Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

We’re starting your week with three important facts, developments or conversations from recent and upcoming events. This week, we’ll look at why uninsured Americans’ hospital bills are so high, more official steps forward by HHS on public exchanges and HHS goals for tech improvements in 2013.

Nearly half of all health plan members in the group and individual markets nationwide say they are interested in using a state exchange to purchase health insurance, according to a new survey by J.D. Power and Associates.

Big “I” and ACORD technology workgroups come together to push forward ID federation, real time, e-signatures and self-service capabilities

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is taking a firm stand on the discussion about how the navigators' role varies from brokers and agents - they're different. After testifying before an April hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Gary Cohen, the director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, part of CMS, told EBA that navigators will be supplying objective information, while brokers will continue in their role of advising. "They are not making recommendations, they're not selling," Cohen said about navigators.

At the 10th World Health Care Congress held just outside Washington, D.C., in April, Mark Fogel, head of HR for New York-based accounting firm Marcum Group, said his organization is still "grappling" with what to do about the Affordable Care Act and the new world for employers.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report in April saying that employees switching jobs often receive guidance by 401(k) companies to roll their accounts into an IRA, even when that might not be the best course of action.

Want proof that advisers need to be engaged in social media? In a recent report the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission clarified that its Regulation FD rules permit companies to use social media outlets to make significant corporate announcements, provided that those sites are generally accessible to the public and that investors have been notified about which social channels a firm intends to use.

INTEGRATING 401(k) PLAN ADMIN, PAYROLL

Transamerica’s Stig Nybo author of Transform Tomorrow: Awakening the Super Saver in Pursuit of Retirement Readiness on how building a proper retirement nest egg is a big social crisis.

David Goldhill, CEO of the game show network takes on U.S. health care system spurred by death of his father.