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.
Breakthroughs in weight-loss medicine are presenting state Medicaid officials with what looks like a sure bet: Spend big now to cover the drugs and reap savings when diabetes, heart disease and cancer rates drop. States are hesitating to take it. The few states that have decided to cover drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy to help ...
The White House has postponed the rollout of a new GOP plan on Affordable Care Act subsidies amid pushback from Republicans in Congress. Why it matters: The issue could aggravate already frayed relationships with Hill conservatives who oppose an extension of enhanced tax credits that are due to expire at the end of the year. Driving the news: Some ...
Officials from several U.S. states say Americans relying on subsidies to afford Obamacare health insurance are holding off on enrolling as they face 2026 premium hikes that could more than double, with one state seeing enrollment drag by as much as 33%. Of more than a dozen states that directly sell to their residents plans ...
Employers expect to see health benefits rise by 6.7% in 2026, reaching more than $18,500 per employee on average, according to a new report. Analysts at Mercer estimate that health costs in 2025 reached an average of $17,496 for each employee, growth of 6%. That’s a rate that outpaced inflation and wage growth, according to the report. ...
Many small and midsize U.S. employers may be so angry about the cost of health benefits that they will rush to try something completely different, even if they don’t know much about the new coverage strategy. Vitable, a direct primary care plan manager, has published data on employers’ fight to hold down health benefits costs ...
Small U.S. employers may be dropping health benefits partly because the Affordable Care Act premium tax subsidy system pushes employers to drop their coverage. Brian Blase, president of the Paragon Health Institute, makes that case in a batch of written testimony he prepared for a Senate hearing. Blase — an economist who served as a ...
Drugmaker Eli Lilly is rolling out a new model to make it easier for employers to provide access to its GLP-1 drugs for weight management. Lilly said in an announcement that the model is built on three core elements. For one, it provides flexibility around benefit options for obesity care, allowing employers to design the benefits that ...
Healthcare politics and investing might as well be living in alternate universes. President Trump and some Republicans have been describing Obamacare as a gravy train for insurers. Trump’s latest broadside slammed “big, fat, rich insurance companies who have made trillions,” and he urged Congress to send healthcare subsidies directly to patients instead. Wall Street sees ...
Optum Rx will reduce reauthorizations on 40 additional medications Jan. 1, surpassing initial goals set out earlier this year. The pharmacy benefit management arm of UnitedHealth Group first revealed earlier this year that it was aiming to reduce reauthorizations, a specific model for prior authorization, by up to 25%. The new additions bring the total ...
The nation’s 20 state Obamacare exchanges appear poised to quickly update premiums if Congress passes a straightforward extension of enhanced subsidies when it votes on the matter next month. But there’s another, increasingly likely scenario that could catch them flat-footed. That’s if lawmakers decide to go a different route – for example, by paying the ...