distancing themselves from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who had appeared to question their safety as health officials across the country move to contain an outbreak of measles. It was yet another case where Paul, an ophthalmologist by training who insisted Tuesday that he’d been misunderstood, has found himself isolated on a subject within the likely GOP presidential field. But it also showed that vaccines, like a number of other scientific issues, could prove a delicate topic for Republicans who must cater to a conservative base that is suspicious of anything that smacks of a government demand. (Schreckinger, 2/3)

The latest tweet from Hillary Rodham Clinton sounded straightforward enough: “The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork.” But the issue of vaccinations has long been politically and emotionally fraught — involving not just public health but also the proper role of government, the prerogatives of parents and medical riddles that have yet to be solved. (Tumulty, 2/4)

The national conversation about vaccines and whether parents should be required to vaccinate their children has migrated from playgrounds and Facebook pages to the corridors of power. And although the science is settled, the politics are more perilous. NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith reports. (2/3)

The question of whether parents should be forced to vaccinate their children spilled into the 2016 presidential race this week as two potential Republican contenders defended and clarified comments they made expressing support for voluntary immunizations. The fraught debate — intensified by a recent multistate outbreak of measles — seems split: between those who think mandatory vaccines are a vital tool in preventing the spread of deadly disease and vaccine skeptics who worry about vaccine risks and say the decision shouldn’t be the government’s to make. (Gershman, 2/3)

The rise of often-affluent parents who object to vaccinating their children hasn’t led to any major changes in state laws mandating immunizations. Data compiled and analyzed by the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Immunization Action Coalition show that 31 bills have been introduced since 2009 in more than a dozen states to make it easier for parents to opt out of mandatory school vaccines. None have become law despite a push by some parents who believe the immunizations could harm their children’s development. (Tau, 2/3)

The letter arrived in the midst of a growing furor about the country’s worst measles outbreak in years. Cindy Shay, a Maryland health-care lawyer, had been taking her children to Bayside Pediatrics in Annapolis for a decade when her doctor wrote last month that he was “no longer able to continue as your child’s pediatrician.” (Hendrix, 2/3)

The ongoing measles outbreak linked to Disneyland has led to some harsh comments about parents who don't vaccinate their kids. But Juniper Russo, a writer in Chattanooga, Tenn., says she understands those parents because she used to be one of them. "I know what it's like to be scared and just want to protect your children, and make the wrong decisions," Russo says. (Hamilton, 2/4)

Local health officials are criticizing the White House for including cuts to an immunization program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in its proposed 2016 budget. In a statement, the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) said the Obama administration is making a mistake given the widening outbreak of measles in 14 states. (Viebeck, 2/3)

Los Angeles County officials say the spread of measles appears to be slowing, but they're concerned about low vaccination rates in some parts of the county. Interim county health officer Dr. Jeffrey Gunzenhauser said there have been 21 confirmed measles cases in Los Angeles County during the recent outbreak, of which 17 have been associated with Disneyland. Statewide, there have been 92 confirmed cases. (Sewell, 2/3)

The two liver-disease drugs, called Sovaldi and Harvoni, notched $3.84 billion in sales in the fourth quarter, exceeding Wall Street estimates and making their launches the best ever for new drugs. For the full year, the two drugs reached $12.4 billion in sales, which combined would have been more than any drug’s revenue in 2013. The new drugs helped Gilead, once known for its HIV/AIDS treatments, to more than double its revenue to $7.31 billion in the quarter and $24.9 billion for the full year from the comparable periods in 2013. The two new drugs have also elevated Gilead into one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies by sales. (Rockoff and Stynes. 2/3)

Gilead Sciences sold $10.3 billion of its new hepatitis C drug Sovaldi in 2014, a figure that brought it close to being the best-selling drug in the world in only its first year on the market. The sales figure, announced on Tuesday in Gilead’s earnings report for the fourth quarter, falls short of the $12.5 billion in sales recorded in 2014 by AbbVie’s autoimmune disease drug Humira, which is believed to be the world’s top-selling pharmaceutical. (Pollack, 2/3)

