President Trump signed the latest $1.4 trillion spending bills into law to fund the government and simultaneously gutted three taxes related to the Affordable Care Act: the health insurance tax, Cadillac tax and medical device tax.

Novartis may give away a new drug with a price tag above $2 million for free to some patients using a lottery-style program. The drug, Zolgensma, is a cure for a deadly inherited disease, spinal muscular atrophy, and the world’s most expensive drug.

Advocates applauded its demise Friday, Dec. 20, following the president’s final pen stroke. 

Humana’s top executives offloaded a significant sum of shares in late December, shedding about 107,077 Humana shares worth $37.7 million, Louisville Business First reported.

Cigna, one of the nation’s largest health insurance providers, has agreed to sell its group disability and life insurance business to New York Life for a purchase price of $6.3 billion.

The American College of Radiology believes a potential cancer care payment model is too “oncology centric,” and could push providers to select imaging services based on cost alone, rather than quality. 

The individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act, which requires individuals to have health insurance coverage or face a penalty, has been declared unconstitutional by the Fifth Circuit Court. The ruling is a victory for the Republican-led lawsuit to overturn the ACA. However, it still leaves other elements of the ACA without a decision, including the popular provision of healthcare coverage for those with pre-existing conditions.

The Trump administration, along with HHS and the FDA, have issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NRPM) for a drug importation plan to allow certain drugs to be purchased from Canada.