Client strategies

Towers Watson acquired Liazon Corporation, a leader in developing and delivering private benefit exchanges for active employees, last week. Representatives of the consultancy believe that this acquisition, which follows the purchase of Extend Health in June 2012, has solidified their position as the leading player in the private exchange market through its OneExchange solution.

Public support for the U.S. health care overhaul fell to its lowest level in a Kaiser Family Foundation survey after the Oct. 1 debut of government-run insurance marketplaces greeted consumers with breakdowns on websites, higher prices and potentially broken promises.

A massive defined contribution storm is about to crash onto the employee benefits landscape. You can choose to ride it out to continued - or even greater - profitability, or you and your firm can get swept away. I've written that employer interest in the defined contribution model will explode in the next 12 months.

The ACA's pediatric dental requirement brings increased attention to this popular benefit.

President Barack Obama pressed top U.S. insurers to help consumers cope with the rocky start of his health care law as the Republican-led House passed a bill that would let Americans keep their current policies through 2014.

An agent explains the difficult steps that would need to be taken to renew canceled plans, while a health insurance trade group says the president’s announcement Thursday could “destabilize the market.”

With the decision, state governors and insurance commissioners would have the authority to keep would-be canceled plans active until the end of 2014.

President Barack Obama said he’s sorry that thousands of Americans are losing their medical insurance as a result of his health care law, as his administration works to contain the political damage from the troubled roll-out of his signature domestic achievement.

Employee benefits attorneys share how employers facing Affordable Care Act reforms can think outside the box for health plan changes in 2014.

United Benefit Advisors is the latest group to launch private exchanges, though these are limited to brokers who are UBA members, there is one for small and one for large employers alike.

Despite taking Healthcare.gov offline for hours a day to make technological fixes, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Wednesday the site continued to experience multiple slowdowns and displayed error messages to numerous visitors throughout the day.

President Obama touted this state as exemplary Wednesday in his health care speech, but one broker says there was a loophole for those who were able to enroll.

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.

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.

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.

While the rest of the country was trying to access exchange websites on Oct. 1 and having no luck, something remarkable happened in Connecticut.

The choices that benefits professionals make now about the ACA are crucial.

Computer servers hosting a key piece of Obamacare’s insurance enrollment program fails Sunday, leaving federal and independent state exchanges unable to provide most services.