Axios

The Wall Street Journal reports that HHS is thinking about forcing doctors and hospitals to publicly disclose how much they get paid from insurance companies — not just the list prices they start out with.

Why it matters: WSJ sums it up nicely — this move "would expose for the first time the actual cost of care."

Democrats’ Medicare for All debate has turned into a referendum on the existence of private health insurance. But simply having private health insurance isn’t the weird thing about the U.S. system — the weird thing is how we go about it.

The big picture: Health care in the U.S. is yoked to employment — it's a form of compensation for workers, and then we use a smattering of public programs to fill in the gaps. Other rich countries, though, treat health care like a social program and organize their systems accordingly. And their way is cheaper and more effective.

The United States pays much more than other developed countries per person for prescription drugs, but the average out-of-pocket portion of this is about on par with what people in other countries pay.

Between the lines: While this means that insurance in the U.S. covers a bigger portion of drug costs than in other countries, list prices are also higher here — meaning that plenty of people who are uninsured or have high deductibles are faced with large drug bills. And we're all paying for these high drug costs through taxes and premiums.

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has now passed 900 cases, and community mistrust and endemic conflict in the region continues to slow progress despite the availability of promising new treatment options.

Why it matters: This is the 2nd-largest outbreak of Ebola on record, and the first to occur in a country experiencing violent conflict, which is complicating response efforts.

Children of women who had been hospitalized with infections like the flu, pneumonia and sepsis while pregnant may have a much greater risk of having depression or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to a study published Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry.

Why it matters: There's been some debate in the scientific community on whether infections in utero could be a factor in the development of ASD. This large and long-term study — which showed a 79% increased ASD risk and a 24% increased depression risk in those children — offers further evidence there may be a link, plus new information that this could also be a factor in depression, study author Kristina Adams Waldorf tells Axios.

Remember when President Trump campaigned on a health care platform of eliminating "the lines around the states?" Well, that particular white whale has re-emerged.

Driving the news: The Trump administration posted a 15-page document Wednesday asking for public comment on a range of questions related to the interstate sale of health insurance — including questions about using part of the Affordable Care Act to make that change.

Pharmaceutical companies put a lot of the blame for high drug prices on pharmacy benefit managers. But big drug companies are also big employers — which means they rely on PBMs to manage their own health care benefits.

Why it matters: PBMs are part of the system, so it's not necessarily surprising drug companies use them. But it's not clear whether pharma companies are practicing what they preach on the details of PBM contracts and the way savings are distributed.