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.
The Trump Administration abruptly canceling – then perhaps reinstating or partially reinstating – federal health grants is creating overall “funding volatility” in state and local public health programs, officials told state lawmakers this week. The ongoing cuts and constant back-and-forth policy changes have confounded efforts to maintain state and local programs as well as retain ...
The Trump administration is preparing to impose new tariffs on branded drugs from pharmaceutical companies that have not struck landmark deals with the president to lower their U.S. drug prices, CNBC has learned. Patented medications and their active ingredients would be hit with a 100% tariff, according to a draft of the document obtained by ...
Two-year-old Bain Brandon has Type 1 diabetes and needs insulin to live. But even with health insurance, the price tag isn’t cheap. A one-month supply of insulin vials and a three-month supply of backup pens for the Mississippi toddler cost his parents $194 last week, according to his mom, 29-year-old Marlee Brandon. They can afford it right ...
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 ...