Shares of Gilead Sciences Inc. dropped after the world’s biggest biotechnology company forecast 2015 revenue that will be weighed down by discounts for its blockbuster hepatitis C drugs. Discounts in the U.S. for Harvoni and Sovaldi, which treat the liver virus, will climb to an average of 46 percent this year from 22 percent in 2014. (Chen, 2/3)

Humana Inc. said its revenue jumped as the health insurer reported growth in membership, while medical expenses also increased. The results fell below analysts’ expectations. The company, which maintained its profit outlook for the year, said it is pleased with its direction even as it contends with Medicare rate reductions, costs associated with the launch of health care exchanges and higher income taxes. (Calia, 2/4)

The company’s profit was in line with analysts’ expectations, while its revenue topped them. Aetna said it now expects at least $7 a share in earnings for 2015, up 10 cents from its previous projection. Aetna, like its rival health insurers, has benefited from higher enrollments driven by requirements under the federal Affordable Care Act. However, the industry has maintained concerns over rising care costs, particularly for expensive new drugs to treat hepatitis C. (Wilde Mathews and Calia, 2/3)

HCA Holdings Inc. on Tuesday reported better-than-expected results in its fourth quarter but gave a soft earnings outlook for 2015. ... HCA also said its board authorized a $1 billion share-repurchase program. Last month, HCA previewed its results for the fourth quarter and full year 2014, saying its performance had been bolstered by an increase in admissions and emergency-room visits, along with a one-time adjustment from Medicaid payments in Texas. (Dulaney, 2/3)

Health care costs keep climbing, and so does our share of them. Adults with insurance through work paid almost 7 percent more out-of-pocket in 2013 than in 2012, according to a new study from the Health Care Cost Institute, a nonprofit funded partly by insurance companies. (Marshall-Genzer, 2/3)

People who have insurance through their employer and people that have policies through either federal or state exchanges are finding that high-deductible options are their only affordable choice. In other words, in order to be able to pay for their monthly premiums, people are choosing the high-deductible plans more often. (2/3)

What patients with health insurance spend out-of-pocket for a handful of common medical services varies greatly, according to a new analysis that suggests patients can benefit from shopping around but often don't because of the entrenched lack of price transparency in healthcare. On average, what an insured patient spends for a trip to the doctor for the first time varies by just $19 across the U.S. But the difference is $444 for cataract removal and $342 for an MRI, according to a new analysis by the Health Care Cost Institute, which maintains a huge database of medical bills for 50 million people insured by four major insurers. (Evans, 2/3)

The federal health law was intended to keep a surprise illness or injury from bankrupting Americans. It authorized states to expand eligibility for Medicaid and created online insurance markets where others without employer coverage can buy plans, with federal subsidies available. When calling for the law’s passage, President Barack Obama declared people shouldn’t 'go broke because they get sick.' In 2013, medical debt was the largest cause of personal bankruptcy – 1.7 million people lived in households experiencing bankruptcy because of health costs. But the law hasn’t eliminated the problem. Many states haven’t expanded Medicaid and even those with insurance can rack up big bills, a problem exacerbated by the growing number of plans with high deductibles. (Luthra, 2/4)

Amid growing interest in rewarding “quality” health care, two new studies found that tracking and comparing hospitals’ rates of surgical complications and deaths doesn’t necessarily improve outcomes. Hundreds of U.S. hospitals voluntarily report data on surgical complications, readmissions, length of stay and mortality to a registry run by the American College of Surgeons, one of the oldest and largest in the country. In return, they receive risk-adjusted data showing how they rank with other hospitals. The surgeons’ group says that each year a hospital participates in its National Surgical Quality Improvement Program “it has the opportunity to reduce the number of complications by 250 to 500 and save 12 to 36 lives.” (Beck, 2/3)

Getting big-ticket medical devices, drugs and procedures covered by Medicare is getting harder, according to a new analysis of national coverage decisions between 1999 and 2012. The CMS was about 20 times more likely to say no in the more recent years. (Rice, 2/3)

New regulations requiring California health care insurers to follow stricter guidelines for provider network adequacy, out-of-network notifications and accuracy of provider lists when dealing with the state Department of Insurance went into effect on Monday. (Gorn, 2/3)

