The Courts

Federal DC district judge Richard Leon poked several holes in the plaintiffs’ arguments against the expansion of short-term health insurance plans and seemed to agree with the Trump administration’s defense of the plans at a preliminary injunction hearing Friday. A court ruling on whether to block the administration's controversial move to extend the duration of the plans won't come before the end of the year, following the Affordable Care Act's latest open enrollment period, he said. 

Two California men have pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud Affordable Care Act plans in at least 12 states by enrolling people in coverage and transporting them to expensive drug treatment facilities in California that paid referral and other fees, the Department of Justice announced.

HHS told a federal court that it intends to release by Nov. 1 a proposal that would move the effective date for the 340B ceiling prices and penalties rule to Jan. 1, up from July 1, and for that reason the court should put a lawsuit over the date on hold.

The Trump Administration is arguing that the stakeholders seeking to immediately suspend new federal regulations on short-term plans fail to show that they would be harmed by the rule and therefore their request for a preliminary injunction should be rejected.

A second health plan that sued the government for ending reimbursements for cost-sharing reductions in October 2017 has been awarded money from the U.S. Federal Court of Claims: Sanford Health Plans is set to receive just over $360,000 that the government determined the plan would have been owed for the fourth quarter of that year.

The national drug and device lobbies this week weighed in on a Utah Supreme Court case that could determine whether FDA approval of a medical device shields the product's manufacturer from strict liability claims over alleged design defects.

A federal judge has not issued any ruling in a lawsuit by six GOP-led states that attempted to block the IRS from collecting an Obamacare tax on Medicaid managed care plans.

The trial in a class-action lawsuit alleging Tennessee took too long to decide whether individuals are eligible to be on Medicaid started on Tuesday (Oct. 9) -- four years after the case was filed.

A federal judge in DC on Tuesday (Oct. 2) scheduled a hearing for Oct. 26 on stakeholders' motion to immediately suspend the administration's short-term health plan rule.