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A total of 10.2 million people signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and paid their premiums by the end of March, the Obama administration said Tuesday, indicating the administration is on track to meet its revised goal. The administration had said last year that it expected to have between 9.1 million and 9.9 million consumers paid up and enrolled in insurance plans through state and federal online exchanges in 2015. (Armour, 6/2)

That is down from 11.7 million sign-ups recorded in February when the 2015 enrollment period closed. The tally still represents growth over 2014, when 6.3 million people were enrolled in health plans at the end of the year, according to updated 2014 figures also released Tuesday. The new data also underscore how many consumers rely on federal insurance subsidies made available by the law. About 85% of 2015 enrollees are getting assistance to buy coverage on the marketplaces. (Levey, 6/2)

About 13 percent of people who signed up for health insurance coverage in 2015 under the Affordable Care Act have fallen off the rolls, many because they failed to pay their share of premiums, the Obama administration said Tuesday. ... Nationwide, the administration said, the federal government is paying insurance subsidies in the form of tax credits to 8.7 million people, including 2.3 million in states that run their own exchanges. The average tax credit for those who qualified for financial assistance was $272 a month, the administration said. (Pear, 6/2)

That puts the nation finally within reach of coverage for all, but it may not last. The report from the Department of Health and Human Services comes as dozens of insurers are proposing double-digit premium hikes for next year, raising concerns about future affordability. And the Supreme Court is weighing the legality of subsidized premiums for millions of consumers in more than 30 states. A decision is due around the end of the month. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 6/2)

Although health researchers made similar projections earlier this year, the government figures released Tuesday provide the best available estimate of how many people would be at risk, said Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “These are the people we now know are receiving subsidies that would be lost if the court sides with the challengers,” he said. “The amounts are substantial.” (Sun, 6/2)

President Barack Obama’s administration had expected that some people would pick plans and then not follow through, and set a goal to have at least 9.1 million people paying for coverage bought through government-run marketplaces this year. “We’ve seen a historic reduction in the uninsured and consumers are finding the coverage they need at a price they can afford,” Sylvia Burwell, secretary of Health and Human Services, said in a statement. (Tracer, 6/2)

The Congressional Budget Office had originally projected marketplace enrollment would reach 13 million in 2015, 24 million in 2016 and a “steady rate” of 25 million in 2017 as the program is fully implemented. That aggressive growth assumed a significant decline over the next two years in both employer-based insurance and non-marketplace individual coverage. But a subsequent HHS analysis found the CBO projections were unrealistic. (Pugh, 6/2)

An even more important figure released Tuesday was that 87% of enrollees on the federal exchange are receiving subsidies averaging $272 a month. This assistance may be in jeopardy. The Supreme Court will rule this month on whether Americans who enrolled in the 34 states without a state-based exchange can receive subsidies. If the justices strike down the subsidies, some 6.4 million people could lose their coverage if they can't afford the full monthly cost. (Luhby, 6/2)

More than 1.3 million Florida residents — the most of any state — could lose their financial aid for health plans under the Affordable Care Act if the Supreme Court rules against the federal distribution of subsidies later this month. New data released Tuesday by federal health officials in advance of the decision showed that Florida, which enrolled the most people in Obamacare, also stands to lose the most. (Chang, 6/2)

About 492,000 North Carolina residents and 171,000 in South Carolina had health coverage through the Affordable Care Act as of March 31, a new federal tally shows. That’s down from the number of sign-ups released shortly after 2015 enrollment ended in February. As expected, some people didn’t pay premiums or moved to different kinds of insurance. Nationwide, total enrollment stands at 10.2 million, compared with 11.7 million sign-ups. That’s still well above the 6.3 million enrolled at the end of 2014. (Helms, 6/2)

The Supreme Court isn't the only federal court considering a challenge to the Affordable Care Act. Just down the street from the high court, District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer in the District of Columbia is considering another challenge brought by House Republicans. In the case, House Speaker John Boehner sets forth two claims: that the money for payments to insurance companies was not properly approved by Congress, and that the Obama administration attempted to rewrite sections of the landmark health care law concerning the employer mandate without permission from Congress. (de Vogue, 6/2)

