Cigna has officially sealed the deal on the $3.3 billion sale of its Medicare business to Health Care Service Corporation. HCSC acquired Cigna’s Medicare Advantage, Part D, supplemental benefits and CareAllies units as part of the deal. While it will no longer operate the Medicare unit directly, Cigna said it will continue to provide pharmacy ...

Telehealth groups celebrated the extension, but added that the short-term reprieve means continued uncertainty for providers.

The request comes on top of a $3.44 billion loan proposed last week, with costs for undocumented residents running higher than expected.

The $3.44 billion loan, first floated to lawmakers Wednesday, will cover obligations for Medi-Cal, through March, but it’s raising questions about a bigger budget hole that may need to be filled later on. Lawmakers said they were caught off guard by the news and still don’t understand the extent of the shortfall.

Small-group health insurance premiums are still going up at about the same rate as before, and the enrollee count continues to fall. The average monthly premium increased 6.1% in 2024, to $659. The rate of increase was down, slightly, from 6.2% in 2023.

The new-generation weight-loss drugs work very well at preventing obesity, diabetes and death, but they are still much too expensive to be a good financial value for employer plans or other payers, researchers report in a new paper published by JAMA Health Forum. Semaglutide, the GLP-1 agonist drug that powers Wegovy, could cost less than $100,000 per ...