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This month’s Democratic presidential debate will likely see a continued focus on the single-payer health care proposal endorsed by Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. But for all the general discussion — and pointed controversy — over single payer at prior debates, many unanswered questions remain. (Chris Jacobs, 12/19)

Just a few months shy of the 10-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as it has been widely known, the future of America’s general health never has looked more bleak. One reason is that millennials, members of a generation defined as those born between 1981 and 1996, are sicker than the generation before them, both physically and mentally. This phenomenon came to light as the result of a Deseret News report by Lois Collins. It was based on a new study by Moody Analytics for Blue Cross Blue Shield titled, “The Economic Consequences of Millennial Health,” and on interviews with health care professionals. (12/18)

With most purchases, whether it’s groceries, a new car or a house, the price is clear up front. Not so for medical services, which can produce massive, mysterious bills to insurers and patients long after a hospital visit. An ongoing series by National Public Radio and Kaiser Health News has documented bills of $142,000 for a young girl’s snake-bite treatment, $94,000 as part of a woman’s spinal surgery and $48,000 for allergy testing, to note just a few examples. Such insane bills often remain stubbornly unexplained by the hospitals and insurers involved; all are wildly out of whack with expected costs. (12/17)

Earlier this month, the Trump administration approved a new rule for SNAP that will cut an estimated 700,000 unemployed people from the program. The administration argues that cutting people who are out of work off of SNAP will nudge them into the workforce and onto a path of independence. Democrats have roundly decried the decision, which Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) described as “the latest act of cartoonish villainy by the Trump administration." However, it is too easy to simply attribute this latest decision to the cruel excesses of our current president and his staff. (Maggie Dickinson and Megan A. Carney, 12/18)

When even the left-leaning Washington Post calls a Democratic talking point a lie, you know it must be a doozy. And thanks to fact-checker Glenn Kessler, we now know that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly and knowingly lied about the rates of child gun death to push an agenda. Consider this tweet from the California Democrat: “100 people die every day from gun violence — 47 of them children & teenagers.” Pelosi asked, “How many more must perish before [Mitch McConnell] will take action?” She has repeated the same or similar forms of this statistic, that 47 children and teenagers die every day from gun violence, in press releases, speeches on the House Floor, and comments to reporters. (Brad Polumbo, 12/17)

Last month, the Food and Drug Administration took the unusual step of admitting it had made a mistake 25 years ago when it granted orphan drug status to an opioid addiction treatment called buprenorphine (Subutex).The original orphan drug application was based on the claim by Indivior, the maker of Subutex, that the company was not likely to make a profit from marketing the drug. At the time, opioid addiction was not the widespread scourge it is today.In its reversal, something I had called for in STAT earlier in the year, the FDA said its original decision was incorrect because the manufacturer has made billions of dollars from the drug. (Diane Dormande, 12/19)

House lawmakers just passed Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Lower Drug Costs Now Act (H.R. 3). The bill, which now heads to the Senate, imposes strict price controls, taxes, and regulations on biopharmaceutical companies. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects the measure to reduce the industry's revenues by $1 trillion over the coming decade. Many H.R. 3 proponents acknowledge this government price-setting will choke off private-sector research funding. But they believe the National Institutes of Health — the federal agency that funds most basic scientific research — could fill the gap left by private researchers.  It can't. (Sandip Shah, 12/17)

A recent OPB report about Oregon’s foster care system shed light on the extraordinary actions of child welfare officials within the Oregon Department of Human Services. The state agency not only sent hundreds of children in our foster care system to out-of-state facilities run by a private, for-profit company, but it also ceded any responsibility for them as well. Oregon child welfare officials’ lack of oversight, lack of scrutiny, and lack of even basic tracking of the children placed in those facilities and their well-being are astonishing. (Jake Cornett, 12/18)