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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.

Trump Team Claims Successes Against ACA Fraud While Pushing for More Controls

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 ...

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Pharmaceutical Supply Chains Get Tangled In War With Iran

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 ...

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ACA Plans Denied 19% Of In-Network Claims In 2024: Report

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 ...

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Obamacare Customers Paying $6,000 a Year Doubled in 2026

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 ...

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States Pay Deloitte, Others Millions To Comply With Trump Law To Cut Medicaid Rolls

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 ...

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Some 2027 ACA Exchange Plans Could Ditch Provider Networks

The regulators who oversee the Affordable Care Act public exchange system are wondering whether to treat “non-network plans” as major medical insurance coverage and let the plans use ACA premium tax credit subsidies. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — the arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that oversees HealthCare.gov ...

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GOP Weighs Health Care Cuts To Pay For Iran War

Republicans are considering reductions in federal health spending to help pay for a budget bill containing as much as $200 billion to fund the Iran war and immigration enforcement. Why it matters: New efforts to rein in health programs are sure to be controversial and open the GOP up to election-year attacks that they’re cutting health ...

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HHS Urged to Drop Plan to Shift ACA Mandate Costs to States

Patient advocacy groups are warning the Trump administration that proposed changes to Obamacare’s essential health benefits could undercut patient access to things such as fertility treatments, hearing aids, substance abuse care, and critical disease screenings. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in February proposed significant changes to the Affordable Care Act marketplace, including a measure that ...

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White House Expands TrumpRx With Three New Drugs

The platform offers discounts on more than 50 brand-name prescription drugs, though many of them have cheaper generic equivalents available.

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Rising Health Costs Push Some Middle-Aged Adults To Skip the Doc Until Medicare

John Galvin knows he needs a colonoscopy. But he’s waiting to schedule the procedure until December, when he turns 65 and qualifies for Medicare. He was already thinking about delaying it — then his monthly Obamacare insurance premium payment tripled this year to $2,460, about a third of his income, he said. And with a ...

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