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HHS on Monday approved Rhode Island's 1332 waiver application to create an individual market reinsurance fund supported by federal funding. Rhode Island anticipates the move will lower premiums and expand coverage statewide. The state expects the 1332 waiver will reduce premiums by 5.9% in 2020 compared to what they would be without the waiver, according to HHS. Rhode Island thinks the lower premiums will grow individual market enrollment by about 1% in 2020. (Brady, 8/27)

Lafayette General Health has created a second health care innovation fund that will seek funding for advancement in the local, state and national health care marketplace. Lafayette General Health made the announcement Monday of the Healthcare Innovation Fund II, a limited liability company that will target investments in health care companies seeking seed or growth capital. It will be an investor along with Acadian Companies, LHC Group, Ochsner Health System and the William C. Schumacher Family Foundation. (8/27)

Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office wants a judge to toss out a lawsuit challenging a legislative decision that would strip Medicaid money from two South Florida hospitals with ownership ties to a nursing home where residents died after Hurricane Irma. Moody’s office, representing Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Mary Mayhew, filed a 32-page document last week arguing that a Leon County circuit judge should dismiss the lawsuit by Larkin Community Hospital and Larkin Community Hospital Palm Springs Campus, both in Miami-Dade County. (Saunders, 8/27)

Florida is planning a major overhaul to its Medicaid program that serves more than 30,000 people with disabilities, and hundreds of Floridians have told the state what they want — and fear — from the change in both an emotional public meeting that ran overtime and comments submitted in writing. Though administrators at the Agency for Persons with Disabilities asked the public for feedback, it now says those written comments are private health information that needs to be protected from public view. (Koh, 8/27)

Kansas’s newest KanCare insurance company, Aetna, has experienced a range of problems — from missed payments to incomplete information.Tuesday, its leader sought to make amends. (Shorman, 8/27)

Adree Edmo is one step closer to becoming the first inmate to receive a gender confirmation surgery in Idaho as the result of a court order. After years of struggling with her gender identity, attempting suicide and trying to castrate herself twice in an all-male Idaho prison, a court ruled that Edmo should be provided the surgery. After that, she will serve the remainder of her sentence at a women’s correctional facility. (Beachum, 8/27)