The Courts

Reversing the Trump administration's rule expanding the scope of short-term plans could save the federal government $8.9 billion and decrease nongroup premiums by 1%, but it would increase the number of uninsured people by 500,000, the Congressional Budget Office found.

A federal judge granted a request from New Hampshire to intervene on the side of CMS in defending the state’s plan to enact Medicaid work requirements.

A federal judge in Washington state on Thursday (April 25) issued a nationwide injunction blocking a Trump administration rule that bars federal funds from going to clinics providing, or referring patients for, abortions, and which many conservatives say targeted Planned Parenthood.

A Democratic aide says that House lawmakers have yet to receive a response to a series of questions regarding the Trump administration’s decision not to defend the Affordable Care Act from a constitutional challenge.

Members of Congress from both parties are intervening on opposite sides of a hot-button lawsuit that will help determine whether Medicaid beneficiaries can sue their state government if the state removes certain medical providers -- such as those that perform abortions -- from the state’s Medicaid program.

In a loss for the brand-drug industry, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday (April 15) declined to hear Allergan’s appeal defending its sale of patents to a Mohawk tribe, leaving a lower court ruling against Allergan in place.

A key Justice Department political appointee who led oral arguments in the controversial challenge to the Affordable Care Act at the district court level has dropped out of the case and will soon leave DOJ, coming just days after House Democrats told Attorney General William Barr to let his lawyers in the case testify before Congress, and ahead of DOJ’s May 1 deadline to file an opening brief in the appeal.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday granted the Department of Justice’s unopposed request to expediate oral arguments in the controversial challenge to the Affordable Care Act, and set the hearing for the week of July 8.

Hospitals say CMS cannot simply ignore the way Congress has written site-neutral and payment policy in defending its decision to cut the pay rates for clinic visits at certain off-campus hospital outpatient facilities “simply because it disagrees” with lawmakers.