The health care industry has been on pins and needles awaiting a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case that will decide the future of health insurance tax credits — and nearly three months after oral arguments, the decision month is here. The plaintiffs in the landmark King vs. Burwell case argue that language in a section of the Affordable Care Act means that the credits are available only on state-run exchanges. Tennessee is one of 34 states that did not establish a state exchange, leaving the roughly 185,000 people in Tennessee who receive tax credits with uncertainty about the future of their health insurance. (Fletcher, 6/2)

Asked about the outcome of the meeting, Milbank Memorial Fund President Christopher Koller said he couldn't speak for the state officials who attended. That said, he told CBS News, "My own experience as a former health insurance commissioner who helped set up the state exchange in Rhode Island is that if the Supreme Court rules for King, states participating in the federal exchange will be in very complex situation regarding their individual and small group health insurance marketplaces and will be looking for federal guidance on what constitutes a state-based insurance exchange." The Obama administration says it doesn't have any contingency plans in the works in anticipation of the Supreme Court's decision, which is expected to come down in late June. (Condon, 6/2)

The unlikely epicenter of Obamacare lies in a solidly Republican working-class town just 10 miles outside of the Miami stomping grounds of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. The city of Hialeah — a Cuban-American neighborhood of Spanish speakers that is blanketed with Obamacare advertisements — enrolled more people under the Affordable Care Act than anywhere in the country. That coverage is now at risk. ...Neither the Republican lawmakers who represent this community in Congress nor the national GOP have decided whether or how to respond if the court cuts off the subsidies and voters blame them for millions becoming uninsured. Some Republicans favor restoring the subsidies — if they can repeal big parts of the health law. Other conservatives want to ride out the political consequences by promising to build a new and better health law on the wreckage of Obamacare. (Haberkorn, 6/2)

Around the country, major health insurers are proposing to increase monthly premiums by 26 percent to 51 percent. This, predictably, has reignited the political debate over the Affordable Care Act. But there’s something more important going on, and it’s happening in the belly of the insurance industry. Insurers are grappling with new rules to bring price stability to their businesses. (Gorenstein, 6/2)

Under the Affordable Care Act, insurers are required to make public any rate proposals that increase by at least 10 percent on the federal government’s website. Though premium rates vary significantly depending on the region, major carriers including UnitedHealthcare, Athena and Blue Cross Blue Shield have proposed rate increases for next year between 10 and 30 percent in a handful of states. ... Some are even higher. ... Insurers attribute the higher rates to the rising cost of prescription drugs as well as their added costs from new consumers enrolled under the law’s health exchanges. ... This is the first year that insurers actually have data on the ACA’s new enrollees—including how healthy or sick they are and how they affect the risk pools. Before this year, insurers were essentially playing a guessing game when setting premium rates for 2014 and 2015, and because of that, many were optimistic and set rates too low. (Ehley, 6/2)

Insurers say they want to hike rates because enrollees are going to the doctor, getting lab work and filling prescriptions more than they had originally anticipated. "We've seen a great pent-up demand for services," said Aaron Billger, spokesman for Highmark, a Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee offering plans in Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia. Enrollees in Obamacare exchange plans use more healthcare than those in job-based policies, he noted. (Luhby, 6/2)

The preliminary requests were announced as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the validity of ObamaCare’s tax credits to offset the cost of premiums for lower-income consumers in most states in the country. Individual health insurance policies are a relatively small slice of the overall market. Many more people are insured through an employer. And it is not clear whether any of these preliminary rate hikes will stick. (6/2)

Nearly a dozen health insurers are proposing double-digit rate increases for 2016 Florida plans sold on the exchanges created under Obamacare as well as individual coverage sold through brokers and agents. One of Aetna Health Inc.'s plans requested a 21 percent hike, and plans for United Health Care of Florida and Coventry Health Care of Florida were looking for increases of 18 percent. United requested a 31 percent increase in one of its plans sold off the exchange, according to preliminary rate information released Monday on the federal government's HealthCare.gov website. (6/2)

