Healthcare costs

Caitlin Owens,  Axios - I haven't seen this level of interest in going after the underlying drivers of health care costs in the 11 years I've been covering the subject. Lowering health care costs explicitly means clamping down on the business practices that make some people a lot of money.

If either party is serious about any of this, it's declaring war on a sector that makes up nearly a fifth of the U.S. economy.

The big picture: Every major health care segment seems to be in trouble.

... Both parties are raging against "Big Insurance" and want to see profit-seeking behaviors checked. The pharmaceutical industry, which used to enjoy the full-throated backing of the GOP, has very few friends left who are willing to go to bat for it.

And the protective halo that used to enshroud hospitals from political scrutiny has been pierced.

In  recent weeks, an influential Democratic-aligned think tank has put out a health plan calling for premium regulation and hospital price caps, and a Republican-aligned one published a blog post attacking one of hospitals' arguments for more government funding.

The Trump administration filed its second lawsuit accusing a hospital of anti-competitive contracting behavior.

....And let's not forget that Republicans' massive Medicaid overhaul last year included hundreds of billions in payment cuts to providers.

...The pharmaceutical industry has survived two different administrations' efforts to lower drug prices, and analysts have largely dismissed the changes that were enacted as immaterial to companies' bottom lines.

....The bottom line: Health care costs have been going up forever. The question has always been whether they'd reach a breaking point — and politically speaking, we might be there.

But we're still a ways off from serious attempts to rein in prices, and no future attempt is guaranteed to work.