District of Columbia

HHS Secretary Alex Azar outlined four priorities for the agency this week, and accelerating the path to value-based payment systems and reducing healthcare costs are at the top of his list.

In remarks given to the Federation of American Hospitals on Monday, Azar delivered a blunt message.

On February 14, 17 children and adults at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, lost their lives at the hands of an individual with an assault weapon. Thousands of children across the country went to school that morning, but some never returned home that afternoon. This senseless loss of life has become all too common in our country, ending lives, shattering families and disrupting the fabric of another community forever branded by this act of violence.

WASHINGTON — The budget deal in Congress is billed as a measure to grant stability to a government funding process that has lurched from crisis to crisis — but it is also stuffed with provisions that will broadly affect the nation’s health care system, like repealing an advisory board to curb Medicare spending and funding community health centers.

Using the adjective “rising” before the phrase “health prices” seems redundant these days. Health prices seem to be always rising, often at rates greater than those for other things we buy. The continuation of this trend usually offers little to look at that we haven’t seen before.

SEATTLE — In a sign of just how fed up corporate America is with the country’s expensive and often confusing health care system, three behemoths — Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase — announced on Tuesday that they would form an independent health care company for their employees in the United States.