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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.

Covered California Pops And Locks Into Individual Coverage Enrollment Season

What do hip-hop dancing and health insurance have in common?

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Express Scripts Ramps Up List-Price Pressure With Newfangled ‘Flex’ Formulary

During a yearslong examination of drug prices, there’s been no shortage of criticism for growing list prices, and in recent months, some companies have heard the talk and lowered their prices. Now, top PBM Express Scripts is rolling out a new formulary to help support the moves—and the plan could heap more pressure on players in competitive drug classes.

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Breach of Obamacare Site Spilled Sensitive Data

More than two weeks after announcing that the Obamacare website, HealthCare.gov, had been hacked, the Department of Health and Human Services has revealed that the breach exposed a wealth of information, including partial Social Security numbers and immigration status.

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Congressional Report Says Insulin Market Benefits Drugmakers and Insurers, Not Patients

“Perverse” incentives in the insulin supply chain lead to artificially high prices, as well as limited competition in the markets, according to a bipartisan report released Thursday by two lawmakers.

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Cigna Boosts 2018 Forecast After Third Quarter Earnings Beat

U.S. health insurer Cigna Corp (CI.N), which is in the process of acquiring Express Scripts Holding Co (ESRX.O), significantly bumped up its 2018 adjusted profit forecast, and its shares rose more than 3 percent on Thursday.

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Healthcare Waste is Costing Billions – and Clients Aren’t Doing Anything About It

Providing the workforce with healthcare coverage is expensive, but a new survey of 126 employers suggests a large chunk of that cost is being wasted by the healthcare industry on treatments patients don’t need.

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Health Coverage Disparities Eliminated Under ACA for Most Racial Groups, Report Finds

African Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders living in California are just as likely to have health insurance as whites, marking a significant turnaround from five years ago, new data shows.

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Despite Criticism and Concerns, FDA Approves A New Opioid 10 Times More Powerful than Fentanyl

In a highly controversial move, the Food and Drug Administration approved an especially powerful opioid painkiller despite criticism that the medicine could be a “danger” to public health. And in doing so, the agency addressed wider regulatory thinking for endorsing such a medicine amid nationwide angst about overdoses and deaths attributed to opioids.

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That’s A lot of Scratch: The $48,329 Allergy Test

The English professor from Eureka, Calif., always had been sensitive to ingredients in skin creams and cosmetics. This time, however, the antifungal cream she was prescribed to treat her persistent rash seemed to make things worse. Was she allergic to that, too?

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California Nurses Move Their ‘Medicare-for-all’ Fight to the National Stage

The union representing 100,000 nurses across California has shifted its “Medicare-for-all” campaign from California to the national stage, perhaps relieving political pressure on Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom to fulfill what the union sees as his top campaign promise: Delivering a single-payer health care system in the nation’s largest state.

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