Today, the Supreme Court issued a historic ruling, upholding the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate—the requirement for most individuals to obtain health insurance. The Court upheld the individual mandate by a vote of 5 to 4, finding it constitutional under Congress’s taxing authority. While the court also upheld the federal government’s ability to expand Medicaid coverage, the Justices ruled that the government could not withdraw existing Medicaid funding from states that opt out of the expansion.

Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Innovation Center) announced the second and final batch for the Health Care Innovation Awards funding opportunity. As a reminder, the Health Care Innovation Awards, authorized by the Affordable Care Act, will fund up to $1 billion in grants for projects that aim to improve care and lower costs for people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program, as well as enhance the health care workforce.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) have announced commitment from 45 commercial, federal and state insurers in seven markets to work with CMS under the Comprehensive Primary Care initiative, which seeks to foster collaboration between public and private health care payers to improve health outcomes. Under the program, CMS will pay primary care practices a monthly care management fee to support enhanced, coordinated services. Simultaneously, participating commercial, state, and other federal insurance plans will also offer an enhanced payment for coordinated primary care ton behalf of their members.