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The Senate plans to stay in Washington for August this year, and here’s an idea to keep busy: Pass some House health-care reforms that are modest improvements even Democrats should like. The House last week passed a set of bills that included changes in Health Savings Accounts, or HSAs, which are tax preferred accounts that allow individuals to save for future medical expenses. (7/29)

Our health outcomes, including life expectancy, rank near the bottom. Except in the Medicare population. Once people have access to healthcare, their health dramatically improves. Medicare has a secret for the rest of the country: We can expand Medicare to cover everyone, improve it to cover prescription drugs and eliminate deductibles and co-payments, and save money in the process. The secret lies in Medicare’s 2-3 percent administrative overhead, a fraction of private insurance companies’. (Dr. George Bohmfalk, 7/26)

Each year, for well over a decade, more people have faced higher health insurance deductibles. The theory goes like this: The more of your own money that you have to spend on health care, the more careful you will be — buying only necessary care, purging waste from the system. But that theory doesn’t fully mesh with reality: High deductibles aren’t working as intended. (Austin Frakt, 7/30)

To transform the health care system, we need patients, physicians, and employers to think differently about the benefits of seeking care close to home. Insurance plans will need to incentivize people to do so. (Michael Wagner, 7/30)

Why is paying for health care such a mess in America? Why is it so hard to fix? Cross-subsidies are the original sin. The government wants to subsidize health care for poor people, chronically sick people, and people who have money but choose to spend less of it on health care than officials find sufficient. These are worthy goals, easily achieved in a completely free-market system by raising taxes and then subsidizing health care or insurance, at market prices, for people the government wishes to help. (John H. Cochrane, 7/29)

Last year’s Republican effort to repeal Obamacare might seem quite similar to this summer’s battle over the nomination of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. But don’t be fooled. In July 2017, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joined Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to defy GOP leaders and defeat legislation to scrap the Affordable Care Act. Now, with McCain home battling brain cancer, the two moderate Republicans are in the crosshairs of well-organized campaigns that are expected to pour millions of dollars in advertising into the small-market towns throughout Maine and Alaska. (Kane, 7/28)

Free or low-cost transport to medical appointments for those who need it has been a mandatory Medicaid benefit since the program’s inception in 1966. It’s specified in federal regulation. Scattered cases of fraud have marred the administration of Medicaid transportation and the desire to rein in Medicaid spending has led some policy-makers to consider ways to limit this benefit, formally called non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT). Our new research examines the value of non-emergency medical transportation for people with three relatively common and expensive diseases. We demonstrate that such transportation provides a healthy return on investment (ROI) for two of the three conditions. Trimming non-emergency medical transportation in Medicaid runs contrary to trends in other health insurance markets and is likely pennywise and pound foolish for Medicaid’s coffers. (Michael Adelberg, Patricia Salber and Michael Cohen, 7/30)

In the early days of the American automobile industry, consumers could buy a Model T in any color they wanted, so long as it was black. Such will be the "service and selection" to be expected in the United States if a single-payer system, where the government pays for all medical treatment, is implemented for health care. A single-payer system will cause the health care sector to implode, with profound implications for Iowa, the United States and the world's economy. (Jonathan Yates, 7/27)

The debate over the best path forward on health care, although not currently in the national spotlight, continues in Washington and across the country. We must not let this issue become eclipsed by the other pressing political and legislative issues currently facing our nation. Health care is of critical importance to the future well-being of millions of Americans. Without one’s health, one really has nothing. Since its enactment, there have been continual efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Most recently, the individual insurance mandate, essential to maintaining a viable, stable system and maximizing affordable insurance coverage to those who most need it, was repealed. If we lose the ACA, we face the possibility of ending the progress of Medicaid expansion, ending preexisting condition protections and better coverage for people with serious and chronic conditions, eliminating premium and subsidy assistance for low-income individuals and families, and deregulating insurers. It would also allow states more autonomy to create health-system polices that will likely further reduce insurance coverage in many states, including Indiana. (Richard Feldman, 7/29)

Legislative Democrats are pressing Missouri’s Republican attorney general, Josh Hawley, to withdraw the state from a national lawsuit seeking to gut the Affordable Care Act, which would return us to the days when a chronic illness — or even changing jobs — could leave you without health care insurance coverage. That Hawley has so far refused to relax his opposition to Obamacare is no surprise. A U.S. Senate candidate in need of party backing, he has toed the GOP’s line against sanity on health care. But in the event he is still open to argument, he should consider the devastating impact this suit, if successful, will have on the Missourians he seeks to represent. (7/26)

A significant factor contributing to the high Texas numbers is the fact that the state has not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The state also has such stringent eligibility requirement for adult Medicaid that most working adults do not qualify. (7/28)