How did last month’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the health-overhaul law shift public opinion? Not much, it turns out. Some 43% of respondents in an April poll carried out by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation had an unfavorable view of the health law — up from 40% in March. Forty-two percent had a favorable view, up from 41% the previous month. That’s all within the poll’s +/- 3 percentage-point margin of error, which had 1,210 respondents. Feelings about the least popular aspect of the overhaul — a requirement that individuals buy insurance or pay a fee, which is also the centerpiece of the constitutional challenge to the law — are also virtually unchanged. Some 30% say they support the requirement, and 70% oppose it, up from 32% and 66%, respectively, in March. More people knew the requirement is in the law: 74%, up from 64% in March. And feelings about the Court itself have changed among Republicans. After oral arguments, 43% of respondents who identified themselves as Republicans said they had confidence in the justices, up 19 percentage points from the previous month. Only 29% of Democrats, however, said in April that they had confidence in the justices, almost unchanged from March. What’s more, few respondents said the Court’s ruling would change their opinion of the law anyway. Some 81% said that however they feel about the law now, it would be the same if the court rules that the individual mandate is constitutional. For both political parties, that means doubling down on their messaging heading in to the general election, whether it’s fighting to overturn the provisions of the law, in the case of Republicans, or to protect them, in the case of Democrats.

iStockphoto A quarter of working-age adults had a gap in their health-insurance coverage last year, mainly because they lost or changed their jobs, a new think-tank study says. One in four people between the ages of 19 and 64 were uninsured or had only recently regained coverage when they were interviewed in the summer of 2011, a survey for the non-partisan Commonwealth Fund found . That translates to about 48.2 million people, analysts of the data said. Commonwealth Fund researchers said the survey also showed how hard it can be for consumers to buy insurance on the individual market in its current form. Almost two-thirds of respondents said they couldn’t find policies they could afford, and others said they had problems because of their medical history. “The individual market has proven to be a weak stop-gap option for families who lose employer insurance,” the researchers wrote. And an early provision of the health-overhaul law passed in March 2010 — “high-risk pools” for sick people to buy insurance — hadn’t helped many people, they added. Although a majority of respondents in the survey said they knew about it, only about 6% of them had tried to get coverage through the program, which, as WSJ reported last month , has tricky eligibility requirements. The survey’s tally of people with coverage gaps came in higher than previous ones: Census data show about 41.2 million 19-64 year old adults in 2010 were uninsured. Those numbers, however, were based on whether people lacked coverage at the specific time they were interviewed. Including children and some elderly people not covered by Medicare, the Census found there were 50 million people uninsured at the time they were interviewed in 2010. (Other estimates of this number are lower.) In the Commonwealth Fund survey, the most common reason people said they didn’t have insurance was that they had previously got it through an employer but lost it after being laid off, changing jobs, or becoming part-time workers. Only a few respondents said they had lost coverage because their employer had stopped offering benefits. Some respondents said they had previously had government-funded coverage through the Medicaid program for low-income Americans, but lost it because their income changed or they grew too old to qualify. Researchers said a provision of the 2010 overhaul law that lets parents include children on their plans until their 26th birthday had closed coverage gaps for some people. In all, researchers said that the health-overhaul law would make it easier for people to replace lost coverage, either by shopping for policies through new insurance exchanges after 2014 (with government subsidies towards the premiums), or, for some poor adults, through Medicaid.

Wednesday marks the third and final day of arguments before the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the health-care overhaul. A ruling is expected in late June. The White House and allies say the law must be upheld to ensure that Congress can make comprehensive moves to tackle national problems. Critics say the federal government should be restricted in what it can require of citizens. Up for today: arguments over what happens to the larger overhaul if the so-called individual mandate is struck down; and the expansion of Medicaid, which some states say is too onerous. WSJ’s Brent Kendall lays out what’s to come and Jess Bravin explains how the justices sharply questioned the law’s requirement that Americans buy health insurance or pay a fine. Executives at health-care companies were largely unfazed by the arguments, as Anna Wilde Mathews and Louise Radnofsky explain . Here’s a handy primer on the issues and you can track events live, inside and outside the court, at WSJ’s Washington Wire . Image source: iStockphoto

