A federal appellate court decided today to allow a lawsuit alleging that Arizona’s prison health care and confinement conditions amount to cruel and unusual punishment to proceed as a class action involving 33,000 prisoners.

The American Cancer Society predicts that in 2014, more than 1.6 million new cases of cancer will arise in the United States and more than half a million people will die from the disease, with 11,400 of those deaths occurring in Arizona. The treatment challenge remains in detecting the disease early enough to have a chance in successfully combating it.

It’s hard to imagine some 600 organizations, mostly nonprofits, agreeing on anything and working in concert to accomplish a common goal. Or major hospitals — often in competition with one another to attract patients and provide quality health care services — collaborating.

Brewer was visibly upset with the ruling when she spoke to reporters today, and said she will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. The governor called it a “rushed decision” by the appellate court and said it could ultimately prevent the state from providing quality, cost-effective health care to tens of thousands of people.

From our nation’s capital to state houses to all of our kitchen tables, the cost of health care and health care delivery are important conversations.

Republican lawmakers asked the Arizona Court of Appeals this afternoon to give them a chance to prove that hundreds of millions of dollars being used to support an expanded Medicaid program were illegally enacted.

Experts offered lawmakers some grim statistics Wednesday on cancer in Arizona, including a forecast of 11,400 deaths this year and a 50 percent increase in cancer cases by 2050.

An independent expenditure committee backed by Gov. Jan Brewer and expected to benefit the Republican legislators who sided with her in last year’s Medicaid expansion fight has raised more than $600,000 so far.

People living in Pima, Maricopa and Pinal counties are expected to get less help paying for health insurance compared with most consumers in the 36 states that use the federal marketplace created under the nation's new health care law.

Arizonans are beginning to warm to the new federal health insurance marketplace, but actual enrollment numbers for new private policies that will take effect Jan. 1 are still extremely low.