Newsletters

07.28.16

Sen. Franken Hits Pause on Pokémon GO

After the Pokémon GO app was downloaded approximately 7.5 million times in the United States alone in its first week of release, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), the chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, wrote to the company about its privacy policy.


07.28.16

Manatt on Medicaid: Monthly Expansion Recap, July 2016

The joint legislative council that sued Governor Bill Walker (I) over his executive order expanding Medicaid voted to drop its lawsuit after Superior Court Judge Frank Pfiffner ruled that the House could not substitute itself as the plaintiff in the case.


07.27.16

Wearables, Devices and Cybersecurity: New Regulations and Potential Liability

According to a report the Brookings Institute issued in May 2016, 23% of all data breaches occur in the healthcare industry.


07.27.16

Steering and Its Broad Implications for Payer-Hospital Negotiations

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division (DOJ) and the North Carolina Attorney General sued Carolinas HealthCare System (CHS) in North Carolina District Court alleging that CHS exercised its dominant market power to prevent insurers from steering patients to its ...


07.27.16

California Supreme Court Clarifies Constitutional Limits on Punitive Damages

In Brandt v. Superior Court, the California Supreme Court held that when a plaintiff proves that an insurance company withheld policy benefits in bad faith, attorneys' fees reasonably incurred to compel payment of the benefits are recoverable as an element of damages.


07.27.16

Scalia's Death Has Limited Impact on Major Healthcare Cases

Justice Antonin Scalia's death apparently impacted only one of the four major healthcare cases pending before the United States Supreme Court this term.


07.27.16

The FCA: Escobar Means More Than You Think

On June 6, 2016, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in the Medicaid case of Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, adopting a form of the "implied certification" theory of knowingly fraudulent representations under the False Claims Act (FCA).


07.26.16

Manatt on Health Reform: Weekly Highlights, July 26, 2016

CMS’s increase of “income verification threshold” makes eligibility determinations easier for consumers; Oregon CO-OP policyholders can credit out-of-pocket spending towards new plans; and report finds that 13 million people would become Medicaid-eligible if non-expansion states ...


07.22.16

NY State Woefully Undervalues the Damages From MMA

New York State is requiring $1M of insurance for life-altering brain injuries resulting from mixed martial arts (MMA), which previously had been banned in New York.


07.21.16

“Official Acts”—What They Are… and Are Not

On June 27, 2016, the Supreme Court decided McDonnell v. U.S., holding that, for purposes of the federal public corruption statutes, an “official act” consists of a concrete decision or action taken with respect to a proceeding pending before a court, agency or committee, and that ...