Many Georgians could face double-digit increases in their health insurance premiums next year, based on initial rates sought by insurers. Insurers’ requests in Georgia range as high as a 64.2 percent increase for a Time Insurance Co. plan for individual coverage starting in January. But most of the double-digit increases being requested in the state are in the range of 10 percent to 20 percent. (Miller, 6/2)

A short drive in the Los Angeles area can yield big differences in price for knee or hip replacement surgery. New Medicare data show that Inglewood's Centinela Hospital Medical Center billed the federal program $237,063, on average, for joint replacement surgery in 2013. That was the highest charge nationwide. And it's six times what Kaiser Permanente billed Medicare eight miles away at its West L.A. hospital. Kaiser billed $39,059, on average, and Medicare paid $12,457. (Terhune and Poindexter, 6/2)

The health law’s expansion of Medicaid in many states hasn’t benefited nonprofit hospitals in those states as expected, according to a new report by Moody’s Investors Service. Hospitals in the mostly blue states that expanded Medicaid were largely expected to benefit from fewer unpaid bills and more paying customers, but that hasn’t generally translated into better operating margins or cash flow, Moody’s found. (Weaver, 6/3)

Frustrated by their inability to muster more than a handful of votes for any tax plan, Kansas Republican legislative leaders are asking rank-and-file members the “What will it take to get out of here?” question. They’re getting a variety of answers as the session, on its 103rd day, inches closer to record territory as the longest in state history. In 2002, legislators met for 107 days. (McLean, 6/2)

The House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday voted to repeal two pieces of ObamaCare. The committee advanced measures that would repeal the medical device tax and a cost-cutting panel known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). Both bills are scheduled to go to the House floor the week of June 15. (Sullivan, 6/2)

A Republican-run House committee voted Tuesday to repeal a 2.3 percent tax on many medical devices that helps pay for President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. The Ways and Means Committee's mostly party-line 25-14 vote came with Republicans complaining that the levy costs jobs and stifles innovation. (6/2)

Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley said Tuesday there is not a decision yet on how to address drugmakers’ complaints about an internal dispute process with the Patent and Trademark Office. Grassley's panel is slated to consider its patent litigation bill (S 1137) as a Thursday meeting. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the Biotechnology Industry Organization have been pressing to have new language added to the measure, seeking to alter the functions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board at the PTO. (Young, 6/2)

Last July, when Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen spurred a sell-off in healthcare stocks by saying that valuations in shares of biotech companies looked "stretched," portfolio manager Graham Tanaka saw an opportunity. After a year-long buying spree, he now has more than a quarter of his $17 million Tanaka Growth fund portfolio in healthcare companies such as Gilead Sciences Inc, up from just 5 percent at the start of last year. (Randall, 6/2)

An activist investor has won a $2 million arbitration award from UBS AG, which he said derailed his proxy fight against a health-care information systems company by calling a margin loan and selling almost 2.3 million shares he had in the business. (Rieker, 6/2)

The way the federal government calculates benefits for the Medicare Advantage program has been under scrutiny for years—with reformists and health policy experts claiming that the formula used to calculate benefits can be easily inflated and potentially wastes billions of tax dollars a year. (Ehley, 6/2)

Health insurer Anthem Inc. is the latest big employer to offer its workers a free college education. Anthem employees can sign up for online degrees in business and health care at the College for America at Southern New Hampshire University. About 34,000 of the company’s 55,000 workers haven’t graduated from college. (Tracer, 6/2)

A new analysis from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services separates the costs of cancer drugs from other services provided by oncologists, highlighting an expense that’s already at the center of an intensifying debate. Medicare spent more than twice as much in 2013 on expenses for physician-administered drugs as it did on other medical services in several fields of oncology, according to data CMS released Monday as part of a trove of information on payments to doctors and hospitals. Officials hope researchers can use the data to detect potential areas in which CMS and health professionals may want to change their payments and policies. This CMS information on physician-administered drugs focused on payments for care provided by doctors through the Part B section of traditional, or fee-for-service, and doesn't reflect the costs of prescriptions filled through Medicare D drug plan. (Young, 6/2)

