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U.S. employers, battered by rising hospital and pharmaceutical prices, are increasingly open to a bigger government role in healthcare, including regulating prices and expanding Medicare to more working Americans. In one recent survey, more than three-quarters of responding employers said government regulation of drug prices and hospital rates would be “very helpful” or “somewhat helpful.” (Levey, 9/29)

Molina Healthcare said it will buy Affinity Health Plan for $380 million in cash, expanding the health insurer’s Medicaid government health benefits businesses deeper into New York. Affinity, a Medicaid health plan with more than 280,000 subscribers in New York City, Westchester, Orange, Nassau, Suffolk, and Rockland counties in New York, has $1.3 billion in annual premium revenue. (Japsen, 9/29)

Nursing homes were more than twice as likely to say they had no room when responding to inquiries from families saying they planned to pay for care with Medicaid — the government health program relied on by low-income residents — rather than paying privately. Often the difference wasn’t subtle. In some cases, employees from the same facility would tell the daughter of a purported Medicaid applicant that there was a waiting list, while telling the daughter of a private payer, who could be expected to pay the nursing home nearly twice as much, she would be happy to discuss the options. (Kowalczyk and Arsenault, 9/28)

In the middle of a coronavirus pandemic that has tossed up challenge after challenge, the state Department of Health and Human Services also must tend to another enormous project. Over the next 10 months, the department has been told by the legislature to complete the transformation of its cumbersome Medicaid system. (Blythe and Hoban, 9/29)