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.
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 ...
While Generation Z and millennial workers still account for fewer claims than their baby boomer counterparts, claims in these populations are rising fast, according to a new report. UnitedHealthcare and the Health Action Council (HAC) earlier this month released their annual white paper digging into key trends impacting the employer market and found that the number of ...
Trump Required Hospitals To Post Their Prices for Patients. Mostly It’s the Industry Using the Data.
Republicans think patients should be shopping for better health care prices. The party has long pushed to give patients money and let consumers do the work of reducing costs. After some GOP lawmakers closed out 2025 advocating to fund health savings accounts, President Donald Trump introduced his Great Healthcare Plan, which calls for, among other ...
More Americans than expected enrolled in Affordable Care Act health insurance plans for this year, after premium subsidies were dramatically cut — but it remains to be seen whether they’ll keep the coverage as their costs mount. It’s all part of a drama that roiled the ACA’s 2026 open enrollment period. Congressional debate over whether ...