New York Times: Centene said today that it had agreed to buy WellCare, a fellow health insurer, for about $15.3 billion in a deal that would to make the combined company one of the biggest managers of government-sponsored health care plans in the United States. One of Centene’s subsidiaries, Iowa Total Care, was awarded a contract last year as one of  three managers of Iowa’s privatized Medicaid system and is expected to begin administering Medicaid payments on July 1. Wellcare had previously held a contract as a Medicaid managed care organization for Iowa as well; the state terminated that contract in December 2015 after its alleged failure to disclose fraud that resulted in three of its former executives being sentenced to prison.