"Federal attacks on the Affordable Care Act and rising costs of health care have made premiums less affordable for residents buying plans on the individual market. We have taken deliberate actions to defend the gains made by the ACA, and our work is demonstrating results."
—New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy

After two years of double-digit premium hikes, millions of people covered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will see only modest increases next year, according to an analysis that highlights the changing politics of health care heading into the midterm elections. The consulting firm Avalere Health and the Associated Press crunched available state data, finding that “Obamacare’s” health insurance marketplaces seem to be stabilizing. Customers in some states will get price cuts. And the exodus of insurers from the program has halted, even reversed somewhat, with more consumer choices for 2019. (Meghan Hoyer and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Associated Press)

Individual health insurance rates in New Jersey will decrease on average by 9.3 percent for 2019, a far cry from the 5.8 percent average rate hike carriers requested earlier this year, Gov. Murphy announced Friday. Murphy credited two laws he signed in May for producing the rate reduction: one creating an individual health insurance mandate, and another establishing a reinsurance program. The laws were a response to the federal tax overhaul President Trump signed in December. That law scrapped the individual mandate included in the ACA. "Our work is based on the core belief that health care is a right—not a privilege," Murphy said in a statement.  (Christian Hetrick, Philadelphia Inquirer) 

Lawyers from 20 mostly conservative states on Wednesday demanded a federal judge scrap the “hollow shell” of Obamacare. The judge didn’t immediately rule on their request for an injunction but at times sounded sympathetic to their argument. The oral arguments opened the latest legal bid to kill the 2010 health care law, which has survived two major Supreme Court rulings and months of repeal efforts in Congress. While numerous legal experts have deemed the argument outlined in this case a stretch, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has thrown the Trump administration’s weight behind key parts of the legal assault, notably calling on the court to toss out the law’s popular protection for people with pre-existing conditions. (Paul Demko, Politico)

The latest push to scrap the ACA once and for all pressed ahead Wednesday as Republican-controlled states asked a federal judge to finish what Congress started last year and bring the law that insures 20 million Americans to a halt.... At issue are core principles of the law, including protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions and limits on how much older customers can be charged. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor made no immediate ruling following a four-hour hearing. Twenty GOP-led states brought the lawsuit, arguing that the entire health care law was rendered unconstitutional after Congress repealed the “individual mandate” that required most Americans to buy insurance or risk a tax penalty. (Paul J. Weber, Associated Press)

In this conservative state, which has not supported a Democratic presidential candidate in more than a half-century, a grass-roots campaign to expand Medicaid is building considerable momentum as Election Day approaches. If it wins approval here, it could happen almost anywhere. On Nov. 6, Utah voters will consider a ballot measure that would expand Medicaid to cover up to 150,000 more people under the ACA. Two other conservative states, Idaho and Nebraska, will also vote that day on Medicaid expansion proposals. The states, if the measures pass, will join more than 30 others that have expanded Medicaid under the 2010 health care law. In all three states, advocates are trying to outflank Republican lawmakers who have blocked expansion efforts. (Robert Pear, New York Times)

As many as 4,600 Medicaid recipients in Arkansas have lost their benefits for the rest of this year after failing to meet the state's new work requirements. Arkansas became the first state ever to implement work requirements, after gaining approval from the Trump administration earlier this year. Under the new rules, which took effect in June, recipients must work, go to school, volunteer, or search for jobs for at least 80 hours a month or be stripped of their coverage until the following year. The affected beneficiaries, mainly non-disabled adults in their 30s and 40s who don't have dependent children, failed to report any work activity for three months. This prompted the state to drop them from the rolls. A final tally will be available next week. (Tami Luhby, CNN)

A group of major American hospitals, battered by price spikes on old drugs and long-lasting shortages of critical medicines, has launched a mission-driven, not-for-profit generic drug company, Civica Rx, to take some control over the drug supply. Backed by seven large health systems and three philanthropic groups, the new venture will be led by an industry insider who refuses to draw a salary. The company will focus initially on establishing price transparency and stable supplies for 14 generic drugs used in hospitals, without pressure from shareholders to issue dividends or push a stock price higher. (Carolyn Y. Johnson, Washington Post)

Jack Stoddard, a longtime health care executive, has been named as chief operating officer of the new health venture being launched by Amazon.com Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Stoddard started Tuesday, according to a statement from the still-nameless health venture. He’ll work with Atul Gawande, the Harvard surgeon and writer who was named in June to run the initiative. The leaders of the three companies have warned it will take time for the effort to meet its goal of improving care for their workers. (Zachary Tracer, Bloomberg News)

Senators have reached a deal on a bipartisan package to address the opioid crisis, paving the way for a vote next week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced on Thursday. The agreement comes after weeks of slowed negotiations between lawmakers over hot-button provisions like requiring Medicaid to cover treatment at more inpatient facilities and loosening privacy restrictions for substance-abuse patients' medical records. It would authorize new funding for states to fight drug addiction, expand access to medication-assisted treatment, grant the National Institutes of Health more authority to research and develop non-opioid pain therapies, and require the U.S. Postal Service to crack down on shipments of fentanyl. It would also reauthorize the Office of National Drug Control Policy. (Brianna Ehley and Darius Tahir, Politico)