Retweeted by NYTimes' main health care reporter Margot Sanger-Katz:

 Never in the history of journalism have so many reporters, editors, and pundits expended so much energy fixating on one particular target, while other larger prey frolic unmolested within sight.

Steve Bannon playing a losing game? Populism not popular!

By Maggie Haberman & Ben Protess @ NYTimes.com, 20 min. ago

• Federal prosecutors demanded documents about the committee’s finances and activities, showing interest in whether it received illegal foreign donations.
• The subpoena marked an escalation of an investigation that opened late last year amid a flurry of scrutiny over President Trump’s inauguration.

 By Paige Winfield Cunningham @ WashingtonPost.com, Feb. 4

[...] If the goal is more generous benefits, Medicaid could be a more obvious model than Medicare, experts say.

There are several categories of medical benefits covered only minimally by Medicare or not at all, including long-term care, mental-health services and most dental care. Enrollees in Medicaid, by contrast, can access a pretty comprehensive array of inpatient and outpatient services. Medicaid plans cover not only all 10 of the health benefits considered “essential” under the Affordable Care Act but also nursing home care and long-term care services.

“I think a big challenge is people don’t really have a concept of how little Medicare offers,” said Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. “Medicare has made a huge difference in the lives of many people over the years, but it falls short in a lot of areas.” [....] 

Innovation, investment and inviting geology have given new life to an oil patch that once seemed spent. It is now the world’s second most productive oil field.

By Clifford Kraus from Midland, TX @ NYTimes.com, Feb. 3

In a global collapse of oil prices five years ago, scores of American oil companies went bankrupt. But one field withstood the onslaught, and even thrived: the Permian Basin, straddling Texas and New Mexico. A combination of technical innovation, aggressive investing and copious layers of oil-rich shale have transformed the Permian, once considered a worn-out patch, into the world’s second-most-productive oil field.

And this transformation has apparently inoculated Texas against its traditional economic enemy, the boom-and-bust cycle pegged to oil prices. Even now, with prices still far below their peak, the Permian is bursting with production and exploration, and the biggest concern is how to create more capacity to get all that oil to market [....]