It's a rare tax that gets health insurers, state officials and consumer advocates to all sing Kuumbaya.

On Monday, CMS announced that 21 organizations -- including three in California -- initially will participate in its Next Generation Accountable Care Organization Model, MedPage Today reports (Frieden, MedPage Today, 1/11).

California lawmakers are working to revive a stalled bill (AB 463) that aimed to increase prescription drug cost transparency, KQED's "State of Health" reports (Dembosky, "State of Health," KQED, 1/12).

Promising workers lower health insurance premiums for losing weight did nothing to help them take off the pounds, a recent study found. At the end of a year, obese workers had lost less than 1.5 pounds on average, statistically no different than the minute average gain of a tenth of a pound for workers who weren’t offered a financial incentive to lose weight.

About 15 state attorneys general have joined the Justice Department's probe of two big insurance mergers, according to people familiar with the matter, increasing the scrutiny on proposed deals that would reduce the number of nationwide health insurers to three from five.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed $122.6 billion California budget plan would seem to please Democratic interests by pumping billions of tax dollars generated by the booming state economy into public schools and universities, health care for the poor and public infrastructure.