Mar 27 2013
But the department is expected to continue investigating the use of "most-favored-nation" pricing contracts in other states.
The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Moves To Dismiss Suit Against Michigan Blue Cross
The Justice Department on Monday moved to dismiss its long-running antitrust lawsuit against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. The department said that the state had resolved the agency's concerns by enacting a law that bans certain deals between insurers and health-care providers. The department, however, said it was continuing to investigate the use of the deals in health-plan contracts elsewhere (Kendall, 3/25).
Modern Healthcare: Feds Still Looking At Insurers' 'Most-Favored' Contracts
The U.S. Justice Department has closed its antitrust case against Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan, but the government is expected to remain active in examining how insurers use controversial "most-favored-nation" pricing contracts in other states. The department opened investigations into preferred-pricing contracts by other Blues plans in several other states about the same time that it filed its antitrust lawsuit against the Michigan Blues plan. The Justice Department has closed several of those investigations-;but not all of them-;without filing lawsuits, according to an antitrust attorney involved with the investigations (Carlson, 3/25).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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