AstraZeneca Plc would consider acquiring a developer of a new type of cancer therapy aimed at supercharging the body’s immune response, Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot said. AstraZeneca, based in London, is collaborating with Juno, a Seattle startup, to combine its immune therapy drug with Juno’s CAR T treatment. CAR T is one of the hottest areas in health care, producing unprecedented responses in patients and boosting shares of biotechnology companies such as Kite Pharma Inc. and Bluebird Bio Inc. (Staley, 6/2)

[Kelly] Krodel is one of a growing number of hepatitis C patients in Minnesota caught in a bind between the exorbitant cost of the year-old medications — Harvoni, Sovaldi and Viekira Pak — and the tight restrictions insurers have used to prevent the drugs from busting their budgets. Two weeks ago a Los Angeles woman sued her insurer over the denial of hepatitis C medication, and last week an advocacy group sued on behalf of two Minnesota prison inmates who were denied state-funded prescriptions. The battle could be the first of many in coming years, as other revolutionary medications offer hope against chronic and deadly diseases, but at high prices manufacturers charge to recoup their research investments. (Olson, 6/2)

The court administers a no-fault compensation program that serves as an alternative to the traditional U.S. tort system. The program was established in 1986, after a series of high-profile lawsuits against drug companies. A number of children had serious adverse reactions — including seizures and brain damage — that appeared to be linked to the diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus vaccine, or DPT vaccine (this version was later replaced by the DTaP vaccine). The parents filed lawsuits against the makers of the DTP vaccine and in at least two cases, won awards worth millions of dollars. (Kelto, 6/2)

The vaccine injury compensation program was designed to make the legal process that governs vaccines more efficient, and to encourage a steady supply of the life-saving shots. A 75-cents surcharge added to the price of every dose of vaccine funds the program and the monetary awards. Today, some cases before the court are more clear-cut than that of Nicholas Wildman. Sometimes, there is clear scientific evidence of a link between a vaccine and a rare side effect. In these cases, the case is fast-tracked, and victims are compensated quickly. A list of known vaccine injuries facilitates the process. But often, the court is presented with cases more like that of the Wildmans — a compelling story, but with little or no scientific evidence to support the claim that the vaccine caused the injury. (Kelto, 6/3)

Training physicians in communication skills may not make it any easier for them to convince vaccine-resistant parents to inoculate their babies, a study suggests. Researchers invited physicians at 30 clinics in Washington state to attend 45-minute classes led by a pediatric immunization expert and health educator. But doctors who attended the sessions were no better at lowering vaccine resistance than their colleagues at 26 other clinics where training wasn’t offered. (Rapaport, 6/2)

The Food and Drug Administration paved the way for new restrictions on antibiotics given to cows, chickens and other farm animals as the Obama administration pursues ways to fight the so-called superbugs that are growing increasingly resistant to infection-fighting drugs. The FDA on Tuesday issued a set of guidelines for veterinarians who will, as of next year, be responsible for prescribing antibiotics for animals destined for the dinner plate—marking a key step in ending the practice of distributing those drugs over the counter. (Tracy and Burton, 6/2)

The White House on Tuesday held a wide-ranging forum on drug-resistant bacteria, the latest step in a global effort to tackle a growing problem — one that causes 23,000 deaths in the United States alone and has doctors warning of a catastrophic “post-antibiotic” era. The administration announced a number of policy changes Tuesday, including a presidential memorandum urging federal departments to buy meat from sources that limit antibiotics use and a commitment by the presidential food service to use meat that has not been treated with antibiotics. (Gustin, 6/2)

The share of U.S. workers testing positive for drugs appears to be on the rise, according to data from millions of workplace drug tests administered by one of the nation’s largest medical-screening laboratories. Traces of drugs—from marijuana to methamphetamine to prescription opiates—were found in 3.9% of the 9.1 million urine tests conducted for employers by Quest Diagnostics Inc. in 2014, up from 3.7% in 2013. (Weber, 6/2)

The biggest U.S. tobacco companies on Tuesday dropped a federal lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration after challenging the agency’s recent effort to assert authority over labels on tobacco products. (Mickle, 6/2)

