California health plan regulators are approving Centene's bid to purchase fellow insurer Health Net.

Two of the largest players in the U.S. pharmaceutical supply-chain, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. and UnitedHealth Group Inc.’s OptumRx, formed a partnership aimed at helping them capture a greater share of the prescription drug market.

The Brown administration this week formally asked the U.S. government to sign off on a revamped tax on health plans that has the primary goal of continuing to pull in more than $1 billion in federal money.

California’s insurance exchange is threatening to cut hospitals from its networks for poor performance or high costs, a novel proposal that is drawing heavy fire from medical providers and insurers.

Secret deals often prompt drug benefit companies to cover brand-name prescriptions when equally effective generic or even over-the-counter medications are available, several drug pricing experts say.

California’s health exchange may require its health plans to pay sales commissions to insurance agents to keep insurers from shunning the sickest and costliest patients.