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Watch for Conversion of Best-Value Evaluation to Lowest-Cost, Technically Acceptable

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 12.04.13

With budgetary pressures increasing, agencies are more prone to make cost the determinative factor in their evaluations – regardless of the actual evaluation scheme – improperly converting a procurement into a lowest-cost, technically acceptable one. As demonstrated in GAO's recent decision in Logistics 2020, Inc. (Nov. 6, 2013), this may occur when a solicitation calls for a best-value award, but the agency uses evaluation criteria that merely measure whether proposals are technically acceptable, not whether any qualitative differences exist between proposals.


Insights

Client Alert | 7 min read | 08.19.26

CMS’s Final Rule Bans Federal Medicaid Funding for Youth Gender-Affirming Care

On August 13, 2026, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published its final rule banning the use of federal funds — through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) — to pay for gender-affirming care for children and youth. The final rule takes effect October 13, 2026 (“Prohibition on Federal Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program Funding for Sex-Rejecting Procedures Furnished to Children”). While CMS finalized several key elements of its late-2025 proposed rule (Client Alert December 24, 2025), the proposed Medicare hospital Condition of Participation rule remains in proposed form....