The Courts

The Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration is consulting with the Justice Department on whether to appeal a federal court ruling that shot down key parts of the administration’s final rule expanding access to association health plans.

Health care stakeholders remain fixated on the lawsuit over the Affordable Care Act’s constitutionality as key Republican and Democratic senators urge Attorney General William Barr to explain the Department of Justice’s surprise move to call for the entire health law to be scrapped and as stakeholders file “friend of the court” briefs in the controversial case, Texas v. Azar, which is now on appeal at the Firth Circuit Court.

New York state has filed a lawsuit against opioid makers and distributors and the Sackler family, which founded Purdue Pharma and developed OxyContin, for false and deceptive marketing of opioids that the state alleges helped spur the opioid epidemic, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Thursday (March 28).

The governor of Arkansas said Thursday (March 28) that the state has stopped enforcing its Medicaid work requirements in light of a federal judge’s ruling invalidating the requirements, but he is urging the Trump administration to appeal the decision and remains committed to putting work requirements back into effect.

Faced with the Department of Justice's surprise decision to seek elimination of the entire Affordable Care Act in an ongoing lawsuit, House Republican committee leaders huddled Wednesday afternoon to work on a response and to start laying plans for an alternative to Obamacare -- but they hope the White House will lead on this.

Democratic governors on Tuesday blasted the Department of Justice’s reversal in the high-profile challenge to the Affordable Care Act and pledged to do whatever possible to shield residents from the potential loss of insurance coverage or consumer protections, in a call set up by the Democratic Governors Association.

Less than 24 hours after the Department of Justice asked a federal court to throw out the entire Affordable Care Act, House Democrats introduced sweeping legislation to bolster the Obama-era health care law and rallied to protect the law as the case moves through the appeals system.

The federal government says cutting the pay rates for clinic visits at certain off-campus hospital outpatient facilities is well within CMS’ authority, and the law exempting those facilities from other site-neutral payments doesn’t limit CMS’ ability to change the pay rates for services to control volume.

The Department of Justice on Monday (March 25) told the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that it now agrees with District Judge Reed O ‘Connor’s Dec. 14 decision that the ACA’s individual mandate is no longer valid and therefore the entire Affordable Care Act, which included major reforms to the insurance market and Medicaid and established the biosimilars market, should be thrown out.