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Members of Congress from both parties, as well as some employers, insurers and state insurance commissioners, are calling for changes in the Affordable Care Act to prevent premium increases that are expected to affect workers at many small and midsize companies next year. Lawmakers see the potential for a rare bipartisan agreement on the issue, after five years in which Republicans have repeatedly tried to repeal the law and Democrats have blocked their efforts. (Pear, 9/20)

Consumer-run health insurance cooperatives, created under the Affordable Care Act to stimulate competition and lower prices for health insurance, faltered almost from the start. In just the last two months, health insurance cooperatives in Louisiana and Nevada announced they were going belly up at the end of the year. They followed another, operating in Nebraska and Iowa, which had been ordered by a state court to liquidate. (Ollove, 9/21)

The National Committee for Quality Assurance has scrapped its old ranking system for health plans and instituted a new ratings system that's similar to what the CMS has implemented for providers and Medicare Advantage plans. NCQA made the change to be more consistent with the government's strategy for judging healthcare quality and to more accurately represent a health insurer's performance. (Herman, 9/18)

The Austin-based Latino HealthCare Forum has received a federal grant of $190,470 to help Central Texans sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The forum was started in 2010 to help Spanish-speaking people sign up for health care. (Chang, 9/18)