Today's Opinions: The need for federal review of rate increases; Dems and GOP share blame for health costs; A phoney deal on Medicaid

The Anthem Saga The New York Times
This hodgepodge of controls over premiums needs to be backstopped by a national law that would allow the federal government to block unjustified rate increases where state officials lack the authority to do so. Attempts to include such powers in the newly enacted health care reform law failed (5/9).

Health Care Arms Race The Chicago Tribune
Democrats and Republicans in Washington are united on health care reform in one way. They both like to spend money we don't have (5/10).

ObamaCare's Phoney Medicaid 'Deal' The Wall Street Journal
And thus the ObamaCare deal: States may leave Medicaid but the Medicaid taxes their citizens pay will support the program in other states. The state's option to leave Medicaid would be real only if the federal government refunded its citizens' Medicaid taxes or paid them into the state treasury (Richard A. Epstein, 5/10).

Health Care Reform Hasn't Addressed Major Issue Of Cost The (Newport News, Va.) Daily Press
No single policy or program will bend the cost curve. I believe it will take a combination of private and public initiatives. Integrated health-care delivery systems, such as Sentara, can reduce costs through economies of scale, the use of best practices and alignment with physicians to achieve greater coordination and efficiency" (David Bernd, 5/9).

Doctors Need To Work On Their Business Skills The Washington Post
With the health-care bill now law and set to take effect this fall, providers are scrambling to figure out what this means for them. For many, it means they better have the business end of their practice in shape if they are going to succeed (Joyce E.A. Russell, 5/10).

A Spreading Peril For Women's Privacy And Freedom The New York Times
The painful decision to end a pregnancy should be made in private between a woman and her doctor — not in politically driven debate among members of Congress and state legislatures (Dorothy Samuels, 5/9).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.