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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.

TrumpRx Drug Site Launched After Brief Delay

The new government-run prescription drug portal, TrumpRx, is now live. It launched early this month after a delay from its original planned kick-off in January. The site features 40 of the most popular – and expensive – branded medications from pharmaceutical companies that have worked out discounted pricing agreements with the White House. Those firms include ...

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Nevada Debuts Public Option Amid Tumultuous Federal Changes to Health Care

More than 10,000 people have enrolled in Nevada’s new public-option health plans, which debuted last fall with the expectation that they would bring lower prices to the health insurance market. Those preliminary numbers from the open enrollment period that ended in January are less than a third of what state officials had projected. Nevada is ...

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Report: 16 Nevada Insurance Carriers Illegally Give Mental Health Care Claims Short Shrift

A state lawmaker described the findings as “alarming” and a “disturbing realization” of how mental health care can be treated as second-tier to physical care.

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Why Congress Failed To Reach An Obamacare Deal

Brian Fitzpatrick didn’t expect to find himself in the middle of a political brawl over health policy. The Pennsylvania Republican and former FBI agent doesn’t count the legislative area as a pillar of his portfolio. But early last fall, he joined a fledgling group of lawmakers incensed that House GOP leaders were doing nothing to extend ...

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CMS Head Vows Continued Vaccine Coverage, Urges Measles Shots

Mehmet Oz, head of the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, pledged continued insurance coverage for all recommended vaccinations in the country and urged people to get the measles shot as infections skyrocket. His comments come as the Trump administration remakes the nation’s approach to immunizations by promoting personal choice and backing away from ...

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Red and Blue States Alike Want To Limit AI in Insurance. Trump Wants To Limit the States.

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. ...

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Trump Team’s Planned ACA Rule Offers Its Answer to Rising Premium Costs: Catastrophic Coverage

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 — ...

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California Lawmaker Takes Second Swipe At Single-Payer Health Care Bill

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.

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Kaiser Permanente, DoL Reach Settlement Over Mental Health Access

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 ...

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More Than 50 Conservative Leaders Sign Letter Against Trump Drug Pricing Policy Codification

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 ...

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