Mercy Health and Bon Secours Health System, two large Catholic hospital systems spanning seven states and with almost $9 billion in combined annualrevenue, have agreed to merge. The two systems expect to complete the deal by the end of the year, pending state, federal and church approvals.
Go deeper: This is another major hospital system merger and builds on the industry's insatiable appetite to consolidate — with no clear benefits to patients.
This might be the best way to understand the Trump administration’s approach to the Affordable Care Act: the ACA’s exchanges, like health insurance itself, relied on healthy people subsidizing the cost of covering sick people — but they’re sliding deeper into something a lot more like a makeshift high-risk pool, in which healthy people are absent and the government simply pays to cover sick people.
Where it stands: The White House and congressional Republicans are not trying to change that reality. In some ways, they have accelerated it. At a minimum, they accept it.
Several HIV/AIDS patients have sued CVS Health, alleging the pharmacy giant flouted federal and state insurance laws by forcing patients into two options: fill their prescriptions at CVS locations or through CVS' mail order, or face thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs.
The big picture: It's another lawsuit that raises questions about how people with Aetna health insurance, especially those with expensive chronic conditions, would be treated if CVS got approval to acquire Aetna for $69 billion.
The Trump administration is expanding access to short-term health care plans that don’t comply with many of the Affordable Care Act’s requirements. Critics fear the move could weaken the ACA’s insurance markets, but federal officials said today they expect the effects on the ACA to be relatively modest.
Why it matters: These new regulations stem from President Trump's executive order on health care and will, to at least some extent, widen the market for non-ACA coverage — a prominent goal for the administration, even if it’s one that will move incrementally.
