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.
California’s Obamacare exchange scrubbed its annual rate announcement this week, the latest sign of how the ongoing political drama over the Affordable Care Act is roiling insurance markets nationwide.
For businesses with up to 100 employees, many of which lean heavily on the advice of their broker, technology can transform an adviser from a once a year sales person into an invaluable, year-round business consultant. Those who are reluctant to jump on the technology train must adapt or die off, as they live in a world and work in an industry that is increasingly taking advantage of online tools and resources.
President Donald Trump has vowed to “let Obamacare fail,” after legislative efforts to undo the Affordable Care Act have stalled. He and congressional Republicans have repeatedly portrayed the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces, also known as exchanges, as being in a “death spiral.” But independent analyses have concluded that such spontaneous disintegration isn’t happening.
Two more Republican senators declared on Monday night that they would oppose the Senate Republican bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, killing, for now, a seven-year-old promise to overturn President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced late Monday that the Senate will give up on its bill to replace Obamacare and vote instead on legislation to repeal the law within two years.
Michael Koumjian, a heart surgeon for nearly three decades, said he considered treating the sickest patients a badge of honor. The San Diego doctor was frequently called upon to operate on those who had multiple illnesses or who’d undergone CPR before arriving at the hospital.
Somewhere in California, one child’s medical expenses in 2014 totaled $21 million — a bill covered entirely by Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid.
The Trump administration said Thursday that the financial outlook for Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund improved in the past year due to health costs rising more slowly than expected and predictions that enrollees will use hospital services less often.
While Congress struggles with what to do with Obamacare, California is playing around with the idea of a single-payer system.
Senior advocates are blanketing the airwaves this week with a new ad blitz meant to convince Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., to stick with his stated opposition to the Senate GOP health-care bill.