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Health insurer Anthem Inc, which is fighting the government to save its merger with rival Cigna Corp, asked a judge on Tuesday to decide on the deal by the end of the year and to split its case off from the government's challenge of a second merger of insurance companies. The Justice Department filed lawsuits on July 21 asking a federal court to stop Anthem's deal for Cigna as well as Aetna Inc's planned acquisition of Humana Inc. This means that a judge will decide if the deals can go forward. (Bartz, 8/2)

Virginia’s Bureau of Insurance says a proposed merger between health insurance giants Anthem and Cigna would be bad for consumers. The bureau issued recently issued its analysis ahead of a decision by the State Corporation Commission whether to approve Anthem’s $54 billion acquisition of Cigna. (8/3)

The CareMore clinic is the most extensive Iowa example of a new health care model: Health insurance companies that pay medical bills also employ the doctors, nurses and other professionals who provide the care...The state last year hired three national companies to run the $4 billion program, which insures more than 500,000 poor or disabled Iowans. The clinic is owned by the corporate parent of one of those three companies, Amerigroup. (Leys, 8/2)

Projected premium increases for the two largest providers of health insurance in New Hampshire range from 4.2 percent to nearly 10 percent for individual plans, according to preliminary rate information filed by insurance companies with the federal government. The final rates for 2017 are still not approved, but the data released late Monday night on healthcare.gov predicts relatively small increases for the state’s two largest insurers, Anthem and Harvard Pilgrim, and much larger increases for Minuteman and Maine Community Health Options. (Solomon, 8/2)