Brian Ahier

At a June 18, 2013 Senate Finance Committee hearing, leading health care experts and U.S. Senators explored the high and variable cost of health care in America, as part of a special Senate Committee on Finance hearing on health care transparency.

On April 10, 2013, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) published parallel proposed rules revising, respectively, the Stark exception and Anti-Kickback safe harbor concerning electronic health record (EHR) items and services.

The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), Heritage Provider Network (HPN), and The Advisory Board Company have launched the Care Transformation Prize Series, a national contest to address the most daunting data problems US health care organizations face as they implement new delivery system and payment reforms.

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have voted by 257-167, with 172 Democratic votes and only 85 Republicans voting in favor, to approve the previously Senate-passed bill that will avert the so-called "fiscal cliff" of automatic tax increases and mandated spending cuts.

Chief Justice Roberts is very smart, and quite possibly pretty sly as well. I have been reading through the Supreme Court's landmark decision on health reform (which like many others, I predicted wrongly).