Not knowing a patient's wishes for end-of-life care can lead to expensive and sometimes unwanted medical interventions. Gundersen Health System is trying to change that, by embracing a conversation around end-of-life care that is not about dying.

WASHINGTON -- The Affordable Care Act is sure to survive the latest vote by the House of Representatives Thursday to repeal it — since the Senate doesn't plan to take it up and President Obama would veto a repeal bill if it somehow reached his desk — but the administration's signature legislative achievement still faces serious perils ahead. Americans have a dimmer view of the health care law now than they did when Obama triumphantly signed it three years ago, according to monthly tracking polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

DURHAM — The McCrory administration's plan to convert the $13 billion Medicaid program to managed care remains an outline as two top health officials travel the state pitching it to doctors and other health care providers. Dr. Aldona Wos, head of the state Department of Health and Human Services, told a crowd of doctors and other health care providers that she wanted them to help figure out the next steps. The aim is to integrate physical, mental and dental health and make costs predictable for the state.

The Arizona congressman will revise his measure banning late-term procedures in the District of Columbia to apply nationwide. 

President Obama's budget proposal would save the Medicare program $364 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The CBO largely concurred with the White House's estimates, which pegged the budget's Medicare savings at $370 billion.

Obama's budget called for a range of cuts in Medicare's payments to healthcare providers. The most controversial proposals would let poor seniors buy prescription drugs at the price Medicaid pays, rather than the higher Medicare price.

A federal judge on Friday temporary blocked the enactment of Arkansas's new abortion ban, which would prohibit the procedure in most cases after 12 weeks of pregnancy.

U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright granted the preliminary injunction after a request from several abortion-rights groups who filed suit against the law.

The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), one of those groups, praised the decision in a statement.