Axios

A Reuters/Ipsos poll shows 85% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans support Medicare for all.

Why it matters: This single-payer system has divided the Democratic Party internally and gave Republicans a new way to attack Democrats in 2018. But this poll is the first to suggest that a majority of Americans on both sides of the aisle actually like this policy and that it could be a winning issue for candidates.

While the fourth deadliest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continues — and still has the potential to explode domestically and beyond its border — there may be signs of a slowdown.

What's new: The DRC Ministry of Health announced Thursday that 9 people have been cured. As of Aug. 22, the total number of suspected cases topped 100, but only 13 people were being investigated. However, experts warn that it is too early to say if the outbreak has reached its peak.

"We're not out of the woods yet. ... You'll know when an outbreak has peaked when any new cases can be traced back to someone you already knew was infected."

The Trump administration is moving ahead with a proposal that would require drug companies to include the sticker prices of their products in direct-to-consumer advertising — a controversial part of President Trump's blueprint for lower drug prices.

Between the lines: As simple and straightforward as price disclosures might sound, this information may not end up being very useful. Few patients pay the sticker price for a drug. Their insurance plans negotiate discounts, and then often pay only a fraction of that amount.

Huge premium increases from health insurers, as well as the Trump administration's decision to slash advertising and navigator budgets, likely contributed to the lower enrollment in the Affordable Care Act's federally run exchanges, the Government Accountability Office reported Thursday.

The bottom line: The ACA marketplaces have not crumbled, because federal subsidies cover a lot of enrollees' premiums. However, for people who don't get those subsidies, ACA coverage is becoming increasingly unaffordable.

Exact Sciences, maker of the colon cancer test Cologuard, has signed a multimillion deal with drug giant Pfizer to increase and share in the costs of marketing the test — a move Wall Street cheered yesterday.

The bottom line: Physicians and other medical professionals should be ready for an onslaught of calls and face-to-face pitches from the companies' sales armies, even though there is evidence the costly Cologuard test can lead to false positives.

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.