Chris Anderson

Blue Shield of California has announced it will work with an outside actuarial firm to examine its proposed rate increase for 194,000 individual members, some of whom would see their rates increase by as much as 59 percent.

Paul LePage, Maine's new Republican governor, has submitted a supplemental budget to the Legislature that includes paying back nearly $250 million owed to hospitals for overdue Medicaid charges.

In comments submitted to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Long Term Care Pharmacy Alliance expressed concerns that a proposed rule for Medicare Part C and Part D plans for short-cycle dispensing of medications in long-term care settings would cost money, not save it as intended.

A recent post-open enrollment survey conducted by HighRoads indicates that employees worry most about the rising cost of healthcare coverage, followed by coverage cancellation and new taxes on healthcare benefits.

The number of health savings accounts and health reimbursement accounts continued to rise in 2010, numbering 5.7 million accounts, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Assets in these accounts also increased to $7.7 billion.

With unemployment high and state budgets tight, a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation's Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured found nearly all states maintained or made targeted expansions of their Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program eligibility and enrollment rules in 2010.

Tenet Healthcare has adopted a new stockholder rights plan - a so-called "poison pill" - in an attempt to thwart a hostile takeover by Community Health Systems.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has issued a proposed rule for hospital inpatient value-based purchasing that is intended to reward hospitals for meeting and exceeding quality and safety measures.

Blue Shield of California has proposed rate hikes for 200,000 individual policy holders that could see some members' premiums jump as much as 59 percent on March 1.

An Arizona patient awaiting a liver transplant who was removed from the waiting list as a result of state Medicaid budget cuts has died - the second such person to die since the cuts were announced on Oct. 1, 2010.