TGIF

Well that's the FEHBlog gets for crowing about his prescience in anticipating no partial government shutdown with the continuing resolution extended into the new Congress. Now because the House passed a bill funding the border wall and disaster relief along with the predicted extension, a partial shutdown is likely because the Senate needs 60 votes to pass the House bill. The important consideration is that while OPM is one of the agencies funded under the continuing resolution, OPM's work on the FEHB Program is funded by a 1% surcharge on FEHBP premiums, not on appropriations. Consequently, the FEHB Program will keep chugging along notwithstanding any partial shutdown. And so will the FEHBlog.

The Cigna / Express Scripts merger closed yesterday as scheduled.

“Today’s closing represents a major milestone in Cigna’s drive to transform our health care system for our customers, clients, partners and communities. Together, we are establishing a blueprint for personalized, whole person health care, further enhancing our ability to put the customer at the center of all we do by creating a flexible, open and connected model that improves affordability, choice and predictability. By approaching each individual as a whole person – body and mind as one – we are empowering and supporting customers to take control of their total health and well-being,” said David M. Cordani, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cigna. “As a combined company, we are also going deeper into our local communities to help close gaps in care, and our $200 million investment will be a key driver of transforming health care at the societal and local levels.”

Good luck to the new venture.

Joseph Antos, James C. Capretta, and Walton Francis write for the American Enterprise Institute suggest that to control taxpayer spending federal and postal retirees should get their health coverage through Medicare or FEHBP rather than a combination of the two.  Their suggestion if implemented would sink the FEHBP. Currently early retirees (pre age 65) are covered under the FEHBP. Medicare shifts costs on the cost of caring for active and early retirees. At age 65 retirees are covered under FEHB and Medicare. Basically Medicare covers the hospital care; FEHBP covers the prescription drug care, and the two programs split other outpatient care. The Medicare prime retirees subsidize the early retirees and older active employees. Without this subsidy (either by keeping the older retirees entirely in FEHBP or kicking them entirely into Medicare, FEHB premiums would skyrocket due to the aging demographics of the active employees and early retirees. Jingle bells.

A few other tidbits --

• HHS provides an update on its new Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center.
• Becker's Hospital Review discusses a final HHS rule overhauling Medicare's accountable care organization program. 
• The same publication also provides a handy list on recent development in the healthcare information technology arena. 
• Fierce Healthcare updates us on the judicial proceedings concerning the CVS Health / Aetna merger. 
• Healthcare Payer Intelligence reports that HHS is formally bringing down the curtain on its effort to add a health plan identifier to the set of HIPAA standard identifiers. The time would have been better spent on a patient identifier.