Here’s what’s making health news this morning: Justices Question Health Law (WSJ): The Supreme Court’s conservative justices sharply challenged the Obama administration’s health-care overhaul Tuesday, raising the prospect that the law could be struck down, while the liberal and conservative wings seemed inclined to split evenly over the question of whether the “individual mandate” is constitutional. Health Executives Unfazed by Debate (WSJ): Insurance companies and hospital chains brushed off concerns Tuesday the Supreme Court could strike down a requirement in the health-care law that would create millions of newly insured customers. In Real World, Mandate Stirs Some Dissent (NYT): Massachusetts offers a real-world laboratory of how a health-insurance mandate might work. Data Show Lower Risk for Bypass Than Stent (WSJ): For patients facing a choice between bypass surgery and a popular, less-invasive procedure to treat heart blockages, surgery improves chances of long-term survival, researchers said Tuesday. Va. Man Injured in Gun Accident Gets New Face (USAT): A 37-year-old U.S. man injured in a 1997 gun accident has received what doctors say is the most extensive face transplant ever performed. Cancer Research Targets a Key Cell Protein (LAT): Blocking “don’t destroy me” signals that normally sit on the surface of tumor cells and render them resistant to immune-cell attack slows the growth of a broad range of human cancers when they’re implanted in mice, researchers have found. FDA Approves Drug to Treat Anemia (Dow Jones): The Affymax Inc. drug, which will be sold under the brand name Omontys, would compete with Amgen Inc.’s Epogen, which is approved for use in the same group of patients. Defibrillator Wires Linked to Fatalities (WSJ): Heart-defibrillator wires made by St. Jude Medical Inc. are responsible for at least 20 deaths because of “high-voltage failures,” according to an analysis published online in a cardiac-medicine journal.

Three days of arguments before the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the health-care overhaul kick off Monday morning. A ruling is expected in late June. The White House and allies say the law must be upheld to ensure that Congress can make comprehensive moves to tackle national problems. Critics say the federal government should be restricted in what it can require of citizens. WSJ’s Brent Kendall and Jess Bravin provide a comprehensive overview of what’s going on and what’s at stake, and here’s a handy primer on the issues from Louise Radnofsky. Track events live, inside and outside the court on Washington Wire’s live blog. Image source: iStockphoto

Here’s what’s making health news this morning: Health Law Slow to Win Favor (WSJ): Several of the law’s early pieces, designed to win public support, haven’t worked as well in the real world as on paper and have irked even some of the Americans they were designed to help. Roche Cuts Cancer Drug Prices in India (WSJ): Roche Holding AG is cutting the price of two expensive cancer drugs in India—and giving them new names—in an effort to gain market share and avoid competition from generic drugs in the fast-growing economy. Whitney Houston Died From Drowning, Coronor Finds (WSJ): The singer’s death last month was caused by accidental drowning, while heart disease and cocaine use were contributing factors, the Los Angeles County coroner said Thursday. House Votes to Kill a Medicare Cost Panel (NYT): The bill, approved by a vote of 223 to 181, provoked a full-throated debate on the merits of the law, the Affordable Care Act, on the second anniversary of its signing by President Obama. Komen Board Chair Steps Down, Citing Howard University Duties (WaPo): A prominent Howard University surgeon who chairs the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation is stepping down from the post but remaining on the breast cancer charity’s board, Komen officials said Thursday. Doctors Press FDA in Push for Birth Control Without Prescription (Bloomberg): The Food and Drug Administration is considering expanding the list of drugs that can be bought without a prescription, and officials discussed at a hearing yesterday whether cholesterol, asthma, migraine and blood-pressure medications should be sold over-the-counter, a regulatory change intended to lower costs and ease access to drugs for people with chronic ailments.

Here’s what’s making health news this morning: Doctors Struggle to Make Ends Meet (WSJ): Physicians frequently have to make a big financial commitment to upgrade information-technology systems and other services, leaving them fearing getting squeezed as the U.S. moves toward new ways of paying for health care. Grant Colfax Tapped to Lead Obama’s AIDS Strategy (San Francisco Chronicle): The director of HIV prevention and research with San Francisco’s Public Health Department was named by the president as head of the Office of National AIDS Policy. Study: Prostate Screening Isn’t Saving Lives (Associated Press): Follow-up research on a study of 162,000 European men published in the New England Journal of Medicine found blood screening appears to cut the risk of death from prostate cancer, but makes no difference in overall mortality rates. The study comes five months after a U.S. federal report recommended that most men shouldn’t get prostate-cancer screenings. U.S. Unveils Antismoking Campaign (WSJ): The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will spend $54 million on ads to run for 12 weeks featuring people suffering from smoking-related illnesses. Shire Withdraws FDA Application for Fabry Disease (Marketwatch): The U.K.-based pharmaceutical company pulled the application for Replagal because it expected the regulator to require more controlled trials for approval, resulting in a long delay. J&J Chief to Receive $143 Million Farewell (WSJ): The health-care conglomerate says outgoing Chairman and CEO William Weldon , who started working at J&J in 1971, stands to collect pension benefits and deferred compensation now valued at $143.5 million after his retirement. Image source: iStockphoto

