Author: Scott Welch
Eliza Brader worries she soon will need to prove she’s working to continue receiving Medicaid health coverage. She doesn’t think she should have to. The 27-year-old resident of Bloomington, Indiana, has a pacemaker and a painful joint disease. She also has fused vertebrae in her neck from a spinal injury, preventing her from turning her ...
Healthcare organizations are facing evolving ransomware tactics as data extortion attacks are on the rise. Cyber attackers are taking advantage of the sensitive data held by healthcare providers to launch quicker and easier attacks, according to Sophos, a cybersecurity software and security services company. Attackers are increasingly focused on data extortion, or data theft, rather ...
Breakthroughs in weight-loss medicine are presenting state Medicaid officials with what looks like a sure bet: Spend big now to cover the drugs and reap savings when diabetes, heart disease and cancer rates drop. States are hesitating to take it. The few states that have decided to cover drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy to help ...
A new survey of centenarians finds people who make it to 100 are not letting the grass grow under their feet. Many have taken up habits that younger people may find surprising. According to a survey of 100 centenarians from UnitedHealthcare, nearly half do some form of strength training at least once a week to keep muscles strong, 36% ...
The White House has postponed the rollout of a new GOP plan on Affordable Care Act subsidies amid pushback from Republicans in Congress. Why it matters: The issue could aggravate already frayed relationships with Hill conservatives who oppose an extension of enhanced tax credits that are due to expire at the end of the year. Driving the news: Some ...
Officials from several U.S. states say Americans relying on subsidies to afford Obamacare health insurance are holding off on enrolling as they face 2026 premium hikes that could more than double, with one state seeing enrollment drag by as much as 33%. Of more than a dozen states that directly sell to their residents plans ...
Employers expect to see health benefits rise by 6.7% in 2026, reaching more than $18,500 per employee on average, according to a new report. Analysts at Mercer estimate that health costs in 2025 reached an average of $17,496 for each employee, growth of 6%. That’s a rate that outpaced inflation and wage growth, according to the report. ...
Many small and midsize U.S. employers may be so angry about the cost of health benefits that they will rush to try something completely different, even if they don’t know much about the new coverage strategy. Vitable, a direct primary care plan manager, has published data on employers’ fight to hold down health benefits costs ...
Small U.S. employers may be dropping health benefits partly because the Affordable Care Act premium tax subsidy system pushes employers to drop their coverage. Brian Blase, president of the Paragon Health Institute, makes that case in a batch of written testimony he prepared for a Senate hearing. Blase — an economist who served as a ...
Drugmaker Eli Lilly is rolling out a new model to make it easier for employers to provide access to its GLP-1 drugs for weight management. Lilly said in an announcement that the model is built on three core elements. For one, it provides flexibility around benefit options for obesity care, allowing employers to design the benefits that ...