Employer Strategies

The U.S. influenza season is off to a fast start, which may hurt insurers, hospitals and people lulled by the milder outbreaks of the recent past.

Mercer announced Thursday that it has launched a private benefits exchange developed by Benefitfocus and available to employers with at least 100 employees.

The Hartford Group says its most recent survey indicates that more than 80% of workers would sign up for personalized voluntary disability coverage, given the option. The Hartford says it has a new offering to meet just that need.

Spending on hospital visits, medications and other care grew 3.9% to $2.7 trillion in 2011, matching the slowest growth in 52 years of recordkeeping, according to federal data released this week. Before the 2007 recession, growth was close to 8%.

Health-care spending in the U.S. grew at less than half the pre-recession level for the third straight year, as employers shifted more costs to strapped workers and state governments limited payouts for the poor.

Most employees believe that their employer offers them the best health plan they could, and that they might be at a loss to ensure the same on their own, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

Prescription medications for age-related conditions such as hair loss and mental alertness have been steadily increasing in cost, says benefit manager Express Scripts, surpassed only both those for diabetes and high cholesterol.

Recent Yale study concludes that fructose, as opposed to glucose, has a minimal effect on telling the brain that it’s full, and may contribute the nation’s obesity epidemic.

The biggest U.S. medical insurer is learning to sell health insurance to consumers the way other companies sell shoes, office supplies or iPhones — through a storefront — as PPACA’s sweeping reforms take place.

Brokers may need to be concerned about how a proposed change by the NAIC to the current stop-loss model could essentially trap their clients and remove their options for affordable care – effectively forcing them into state exchanges and eliminating the role of the broker, writes EBA Blogger Sam Fleet.