A bill that would mandate paid sick leave for Maryland businesses with 10 or more employees drew strong support and criticism Tuesday during a Senate Finance Committee hearing. Advocates said the legislation, sponsored by Sen. Catherine E. Pugh (D-Baltimore), would help employers by allowing their workers to stay home while ill, preventing the spread of disease and getting them back on the job faster. About 40 percent of private-sector workers — or more than 700,000 Marylanders — lack paid sick leave, according to the advocacy group Working Matters. (Hernandez, 2/4)

The suit seeks a series of remedies, ranging from an increase in foster homes to timely medical care. The suit uses pseudonyms for the 10 child plaintiffs, who range in age from 3 to 14. It seeks class action by the court on behalf of all children in state foster care. As of September, there were 16,990 children in state custody, according to the latest data from the Department of Child Safety. (Pitzl, 2/3)

Child-welfare advocates filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday accusing Arizona officials of jeopardizing the well-being of nearly 17,000 children in the state’s foster-care system by failing to provide sufficient health-care services and an adequate number of foster homes. The complaint comes as Arizona’s foster-care population rose more rapidly in recent years than any other state in the nation. Some foster children, the lawsuit alleges, slept in offices because they didn’t have homes. (Lazo, 2/3)

Children's advocacy groups on Tuesday sued the state of Arizona, claiming it violated the civil rights of nearly 17,000 children in its foster care system by exposing them to possible harm. The suit filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix said the state fails to provide needed mental and other health care, and enough foster homes to house children removed from their families. (Christie, 2/3)

A Kansas House committee unanimously passed a bill Tuesday to allow for tax-free savings accounts for children with disabilities. But even as they sent the bill to the full House, committee members expressed concern that cost could keep it from coming up for a vote there. House Bill 2100 would allow the families of Kansas children with disabilities up to age 26 to set aside up to $14,000 a year for them, with up to $100,000 not counting against their Medicaid benefits. (Marso, 2/3)

Gov. Sam Brownback’s plan for plugging a more than $325 million hole in the current fiscal year’s budget includes a $254,000 cut in state-funded grants for safety net clinics that provide care for the poor and uninsured. The governor also has proposed taking an additional $378,000 from the grant program in fiscal 2016 and 2017. (Ranney, 2/3)

Beginning in the 1920s, when heroin became illegal, people tended to think of heroin abuse as a problem plaguing people of color in the big cities. But in the past decade, heroin abuse has exploded—and it is hitting white people in suburbs and rural areas particularly hard. As the demographics of heroin use have changed, so have states’ efforts to combat the problem. Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia now have laws designed to make naloxone, a heroin antidote that is 99 percent effective, more easily accessible to overdose victims, according to the Network for Public Health Law. Last year, 21 states and the District adopted so-called “Good Samaritan laws” that provide some type of immunity for people calling 911 to report or seek help for an overdose. (Wiltz, 2/4)

As the role of a county jail evolves into more than a prison to a mental and medical health provider for the incarcerated, paying for the ever-growing costs associated with that care has become a problem for sheriffs across the state. And with recent changes in legislation last year that forced county jails and community corrections programs to house low-level state offenders instead of sending them to the Indiana Department of Correction an anticipated influx of as many as 14,000 new inmates, many with special mental health needs, has sheriffs looking for more funding from the state to help pay for those costs. (Napoleon, 2/3)

On Tuesday we rapped Chris Christie for his odd doubts about public vaccines amid a dangerous outbreak of measles in California. But it seems this is something of an epidemic among potential GOP presidential candidates, so perhaps it’s time for some facts about science, liberty and public health. (2/3)

Thanks to a thoughtless equivocation by an American governor visiting Britain, the measles vaccine has become the first important controversy of the 2016 Republican presidential primary. As with other long-settled issues that unexpectedly pop up to bite national political candidates in their behinds (birth control, anyone?), so it is with mandatory immunizations, which protect the public against pestilence, and whose efficacy rests on “herd immunity,” the idea that we all stick together so no one gets picked off by microbial predators. (Robin Abcarian, 2/3)

Chris Christie and Rand Paul must not have gotten the memo: The middle of a measles outbreak is no time for loose talk about making vaccines optional. On Monday, the New Jersey governor and the Kentucky senator, both likely contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, dived face-first into the emotional debate over childhood vaccines by suggesting that some shots shouldn't be mandatory. (2/3)

