By introducing an amendment that would defund Planned Parenthood, Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) have revived an abortion controversy that has helped kill the annual HHS spending bill for more than a decade.
Why it matters: The Senate has been doing an unusually good job moving appropriations bills, but it wouldn't be surprising if Planned Parenthood funding brings the process to an impasse yet again.
We spend a lot of time talking about how hard it is for patients to find out how much any particular health care service is going to cost them.
A bigger problem: The Wall Street Journal uses the example of knee replacements to illustrate that difficulty, but also raises a bigger, even more frustrating point: It’s hard for hospitals to figure out how much their own work costs.
Blue Cross Blue Shield plans have collected billions of dollars in profit in the first six months of this year, putting 2018 on track to be one of the most lucrative years for the Blues since the Affordable Care Act marketplaces went live in 2014.
The big picture: Premiums have vastly outpaced the claims that the health insurers had to pay out to hospitals and doctors. But the Blues also have benefited from the Republican law that cut corporate taxes — with several companies incurring no federal taxes or even getting rebates.
The Affordable Care Act has turned out to be remarkably durable, despite years of sustained political attacks and self-inflicted wounds — and that's especially true of its expansion of Medicaid.
Why it matters: Expansion is inching forward even in the deep red states that have so far been the biggest holdouts.
