HomeCare Editors’ Top 5: Week of February 23

Each week, we scour the top health headlines to bring you the stories you may have missed.

CMS Revives and Retools Partnership for Patients

The CMS Innovation Center plans to revive the Partnership for Patients, the $1 billion patient-safety initiative that ended last December, and will attempt to fix a flaw in its structure that obscured the results. State hospital associations, major U.S. health systems and other companies formed so-called hospital engagement networks under the initiative and agreed to aggressive targets to reduce hospital-acquired conditions and readmissions. (Melanie Evans/ Modern Healthcare)

Obama Cites Health Plan Tally of 11.4 Million

President Obama said Tuesday that 11.4 million people had selected private health insurance plans or renewed their coverage under the Affordable Care Act in the enrollment period that ended Sunday. “It gives you some sense of how hungry people were out there for affordable, accessible health insurance,” Mr. Obama said in a video released by the White House. Administration officials said the numbers would grow in the next week as insurance marketplaces, or exchanges, signed up people who had tried to enroll but encountered technical problems on HealthCare.gov or state insurance websites. (Robert Pear/ The New York Times)

US Health Care Spending on the Rise Again

The national medical bill may be back to growing faster than gross domestic product. After five years of historically slow growth, new data show U.S. health-care spending accelerated significantly in 2014. The analysis, from the Altarum Institute research group and based on preliminary government data, shows health spending increasing by 5 percent last year, compared to 3.6 percent in 2013. If confirmed by the final tally, health-care spending during 2014 would mark the biggest jump since before the recession. (John Tozzi/ Bloomberg)

Governors: No Clear Plan if Subsidies Fail

Millions of people could lose health insurance subsidies in the coming months if the Supreme Court sides with opponents of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. And one thing was clear this weekend as the nation’s governors gathered in Washington: Many of the states that could be affected are not prepared for the potential fallout. (Steve Peoples/ Associated Press)

For Obamacare Challengers, a Supreme Court Case Built for Speed

The U.S. Supreme Court case that could shatter President Barack Obama’s healthcare law this year was launched as a backup plan by a libertarian group and a powerful Washington lawyer frustrated by the slow progress of their original lawsuit. Their success in persuading the court to take the ideologically driven case owes to a combination of canny legal tactics and the willingness of at least four justices to hear it in unusually swift time. Oral arguments are set for March 4. (Joan Biskupic/ Reuters)