The California Senate voted on Tuesday to allow unauthorized immigrants to buy health insurance on a state exchange created under the U.S. Affordable Care Act, a measure that would make the state the first to offer that kind of coverage. The bill would not provide a subsidy for undocumented immigrants to buy health insurance, unlike U.S. citizens and legal residents who can qualify for such assistance based on their incomes, said Jesse Melgar, a spokesman for the bill's author, Senator Ricardo Lara. (Dobuzinskis, 6/2)

A first-in-the-nation bill aimed at expanding health care for illegal immigrants sailed through the Senate on Tuesday even as some lawmakers acknowledged that thousands of legal residents are having to struggle to access health care through the state's Medi-Cal program. (Seipel, 6/2)

The state Senate approved a hotly debated measure Tuesday that would provide healthcare coverage to many immigrants who reside in California illegally. Lawmakers also gave the first full-house approval to bills that would raise the state smoking age to 21, prohibit the use of electronic cigarettes in the same way smoking is banned, provide more public grants for university students and automatically register to vote all eligible residents who obtain a driver's license. The healthcare proposal would allow up to 240,000 immigrants younger than 19 to enroll in Medi-Cal, California's health program for the poor, and an unspecified number of low-income adult immigrants to receive the same services from a separate program. (McGreevy and Mason, 6/2)

A proposal to expand health care to Californians in the country illegally cleared the Senate on Tuesday, passing on a 28-11 vote and heading to the Assembly. Senate Bill 4 would allow undocumented immigrants to purchase health insurance on the state exchange, pending a federal waiver, and enroll eligible people under the age of 19 in Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for the poor. A capped number of undocumented adults would also be allowed participate, if additional funding is appropriated in the state budget. (Koseff, 6/2)

The California Senate on Tuesday approved legislation that would make the state the first in the nation to extend health coverage to children who are in the country illegally and seek federal authorization to sell private insurance to immigrants without documentation. (Lin, 6/2)

With 12.3 million Californians receiving Medi-Cal, the program now serves almost a third of the state's population. Lawmakers such as Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, and Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, say that the best way to attract more Medi-Cal providers is by restoring a 10 percent reimbursement rate cut the Legislature approved in 2011 when the state was still swimming in red ink. On Tuesday morning, a coalition of doctors, nurses, hospitals, health clinics, dentists, insurers and health care workers demanded as much during a rally on the state Capitol steps. (Seipel, 6/2)

State and local governments will have to add hundreds of billions of dollars in retiree obligations to their books under rules enacted Tuesday that spotlight the growing costs of health insurance and other benefits owed to former municipal employees. The new rules approved unanimously by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, which sets accounting rules for states and municipalities, will require governments to carry their unfunded retiree-benefit obligations on their balance sheets—thus making their overall financial position look worse. Currently, governments are required only to disclose the benefit costs in the footnotes to their financial statements. (Rapoport, 6/2)

U.S. state and local governments will have to report billions of dollars in health-care liabilities on their balance sheets under an accounting change aimed at improving disclosure of retiree benefits. As a result of rules approved Tuesday by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, municipalities and states will have to record the cost of health insurance and other benefits besides pensions in financial statements, the board said in a statement. Such costs are currently disclosed only in footnotes. (Preston, 6/2)

West Virginia’s mental health system relies too much on facilities like psychiatric hospitals to treat children and should make changes such as expanding in-home services to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, federal authorities said. (Raby, 6/2)

The D.C. Council gave final approval Tuesday to legislation that would require health plans to authorize the dispensing of up to a year’s worth of birth control at one time — a move that officials hope will decrease the rate of unintended pregnancies by making contraception more accessible. (Stein, 6/2)

The Hogan administration on Tuesday announced plans to begin treatment of heroin addicts in eight Maryland county jails and detention centers with a drug that could keep them from using once they are back on the streets. The treatment — to be funded with a $500,000 federal grant to Maryland — is the first such program initiated by Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to address the state’s addiction problem, which he has called a top priority and which is part of a nationwide crisis. (Hicks, 6/2)

