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The departure of one of the Obama administration’s top Obamacare officials will leave a key federal agency without a confirmed leader just as the Supreme Court takes up a case that carries huge risks for the law. (Haberkorn and Norman, 1/16)

Ms. Tavenner, who was partly responsible for the disastrous debut of the online insurance exchange in October 2013, had given no public indications that she would be stepping down. She joined the administration in February 2010, a few weeks before President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. She was a senior official at the Medicare agency, which insures one in three Americans and has an annual budget of more than $800 billion, before she was confirmed by the Senate in May 2013 as administrator. (Pear, 1/16)

Though one of the most senior officials involved in the botched rollout of the HealthCare.gov website in 2013, Tavenner never drew as much fire as her boss at the time, former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who resigned last year. The agency has been widely credited this year with overseeing a far smoother enrollment period under the federal health law, as millions of Americans have been signing up for health coverage since November. (Levey, 1/16)

Marilyn Tavenner, a key Obama administration health official overseeing the country's largest health insurance programs, announced Friday that she's resigning from her position as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services next month. (Milman, 1/16)

Ms. Tavenner became the first permanent head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in more than six years when she was confirmed in 2013—after working more than a year in an acting capacity. She continued to enjoy Republican support through the rollout of the health law’s insurance exchanges. Andy Slavitt, a former top executive at UnitedHealth Group who is now the second-highest-ranking official in the agency, will take over as acting administrator, agency officials said. (Radofsky, 1/16)

Medicare's top administrator unexpectedly resigned Friday, becoming the latest casualty in the turmoil over the president's health care law, which is still struggling for acceptance even as millions benefit from expanded coverage. Marilyn Tavenner's departure underscores the uncertainty overshadowing President Barack Obama's health care law nearly five years after its party-line passage by a then-Democratic-led Congress. The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the legality of the law's financial subsidies this spring, and a new Republican Congress is preparing more repeal votes. (1/16)

Marilyn Tavenner, the head of the federal agency that oversaw the rocky HealthCare.gov rollout, announced Friday she was stepping down from her post. (1/16)

The Obama administration is investigating whether Aetna Inc. misled elderly and disabled people about which pharmacies would fill prescriptions in Medicare drug plans the health insurer sold them. Those customers will be able to quit their coverage and choose a new plan this year as a result, the federal government said. The Hartford, Connecticut-based insurer provided incorrect information about its pharmacy network on Medicare’s website, on its own site and by telephone during the program’s 2015 enrollment period, which ended Dec. 7, Raymond Thorn, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in an e-mail. (Wayne, 1/16)