WASHINGTON — The Obama administration announced Thursday it will seek to block two giant health care mergers, citing concerns that the deals could drive up health care premiums, undermine innovation and reduce competition...
LOL. But certainly make it easier to bring everybody under the govt umbrella by way of HEALTH insurance.
The Justice Department filed lawsuits challenging Anthem's $48 billion acquisition of Cigna and Aetna's $37 billion takeover of Humana, threatening to put an abrupt stop to the insurance industry's rapid consolidation....
Which, like the banking industry, is slowly becoming just ONE entity.
"If these mergers were to take place, the competition among these insurers that has pushed them to provide lower premiums, higher-quality care and better benefits would be eliminated," Lynch said...
But would make it easier to implement Class II, Paragraph 1, Section B) “(ii) of obamacare, which says:
(g)(1)The Secretary shall establish a national medical device registry (in this subsection referred to as the ‘registry’) to facilitate analysis of post market safety and outcomes data on each device that—
(A) is or has been used in or on a patient; and
(B) is—
(i) a class III device; or
(ii) a class II device that is implantable, life-supporting, or life-sustaining.(2) In developing the registry, the Secretary shall, in consultation with the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, determine the best methods for—(A) including in the registry, in a manner consistent with subsection (f), appropriate information to identify each device described in paragraph (1) by type, model, and serial number or other unique identifier;(B) validating methods for analyzing patient safety and outcomes data from multiple sources and for linking such data with the information included in the registry as described in subparagraph (A), including, to the extent feasible, use of—
(i) data provided to the Secretary under other provisions of this chapter; and
(ii) information from public and private sources identified under paragraph (3);(C) integrating the activities described in this subsection with—
(i) activities under paragraph (3) of section 505(k) (relating to active post market risk identification);
(ii) activities under paragraph (4) of section 505(k) (relating to advanced analysis of drug safety data); and
(iii) other post market device surveillance activities of the Secretary authorized by this chapter; and…3(B) In this paragraph, the term ‘data’ refers to information respecting a device described in paragraph (1), including claims data, patient survey data, standardized analytic files that allow for the pooling and analysis of data from disparate data environments, electronic health records, and any other data deemed appropriate by the Secretary.
(A) is or has been used in or on a patient; and
(B) is—
(i) a class III device; or
(ii) a class II device that is implantable, life-supporting, or life-sustaining.(2) In developing the registry, the Secretary shall, in consultation with the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, determine the best methods for—(A) including in the registry, in a manner consistent with subsection (f), appropriate information to identify each device described in paragraph (1) by type, model, and serial number or other unique identifier;(B) validating methods for analyzing patient safety and outcomes data from multiple sources and for linking such data with the information included in the registry as described in subparagraph (A), including, to the extent feasible, use of—
(i) data provided to the Secretary under other provisions of this chapter; and
(ii) information from public and private sources identified under paragraph (3);(C) integrating the activities described in this subsection with—
(i) activities under paragraph (3) of section 505(k) (relating to active post market risk identification);
(ii) activities under paragraph (4) of section 505(k) (relating to advanced analysis of drug safety data); and
(iii) other post market device surveillance activities of the Secretary authorized by this chapter; and…3(B) In this paragraph, the term ‘data’ refers to information respecting a device described in paragraph (1), including claims data, patient survey data, standardized analytic files that allow for the pooling and analysis of data from disparate data environments, electronic health records, and any other data deemed appropriate by the Secretary.
Would the guy really set the table for someone else to get the glory? I doubt it.
