• 'Obamacare' Sign-ups 45 Percent Ahead of Last Year's Pace Associated Press by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar — Sign-ups for Affordable Care Act health plans are running more than 45 percent ahead of last year's pace, according to government data released Wednesday. The numbers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services come as Republican senators are pushing to pay for tax cuts by repealing the "Obamacare" requirement to carry coverage. The new figures show that nearly 1.5 million consumers picked a plan through Nov. 11, compared to just over 1 million from Nov. 1-12 last year, a period that had included one additional day for consumers to enroll. The latest data cover 39 states served by the HealthCare.gov website. The overall number of sign-ups is higher because states running their own health insurance markets are not counted in the HealthCare.gov data.

• What Red States Are Passing up as Blue States Get Billions New York Times by Margot Sanger-Katz and Kevin Quealey — For years, red states have effectively been subsidizing part of health insurance for blue states. By declining to expand their Medicaid programs as part of the Affordable Care Act, many of those states have passed up tens of billions of federal dollars they could have used to offer health coverage to more poor residents. That means that taxpayers in Texas are helping to fund treatment for patients with opioid addiction in Vermont, while Texans with opioid problems may have no such option. … "They are leaving a lot of money on the table that would cover a lot of people, full stop," said Chris Sloan, a senior manager at Avalere who helped build the model.
  
  
• Trump Administration Plan to Add Medicaid Work Requirement Stirs Fears Kaiser Health News by Phil Galewitz — The Trump administration's recent endorsement of work requirements in Medicaid and increased state flexibility is part of broader strategy to shrink the fast-growing program for the poor and advance conservative ideas that Republicans failed to get through Congress. Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, laid out her vision for the state-federal program in two appearances last week, saying her new course give states wide latitude over eligibility and benefits… But her outline scares advocates who see the changes as a way for states to kick millions of adults off the program and undermine its mission of providing health coverage to the poor. They note most nondisabled adults on Medicaid already work. Many who don't are either too sick, go to school or care for relatives. 

• Uwe Reinhardt, 80, Dies; a Listened-to Voice on Health Care Policy New York Times by Sam Roberts — Uwe Reinhardt, an economist whose keen, caustic and unconventional insights cast him as what colleagues called a national conscience in policy debates about health care, died on Monday in Princeton, N.J. He was 80. The cause was sepsis, his wife, Tsung-Mei Cheng, said. He had taught in the economics department at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University since 1968. Professor Reinhardt helped shape health care deliberations for decades as a prolific contributor to numerous publications, an adviser to White House and congressional policymakers, a member of federal and professional commissions and a consultant and board member, paid and unpaid, for private industry. 

• HHS Pick at Odds with Trump's Rhetoric on Drug Prices Roll Call by Andrew Siddons — President Donald Trump's tweet Monday announcing former pharmaceutical executive Alex Azar as his choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services boasted that Azar "will be a star for better healthcare and lower drug prices!" But Azar, who led drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co.'s United States operations from 2012 until earlier this year, has contributed significantly to the pharmaceutical industry political spending that the president has decried. When Trump spoke about the high price of prescription drugs at a White House press conference in October, he spoke of how drug companies "contribute massive amounts of money to political people." Overall, since 2000, Azar has spent at least $105,000 on political contributions, according to Federal Election Commission records.
  
  
• Lawmakers Push Bill to Reverse a Trump Rule over Medicare Drug Discounts Stat by Ed Silverman — A group of lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill to reverse a Trump administration rule that would cut Medicare reimbursement for medicines purchased under the federal 340B Drug Discount Program, which was designed to boost revenues for hospitals that primarily serve low-income patients. The cut is estimated to save Medicare and its beneficiaries about $1.6 billion next year. The sponsors were among dozens of lawmakers who two months ago wrote the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to argue that cutting reimbursement is a "misguided policy" that would limit the ability of hospitals to serve vulnerable patients. They further maintained the move would not reduce drug costs, as the pharmaceutical industry has suggested.

• Growth in Health Care Prices Slows to Near-Historic Low Modern Healthcare by Maria Castellucci — Health care prices rose just 1.1% year-over-year through September, representing the lowest price growth rate in roughly two years, according to a new report from Altarum. That growth rate was just slightly higher than the all-time low growth rate of 0.9 percent in December 2015. The small increase in health care prices was likely due in large part to a decline in prescription drug prices, according to the report. Price growth for prescription drugs dropped to 1.4% in September from 2.7% in August…. Health care spending is expected to grow by 4.5% for 2017. 

Editor: Peter Van Vranken