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The majority of parents simply don’t fill their kids’ asthma prescriptions.

That’s the take-home point in a JAMA study aimed at figuring out whether out-of-pocket costs for medications influenced parents’ willingness to fill prescriptions for their children’s asthma.

Does Congress have the power to mandate that everyone in the U.S. have health insurance? The Manhattan Institute’s Avik Roy and Columbia University’s Gillian Metzger discuss the Supreme Court’s hearing of the case with WSJ Legal reporter Ashby Jones.

Excerpt from: The Constitutionality of Health-Insurance Mandate/a>

The insurance industry and advocates of the health-care overhaul are sketching out contingency plans in case the Supreme Court strikes down a central part of the law, Louise Radnofsky reports on Lunch Break. Photo: AP.

Original post: Insurers Set Plans in Case Mandate is Quashed/a>

Here’s what’s making health news this morning:

Biotech Funding Gets Harder to Find: (WSJ) In recent years, venture financing for biotech – once an investment darling – has been in decline, due to the tough economic environment and poor returns from stock offerings.

Regulators Seek to Cool Hospital-Deal Fever:(WSJ) Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz says some mergers can lock up local markets, leading to higher prices for patients and insurance companies with few other places to turn.

If you developed a seriously painful toothache, would you head to the emergency room to get it taken care of?

In an ideal world, probably not. But lacking access to regular care from a dentist, an estimated 830,590 Americans sought help for their dental ailments in the E.R. in 2009, according to a report released yesterday from the Pew Center on the States.

By a number of indicators, people have been using fewer medical services during the economic downturn.

Screening colonoscopies apparently aren’t immune to that trend, according to a study appearing in the March issue of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. The study finds that during the recent recession, commercially insured Americans had fewer of the tests to screen for cancer — a test that saves lives, according to research published just this week.

The Value of Colonoscopy: Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that screening colonoscopies to detect and remove growths in the gut can reduce the risk of death from colon cancer by 53%, the WSJ reports. The observational study covered 2,602 patients who had growths removed. Colonoscopy is one of the screening methods for colorectal cancer recommended by various public-health groups, but it wasn’t known whether it prevented deaths.

Roche’s Genomics Bet: Roche’s $6 billion hostile bid for DNA-sequencing company Illumina represents a bet that the technology will filter down from academic and government research centers to doctors’ offices and hospitals, the WSJ reports. Roche believes sales of genetic mapping machines will almost double to $2.1 billion by 2015, but some analysts say widespread use is by no means certain.

Hostile Bid For Illumina: Swiss drug maker Roche is making a $44.50 per-share hostile bid for Illumina, valuing the gene-sequencing company at $5.7 billion, the WSJ reports. Illumina has already rejected an offer of $40 per share, Roche says. The latest bid represents a premium of about 18% to Illumina’s $37.69 closing price Tuesday. Illumina said today it would review Roche’s proposal.