Ah, the beginning of the first weekend of the NFL playoffs. Although my Redskins are not in the hunt, it still will be fun to watch so let’s get to it.

Following up on Wednesday’s post, the House did pass the REINS Act (HR 26). Reuters reports that the Democrats plan to fight the anti-administrative state bills in the Senate.

To the FEHBlog’s surprise, he noticed that U.S. District Judge Berman proceeded with the second / regional competition phase of the trial over the government’s effort to block the Anthem / Cigna merger. The FEHBlog expected a decision between the first / national competition phase and the second phase but that didn’t happen. Indeed the second phase of the trial, according to Healthcare Finance, ended on Wednesday. So both of the anti-trust cases involving health insurer mergers, the Aetna/Humana merger and this one, are in the hands of their respective judges for a decision which should be annnounced this month.

All of the federal agencies this week issued exit reports to assist the incoming Trump administration. OPM’s report can be found here.  The FEHBP is briefly discussed on the last page of the report.