Weekend update

Congress is out of town this coming week. Here’s a link to the Week in Congress’s account of last week’s activities.

Speaking of last week’s activities, here’s a link to Healthcare IT News’ summary of major events at the HIMSS conference, which focuses on healthcare technology.

The New York Times offered an interesting piece on wellness programs this morning. The upshot of the article is that “adjusting people’s health insurance premiums is not a good way to motivate them to lose weight. Such incentives need to be designed better.” OPM is asking Congress for that authority.  The article discusses ways to craft effective programs with incentives that are separated from the insurace premiums.

Modern Healthcare reports on healthcare provider CEO reactions to healthcare mergers and acquisitions activity which has been brisk.

Although 72% of the surveyed healthcare leaders said they believe government scrutiny will grow regardless of who wins the White House, it won’t deter executives from pursuing transactions they deem beneficial. “The market forces, quite frankly, have been unleashed, [by the Affordable Care Act] and they are going to move regardless of what happens in the presidential election,” [one executive] said.