Officials at a Pennsylvania hearing this week questioned how Highmark‘s $475 million acquisition of West Penn Allegheny Health System (WPAHS), a struggling hospital network, would affect its financial solvency and in-state competition.

A Tampa, Fla.-based managed care services provider will pay $137.5 million to the federal government and nine states to settle four lawsuits accusing the company of violating the federal False Claims Act.

A federal judge in Detroit dismissed a suit against the U.S. government, seeking payment for the loss of a $750,000 Ferrari crashed by an FBI agent.

A Miami, Fla.-area man pleaded guilty to participating in two separate fraud schemes that led to the submission of more than $200 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare, according to federal prosecutors.

A federal appeals court in Atlanta, where 26 states will argue against the U.S. Government, is the next stop in the ongoing legal battle over federal health reform.

A hearing is scheduled for June 13 in Detroit in a civil case pitting an insurance company against the U.S. Justice Department over the destruction of a 1995 Ferrari F50 worth $750,000.

A three-judge panel in Virginia is questioning whether it has the legal authority to determine if the federal health reform law is constitutional.

Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s attorney general, is “cautiously optimistic” about his challenge of the federal health reform law.

The U.S. Justice Department has expanded an investigation of Blue Cross/Blue Shield licensees’ alleged anti-competitive agreements with hospitals beyond Michigan, where it filed an antitrust lawsuit against the insurer.

The attorney general of Massachusetts, the state on which much of the federal health reform law is based, has filed a brief supporting the federal law.