Health insurance premiums set to become a midterm issue

"Health-Insurance Premiums Loom as Election Issue," per Wall Street Journal's Stephanie Armour: "Lawmakers ... omitted from spending bill an effort to restore payments to insurers. Now they’re rushing to assign blame for expected rate increases."

Why it matters: "Health-insurance premiums are likely to jump right before the November elections ... Democrats blame GOP lawmakers for the failure of negotiations over the funding, saying Republican leaders demanded the inclusion of abortion restrictions they knew would be unacceptable to Democrats."