Trending News Today: Attorney General Moves to Stop Healthcare Mergers

The US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are planning to publish the star ratings for 3662 hospitals. The hospitals could be rated up to 5 stars by patients receiving care. The government believes these ratings will allow patients to better understand the quality of care given, but the hospital industry believes these ratings could be misleading, according to Kaiser Health News.

Some patients who have trouble accessing prescription opioid painkillers have resorted to traveling to other states to receive proper pain management care, according to Kaiser Health News. For these patients, alternative therapies may not be effective compared with the painkillers. This is common practice for some patients who live in rural areas such as Montana who do not have access to different physicians that other states might offer.

The United States Attorney General announced that they have filed lawsuits to block the Aetna-Humana and Anthem-Cigna mergers. They believe that allowing these mergers to occur could cause prices to increase and quality to decrease. However, Anthem plans to fight the lawsuit in court, The New York Times reported.