Did California regulators' approval of the Centene and Health Net merger give a preview of how reviews of Anthem's proposed consolidation with Cigna will go down? Let's hope not. Conditions for Health Net were a world away from what regulators will find in the Anthem-Cigna deal. (More on those hearings here.)
California taxpayers dodged a bullet yesterday with the passage of a high-stakes bill to help fund Medi-Cal.
Legislative Democrats and nearly a dozen Republicans approved a plan to trade existing taxes for a new tax on insurers to raise more than $1 billion in needed health care funding and preserve federal Medi-Cal matching funds.
Legislation that first appeared little more than one week ago, which is moving so fast it could be law this week, could give California’s health insurance companies one of the largest tax giveaways of the century.
A Medical Board task force (it's called Patient Notification, when it really should be Physician Probation Notification) will be discussing possible protocols for notifying patients about doctors on probation.
Let's hope that the state's Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) is tougher on Centene and Health Net and their proposed merger than it was at a recent public meeting.
In a letter sent to the DMHC, Consumer Watchdog urged the agency to prohibit Centene from shuttering any of Health Net's commercial plans, require it to upgrade any physician network issues and prevent executives from removing any reserves from California to pay for lavish compensation packages related to the deal.