Employer Strategies

The National Business Coalition on Health has developed ValuePort, an online benefits administration and strategy tool designed to help employers adopt value-based health strategies tailored to their populations.

The promise of 50,000 people being able to simultaneously use the site by Saturday – twice the capacity of last week – will be tested by congressional Republicans.

Towers Watson acquired Liazon Corporation, a leader in developing and delivering private benefit exchanges for active employees, last week. Representatives of the consultancy believe that this acquisition, which follows the purchase of Extend Health in June 2012, has solidified their position as the leading player in the private exchange market through its OneExchange solution.

In certain regions, such as the Midwest, consumer-driven health plan enrollment is now more than twice that of HMOs, according to Mercer research on how employers mean to combat rising health care costs.

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.

Quandary emerges for brokers who trained on the systems but might not want the business.

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.

Republican senators introduced a bill this week that would prevent the exclusion of multi-employer health plans from a $63 reinsurance fee that the ACA imposes on each enrollee.

The cost of employer-sponsored health insurance grew at only 2.1% in 2013, Mercer says, but companies expect levels to jump next year, back to around 5.2%

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.