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In this Wall Street Journal Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses polling data about the public’s concern about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and the deep concern in low income communities.

Larry Levitt’s February 2016 post explains how “surprise medical bills” — unanticipated charges for out-of-network care – can happen. It describes some government approaches to the issue and outlines the challenges to protecting consumers. The post is now available at The JAMA Forum.

Drew Altman discusses whether the presidential candidates will discuss poor health status in the South in this Wall Street Journal Think Tank column.

In a Health Affairs blog post, Tricia Neuman and Gretchen Jacobson of the Kaiser Family Foundation examine how proposals to convert Medicare to a premium support system could lead to higher Medicare premiums and cost-sharing for seniors currently enrolled in the program, even if today’s seniors are “grandfathered” and the new system is phased-in for people ages 55 and younger. The blog post explains how today’s seniors could face higher health care costs, if older beneficiaries are separated, at least actuarially, from younger ones. Lawmakers could implement policies to prevent cost increases for seniors, but doing so would reduce Medicare savings, a key objective of many premium support proposals.

In this Axios column, Drew Altman analyzes new poll findings which show how one issue breaks through the gridlock between Democrats and Republicans in health – the high cost of prescription drugs.

This blog post revisits an earlier analysis of the drug Sovaldi (sofosbuvir) using new data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and considers both the ongoing impact of hepatitis C drugs for Medicare Part D and the broader implications for Medicare of new high-priced drugs entering the market.

In this Wall Street Journal Think Tank column, Drew Altman uses findings from a new KFF/CNN survey of working-class white Americans and from Pew Research to examine xenophobia in America in a time of Trump.

The 21st Century Cures Act provided a billion dollars in new funding for opioid prevention and treatment. In this Wall Street Journal Think Tank column, Drew Altman looks at the challenges based on a new Kaiser-Washington Post survey of long term opioid users.

In an Axios column, Drew Altman analyzes the narrowing gap between growth in health spending and GDP and discusses why it matters. The big question, he says, is will the narrowing have staying power?

Drawing on his experience in state welfare reform, Drew Altman, in his Axios column, discusses how new state Medicaid work requirements differ fundamentally from welfare reform, which was built on the idea of a “reciprocal obligation” between both beneficiaries and government to do more.