Editors’ Top Five Week of April 16, 2018

Why Trump’s Tariffs Could Raise the Cost of a Hip Replacement
Pacemakers and artificial joints. Defibrillators. Dental fillings. Birth-control pills and vaccines. All are made in China, and all could be subject to new tariffs. (Sheila Kaplan and Katie Thomas/New York Times)

Privatized Medicaid Troubles in Iowa
Hundreds of disabled Iowans are being denied the medical devices they need, including wheelchairs, shower stools and even nutritional supplements, by private Medicaid providers that routinely refuse to pay for them. (Jason Clayworth/Des Moines Register)

Is There Such a Thing as Normal Aging?
Physiological changes happen across a continuum as the reserve capacity in almost every organ system declines, but it happens differently for each person. (Bruce Horovitz/Kaiser Health News)

5 Takeaways from CMS’ Final 2019 ACA Marketplace Rule
The CMS issued a 523-page final rule late Monday that agency officials said is meant to give states more power to regulate their individual and small-group health insurance markets. The rule also furthers the Trump administration’s agenda of chipping away at Affordable Care Act rules in lieu of a full repeal, which congressional Republicans haven’t been able to pull off. (Shelby Lingston/Modern Healthcare)

New Way of Defining Alzheimer’s Aims to Find Disease Sooner
Government and other scientists are proposing a new way to define Alzheimer’s disease—basing it on biological signs, such as brain changes, rather than memory loss and other symptoms of dementia that are used today. (Marilynn Marchione/Associated Press)