Another Republican governor seems to be willing to let his state accept federal funds for an insurance exchange.

Idaho Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter said it makes sense for Idaho to accept federal grant money and set up its own exchange, The Associated Press reported Monday. The federal government has the power to set up exchanges in any states that don’t establish their own.

“If we do not apply for the grant, then under the Affordable Health Care Act, the federal government will come in and establish and impose upon us an insurance exchange,” Otter said, according to the AP.

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the only Republican so far to sign an exchange into law, though other GOP leaders — including Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour — have said they’ll move forward, despite their opposition to the federal healthcare law.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry blocked fellow Republicans in the state legislature from implementing a key piece of the healthcare reform law, but said he’d do it through an executive order if necessary, according to an Associated Press report.

Perry threatened to veto a bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. John Zerwas, that would have created an insurance exchange in Texas. The exchanges are at the center of healthcare reform, and the federal government wants states to run their own rather than rely on a federal fallback.

But Perry said implementing an exchange would undermine the 26-state lawsuit challenging another part of the healthcare law, according to the AP.

“The position [Perry] was taking veers into some political considerations,” Zerwas said. “He felt it would not ring well with some of the constituents and grassroots out there, and frankly, he was concerned it could potentially weaken the arguments in the lawsuit.”

According to the AP, Perry told Zerwas that he would create an exchange through an executive order if necessary.

Mississippi might be able to launch its health insurance exchange next year.

The Health and Human Services Department contracted with a public relations firm to help publicize parts of the new healthcare law, according to Fox News.

The Federal Trade Commission is challenging a hospital merger in Ohio, The New York Times reports.

The Wall Street Journal finds a pharmaceutical executive who says the future for the pharmaceutical industry is bright.

The new approvals bring the total number of waivers to 1,472, according to the Health and Human Services Department.

Medicare is dramatically expanding a program that it says will save billion of dollars and serve as a model for other cost-cutting efforts.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on Friday announced the second round of a program that uses competitive bidding to set prices for certain medical products. Medicare now uses competitive bidding in nine cities and will expand to 91 areas, according to the Friday announcement.

In its first six months, the nine-city competitive bidding program has saved roughly $130 million, CMS officials said. The agency expects to save $28 billion over the next 10 years, roughly a third of which would be savings to patients.

“The president has clearly acknowledged the need for further savings to implement (in) the Medicare program, but I think we also need to take stock and take credit for what’s been achieved so far, and from a CMS perspective, DME competitive bidding is one that we’re proud of and one we believe is working,” CMS Deputy Administrator Jonathan Blum said.

The competitive bidding program is limited to durable medical equipment — such products as wheelchairs, oxygen supplies and hospital beds. Blum said CMS is open to expanding competitive bidding outside of durable medical equipment in the future but is focused for now on expanding the existing program to more areas.

Competitive bidding has faced criticism from the medical device industry. It is partially replacing a system in which Medicare simply set payment rates for medical products. CMS officials said the agency is paying 35 percent less for products covered by competitive bidding.

The industry has also raised concerns that patients will lose access to important devices if bids are too low. Blum said that hasn’t happened in the initial phase of the bidding program, adding that CMS set up a system to monitor complaints and respond to any access problems. But none have been reported so far, he said, and “no one has disputed this information.”

The laws directing CMS to expand the program also dictated how it picked the areas where the competitive pricing will become available, Blum said.

Consumer advocates say Medicare and Medicaid are still at risk in deficit-reduction talks, despite a Republican supercommittee member saying he won't cut entitlement programs.

Families USA noted in a blog post Friday that all six Republican members of the supercommittee voted for Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) budget proposal, which would convert Medicare into a sort of voucher system. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) also proposed his own budget with even deeper health cuts.

Rep. Fred Upton, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee and a member of the supercommittee, said earlier this week that the panel would not cut Medicare or Social Security benefits. He didn't mention Medicaid.

Most of the Republican supercommittee members, including Upton, have supported proposals to convert federal Medicaid funds into block grants for the states, according to a summary that Families USA compiled.

"As the super committee moves forward on deficit reduction proposals, we must continue to fight for the preservation of Medicaid," the group said in its blog post.

The panel's Democratic members all support the healthcare reform law, and have opposed various Medicare and Medicaid cuts. Sen. Max Baucus (Mont.), however, said he would be open to President Obama's proposal to change the way federal Medicaid payments are calculated. The proposal would combine various matching rates into a single percentage.

Republican presidential candidate said "ObamaCare" would have killed him had it been in place when he was diagnosed with cancer. 

The lawsuits over healthcare reform aren't just about the reform law, but a referendum on liberty and the scope of government's police power, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli says in a law review article.

Cuccinelli was the first state attorney general to sue over the healthcare law, and his challenge has proceeded separately from the 26-state suit in which a federal appeals court ruled last week. Although Cuccinelli's political opposition to the healthcare law has always been clear, he lays out a scathing critique in the current issue of the Texas Review of Law and Politics.

"The battle for liberty is never over," Cuccinelli wrote. "The challenges to the health care law are our generation’s battle field in that ceaseless struggle."

The 46-page article details the progressive legal doctrine that the Supreme Court applied under President Franklin Roosevelt, describing it as "experiment" in radically expanding the federal government's power. Cuccinelli says the healthcare reform law — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or PPACA — is an extension of that experiment and an effort to bestow new powers to the government.

"Acknowledging the legitimacy of that newly claimed power would fundamentally alter the relationship between government and the American citizen," he wrote. "For the first time in American history, government would become Hobbes’ Leviathan," referring to philosopher Thomas Hobbes.

The Susan B. Anthony List on Thursday filed an appeal in its lawsuit over claims that the healthcare reform law provides government funding for abortion.

Former Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio) sued SBA List for defamation after the group tried to buy billboards that accused him of supporting government-funded abortion through healthcare reform. SBA List sought to have the suit dismissed and also said Ohio's election laws are an unconstitutional limit on free speech.

Earlier this month, a federal judge dismissed SBA List's constitutional challenge and allowed Driehaus's suit to proceed. In the process, the judge said the reform law plainly does not provide government funding for abortion.

"The express language of the (healthcare law) does not provide for tax-payer funded abortion. That is a fact, and it is clear on its face," the ruling stated.

SBA List on Thursday appealed the constitutional question to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and began the process of seeking an appeal on the lower court's decision to let Driehaus's suit go forward.

“The idea that a judge would take it upon himself to police speech, specifically statements on a position taken by the majority of the U.S. House of Representatives, The Congressional Research Service, the Catholic Church, and the entire pro-life movement, shakes our Constitutional foundation. It is as if we woke up in the middle of Orwell's 1984,” SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a release.