“So long as our campaign finance system remains essentially the same, I think the pharmaceutical industry is going to continue to exercise really outsized influence in D.C.” — Shawn Gremminger, Senior Director of Federal Relations, Families USA

If you're looking for cheaper health insurance, a whole host of new options will hit the market starting Tuesday. But the new plans – known as short-term, limited-duration insurance — may not pay for the medical care you need. Short-term policies are regulated by the states, so they don't have to comply with the consumer protections laid out in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). (Alison Kodjak, National Public Radio)

The average cost of employer health coverage offered to workers rose to nearly $20,000 for a family plan this year, according to a new survey, capping years of increases that experts said are chiefly tied to rising prices paid for health services. Annual premiums rose 5 percent to $19,616 for an employer-provided family plan in 2018, according to the yearly poll of employers by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. Employers, seeking to blunt the cost of premiums, also continued to boost the deductibles that workers must pay out of their pockets before insurance kicks in. (Anna Wilde Mathews, Wall Street Journal)

The Senate passed the final version of a sweeping opioids package Wednesday afternoon and will send it to the White House just in time for lawmakers to campaign on the issue before the November midterm elections. The vote was 98 to 1, with only Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R) opposing it. The bill unites dozens of smaller proposals sponsored by hundreds of lawmakers, many of whom face tough reelection fights.  (Colby Itkowitz, Washington Post)

Democrats are planning to force a vote in the Senate this week on overturning a Trump administration rule expanding non-Obamacare insurance plans. The Democratic resolution, which will likely get a vote on Wednesday, would overturn a rule finalized in August that expanded the availability of short-term health insurance plans. (Peter Sullivan, The Hill)

In February, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley joined a Republican lawsuit to overturn the ACA, and with it, protections for Americans suffering from preexisting medical conditions that previously could be excluded from insurance coverage. Now, running to unseat Democrat Claire McCaskill in one of the nation’s most competitive U.S. Senate races, Hawley is airing a sympathetic ad using the affliction of his 5-year-old son, diagnosed this year with a rare bone disease. “A preexisting condition. We know what that’s like,” he says in the ad. “I support forcing insurance companies to cover all preexisting conditions.” (Tracy Jan, Washington Post)

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) on Tuesday introduced a resolution intended to protect people with preexisting conditions, illustrating the lengths vulnerable Republicans are going to try to show they favor those protections. The resolution from Sessions, who is facing a close reelection race against Democrat Colin Allred, is nonbinding, but expresses the opinion of the House that preexisting conditions should be protected. The resolution does not spell out the details of how pre-existing conditions would be protected in the absence of Obamacare. (Peter Sullivan, The Hill)

As Democrats enter the final sprint in a campaign where health care is a dominant issue and a House takeover seems achievable, they are split on whether to promise coverage for everyone, which would fuel an already revved-up liberal base, or target centrist voters by campaigning on the more modest goal of fixing the Obama-era health law. (Stephanie Armour, Wall Street Journal)

The lawsuits contend the companies hired third-party contractors to deploy nurses—sometimes by phone, sometimes in patient’s homes—to ensure that prescriptions were refilled. The drug makers also allegedly provided kickbacks to physicians in the form of free insurance processing assistance, medical practice management software, and marketing assistance to persuade them to prescribe their drugs. (Ed Silverman, STAT)