Healthcare

The annual Milliman Medical Index (MMI) contains some grim tidings for health insurers and others concerned by the rising cost of health care, as for the fourth straight year, costs rose by at least 7%.

AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company has introduced a structured investment option for its EQUI-VEST® series of variable deferred annuities available to employer-sponsored retirement savings plans.

The future of the investment advisory industry depends on reducing the cost of doing business, said Mark Casady, Chairman and CEO of LPL Financial, in the opening keynote at the Money Management Institute’s 2011 annual convention, held last week in Boston.

Kansas lawmakers early on Friday passed a bill prohibiting women from receiving general medical insurance coverage for abortions, except when the mother's life is at risk.

As if the health care reform law in the United States wasn’t enough for HR/benefits pros to worry about, now new analysis from Mercer concludes that multinational employers will need to keep close watch over international benefits due to health care reform in foreign countries.

Ternian Insurance Group has introduced HealthBasic, a limited medical plan for small employers with as few as five lives. The plan features different levels of coverage for different classes of employees: a mid-level plan for owners and two affordable limited medical plans for salaried and hourly employees.

A coalition of 27 health, aging, labor and consumer organizations has released a report, the "Consumer Platform for Health IT," which they call a vision for a patient-centered health care system.

An appeals court on Tuesday sharply questioned whether the state of Virginia could challenge President Barack Obama's signature health care law, which requires Americans to buy insurance in a bid to slow health care costs.

Several group benefits providers, including Sun Life Financial, Aetna, UnitedHealthcare and Cigna, have won plain language awards from the Center for Plain Language.

Lawyers for President Barack Obama go to court on Tuesday to try to save the cornerstone of his health care overhaul, arguing that the requirement for Americans to buy insurance is constitutional.