Weekend update / Miscellany

• Happy Birthday to George Washington! First in war; first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.
  
• On February 20, OPM finalized in the Federal Register its rule amending the Federal Employees Health Benefits Acquisition Regulation (48 C.F.R. Chap. 16). In response to an adverse decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, "[t]he rule clarifies the rate setting process for community-rated carriers with respect to Similarly Sized Subscriber Groups (SSSG) and removes the ban on adjustments based on rate reconciliation for the final year of Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) contracts.
• Also on February 20, the New York Times reported that a healthcare reform "workhorse group" organized by Senator Ted Kennedy is coalescing around an individual mandate to purchase health insurance similar to the Massachusetts Connector program. According to that report,

  The 20 people who regularly attend the meetings on Capitol Hill include lobbyists for AARP, Aetna, the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the American Cancer Society, the American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Business Roundtable, Easter Seals, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and the United States Chamber of Commerce.

• Government Health IT News reports on one of the uncertain future of the private public successor to the American Health Information Community, the National eHealth Collaborative.