Payer

Pennsylvania seniors caught in the middle of the feud between UPMC and Highmark will have another Medicare Advantage option this fall when UnitedHealthcare makes its Medicare Advantage plans widely available in Western Pennsylvania, according to a TribLive report.

New Jersey's dominant insurance company "schemed in secret" to intentionally exclude Catholic hospitals from a new plan, Sister Patricia Codey, president of the state's Catholic HealthCare Partnership said Monday, according to an NJ.com report.

Marietta, Ga.-based WellStar Health System and Atlanta-based Piedmont Healthcare are discontinuing their joint Medicare Advantage plan, according to the Associated Press.

Anthem, in its application to the Connecticut Insurance Department to acquire rival health insurer Cigna, said it has no plans to cut Cigna workers if the proposed deal goes through, according to a Hartford Courant report.

New York and federal regulators have ordered Health Republic Insurance of New York, a nonprofit insurance cooperative, to stop selling policies and to begin winding down business, according to a Bloomberg report.

This summer, the news was saturated with talks of mega-mergers among the big five health insurers. In early July, Aetna agreed to buy Humana, and Anthem inked a deal with Cigna that same month.

The following insurers made headlines this week. They are listed below, beginning with the most recent.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association has announced 36 independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies are committed to contributing data on healthcare quality and costs to the Blue Cross Blue Shield Axis.

The CEOs of health insurers Aetna and Anthem defended their mega-merger deals before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust on Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal.

HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell reflected on the first five years of the Affordable Care Act and provided a look at the upcoming open enrollment period in a speech at Washington, D.C.-based Howard University College of Medicine Sept. 22.