Catholic Health Plans: No to Birth Control, Yes to Viagra

Contraception: NPR's Julie Rovner reports that Catholic employers' health plans don't cover contraception for women or vasectomies for men – but they do cover Viagra. Happy Valentine's Day!

Addiction: The number of Sacramento-area babies born with withdrawal syndrome has doubled in the past decade – a phenomenon that coincides with rising rates of prescription painkiller use, Phillip Reese and Grace Rubenstein report for the Sacramento Bee.

Health Costs: Hospitals increasingly are using direct marketing and free medical screenings to entice consumers to use their services. That's fine, writes Shannon Brownlee for Time, but perhaps more scrutiny of the nonprofit status of many hospitals is in order.

Health Reform: Will the federal government have enough money to create its own national health insurance exchange alongside the states' exchanges? That's a real concern, Sarah Kliff writes for the Washington Post.

Health Policy Valentines: Check out the nerd humor at the hashtag #healthpolicyvalentines. Joanne Kenen rounds them up in the Association of Health Care Journalists' Covering Health blog.

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Photo credit: Eli Duke via Flickr