Healthcare

Seventy percent of midsized businesses – those with between 50 and 999 employees – surveyed said their biggest challenge in 2013 is the cost of health coverage and benefits. ACA legislation came in as the No. 2 concern.

Following the Oct. 1 launch of the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges, nearly half (48%) of Americans nationwide say the federal government did a “poor” job of implementing the law in a new Kaiser survey.

While the thought may not have occurred to retirement and financial planners, one expert says that with the rising cost of health care, it’s a concept that could save their businesses.

As the Obama administration works to fix the technological problems associated with Healthcare.gov, greater issues with the federal health care exchanges remain, said a panel of health care experts Thursday in Washington.

With up to $500 now able to roll over from year to year, will employees flock to Flexible Spending Accounts? Benefits administrators should plan on it.

Two days after the troubled online U.S. health exchange went live, just 248 people nationwide had successfully enrolled in insurance plans under President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, documents show.

A debrief on the types of changes that trigger the loss of grandfathered status, the concept at the center of the “if you like your plan, you can keep it” issue.

Most health plan cancellation notices are being delivered to individuals who had coverage that is now out of line with the Affordable Care Act. But some the changes are also affecting small employers who must decide whether to pay the higher costs for new coverage, or send workers to purchasing exchanges.

“The tool ... provides us with the ability to send out critical food safety alerts to all store managers instantly,” says one official, who adds that the ability to upload training videos was a big part of what needed to be a very low-budget solution.

The White House calls the nationwide uptick in health plan cancellations a result of “substandard policies” being eliminated, but advisers express concern over resulting rate hikes.