The FEHBlog wishes to remind his loyal readers that you may subscribe to FEHBlog emails which arrive with the full posts the morning after the post goes live. A subscription box prominently appears on the right margin of the FEHBlog page at ermersuter.com

Has any law generated more litigation in a short period of time than the Affordable Care Act??? Katie Keith in the Health Affairs blog provides a lengthy status report on the major ACA cases pending in the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals.

In other judicial news, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled yesterday that the Department of Health and Human Services failed to follow the Administrative Procedure Act in certain respects with respect to its 2013 and 2016 rule makings on access to medical records by patients and third parties such as lawyers and insurers. The details are explained in this Health Security IT article. Due to the importance of this issue to HHS, the FEHBlog expects the agency to take remedial administrative action quickly.

In good prescription drug news:

• Healthcare Dive reports that pharmaceutical manufactures finally are rolling out biosimilar drugs which action will lower the cost of expensive specialty drugs over time.
• CVS Health announced today “a new solution eliminating member out-of-pocket costs associated with all diabetes prescription medications, including insulin. Offered through the company’s pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), CVS Caremark, RxZERO enables employers and health plan sponsors to leverage formulary and plan design approaches to offer all categories of diabetes medications at zero dollar out of pocket for their members without raising costs for the plan sponsor or increasing premiums or deductibles for all plan members.”