Healthcare

The 2010 annual enrollment season saw the opening of the floodgates regarding dependent eligibility, as employers were required under the health care reform law to extend coverage to all dependent children - regardless of student status - to age 26. This includes both married and unmarried dependent children, as well as those who are no longer dependents on their parents' tax returns.

Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, all plans must cover certain preventive care services with no member cost-sharing - with an exception for grandfathered plans - as of plan years beginning on or after Sept. 23, 2010.

In this post-health care reform environment, benefit advisers - and their employer clients - face a new world order. For instance, with new restrictions on capping lifetime maximum benefits, the burden of managing the potential financial risk posed by even one employee's catastrophic illness looms large.

Cigna Corp is expanding its business that provides health coverage to those working abroad by offering a product directly to individuals.

The Internal Revenue Service has issued interim guidance to employers on the informational reporting requirements on each employee's annual Form W-2 of the cost of the health insurance coverage they sponsor for employees.

The Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals study evaluates performance in 10 areas: mortality; medical complications; patient safety; average patient stay; expenses; profitability; patient satisfaction; adherence to clinical standards of care; post-discharge mortality; and readmission rates for acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), heart failure, and pneumonia.

Consumers are spending $363 billion a year on ancillary health care, according to a new study by Deloitte.

The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a group of large pharmaceutical companies cannot be sued by a California county for allegedly overcharging for prescription drugs in violation of federal law.

Standard & Poor's, the world's leading index provider and publisher of the widely followed Standard & Poor's Index Versus Active Fund scorecard series, has launched the industry's first comprehensive, periodic scorecard for target-date mutual funds. The S&P Indices Target-Date Scorecard provides performance comparisons, equal- and asset-weighted peer averages, and volatility comparisons for U.S. target-date funds versus their relative S&P Target-Date Index.

New research from MetLife spotlights a disconnect between the perceptions of voluntary benefits held by employers and employees.