Month: October 2019

Employers are seeking more innovative ways to manage healthcare costs while hitting the pause button using high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) to do it, a new survey shows. 

Technology continues to reshape the landscape of the benefits business. As employers increasingly rely on technology for everything from enrollment to administration and compliance, they look to their brokers for sound advice.

Employers may be getting better at communicating about benefits during open enrollment.

A new California law could affect the design of life insurance-based long-term care (LTC) hybrid products.

Prescription drug companies and trade groups shelled out millions of dollars to lobby Congress as it considered legislation aimed at reining in skyrocketing drug prices, according to new lobbying disclosure reports.  The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) — the trade group representing branded drug companies — spent $6.2 million on lobbying in the third quarter of 2019, which ran from July through the end of September.

WASHINGTON — Democratic lawmakers in recent weeks have begun to advance an argument long seen as something of a third rail in U.S. politics: that slightly less biomedical innovation might be worth a dramatic reduction in drug prices. The surprising candor has come amid pushback to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s high-profile drug pricing bill, which the trade group PhRMA this month said represented “nuclear winter” for the development of new medicines.

Applied Underwriters executives have responded to efforts by the California Department of Insurance to halt the sale of one of its subsidiaries and threaten to upend a reported $920 million deal that’s been in the works for some time.

Employers are increasingly seeking out benefits brokers who can assist them with compliance issues. That’s according to a new employer survey from Zywave, which found the vast majority of clients (98%) want their brokers to assist them with compliance related questions and 78% want compliance resources.

If you are among the Californians who buy your own health insurance, a surprise may await you as the enrollment period for 2020 coverage opens this week. Starting Jan. 1, California will become the first state to offer subsidies to middle-income people who make too much money to qualify for the federal tax credits that help consumers buy health coverage through Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act insurance exchange.

Now that California legislators and Gov. Gavin Newsom are done making new laws for the year, here’s a look at how the policies they created will affect your health care.