Month: May 2024
An emerging legal battle over workplace health insurance could empower employees to fight back against high costs and put new pressure on their employers. Why it matters: Workers fed up with rising health care costs, which also eat into their wages, are filing lawsuits aiming to hold employers accountable for cutting what they say are bad deals with firms ...
Next year, the new limits for health savings accounts and high-deductible health plans are a slight bump, following 2024's largest-ever increase to the amount employees can set aside in their accounts.
Employers trying to rein in rising health costs are also taking the fight directly to health care providers. Why it matters: New transparency around the price of health care services and workers’ mounting frustration with costs are emboldening some employers to get tough in negotiations with hospitals and provider groups. “We can improve quality and can make health care more ...
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Thursday it has established a new task force to take on healthcare monopolies and collusion. The task force, called HCMC for short, will guide the division’s enforcement strategy and policy approach in healthcare, including by facilitating policy advocacy, investigations and, where warranted, civil and criminal enforcement in healthcare ...
Some of the most influential and wealthy groups in California politics are squaring off over legislation that would give California’s attorney general oversight of private equity firms and hedge funds acquiring major health care institutions.
For much of his young life, Jorge Sanchez regularly gasped for air, at times coughing so violently that he’d almost throw up. His mother whisked him to the emergency room late at night and slept with him to make sure he didn’t stop breathing. “He’s had these problems since he was born, and I couldn’t ...
Dr. Rebecca Mishuris remembers her mother, also a doctor, bringing home her patients’ medical charts every night and working on them long after she’d gone to bed. For years, Mishuris, a primary care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, repeated the ritual herself. But no more. Since last summer, she’s been piloting two competing software ...
The federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) will mark its 50th anniversary this year, after being signed into law by President Gerald Ford on September 2, 1974. As modern business practices evolve far beyond the 1970s landscape that initially established ERISA, lawmakers are now considering significant changes to align the law with today’s challenges ...
Even if your genetics put you at greater risk for early death, a healthy lifestyle could help you significantly combat it, according to a new study. That risk could be mitigated by about 62% in people with a genetic predisposition, said lead author Dr. Xifeng Wu, dean of the School of Public Health at Zhejiang ...
The Retirement Security Rule, finalized on April 23, is polarizing and is sure to face significant legal challenges (one lawsuit has already been filed), because the rule applies a new, heightened fiduciary duty to the insurance industry.