Healthcare

Brian Klepper joined the National Business Coalition on Health last month as the organization’s new CEO. He chats with EBN about his goals, his concerns about private health care exchanges and why the cost of health care is a threat to the competitiveness of U.S. businesses.

As more large brokerages seem to be opening their own platforms, one company wants to provide a means for the smaller independent agent to have a branded, customized private exchange, too.

Benefit advisers are hopeful Sylvia Mathews Burwell will repair strained communications between industry and HHS, while others view her nomination as largely a political move designed to push Obama’s divisive health care reform agenda.

The number of American adults with health insurance coverage from September 2013 to mid-March 2014 increased by 9.3 million – shaving the uninsured rolls to 15.8% from 20.5%, according to a new RAND survey. At least one skeptic, however, says the numbers are skewed and defy conventional wisdom.

Commentary: Columnist Mel Schlesinger contends that most brokers aren't actually selling the non-medical insurance products that could help clients and their employees. Simply including them in a proposal is not enough, he says.

The change in leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services will have little effect on employers and the continued rollout of the Affordable Care Act, say benefit industry experts. Some expressed surprise at Kathleen Sebelius's resignation while others did not.

With the departure of the HHS secretary comes an opportunity for brokers and agents to have their voices heard by a new leader as they continue to assist consumers with the ACA’s exchanges.

Commentary: Columnist Craig Davidson questions whether this was a true resignation or was she a "sacrificial lamb?"

Commentary: Sebelius was in an “unwinnable position," according to the former head of sales and marketing at Covered California, Michael Lujan. The former insurance agent writes that more engagement with the benefits industry would have behooved the troubled health secretary.

Kathleen Sebelius, the U.S. health secretary who steered the troubled rollout of President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, will resign just as the program topped its first-year enrollment goal, according to two people familiar with the decision.