The federal agency in charge of exchanges is communicating with brokers about technology improvements, but brokers say they haven’t heard much of anything, yet.

Employers, on the whole, report seeing their health care costs continuing to rise – most suggest that costs will jump 19% between 2013 and 2014 alone.

Employers continue to see a rise in health insurance costs. Annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage reached $16,351 in 2013, up 4% from last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) 2013 Employer Health Benefits Survey. So how can employers work to control these costs? A key success factor in reducing health insurance costs is the leadership’s commitment to this strategy. Can you find top-down leadership commitment to a long-term program…

The 2013 Deloitte Employer Survey finds that many employers see the entire health care system as being expensive and wasteful, and indicate that they don’t believe the ACA will do much to help to change the situation.

The move comes in response to Republican lawmakers’ criticism of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act over the healthcare.gov website troubles and the cancellation notices sent to hundreds of thousands of current policy holders as a result of the law.

Time may not be on the side of carriers in their quest to set appropriate rates for 2015 if the 2014 enrollments take longer than expected because of further online technical delays, public apathy or both.

In the latest ACA delay announced Wednesday, HHS touts brokers as an alternative for small businesses to enroll

Sebelius cautioned that the “on” switch has not magically been flipped on, though “…the experience is vastly improved each and every day.”

The promise of 50,000 people being able to simultaneously use the site by Saturday – twice the capacity of last week – will be tested by congressional Republicans.

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.

The decision by CMS leaves just eight days for insurers to send bills to those signing up on the last day of the enrollment period.

Quandary emerges for brokers who trained on the systems but might not want the business.

Consulting firm Towers Watson announced today it has bought private health care exchange provider Liazon, which operates the Bright Choices exchange, for $215 million. The deal further validates the private exchange market, says one of Liazon's competitors.

The cost of employer-sponsored health insurance grew at only 2.1% in 2013, Mercer says, but companies expect levels to jump next year, back to around 5.2%

Kansas, North Dakota and other state insurance commissioners snubbed a meeting with President Barack Obama set up to discuss allowing some people to keep medical plans that don’t meet the requirements of the U.S. health law.

Social networks kept the 41,000 participants in the Sprint Get Fit Challenge engaged and motivated throughout the 12-week challenge. Collectively, participants (who made up 35% of the telecom company’s population) lost more than 41,000 pounds, took almost 4.8 billion steps, and logged nearly 22 million exercise minutes. By building excitement and supportive competition through social media, Sprint’s wellness leaders engaged participants over the long-term.

A public employer in California is building its own marketplace to mirror public exchanges under the Affordable Care Act — a potential idea for brokers for prospecting.

Learning to cope with treatment – or even the time or alternative work arrangements required for an employee helping a loved one dealing with cancer – can be a challenge for any HR professional, but a new guide hopes to provide better understanding.

Used to assess and evaluate changes in employee health, biometric health screenings are a crucial component of a comprehensive worksite health program. As a result, biometric health screenings are increasing in popularity and are being implemented by more and more employers.

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.