Three months after Gov. Gavin Newsom required state workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing, his pledge that California government would lead by example has not been fulfilled: Many public agencies face low vaccination rates, and most state-run workplaces have failed to test unvaccinated employees. At the California Department of Forestry ...

A nonprofit coalition of nearly 40 private employers, including U.S. retailers Walmart and Costco, said on Monday it has launched a new company that would offer pharmacy benefit management (PBM) services for employers. With the COVID-19 pandemic weighing severely on people’s emotional and physical wellbeing, companies have been looking to broaden their offerings to support ...

Democrats are haggling over whether to drop two of the most popular elements of their social spending bill as negotiations reach the zero hour, according to a half-dozen sources close to the discussions. While high-level talks on the $1 trillion-plus package are ongoing, lawmakers, staffers, advocates and lobbyists said that a plan to expand Medicare ...

At issue are parameters an arbiter should consider when determining payment a health plan and provider can’t determine on their own

Two new pharmacy benefit management startups are aiming to inject greater price transparency into the market. The Purchaser Business Group on Health has announced Emsana Health, with its first business arm launching as EmsanaRx, a PBM. As PBGH is a coalition of 40 large employers, the company says its PBM solution is “built by employers, ...

Congressional Democrats are watering down — and may entirely drop — a plan to have the government directly negotiate some Medicare drug prices in order to help clinch a deal on their sweeping social spending package. Top Democrats have acknowledged for weeks that they’ve had to significantly weaken the plan in order to win over holdout centrist lawmakers. ...