Benefit plan design

When evaluating the merits of a private exchange, one industry insider suggests pursuing an overall financial strategy built around achieving “true savings” rather than simply shifting costs onto employees – a warning that has been sounded for years in the traditional marketplace.

Despite pressure from clients to provide an immediate solution for rising health care costs – brokers need to proceed slowly and cautiously when discussing solutions such as private exchanges, according to a speaker at Employee Benefit News’ Private Healthcare Exchanges conference.

As if employee benefit brokers and advisers in California haven’t had enough uphill battles trying to preserve their standing along the changing HIX landscape, some of them also now have to worry about being paid for helping enroll more than 500,000 residents in the state-run public exchange. But at least one industry insider believes it’s much ado about nothing. …

Open enrollment has been an annual headache for employers, even before the presence of the Affordable Care Act and the numerous plan changes towards more employee consumerism that followed.

Consumer operated and oriented plans known as CO-OPs have given some commercial carriers a run for their money in parts of the HIX marketplace where there was little or no competition, but these entities, created under the Affordable Care Act, also have run into some of the same systemic obstacles that have dogged for-profit plans for years.

Comparing prescription drug benefits offered on the Covered California state-run exchange is expected to be easier during the 2015 open enrollment.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has released highly anticipated draft regulations expected to impact the makeup of health plan provider networks on a state and federal level, including on the ACA exchanges.

Towers Watson has spent nearly a billion dollars of its own capital to build out its private exchange offering, OneExchange, through acquisitions. Jim Foreman, Towers Watson’s director of exchange solutions, shares how voluntary continues to grow in a private HIX marketplace and why more and more employers are expressing interest in the offerings.

Perhaps the hottest trend in benefits right now is the exchange distribution model. In EBA’s ongoing series of discussions with heads of the country’s top brokerages, these leaders share their approach to the exchange system and how they see private exchanges impacting the future of benefits.

HHS is proposing to make some significant changes to the rules governing the Affordable Care Act, including a shortened time period for open enrollment and training requirements for brokers and agents.

A majority of employers – regardless of workforce size – are planning to keep their health plan coverage going into next year as the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate takes effect.

Commentary: Private exchanges are not the one-size-fits-all solution some in the benefit industry think they are, says broker Judy Miller. The veteran adviser shares her opinion about the promises and pitfalls of the private exchange solution.

Benefit advisers are prepared to make significant investments in internal systems in 2015 to better manage their workload, improve existing relationships with employers and better market themselves to prospects.

Blue Cross Blue Shield is requiring all agents in the individual market in one state be certified to sell in the state’s federally facilitated marketplace — even those who only sell outside of the exchange.

A majority of brokers have seen some of their employer clients drop group coverage altogether in reaction to the ACA and double-digit rate increases. That trend, they say, will rise and advisers need to adjust the way they do business if they hope to survive.

Commentary: Are private exchanges just a flex benefits reboot? Lockton’s Mike Smith shares what he thinks will affect their success and adoption.

With an expected 5.5% rise in health care costs in 2015 – the same year the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate takes effect – employers have high hopes that spending can be reined through increased employee consumerism.

On Saturday, the first day of enrollment for 2015 Obamacare plans, the federal insurance website was working well enough that 100,000 people submitted applications, U.S. health secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell reported.

As an effort to comply with the ACA, some employers have been considering offering employees a lump sum of cash to purchase health care coverage on the exchanges, but the DOL now says such an arrangement isn't going to cut it.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review a challenge to the tax subsidies allowed under the Affordable Care Act, but legal experts predict any high court ruling will have little effect on the law or employers.