Friday Five: Top 5 healthcare business news items from the MCOL Weekend edition

Every business day, MCOL posts feature stories making news on the business of health care. Here are five we think are particularly important for this week: House tax writers weigh plan to suspend Obamacare insurer tax House Republican tax writers are considering delaying Obamacare's health insurance tax for only limited markets next year, leaving out small businesses and possibly private Medicaid plans, according to sources on and off Capitol Hill. They would suspend it for all markets in 2019. Politico Thursday, December 7, 2017 Hospitals Find Asthma Hot Spots More Profitable To Neglect Than Fix Months of reporting and rich hospital data portray life in the worst asthma hot spot in one of the worst asthma cities: Baltimore. The medical system knows how to help. But there’s no money in it. Kaiser Health News Wednesday, December 6, 2017 Providers See CMS Continuing Value-Based Care Push Despite Project Rollbacks Though the Trump administration last week rolled back several Obama-era projects designed to shift the U.S. health care system away from fee-for-service care to models that pay doctors and hospitals based on the quality of care, industry groups believe the government is likely to continue with the push toward value-based care. Morning Consult Tuesday, December 5, 2017 States get big Medicaid savings from social services, outreach to sickest patients Some states have achieved dramatic savings in health care costs for their sickest Medicaid patients by providing intensive one-on-one assistance and social services that help the patients better address their multiple, overlapping ailments. USA Today Tuesday, December 5, 2017 CVS likely wants FTC antitrust review, not Justice Department, of Aetna deal It is uncertain who in the U.S. government will carry out an antitrust review of CVS Health Corp’s (CVS.N) deal to buy health insurer Aetna Inc (AET.N), but the drugstore company is likely hoping the potentially more lenient Federal Trade Commission gets the nod, antitrust experts say. Reuters Tuesday, December 5, 2017 These and more weekly news items on the business of healthcare are featured in the MCOL Weekend edition, along with the MCOL Tidbits, and more, for MCOL Premium level members.