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.
It’s the rare policy question that unites Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and the Democratic-led Maryland government against President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California: How should health insurers use AI? Regulating artificial intelligence, especially its use by health insurers, is becoming a politically divisive topic, and it’s scrambling traditional partisan lines. ...
The Trump administration has unveiled a sweeping set of regulatory proposals that would substantially change health plan offerings on the Affordable Care Act marketplace next year, aiming, it says, to provide more choice and lower premiums. But it also proposes sharply raising some annual out-of-pocket costs — to more than $27,000 for one type of coverage — ...
Assemblymember Ash Kalra has tried a handful of times over the past few years to institute massive changes in the state's health care system.
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan has agreed to a settlement with the Department of Labor that resolves multiple investigations into access for mental health and substance abuse services. The settlement resolves allegations that Kaiser Permanente did not offer adequate provider networks for key mental health and substance abuse disorder (SUD) services, which prevented patients from receiving ...
A coalition of more than 50 leaders of conservative and free-market organizations signed a letter to members of Congress on Thursday, opposing codifying President Trump’s “most favored nation” (MFN) drug pricing policy model into law. The letter, which argues an MFN pricing law would “import socialist price controls and values into our country,” highlights the growing tension between Trump and a ...
A federal judge in Chicago temporarily blocked on Thursday the Trump administration from moving ahead with $600 million in cuts to public health grants in four states led by Democrats. U.S. District Judge Manish Shah said that California, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota were likely to succeed in a lawsuit alleging the funding cuts were meant to ...
Employers who are wary of paying for workers’ pricey weight-loss drugs are discovering a workaround: Offer coverage through a telehealth vendor and split the cost. Why it matters: Workers want access to GLP-1s, and employers want to avoid the cost of obesity-related illness. But fewer than 20% of employers covered the medications for weight loss last year, according ...
As Congress spent months arguing over COVID-19-era enhanced premium tax credits that many people on the Affordable Care Act used to subsidize their health insurance, a relatively narrow debate over a single policy grew into a much broader and more complicated discussion about how to lower health care costs. Concerns about those costs are a top issue for ...
Health insurance costs ate up 10% or more of median family income in 19 states, according to a new analysis. Why it matters: The findings show how tough it can be to afford health care, even with insurance, for many of the estimated 167 million Americans who get coverage through an employer. The state-by-state breakdown of federal ...
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) are teaming up to “break up big medicine.” The lawmakers introduced legislation to crack down on health care conglomerates that own multiple parts of the industry — including pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which act as a conduit between insurers and drug manufacturers, and pharmacies themselves. Warren and Hawley’s “Break Up Big Medicine Act” proposes prohibiting ...