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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.

Blaming Drug Costs, CalPERS Considers 7% Hike in HMO Premiums

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System is poised to raise HMO premiums for state employees an average of 7.21 percent in 2016. The move shows that rising hospital and drug costs could mean higher premiums in the private sector, too. The proposed HMO rate hike is up from a 3.9 percent hike in 2015. Premiums ...

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Covered California Negotiated Lower Rates by Providing Data to Insurers

Providing data to insurers on Covered California enrollees’ use of health care services helped to lower premiums, according to a recent study, the Sierra Sun Times reports. Details of Study For the study, researchers from UC-San Francisco, the state Department of Health Care Services and the state exchange examined data from the Office of Statewide ...

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Anthem Reaffirms Commitment to its $47-Billion Bid for Cigna

Anthem sees its more than $47 billion bid to buy rival Cigna as a way to muscle up on technology that helps consumers and to strengthen its rapidly growing Medicare Advantage business. Leaders of the Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurer reaffirmed on Monday their commitment to getting a deal done a day after Cigna shot down ...

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Obama’s Legacy Is at Stake in Supreme Court’s Health Care Ruling

WASHINGTON — The night his administration’s Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, President Obama described the victory the way he hopes historians will: as a “stone firmly laid in the foundation of the American dream.” But Mr. Obama’s prospects for a legacy of expanding health care coverage in the United States for generations have rarely ...

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Covered California to Collect Data On Patients

California’s health insurance exchange wants to know why you got sick this summer. With 1.4 million people enrolled, the state-run marketplace is embarking on an ambitious effort to collect insurance company data on prescriptions, doctor visits and hospital stays for every Obamacare patient. Covered California says this massive data-mining project is essential to measure the ...

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Governor Calls for Special Legislative Session To Address Health Spending

Gov. Jerry Brown (D) last week issued a proclamation to convene a special legislative session on health care spending on the same day he agreed to a state budget that had many of its health-related provisions negotiated away. Financing the Medi-Cal program may not be sustainable, Brown said, given its expansion over the past two years ...

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California Workers Comp Premiums Soar 11%

It’s still a far cry from the workers’ comp crisis of a decade ago, but workers’ comp premium volume soared nearly 11 percent last year, the third year in a row the tally has jumped by more than $1 billion. The total climbed to more than $11.4 billion last year, according to the California Workers’ ...

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Most Americans Say Drug Costs Are ‘Unreasonable,’ Although They Can Still Afford To Buy Them

Nearly three in four Americans say the costs of prescription drugs are “unreasonable” — and most blame drugmakers for those prices, according to a poll released Tuesday. The survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found 74 percent of those taking prescription drugs find the costs unreasonable, as do 72 percent of those not taking such drugs. ...

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California Leads U.S. in Total Number of Medicaid Beneficiaries

Medi-Cal enrollment has increased by 34% since the Affordable Care Act went into effect, leading all other Medicaid programs in the country in terms of total beneficiaries, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, HealthyCal reports. Medi-Cal is California’s Medicaid program. Details of Increase in Enrollment California — one of 29 states that have ...

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GOP Offering Fixes if ACA Subsidies Are Struck Down

Republican lawmakers have floated a number of contingency plans in case the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act’s financial subsidies for qualified individuals buying health insurance through the federal exchanges operating in 34 states. The high court is expected to rule later this month in the case of King v. Burwell. While the ...

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