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Gov. Robert Bentley announced he will call a special session of the Legislature to consider a proposal for a lottery to help fix the state's persistent problem with funding state services. ... The most pressing issue, for now, is the Alabama Medicaid Agency, the largest consumer of dollars from the state General Fund and a program that serves about one million Alabamians. Earlier this year, lawmakers overrode Bentley's veto and approved a budget that appropriated $700 million from the General Fund for Medicaid for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Bentley said Medicaid needs $785 million to maintain services and to sustain a plan to changed Medicaid to a managed care program run through regional care organizations, or RCOs. (Cason, 7/27)

The state’s Medicaid HMOs defied predictions they’d lose money on the Healthy Michigan Plan, Michigan’s expanded Medicaid program, earning its highest profits in more than a decade last year, according to a new report. Michigan HMOs’ combined net income totaled $331 million in 2015, according to the Michigan Health Market Review, released Wednesday. The industry’s 2014 net income was $170 million. The decade’s previous high water mark was 2012 when net income for HMOs totaled $311 million. (Bouffard, 7/27)