Two potential Republican presidential candidates, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have made irresponsible comments about vaccines at a time when measles has reappeared in the United States. Their remarks call into question their judgment and their fitness for higher office. (2/3)

Move over Michele Bachmann. Here comes the 2016 Republican presidential field on the scientifically indisputable but ideologically fraught issue of vaccination. You may recall Bachmann’s campaign implosion in 2011, when the then-Minnesota congresswoman warned of “very dangerous consequences” of the HPV vaccine, citing a woman whose daughter “suffered mental retardation as a result.” (Ruth Marcus, 2/3)

[C]onservatism is witnessing a renewed flowering of its distrust of science. Republicans have traditionally been strong supporters of medical and other scientific research. Yet since the mid-20th century, a healthy number of grass-roots Republicans have come to consider doctors and scientists as enforcers of a mechanistic and anti-religious worldview that violates both common sense and American freedom. The roots of such sentiments, which in some ways stretch back to the 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial,” flourished particularly among the hard-line anti-communist right of the 1950s and 1960s. (Robert D. Johnston, 3/3)

How can we persuade these frightened parents of what we all knew a generation ago — that community health is essential for personal health. ... Experience — the one kind of education that we know works — might be having an effect. The rising number of cases of measles, from 100 cases a year in 2000 when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared victory, to the 644 cases reported last year and the 100 plus reported last month, may have revealed some of the health benefits of vaccination. Many of those who have opted out of vaccines for their children grew up when measles was at its historic low. Experience is an excellent teacher. (Lisa Sanders, 2/4)

After decades free of many crippling and deadly diseases thanks to the miracle of vaccines, some people are skeptical. Parents fearful of side effects, often on account of anecdotal evidence or discredited studies, are reluctant to vaccinate their children. (Kathleen Parker, 2/3)

Should you get your kids vaccinated against measles? Of course you should. You shouldn't do this, however, because it is risk-free. Drugs can have side effects, and although those documented for the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine are either minor or extremely rare, the risk of something bad happening isn't zero. ... The medical consensus is always shifting; risk can't be completely eliminated. It’s just that, when you weigh the real and hypothetical risks of the MMR vaccine against the known risks posed by actual measles -- ear infections, pneumonia, convulsions, brain inflammation, brain damage, death -- they don’t amount to much. (Justin Fox, 2/3)

The anti-vaccination movement has hit a wall. After years of flourishing on the margins of the political spectrum, activists and their political enablers are on the defensive, as long-dormant diseases come back with a vengeance. This description fits the intensifying uproar over the re-emergence of measles and whooping cough in 2015. It applies just as well to an outbreak of smallpox in 1894. (Stephen Mihm, 2/3)

The U.S. declared measles eliminated from the nation (though it still arrives from abroad) in 2000, thanks in part to a very effective vaccine. The recent outbreak seems due in part to the resistance of some Americans to using that very effective vaccine. Perhaps even more troubling, young Americans seem especially likely to believe discredited assertions connecting vaccination to autism. (Zara Kessler, 2/2)

An outbreak at Disneyland in December of last year caused at least 59 people to contract measles, and as cases of the viral disease continue to grow, so, too, does an epidemic of outrage over what is considered by many to be a preventable danger. (Mike Corones, 3/3)

Just the other day, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was telling Bret Baier of Fox News that the new Republican majority on Capitol Hill was "trying to get off to a fast start here." He explained, "The American people elected a new Congress. They want results." A couple of minutes later, he observed that among the first orders of business for the new results-oriented Congress would be a vote to repeal Obamacare. That vote is taking place Tuesday, as we write. It's unfolding strictly along party lines. It's the 56th repeal vote. It is preordained to pass in the results-oriented House but not in the results-oriented Senate. Even if it did, it would be vetoed by the results-oriented president. (Michael Hiltzik, 2/3)

It is unfair to say Republicans have achieved nothing in their dozens of attempts since 2010 to repeal Obamacare. In Tuesday’s repeal effort by House Republicans — their first of this Congress and their 56th overall — it became clear that they had succeeded at one thing: They had bored even themselves into a slumber. (Dana Milbank, 2/3)