Here’s what’s making health news this morning: Health-Law War Heats Up as Court Review Nears (WSJ): Democrats are touting the nearly two-year-old health-overhaul law as a consumer issue, while Republicans are framing it as an expensive government intrusion. Canadian Hospitals That Spend More on Patients Get More (Bloomberg News): Patients in higher-spending hospitals in Canada had lower death rates and were less likely to require readmission compared with those in lower-spending hospitals there, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association says. Cooler Hands Could Mean Better Workouts for Obese Women (Los Angeles Times): Women who held a device chilled to about 61 degrees in their palms while exercising reduced their waist sizes and blood pressure, while women holding a device set to normal body temperature posted no significant improvement in a study of 99 women presented at a conference this week. Judge Rules Against CVS in Oxycodone Fight (WSJ): The DEA acted appropriately, a federal judge ruled, by moving to suspend the controlled-substances licenses for two CVS stores in Florida. The judge stayed his ruling to give CVS time to appeal. Image source: iStockphoto

Here’s what’s making health news this morning: The Season’s Public Enemies (WSJ): Trees are releasing pollen unusually early this year following a mild winter across much of the U.S., leading allergists to predict a longer and more intense allergy season for millions of people. Just How Unhealthy Is That Steak? The Deadly Dangers of Eating Red Meat (Time’s Healthland blog): Two studies of more than 121,000 health-care professionals over two decades show a serving a day of red meat increases the risk of death by heart disease by nearly 20%. The risk of dying from cancer was boosted by 13%, the results, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine , show. New Healthcare Exchange Rules Issued for States (Reuters): The regulations, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, guide states on how to set up health-insurance exchanges, a key part of the 2010 health-care overhaul. British Doctors Urge Against Metal Hip Joints (Associated Press): About 6% of people with metal-on-metal hip replacements needed surgery for repair or replacement after five years, compared with 1.7%-2.3% of patients with joints made of plastic or ceramic, according to a study of more than 400,000 replacements in the U.K. published in the Lancet. AstraZeneca Sues FDA Over Seroquel (WSJ): AstraZeneca seeks an injunction to bar FDA approval of generic versions of the antipsychotic drug — the U.K. company’s second-biggest seller — following last week’s ruling saying they wouldn’t have to carry the same warnings of possible side effects. Astronauts Eyeballs Deformed by Long Missions in Space, Study Shows (Guardian): Seven of 27 astronauts who had flown lengthy NASA missions showed a flattening in the back of their eyes in brain scans, according to the study, which was published in the journal Radiology. Image source: iStockphoto

By Louise Radnofsky The Obama administration is touting good news for seniors from the health-care overhaul law, pointing to $2.1 billion in discounts on prescription drugs for 3.6 million older consumers in 2011. Part of the law was intended to fill the gap in prescription-drug coverage, the so-called doughnut hole, when Medicare beneficiaries have to to pay up to $4,550 out of pocket for drugs after their costs pass $2,840 for the year. Under the law, drug companies have to offer discounts on brand-name and generic drugs for Medicare beneficiaries after they reach the gap. Discounts increase annually until 2020, when the hole is supposed to be filled entirely. In 2010, the first year when the discounts were in effect, seniors also got a $250 rebate check if they hit the doughnut hole. The 2011 discounts — 50% on covered brand-name drugs and 7% on generic drugs — were worth an average of $631 per person who did reach the doughnut hole, the Department of Health and Human Services said. Democrats have made closing the doughnut hole a priority in recent years and have tried to make the new provision a key element in their appeal to seniors to support the health-care overhaul law. “Today’s good news is the latest evidence that as we continue to implement the Affordable Care Act, we’re taking the right approach to Medicare,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Blood-sugar-lowering drugs accounted for the largest single share of the discounts, according to the administration’s data. Image: iStockphoto