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When the Supreme Court on Friday announced that it would take up another challenge to the Affordable Care Act in March, it delivered the threat of two mortal blows to the signature achievement of the Obama presidency. ... even if the justices make no such ruling, the very act of taking up the challenge to the law will itself undermine the law. The justices announced their decision just a week before the open-enrollment period for 2015 begins — and the looming possibility that the high court will strike down the law will probably deter those who are considering signing up for its coverage. (Dana Milbank, 11/10)

The received wisdom about the fate of the Affordable Care Act is that it's in the Supreme Court's hands .... But it's worth emphasizing a point I raised in a post earlier Monday: A great opportunity exists for a congressional deal to make the court action moot (whichever way it leans). This involves offering the GOP majority in Congress two of its key objectives on the ACA, in return for fixing the drafting glitch the Supreme Court is preparing to scrutinize. These two objectives are killing the medical device tax and eliminating the employer mandate. (Michael Hiltzik, 11/10)

The “Democrats Against Obamacare” caucus in the House of Representatives has been decimated through retirements and election defeats. But Republicans seeking a bipartisan veneer for their efforts to dismantle the health care law could ally with a few lawmakers. Of the 10 House Democrats who have joined Republicans most often in attempts to defund, repeal or change the Affordable Care Act, just two will stay on in the 114th Congress forming in January. (Derek Willis, 11/10)

The chart at the top of this post identifies the black hole of American healthcare: The highest death rates are in a swath of states across the Deep South. Within a rough range, these rates match more specific metrics of health generated by the Department of Health and Human Services, such as the prevalence of strokes, obesity and hypertension. As a proxy for the efforts of state governments to improve the health status of their residents, the death rates tell a dismal story. In general terms these are the states with some of the highest ratios of medically uninsured residents and the greatest resistance by elected officials to take advantage of the Affordable Care Act by expanding Medicare and creating their own insurance exchanges. (Michael Hiltzik, 11/10)

The King case, and several others like it, raises a question of considerable national importance. The outcome could be disruptive, and a delay would make it more so. What’s more, there have been extraordinary political machinations by the administration, Senate Democrats and even lower-court judges, the manifest aim of which was to dissuade the justices from taking up the case. We don’t know if that last factor influenced the justices’ decision, but to our mind it is a very good reason to take the case. (James Taranto, 11/10)

Outright repeal would be about as pointless and foolish as it was the last few dozen times (but really, who's counting?) the Republicans tried it. Better instead to repeal the one part of the Affordable Care Act that both parties see as problematic: the employer mandate. (11/10)

Conventional wisdom is that President Obama would veto legislation that made any fundamental changes to his signature bill. But even the Act’s enthusiasts concede, that there are parts of Obamacare that are disliked, gratuitous, or simply unfeasible. The question is whether there’s enough common ground to make meaningful excisions to the original law, and secure White House support. There may be more changes in store than Washington’s conventional wisdom now portends. (Scott Gottlieb, 11/10)

In the public imagination, forensic mental hospitals — where states place the criminally insane — are hellish scenes of cages and restraints, the better to keep us safe from the Hannibal Lecters of the world. And it’s true that these hospitals, including the one where I work, are hellish. But not because the patients are restrained. In fact, it’s the opposite. Patients, even violent ones, are often given a shocking amount of freedom. As a consequence, every day, across the country, these hospitals record dozens of assaults by patients against staff members and other patients — a situation that, thanks to expanded patients’ rights laws and state health bureaucracies, we can do almost nothing about. (Stephen Seager, 11/10)

Now that the American public has had a chance to see that the very few cases of Ebola in this country have little chance of leading to a dangerous outbreak, it's time to return our attention to the three West African nations where the virus is a daily and deadly threat. (11/10)