This Week’s Health Industry News
By REED ABELSON

The week begins with a meeting of some of the nation’s for-profit hospitals, talking public policy and business in the nation’s capital. The Federation of American Hospitals, which represents investor-owned or for-profit hospitals, is holding its annual conference this week.

Federal regulators are also busy, starting the week with an update of their popular “most wanted list of health care fugitives.”

Congress is also back in action, taking yet another look at the federal health care law. On Tuesday, the House Energy & Commerce committee will discuss “The consequences of ObamaCare: Impact on Medicaid and State Health Care Reform” in a hearing. We suspect there will be more to come.

On Wednesday, lawmakers appear to have fraud on the mind. The Senate Finance Committee will be holding a hearing on preventing health care fraud, while the House subcomittee on oversight and investigations will be holding its own hearing on the topic.

The Food and Drug Administration will hold some interesting meetings on Wednesday. For those who are following the menthol debate, you might want to check out the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee’s session that day. If you’re more interested in how drug companies can better develop medicines for orphan and rare diseases, try the Pharmaceutical Science and Clinical Pharmacology Advisory Committee, which is also having a meeting on Wednesday.

If you’ve been following the states’ struggles over how to deal with their Medicaid programs, you might want to check out last Sunday’s story on governors’ views in The Washington Post and Monday’s story in The Wall Street Journal on the state’s efforts to reduce the number of people who are eligible for the program. For a look at the politics of the situation in New York, be sure to not to miss last Sunday’s article in The New York Times.

Be also sure to check out the latest article in the series by Walt Bogdanich on the hazards of medical radiation in Monday’s paper. For something a little lighter, try Monday’s feature by Ashley Parker about President Obama’s personal trainer.

Also worth reading on Monday is The Wall Street Journal’s take on the debate over exactly what “essential benefits” must be covered under the new health care law.

Let us know if we missed anything.