Is Reform Coming to FEHBP?

As my always-observant beat partner Alex Parker reported yesterday, stakeholders met on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to discuss whether there's a need to change the way the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program negotiates over the prices of prescription drugs. And Nancy Kichak, the Office of Personnel Management executive who oversees FEHBP said at my meeting with her on the same day that she and others at OPM are in the process of meeting with health care providers to see if there are best practices that FEHBP can adopt. I'd be curious to see if this turns into a movement for a full-scale reform of FEHBP. Such a process would pale in complexity to the health care debate currently taking place in Congress, but it would provide an interesting space in which to discuss some of the issues around large-scale health plans and exchanges. I'll be keeping an eye on this question in coming weeks and months.

And just to let y'all know, FedBlog is going to take a brief break tomorrow. I hope everyone has a good weekend. See you on Monday.