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.
A federal appeals court has ruled that consumers must be allowed to buy certain types of health insurance that do not meet the stringent standards of the Affordable Care Act, deciding that the administration had gone beyond the terms of federal law.
The latest study of medicine prices finds U.S. insurers' spending on expensive prescription drugs nearly quadrupled from 2003 through 2014, when the number of such prescriptions filled tripled.
A state ballot initiative meant to lower prescription drug prices for California faces an expected opponent: the pharmaceutical industry, which has spent almost $70 million to defeat it.
A measure that would compel pharmaceutical companies to disclose and justify drug price increases overcame a show of skepticism by Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday afternoon, passing the Assembly Health Committee 12-4 on a party-line vote.
Congressional Republicans from California are urging President Barack Obama’s administration to reject the state’s request to sell insurance policies to people living in the country illegally through its health insurance exchange.
Everyone knows that real estate is no bargain in Northern California. It turns out that giving birth ain’t cheap either.
The National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU) recently honored Sam Smith as the recipient of the Harold R. Gordon Memorial Award at the 86th Annual Convention in Albuquerque, NM. This award is the health insurance industry’s most meaningful and significant honor.
“Right now, I have a medicine sitting at Wal-Mart pharmacy that I can’t purchase till payday,” Jacqueline, a 55-year-old San Diegan told me during a telephone interview in mid-April. She asked that her last name not be used for this story. “I’ll go without, eight or nine days till payday. It’s for my high cholesterol.”
Gov. Jerry Brown approved a state budget during a busy Monday in the Capitol, where lawmakers made progress on a $2-billion proposal to shelter the homeless but put the brakes on new energy policies during an acrimonious hearing.
The Supreme Court decision Thursday effectively blocking President Obama’s immigration programs also comes as a blow to California legislators who have been fighting to offer health insurance to people living in the country illegally.