The cost of getting your health insurance through work will go up an average of 5 percent next year, according to a new survey of large employers by the National Business Group on Health.

Instead of buying a health insurance policy to cover their workers, a growing number of small and midsized companies are opting to pay their employees’ medical claims directly, a potentially riskier practice financially called self-insuring, a recent study found.

It is all about the price.

A federal judge said Wednesday that he would begin trial proceedings on Dec. 5 in the Justice Department’s antitrust challenge to the proposed merger of Aetna Inc. and Humana Inc.

"No one can see a bubble. That's what makes it a bubble." That was Christian Bale's character's summation of a market bubble in last year's hit movie "The Big Short," which chronicled the few investors who saw the signs pointing to the mortgage market collapse.

Five years ago, if you didn't receive health coverage through your employer or couldn't qualify for Medi-Cal, finding affordable insurance could be difficult at best, and completely out of reach at worst. Many young, healthy people opted out of insurance altogether, and those most in need of medical care found it hard to get coverage at all.