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.
U.S. employers, their benefits advisors, and health care products and services suppliers did a great job of holding down increases in health care costs between 2010 and 2024. Back in 2010, actuaries at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services predicted that employers would provide health coverage for just 168 million people in 2024, at ...
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the members of the Healthcare Advisory Committee, a new federal advisory body that will provide expert advice on improving, strengthening and modernizing U.S. health care. The committee will advise HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and ...
Complaints about enrollment fraud in Affordable Care Act health insurance coverage have bedeviled the federal marketplace for years. Now, the Trump administration is claiming wins in reducing the problem while simultaneously saying more controls are needed. It has proposed a sweeping set of ACA regulations for next year, including stepped-up requirements for some applicants to prove eligibility for subsidies ...
As President Trump’s war in Iran rages on, it’s posing a growing threat to the pharmaceutical supply chain and risks spiking the prices of many drugs, particularly those that depend on petrochemicals. The war in Iran and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz have caused energy prices to jump and disrupted supply chains ...
Health insurance exchange carriers rejected nearly one-in-five in-network claims in 2024. That’s according to federal health insurance exchange claims data analyzed by the health policy research institute KFF. The 19% denial rate is tied with 2023 for the highest since the Affordable Care Act of 2010 marketplaces debuted in 2015. Oscar Health, Molina Healthcare, Florida Blue, Community ...
The share of Affordable Care Act insurance customers in plans that cost more than $6,000 a year doubled, a sign of the squeeze on household budgets after Congress let Covid-era assistance expire. The US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services posted data late Friday on ACA plans, also called Obamacare, that showed total enrollment this year dipping ...
States are paying contractors such as Deloitte, Accenture, and Optum millions of dollars to help them comply with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — a law that will strip safety-net health and food benefits from millions. State governments rely on such companies to design and operate computer systems that assess whether low-income people qualify ...
The regulators who oversee the Affordable Care Act public exchange system are wondering whether to treat “non-network plans” as major medical insurance coverage and let the plans use ACA premium tax credit subsidies. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — the arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that oversees HealthCare.gov ...
Republicans are considering reductions in federal health spending to help pay for a budget bill containing as much as $200 billion to fund the Iran war and immigration enforcement. Why it matters: New efforts to rein in health programs are sure to be controversial and open the GOP up to election-year attacks that they’re cutting health ...
Patient advocacy groups are warning the Trump administration that proposed changes to Obamacare’s essential health benefits could undercut patient access to things such as fertility treatments, hearing aids, substance abuse care, and critical disease screenings. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in February proposed significant changes to the Affordable Care Act marketplace, including a measure that ...