It's no secret that Republicans are divided both about how to replace Obamacare and about the urgency of coming up with an alternative plan. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has just escalated that internal debate -- and shown why his side should lose it. ... Jindal's key provision is to eliminate the tax break for employer-provided health coverage and instead offer a deduction with which people could buy insurance in the individual market. The great flaw in Jindal's plan is that it would cause millions of people to lose their coverage. (Ramesh Ponnuru, 2/3)

In its economic forecast last week, the Congressional Budget Office revealed a quandary about Obamacare’s “Cadillac tax”: To make the underlying law fiscally sustainable, the tax may end up increasing at a rate that becomes politically unsustainable. (Chris Jacobs, 2/3)

Last week, I joined with federal and state legislators involved in passing the Affordable Care Act to file an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in the case of King v. Burwell. The plaintiffs in that case are suing to prevent millions of Americans from receiving tax credits to purchase quality, affordable coverage through the federal health insurance marketplace. Since the state and federal marketplaces first began offering coverage last year, tax credits and subsidies have saved thousands of dollars for individual, family and small business consumers. They have also saved lives for those who would not have been able to afford health care on their own. These reforms are central to ensuring that all Americans have access to health care coverage. (Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., 2/3)

In just over a month, the Supreme Court will hear the claim that tax credits are available only for health plans sold through marketplaces run by states — not for plans sold through a marketplace run by the federal government on behalf of states. As congressional staffers involved in drafting the law, we know that the legislative history, intent and text are clear that tax credits are available in all states. If the court blatantly disregards this evidence, the consequences would be immediate and far-reaching. (David Bowen, Topher Spiro, Yvette Fontenot and Jon Selib, 2/3)

Beneath the aggregate spending levels, we find a slow-motion reordering of the nation’s priorities. Between 2015 and 2025, “mandatory” spending—principally Social Security and Medicare—increases from 12.5% to 14.2% of GDP. By contrast, “discretionary” spending—everything the federal government does through annual appropriations to defend the country, foster opportunity and invest in the future—falls from 6.5% of GDP to 5.1%, the lowest level since at least 1962 (the first year in which such data were reported). The president’s budget does little to alter these trends—and in some respects accelerates them. (William A. Galston, 2/3)

Since the late 1990s, the number of working-age Americans receiving disability payments from Social Security has doubled, to more than 8 million. The mounting costs of the program, running at almost $150 billion a year, are about to exhaust the fund that supports it. Something will have to be done, and soon -- but what? Republicans in Congress have ruled out the simplest and most traditional fix, which would be to channel funds from the main Social Security fund. They're calling for reform instead, and they're right. Better still, they have some good ideas about how this reform should be done. (2/3)

Washington’s leaders rarely focus on how bureaucracy and outdated regulations handicap the efforts of America’s most innovative companies and researchers to bring new treatments to patients. But it’s happening. Last week the 21st Century Cures initiative — spearheaded by House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R., Mich.) and Rep. Diana DeGette (D., Colo.) — released a report offering bipartisan suggestions for streamlining clinical trials and reforming the Food and Drug Administration’s regulation of emerging technologies. Sens. Lamar Alexande r (R., Tenn.) and Richard Burr (R., N.C.) issued their own call for reform, arguing that “too many patients with no treatment options wait while potential treatments languish in laboratories.” (Peter Huber and Paul Howard, 2/3)

What if we told you there was an issue that virtually everyone — Democrat, Republican and Independents — agreed on? Would it further surprise you that it's a subject on which we've been silent for generations? But now, an overwhelming majority (96%) of the public agrees that mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety and alcohol or drug abuse are serious public health problems, according to a new poll by Public Opinion Strategies. Almost as many (93%) believe that the current way we are handling mental health needs to change. (David Satcher and Patrick J. Kennedy, 2/4)

As a journalist, I've attended too many funerals over the past two decades for infants who didn't make it to their first birthday, for various reasons. Low birth weight, smoking while pregnant, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and lack of prenatal care are the chronic culprits. Each baby's death left the family devastated, but especially the young mothers who felt responsible to a degree. ... I thought of them again on Tuesday afternoon when I received a press release from the state of Indiana on this complex issue. The governor's office released a new report detailing the findings of an advanced analytics study on the root causes of infant mortality in Indiana. (Jerry Davich, 2/3)