Earlier this week, Iowa passed a law allowing the sale of health plans that are not subject to the important patient protection rules and regulations contained in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The law includes very specific carveout language that basically selects the Iowa Farm Bureau to partner with a designated insurance company (Wellmark) to offer so-called “health benefit plans” with no preexisting condition or essential health benefit protections. [...]

By Rishi Sachdev and Yousuf Zafar, MD — New cancer drugs have improved prognoses for patients, but that improvement in effectiveness has come at a steep cost. The price tag of new anticancer drugs has been increasing at a significant pace, with the latest—Kymriah by Novartis—priced at $475,000 per treatment. These ever-increasing costs result in higher out-of-pocket costs for patients, which have been shown to worsen outcomes. [...]

What Caught Our Eye (WCOE), is our week-in-review blog series. “Health insurers say the GOP-led Congress’ inaction on ACA stabilization legislation is sure to hurt consumers” Bruce Japsen, Forbes.com — After months of negotiating around an ACA stabilization package that was set to be included in this week’s spending bill, no agreement was made and the stabilization provisions were left out of the spending package all together. [...]