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Additional cuts to Medicare Advantage plans would unduly affect the more than one-third of beneficiaries in the low-income bracket, according to a report from America's Health Insurance Plans.

What we're reading, February 17, 2016: Pfizer pays to settle Medicaid claims case; needle exchanges will get financial boost with federal funding; and in New Jersey, Chris Christie releases budget that includes steep cuts to hospitals.

Individuals with more than one diagnosis are more likely to report to a primary care physician than to a subspecialty physician.

CMS, in collaboration with a working group of national organizations, has developed a set of Medical Oncology Measures to improve quality of care and avoid redundancy for providers of care.

Whether or not employer wellness programs work remains debated, but the real question to address is whether we are even fighting the right battle.

USPSTF's judgment that there is insufficient evidence to screen all young children for autism stands in contrast to the nation's largest group of pediatricians as well as leading autism advocacy groups.

A collaboration led by CMS and America’s Health Insurance Plans released 7 core sets of quality measures created to reduce complexity, decrease cost burden, and ensure high-quality care.

Deploying the algorithm in EHRs on a widepread basis could help find up to 400,000 Americans with undiagnosed diabetes, the researchers say.

What we're reading, February 16, 2016: Affordable Care Act enrollment for 2016 is far below initial estimates; healthcare record hacks increased 11,000% in 2015; and genetic testing hasn't seen wide adoption among consumers.

A noninvasive colorectal cancer screening test manufactured by Exact Sciences, which received CMS coverage within months of its FDA approval, is not included under Humana’s coverage policy

Relatively simple improvements could increase patient satisfaction and potentially improve the important process of imparting patient information during enrollment of cancer patients into clinical trials.

Looking at trends in economic growth, healthcare costs, and employment, researchers find that the Affordable Care Act has acted as an economic stimulus.

The requested Medicaid waiver from CMS would help deal with the Flint water crisis. Residents have been affected by lead poisoning after a state-hired emergency manager switched the city's water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River, without following advice for pretreating the water.

Inhibiting the PIGF/VEGFR-1 signaling regressed tumor growth in obese, but not in lean mice, the author report.

The authors conclude that being overweight is not without risk, and their findings come after other estimates see the burden of chronic kidney disease increasing in the United States.

What we're reading, February 15, 2016: despite cuts to the program, enrollment in Medicare Advantage is up 50% over 5 years; orphan drug designations from the FDA up 22% in 2015; and Zika virus infections on the rise in Puerto Rico.

Justice Antonin Scalia has died at the age of 79. The absence of the conservative justice from the Supreme Court bench has set off a political firestorm and could have repercussions for upcoming healthcare cases.

Researchers urge against solely relying on body mass index, which has mislabeled many Americans as “obese” and “overweight” when they are actually healthy.

Authors of a study conclude that the use of managed care organizations for Medicaid patients has a mixed record of success, and they advise that little may be achieved by converting this portion of the population to managed care.

This week in managed care the top stories included President Obama's final budget plan, value-based deals made for Novartis' new heart drug, and a look at the strides made in immuno-oncology.

In the first large-scale study of its kind, researchers at Kaiser Permanente and the University of California San Francisco found that rates of dementia risk vary across racial and ethnic groups.

In spite of the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive coverage guarantee, there have been some obstacles in ensuring that privately insured women do not encounter out-of-pocket cost.

Healthcare integrated with housing support for homeless medically vulnerable lowers costs without affecting quality of care.

A study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention has identified geographic and ethnic factors as an important determinant of vaccinating against the human papillomavirus.

Every year, health policy wonks get into the loving spirit of Valentine’s Day with poetry, puns, and more on Twitter using the popular hashtag #HealthPolicyValentines. We round up some of the best.

From fighting cancer to the nation's heroin epidemic, there are items in President Obama's final budget that likely have bipartisan support even if the budget as a whole was panned on arrival.

Patients with advanced kidney cancer in the UK now have access to nivolumab through an early access scheme.

The results amplify earlier work at UAB that showed verapamil reversed type 1 diabetes in mice. A clinical trial involving the drug in recently diagnosed patients with type 1 disease is still enrolling participants.

What we're reading, February 12, 2016: the former Kentucky governor is looking to block the current governor's plans to dismantle Kynect; Senator Orrin Hatch speaks out against Medicare negotiation of drug prices; and the link between Zika and microcephaly is growing stronger.

Findings reveal an obvious area for improvement in population health.