Month: April 2021
Just as other industries are rolling back some consumer-friendly changes made early in the pandemic — think empty middle seats on airplanes — so, too, are health insurers.
Starting next month, Google will require health insurers to apply for certification for their ads to run on the search engine. The tech giant announced Tuesday that it will only allow insurance ads from certified government exchanges, first-party providers and licensed third-party brokers.
Insurers spent record high totals on lobbying this year as congressional Democrats worked on multi-billion dollar legislation to subsidize commercial health plans and expand access to coverage.
A coalition of 17 senators is calling on President Biden to expand Medicare as part of his next massive economic spending bill. In a Sunday letter addressed to the White House, the group of mostly Democrats – led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. – urged Biden to lower the Medicare eligibility age, expand Medicare benefits to include vision, dental ...
Democrats are urging the White House to include their health policy ideas in the next phase of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure push, with hopes of gaining an edge over colleagues with competing plans. Congressional leaders, top senators, and rank-and-file Democrats say they’ve put in calls or made trips to the White House this week plugging ...
The Biden administration is advancing emergency workplace safety rules to prevent the spread of the coronavirus after weeks of delay and growing pressure from Democrats and safety advocates. The Labor Department sent the safety standards to the Office of Management and Budget for review Monday night, according to a DOL spokesperson, the first step before ...
Efforts to increase health care price transparency are moving forward, but problems remain with the current reforms, raising questions on whether additional steps are needed, a new Rand Corporation study has found. The report, “Barriers to Price and Quality Transparency in Health Care Markets,” noted that recent legislative and regulatory efforts to increase transparency are being implemented: ...
The University of California and California State University announced Thursday that they will require COVID-19 vaccinations for all students, faculty and staff on campus properties this fall once the Food and Drug Administration gives formal approval to the vaccines and supplies are sufficiently available. The directive is the largest of its kind in U.S. higher ...
The pace of vaccinations in California has declined for the first time in weeks, mirroring a national trend that has experts worried about slowing demand for the life-saving vaccine. On average last week, just over 360,000 doses were administered daily across California, an 8% drop from mid-April when the seven-day average peaked at about 391,000 ...
Large employers are asking Congress to make it easier for health savings account (HSA) holders to get some mental health care for no or low cost, before they meet their deductibles. During a live-streamed House Education and Labor health subcommittee hearing on behavioral and mental health care access, James Gelfand, a senior vice president for health ...