A former money manager with a regional mental health agency took nearly $550,000 in apparent kickbacks from two contractors who were paid about $1 million to renovate agency buildings, according to a state audit released Tuesday. (Bonner, 6/2)

A former insurance broker who stole $10 million from Aetna Inc. by failing to submit health insurance premiums paid by a New Jersey university has pleaded guilty to fraud. Bonney Hebert pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court in Hartford, Connecticut, to wire fraud and a theft charge. Her sentencing is set for August. The 59-year-old Killington, Vermont, resident faces up to 30 years in prison. (6/2)

As more people continue to move to south Lake [Florida], more hospital visits are inevitable. The increasing population prompted action by South Lake Hospital, which recently added 18 in-patient beds and also opened a 30-bed rehabilitation unit. Founded in 1947 when south Lake was a rural outpost, the hospital now has 170 licensed beds. (Benavari, 6/2)

Will Nebbitt lives on the 5th floor of a new downtown apartment building. From his window, he has a panoramic view of the Los Angeles skyline. He can also see Skid Row, where he spent decades sleeping on the ground. Nebbitt, 58, says his body can’t handle life outside anymore. He has a seizure disorder, heart disease and depression. He’s had four operations, including bypass surgery on his leg in March. (Gorman, 6/3)

When she was a student at Concord High School, McKenzie Thorpe was a dancer. As preparation for performances on stage, she would go tanning almost every day, starting as young as 14. Beginning this summer, most teenagers will not be able to use a tanning bed as Thorpe had as a high school student. Gov. Maggie Hassan signed a bill into law yesterday that prohibits anyone under the age of 18 to tan at a tanning facility in New Hampshire. The law takes effect in 60 days. (Doucet, 6/3)

While health advocates cling to the possibility of Kansas lawmakers using a large tobacco tax increase to help solve the state budget crisis, Statehouse momentum is heading toward a much smaller increase — or none at all. Groups like the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and the University of Kansas Cancer Center praised Gov. Sam Brownback’s January proposal to raise cigarette taxes by $1.50 per pack and smokeless tobacco taxes by a similarly large amount. (Marso, 6/2)

More than 150 people in southeast Indiana have been diagnosed with HIV, the largest outbreak in state history. Even though the first reports trickled in to state health officials last December, they didn't tell their local counterparts in Scott County for two months when it became a full-blown epidemic. (Cho, 6/2)

On a recent afternoon, Brittany Combs drove a white SUV through a neighborhood at the northern end of Austin, Indiana. In the back of her vehicle, there were hundreds of sterile syringes, each in a plastic wrapper. "Anybody need clean needles today?" she shouted out the window at people sitting on front porches or walking down the street. When Combs, a nurse with the Scott County Health Department, got takers, she made sure they had a unique ID card before opening up the hatch and handing each of them a week's worth of syringes. (Harper, 6/2)

In the last few years, the ER has become a top destination for people seeking addictive prescription painkillers like Vicodin, Oxycodone, or Percocet. In response, hospitals in some states, including New Mexico, Texas and Wyoming, have developed tracking systems specifically tailored to the emergency room. The program at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center's ER, in Cheyenne, Wyo., is just getting off the ground. (Bryan, 6/3)

For Frank Smart, his mother says, it all came down to one pill. On Jan. 4, Pittsburgh police alleged that Smart had tried to buy Steelers tickets with counterfeit bills. They arrested him on forgery charges and booked him into Pittsburgh's pretrial lockup, Allegheny County Jail. The next day, Smart was dead—deprived of his epilepsy medicine, according to his mother, Tomi Lynn Harris. Three additional deaths followed at Allegheny County Jail, the most recent on May 20 and May 21. The county has announced that on Aug. 31, it will end its contract, three years early, with Corizon Health, the biggest company in the nation providing medical services to U.S. jails and prisons. Corizon, with annual revenue of about $1.5 billion, has faced claims from Arizona to Florida, which it denies. Now, New York City may end its contract with Corizon at Rikers Island, according to the news website DNA Info. The deaths shine a light on the industry Corizon leads, which staffs jail and prison medical facilities in 27 states and is responsible for as many as 345,000 inmates. The prisoners, many of whom arrive with existing health problems and a history of inadequate care, are also more vulnerable than people with freedom to circulate. (Stroud, 6/2)

