The Price Tag To Help Make Health Insurance Affordable For Americans? Nearly $700 Billion A Year

Bloomberg: It Costs $685 Billion A Year To Subsidize U.S. Health Insurance
It will cost the U.S. government almost $700 billion in subsidies this year help provide Americans under age 65 with health insurance through their jobs or in government-sponsored health programs, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The subsidies come from four main categories. About $296 billion is federal spending on programs like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which help insure low-income people. Almost as big are the tax write-offs that employers take for providing coverage to their workers. Medicare-eligible people, such as the disabled, account for $82 billion. Subsidies for Obamacare and for other individual coverage are the smallest segment, at $55 billion. (Ockerman, 5/23)

The Hill: CBO: ObamaCare Premiums To Rise 15 Percent In 2019 
ObamaCare premiums are expected to rise an average of 15 percent next year, an increase largely due to the GOP’s repeal of the law's individual mandate, according to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis released Wednesday. The CBO estimates that gutting the requirement that Americans have health insurance or face a tax penalty will contribute to about a 10 percent rise in premiums for 2019, with insurers expected to see healthier people dropping out of the marketplaces, leaving sicker enrollees on the plans. (Roubein, 5/23)

CQ: CBO Projects Three Million More Uninsured People In 2019
An additional three million people will be uninsured next year largely because the requirement for most Americans to have health insurance coverage was effectively repealed, the Congressional Budget Office projected. A new report released Wednesday by the nonpartisan analysts estimates that premiums for benchmark plans sold on the marketplaces set up by the 2010 health care law (PL 111-148, PL 111-152) will increase an average of 15 percent next year. Still, the analysts expect the individual insurance market to be stable in most parts of the country in 2019. (McIntire, 5/23)

In other national health care news —

The Washington Post: Is It A Gag Rule? What The New Title X Family Planning Funding Rule Says.
The Trump administration has released the language of a proposed rule on federal family planning funding, and abortion rights activists are raising alarm about it. When health officials revealed Friday that they would be filing a change to which clinics would be eligible for funding, they emphasized that it was not a “gag rule.” Instead, they said they were proposing to strip away a current mandate. It requires organizations that receive Title X funding to counsel women about abortion and provide them with referrals to abortion services. Under the new rules, a provider wouldn't have to talk about abortion at all. (Cha, 5/23)

The New York Times: First Cuba, Now China? An American Falls Ill After ‘Abnormal’ Sounds
An American government employee posted in southern China has signs of possible brain injury after reporting disturbing sounds and sensations, the State Department said on Wednesday, in events that seemed to draw parallels with mysterious ailments that struck American diplomats in Cuba. The State Department warning, issued through the United States Consulate in Guangzhou, a city in southern China, advised American citizens in China to seek medical help if they felt similar symptoms. But it said that no other cases had been reported. (Buckley and Harris, 5/23)

The New York Times: Pompeo Says Mysterious Sickness Among Diplomats In Cuba Has Spread To China
“The medical indications are very similar and entirely consistent with the medical indications that have taken place to Americans working in Cuba,” Mr. Pompeo told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He said medical teams were heading to Guangzhou to address what he described as one incident. “We are working to figure out what took place, both in Havana and now in China as well,” Mr. Pompeo said. (Harris, 5/23)

The Associated Press: FDA Warns Teething Medicines Unsafe, Wants Them Off Shelves
Federal health officials warned parents Wednesday about the dangers of teething remedies that contain a popular numbing ingredient and asked manufacturers to stop selling their products intended for babies and toddlers. The Food and Drug Administration said that various gels and creams containing the drug benzocaine can cause rare but deadly side effects in children, especially those 2 years and younger. (5/23)

Stat: Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plants Are Sending Lots Of Medicine Into The Water Supply 
Wastewater treatment plants that accept discharges from pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities send “substantially” higher concentrations of medicines into rivers and streams than treatment plants that do not take these discharges, according to the first study to examine the issue across the U.S. In reaching their conclusion, the study authors compared effluent — which is wastewater that is sent into rivers and other natural bodies of water — from 13 treatment plants that took pharmaceutical discharges and six plants that did not. They examined plants scattered among rural and urban locations around the country in order to compare plant sizes, varying climates, and technology used for treating wastewater. (Silverman, 5/23)