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.
An HHS report released late Tuesday paints a grim picture of the rising health insurance premiums under the Affordable Care Act. But health policy experts explained that while premiums may have gone up since the ACA was implemented, consumers are also getting more bang for their buck.
According to Fidelity Investments, health savings accounts — and the assets within them — are rising quickly, as both employers and employees try to find ways to pay for health care. Still, a number of the features of HSAs are still underutilized.
Lower-income children would have their federal health benefits cut sharply under President Trump’s proposed budget, which analysts say could reverse gains that have pushed uninsured rates for this vulnerable population below 5 percent.
From presidential campaign promises to congressional hearings on the price of EpiPens, 2016 was the year that public anger over the rising cost of prescription drugs boiled into a national outrage.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney on Thursday testified that the Trump administration does not believe $1.4 trillion worth of cuts it is proposing for Medicaid would affect children, the disabled or the elderly.
On May 4, 2017, with the passage of the Republicans’ American Health Care Act (AHCA) in the US House of Representatives, a sharp tremor was felt by California’s vast health system. The AHCA threatens withdrawal of at least $150 billion from the state’s health system over the next ten years, with the sharpest reductions felt from 2020 thru 2022. However, even if the House bill fails to become law, if history is any guide, California’s notoriously cyclical economy may not ultimately sustain the weight of the state’s expanded Medi-Cal program, posing future economic risks to its care system.
Nevada’s Republican Sen. Dean Heller distanced himself from President Donald Trump’s budget proposal on Wednesday, saying he is working with a bipartisan group to preserve Medicaid spending in states that expanded the program.
The Obamacare replacement bill narrowly passed by House Republicans earlier this month would leave 23 million fewer people insured by 2026, while reducing the deficit by less than previously estimated, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
A California bill that would eliminate health insurance companies and provide government-funded health coverage for everyone in the state would cost $400 billion and require significant tax increases, legislative analysts said Monday.
CAHU wants members to be aware the following bill scheduled for hearing in the Legislature is on its way to being signed or vetoed.