What We're Reading: Hospitals Will Help Pay for Medicaid Expansion in Louisiana

Under new legislation being finalized in Louisiana, hospitals in the state will be charged a fee to help the state pay for Medicaid expansion. The Louisiana Hospital Association was in favor of expanding the program and supported the efforts to enact a fee to help pay, reported The Times-Picayune. The hospitals will be paying up to 40% of the cost of expansion and the fee will be reassessed each year.

After new rules aimed at the Pfizer-Allergan merger that used a controversial tax inversion were revealed earlier this week, the deal was called off. Now, Pfizer is considering an old plan first considered 5 years ago: splitting the company up, according to STAT. The split would create 2 entities: one that focused on the established business and produced older drugs, and one that focused on innovative business and produced newer and forthcoming products.

Just days after receiving the bad news from the Treasury Department, Pfizer got some good new regarding some lawsuits it was facing. A judge in Philadelphia dismissed more than 300 lawsuits alleging that Zoloft caused birth defects in children born to women who took the antidepressant while they were pregnant, reported Reuters. The judge ruled that the plaintiffs had not produced enough evidence showing a plausible link between the drug and the birth defects.