Advisor strategies

Benefits broker John Garven juggles enrollment meetings while using Twitter to amplify his business.

In hoping for expanded access to health insurance, proponents of the emerging HIX marketplace have had to make a few Faustian deals along the way to realizing their objectives. One such tradeoff under the Affordable Care Act involves narrower provider networks – an old strategy used to rein in runaway costs that’s rooted in the managed care era.

Lou Faiola takes relationships to a new level. From carriers to brokers to beneficiaries, his commitment to benefits is apparent to all whose lives he touches.

It’s been 70 years since benefits originated, and brokers would be wise to remember that innovation as inspiration to keep their businesses in the future.

The Obama administration says much of the site is fixed but it’s not clear still how much of that is true.

President Barack Obama raised the stakes on his three-year-old health care overhaul Sunday, declaring that fixes to his administration’s troubled insurance exchange website make it ready to sign up 800,000 people a day.

The decision by CMS leaves just eight days for insurers to send bills to those signing up on the last day of the enrollment period.

Consulting firm Towers Watson announced today it has bought private health care exchange provider Liazon, which operates the Bright Choices exchange, for $215 million. The deal further validates the private exchange market, says one of Liazon's competitors.

Public support for the U.S. health care overhaul fell to its lowest level in a Kaiser Family Foundation survey after the Oct. 1 debut of government-run insurance marketplaces greeted consumers with breakdowns on websites, higher prices and potentially broken promises.

Kansas, North Dakota and other state insurance commissioners snubbed a meeting with President Barack Obama set up to discuss allowing some people to keep medical plans that don’t meet the requirements of the U.S. health law.

More than a third of the ‘back end’ infrastructure still remains to be built in the federally-run marketplace, top IT official at CMS says Tuesday on Capitol Hill.

Consultants hired by the Obama administration told top officials at the White House and U.S. health department as early as March that construction of the government’s insurance website was at risk of failure, according to a document released by congressional Republicans.

The technology issues plaguing the federal exchanges have hampered enrollment in state-run exchanges — which are largely free of glitches — causing some states to modify their marketing techniques.

The ACA's pediatric dental requirement brings increased attention to this popular benefit.

Wayne Sakamoto of Naples, Fla. works hard to keep up with the ACA.

President Barack Obama pressed top U.S. insurers to help consumers cope with the rocky start of his health care law as the Republican-led House passed a bill that would let Americans keep their current policies through 2014.

A broker and former Golden State-exchange staffer say that enrollment numbers do not reflect billing or payment.

A NAHU representative testified Thursday on Capitol Hill about the positives and negatives of self-funding before a committee interested in touting it to small business owners.

An agent explains the difficult steps that would need to be taken to renew canceled plans, while a health insurance trade group says the president’s announcement Thursday could “destabilize the market.”

With the decision, state governors and insurance commissioners would have the authority to keep would-be canceled plans active until the end of 2014.