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The latest presidential debate vividly captured how the 2008 financial crisis has reshaped the Republican Party by unleashing a potent populist strain that could further scramble an already unpredictable primary contest. ... Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, criticized President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul for prolonging a “cozy little game between regulators and health-insurance companies.” She called on the government to require every health-care provider to publish “its costs, its prices, its outcomes, because as patients we don’t know what we’re buying.” (Timiraos, 11/11)

Republican presidential contender Ben Carson has maintained a business relationship with a close friend convicted of defrauding insurance companies and testified on his behalf, even as the candidate has called for such crimes to be punished harshly. Pittsburgh dentist Alfonso A. Costa pleaded guilty to a felony count of health care fraud after an FBI probe into his oral surgery practice found he had charged for procedures he never performed, according to court records. (Biesecker and Sullivan, 11/12)