Physician influence can be bought for as little as a $20 meal, UCSF researchers have found.

Aetna Inc.’s $37 billion deal to buy Humana Inc.was approved by the California Department of Managed Health Care, which said Monday that it could move forward after the company agreed to invest in the state’s health care infrastructure.

Skyrocketing drug prices are forcing states to take unprecedented measures to rein in health care spending. Vermont just became thenation’s first state to require prescription drug pricing transparency. The New York and Massachusetts attorneys general have launched investigations into major pharmaceutical companies’ and insurers’ drug pricing policies and strategies.

However, he noted that these increases do not reflect any rebates or discounts. After taking those price breaks into account, in fact, Risinger estimated that the actual “net price growth” was slightly less than half of the increases in the list prices.

California lawmakers are lining up in support of a bill that would require health plans to provide information about patient-assistance programs for expensive prescription drugs to enrollees who drop or lose their coverage.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell on Thursday sought to calm the nerves of health insurers increasingly in doubt about the fate of the ObamaCare marketplace.