The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should delay the Oct. 1, 2014, compliance date for health plans to adopt unique health plan identifiers (HPIDs), some health industry associations said in comment letters submitted in response to a CMS proposed rule.

The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General May 29 announced expected recoveries from federal health care programs of roughly $1.2 billion for the first six months of fiscal year 2012, due in part to an increased focus on technology solutions, according to the agency's Semiannual Report to Congress.

NEW YORK--A district court's injunction order that authorized the destruction of appropriation art pieces that the court determined were infringing “seems like something that would appeal to the Huns or the Taliban,” Judge Barrington D. Parker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said May 21 during appellate arguments in a copyright infringement case (Cariou v. Prince, 2d Cir., No. 11-1197, argued 5/21/12).

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology should more clearly define pieces of its plan for governing the Nationwide Health Information Network by clarifying its terminology and separating policy-level requirements and technical, implementation-level requirements, according to comments from the HIT Standards Committee's workgroups.

Reps. Frank Pallone Jr., (D-N.J.) and John Barrow (D-Ga.) want the DOJ to fully investigate Google for what they say could be potential violations of federal wiretapping laws. They cite a recently released Federal Communications Commission report on Google's Street View cars spying on WiFi networks. The lawmakers issued their request in a May 24 letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Federal Communications Commission General Counsel Austin Schlick will resign effective mid-June, the FCC said May 25.

President Obama's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology is planning to recommend that the president call for as much as 1,000 MHz of government-held spectrum be shared with commercial broadband networks.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation reported an unrealistic present value of financial assistance payments for multiemployer plans in a fiscal year 2010 annual report, the agency's Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a report recently posted to the agency's website.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced a bill May 23 that would force the Office of the United States Trade Representative to provide documentation on its trade negotiations upon request from anyone in Congress.

Another study detailing the impact that IP intensive industries have on the U.S. economy was unveiled by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Intellectual Property Center May 23.