Author: Kalup Alexander
Among all the reasons for rising health insurance premiums, this one might be the most obscure: A long-term care insurer in Pennsylvania just went belly-up.
Employer-provided health insurance is so ingrained in the American workplace that people expect it to continue even as politicians thrash out the role of government in health care. That’s according to polling, business owners and consumers. And in a nearly saturated labor market, employers don’t want to give workers a reason to work somewhere else.
Democrats control every lever of power in California state government, and free from worrying about major losses to Republicans, they’re training fire instead on each other. The latest example is a recall effort against Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, a strong progressive now targeted by party activists upset that he derailed a bill seeking government-funded health care for all.
A U.S. appeals court decided Monday that the federal government wrongly approved California’s request to temporarily cut Medi-Cal reimbursement by 10% during the recession for hospital outpatient care.
All six of the major health insurers topped Wall Street expectations in the second quarter as the industry distanced itself from turmoil in Washington. Cigna Corp. was the final insurer in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to report on Friday. Its earnings came in higher than analysts anticipated and the company raisedits profit outlook for the year. For-profit ...
Martin Shkreli, the eccentric former pharmaceutical CEO notorious for a price-gouging scandal and for his snide "Pharma Bro" persona on social media, was convicted Friday on federal charges that he deceived investors in a pair of failed hedge funds.
Under preliminary Obamacare rates announced by Covered California, premiums on exchange plans will rise by an average of 5.7 percent in Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado and Yolo counties. That’s less than half of the statewide average of 12.5 percent, and consumers could virtually avoid an increase altogether if they shop around.
Big insurers have retreated from Obamacare’s individual market, where fighting over the future of the health law has contributed to financial losses. They’re focusing instead on Medicare Advantage, a politically popular program that’s being embraced by a growing population of older Americans.
After all, the Oakland, Calif.-based hospital and managed-care giant is swimming against the same national trends that dented the earnings of investor-owned hospital chains in the second quarter.
Covered California on Tuesday announced that health insurance rates on the state’s health insurance exchange created under the Affordable Care Act will increase by an average rate of 12.5 percent for 2018 plans.