Friday, February 24, 2012

TGIF

Earlier this week, a federal judge in San Francisco issued a permanent injunction enjoining the Office of Personnel Management from interfering with the enrollment of Karen Golinski’s sex wife under her self and family FEHB coverage. Ms. Golinski and her wife had married during the period when California permitted same sex marriages. In reaching this conclusion, the judge held the Defense of Marriage Act ("DOMA") unconstitutional as applied to the case. As you may recall, about one year ago. the Justice Department announced that it would no longer defend DOMA's constitutionality and since then the House of Representatives (majority side) has been defending the law in court. That "BLAG" has now appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit according to the Hill.  The same issue is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston.

The Federal Times reports on OPM's efforts to contract for at least two multi-state plans that will participate in the Affordable Care Act's health insurance exchanges beginning in 2014.

Modern Healthcare reports that the healthcare industry generally was pleased with the proposed HHS rule establishing guidance on Stage 2 of the meaningful use requirements that underpin the program subsidizing electronic health records purchased by health care providers. The FEHBlog took note that the requirements ramp up the use of encryption particularly on mobile devices according to Information Week. That's good advice.


No comments: