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Industry Updates

This broad category includes articles concerning health insurance costs, carrier and health plan news, changing benefits technology, and surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation and others on employee benefits.

Premiums For Covered California Insurance Will Go Up In 2025. Here’s How Much

Premiums for health insurance sold through the state’s marketplace will increase by nearly 8% in 2025, Covered California officials announced Wednesday.

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ACA Exchange Enrollees Could See Steep Premium Increases If Enhanced Subsidies Expire: KFF

The enhanced subsidies available for Affordable Care Act plans have been the key to driving massive enrollment growth, and rolling them back would likely lead to a massive spike in premium payments, according to a new report.

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Why Many Nonprofit (Wink, Wink) Hospitals Are Rolling in Money

One owns a for-profit insurer, a venture capital company, and for-profit hospitals in Italy and Kazakhstan; it has just acquired its fourth for-profit hospital in Ireland. Another owns one of the largest for-profit hospitals in London, is partnering to build a massive training facility for a professional basketball team, and has launched and financed 80 for-profit start-ups. Another partners with a wellness spa where rooms cost $4,000 a night ...

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CMS Announces New ‘Premium Stabilization’ Program

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is creating a voluntary demonstration program to support changes to Medicare Part D under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The agency also finalized bid information for contract year 2025, with a base beneficiary premium increase of $2.08 for people with Part D. The IRA is designed to ...

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Defying Trends: 29% of Employers Cut Prescription Drug Costs in Inflationary Market

In a time when drug prices are skyrocketing, imagine slashing a company’s pharmacy costs by 28% in a single year. Sound impossible? The Texas Association of Counties was able to achieve this by utilizing a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) with a transparent, pass-through model that’s focused on keeping overall drug prices low. As the Navitus Annual ...

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The FDA Says Patients May Be Overdosing On Imitation Semaglutide Weight-Loss Drugs Because the Directions Are Unclear

The US Food and Drug Administration says some people have been hospitalized with symptoms that may be related to overdoses from injectable weight-loss drugs. The agency alerted healthcare providers and patients on Friday, saying it received reports that some people sought medical attention or required hospitalization after taking incorrect doses of “compounded” semaglutide products. Compounded ...

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PBMs Defend Business Practices — But Lawmakers Aren’t Convinced

Lawmakers bashed the business practices of pharmacy benefit managers during a House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing Tuesday. When they were asked repeatedly about steering patients, increased drug prices and pharmacy closures, the company executives largely refuted claims thrown at them. Lawmakers were overwhelmingly frustrated with the perceived non-answers given and at one point reminded the ...

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Poll Reveals Older Americans’ Top Health Care Fear

What weighs most heavily on older adults’ minds when it comes to health care? The cost of services and therapies, and their ability to pay. “It’s on our minds a whole lot because of our age and because everything keeps getting more expensive,” said Connie Colyer, 68, of Pleasureville, Kentucky. She’s a retired forklift operator who ...

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Group Medical Cost Trend To Hit 8% In 2025: PwC

The underlying medical cost trend for employers' group health coverage could stay high in 2025, according to PwC analysts. The analysts are predicting that the medical cost trend will be 8%.

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Biden’s Fragile Legacy On Health Care

President Biden — who was propelled into office in no small part by his health care agenda — realized Democrats' decades-long dream of allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, and came closer to achieving his party's equally elusive goal of universal health coverage than any other Democratic president before him.

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