Insurance companies have begun announcing rate increases for the health care plans they will sell next year on the Obamacare marketplaces, and a handy new website from the federal government makes searching for rate change requests easier than ever. Some of the rate increases are substantial. But for several reasons, simply looking at the current numbers can be misleading. (Margot Sanger-Katz, 6/2)

If you want to know about the Republican Party’s priorities for health care, pay close attention to what transpired -- and what didn’t transpire -- on Capitol Hill Tuesday. The House Ways and Means Committee held a session to consider a number of health care-related measures. In theory, it would have been an ideal time to take up, amend and maybe even vote on a contingency plan for King v. Burwell .... The Ways and Means chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), has said repeatedly that his party will have a contingency plan ready to go if the court sides with the law’s challengers. ... But take a look at the official agenda for the Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday. You’ll see a bill to repeal Obamacare’s tax on medical device makers and a proposal to repeal the so-called Independent Payment Advisory Board, which sets reimbursement rates under Medicare. ... Here’s what you won’t see: contingency plans for the upcoming Supreme Court ruling or alternative schemes for expanding insurance coverage. (Jonathan Cohn, 6/2)

King v. Burwell, revolves around the IRS potentially paying illegal subsidies to people who bought their premiums on the federal exchange, Healthcare.gov. It is more than unfortunate that Congress had to pass the law to find out what was in it, as former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi so eloquently demanded of her congressional colleagues on the floor of the House. (Glen Casada, 6/2)

The state of Tennessee has been playing games with the public records law, and it has to stop. The Tennessean has made uncomfortable records requests over the last four months concerning which lawmakers are on the state health insurance plan, how much they and the state are paying in premiums, and how much the state is paying out in medical costs for their care. (David Plazas, 6/2)

Kansas’s budget woes have overshadowed another important element of [Gov. Sam] Brownback’s red-state experiment: his refusal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. In the latest issue of The Nation, features editor Kai Wright reports on the devastating consequences of that decision. As Wright explains, Kansas has some of the most restrictive Medicaid eligibility requirements in the country. The program is available only to non-disabled adults earning less than 32 percent of the federal poverty level, and most childless adults don’t qualify, regardless of income. The Affordable Care Act was supposed to raise that threshold to 138 percent, but Brownback declined to implement the Medicaid expansion. As a result, thousands of poor Kansans who would qualify for Medicaid in other states remain uninsured. (Katrina vanden Heuvel, 6/2)

Our friends, neighbors and constituents want and deserve a Florida that is a great place to work, raise a family and retire. They know the best way to a strong Florida isn't laden with Washington mandates; it's by working with strong leaders back at home. This is why our communities elected my freshmen Republican colleagues and me to the Florida House this November to stand up to the feds. This is why I oppose D.C.'s trying to run our health-care system with Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, and I urge my Republican partners to stand with me. (State Rep. Scott Plakon, 6/3)

Imagine a company that produces a high-quality product, operates efficiently and generates $16 million in year-over-year savings. Then imagine that the company is not allowed to retain those savings, but is assessed a financial penalty. Hard to imagine? Well, it's a reality in the American healthcare system today. Dartmouth-Hitchcock and other leading academic health systems in Medicare's Pioneer accountable care organization program face a payment conundrum. Instead of sharing in savings generated through the program—the incentive—Dartmouth-Hitchcock will be hit with a multimillion-dollar Medicare penalty. How could that be? As you might expect, there's more to the story. (Drs. James Weinstein and William Weeks, 6/3)

We are near a tipping point with antibiotic resistance. An increasing proportion of bacteria no longer respond to the drugs designed to kill them. We can either work to improve antibiotic use and prevent infections, or watch as the clock turns back to a world where simple infections kill people. (CDC Director Tom Frieden, 6/2)

Yet policy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention. This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes. (Paul McHugh, 6/2)