Opinions: Controversial view of freedom; a $20,000 CT scan

Los Angeles Times: Just Who Would Be 'Freed' If The Obamacare Subsidies Are Thrown Out?
The most cynical claim made by the promoters of the Halbig lawsuit over Affordable Care Act subsidies is that they're standing up for "freedom." As the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon, Halbig's promoter-in-chief, put it back in July, the Halbig ruling would "free" 8.3 million Americans from the individual health insurance mandate and 57 million employees from the employer mandate. As Nicholas Bagley of the University of Michigan observes, this is true only under a very bizarre definition of "freedom" (Michael Hiltzik, 9/2).

The Wall Street Journal: Health Care And The $20,000 Bruise
As a doctor and a lawyer, I like to think I'm pretty good at navigating the health-care system. So when my wife and I found a large swollen bruise on our 3-year-old son's head more than a week after he had fallen off his scooter, I was confident we could get him a CT scan at a reasonable cost. We live near one of the top pediatric emergency rooms in the country. The care was spectacular. My son was diagnosed with a small, 11-day-old bleed inside his head, which was healing, and insignificant. ... Then the bill arrived, and you know where this is going: $20,000 (Eric Michael David, 9/2). 

The New York Times' The Upshot: Per Capita Medicare Spending Is Actually Falling
Medicare spending isn't just lower than experts predicted a few years ago. On a per-person basis, Medicare spending is actually falling. If the pattern continues, as the Congressional Budget Office forecasts, it will be a rarity in the Medicare program's history. Spending per Medicare patient has almost always grown more rapidly than the economy as a whole, often by a wide margin (Margot Sanger-Katz, 9/3).