Gallup’s latest data is also proof that Obamacare is working to insure the people who need health coverage most. According to the poll results, which are based on telephone interviews with a random sample of 14,704 adults, the uninsured rate of people from households earning less than $36,000 a year has fallen by 5.5 percent since the end of 2013, more than any other income subgroup.

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Editorial: Last month, U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) joined forces with 14 of his Senate colleagues in opposing a new Environmental Protection Agency rule that would help protect the drinking water of 117 million Americans, including eight million Pennsylvanians, by restoring the Clean Water Act to its original purpose…

More than five years as Pennsylvania’s treasurer has given McCord highly relevant experience as an elected statewide official and government executive. He leads a department of nearly 400 employees with a budget of $36 million following significant reductions during his tenure.

PHILLY.COM: …The 30-second spot questions why Wolf served as chairman of the 2001 reelection campaign of York Mayor Charlie Robertson, who was indicted the day after the primary on murder charges in the death of a black woman during the city’s 1969 race riots, when he was a police officer.

…Mr. Corbett, while campaigning in 2010, infamously signed the “no new tax pledge” that was demanded of conservative candidates by Americans for Tax Reform, led by Grover Norquist. Many members of the conservative majorities in both houses also signed it.

Mr. Shapp overcame their determined opposition by using his millions to smother the state with television advertising. The marriage of television and politics is so complete today, it’s hard to recall that once they were nearly strangers.

NEW YORK TIMES COLUMN: On Wednesday, I wrapped up the class I’ve been teaching all semester: “The Great Recession: Causes and Consequences.” (Slides for the lectures are available via my blog.) And while teaching the course was fun, I found myself turning at the end to an agonizing question: Why, at the moment it was most needed and could have done the most good, did economics fail?

Add in undecided voters who are leaning toward one candidate, and Wolf comes away with 42 percent, Schwartz 16 percent, McCord 14 percent and McGinty 3 percent…

As the families of children with intractable epilepsy watched from the public gallery, the House voted 111-7 and sent a compromise bill to the Senate, which is expected to approve it and send it to the governor Friday, the final day of the legislative session.

The U.S. economy ought, in theory, to be able to cut off trade relations with Russia if American politicians were committed to the task: U.S. trade with Russia is worth about $38 billion, a tiny percentage of U.S. GDP. But for certain well-placed companies, especially in the energy sector, the consequences could be drastic.

NEW YORK TIMES: … …Indeed, despite improved living standards, the poor have fallen further behind the middle class and the affluent in both income and consumption. The same global economic trends that have helped drive down the price of most goods also have limited the well-paying industrial jobs once available to a huge swath of working Americans.