Healthcare

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.

Conditional approval from federal government allows Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah to move forward in creating state-run health insurance exchanges to comply with health care reform.

Medical insurance markets crafted by four U.S. Republican governors won conditional approval by the Obama administration as the federal government nudges states toward full implementation of the landmark health-care overhaul.

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.

Globally, those who are slightly overweight and obese have the lowest risks, according to a new U.S. government report, but critics say the study doesn’t take enough other factors, such as disease or nutrition.