Health and wellness

While it’s difficult to discuss your eventual death with those you love, it’s imperative to plan for it, not only for your sake, but for theirs. Employers can offer several voluntary benefits to help make this end-of-life planning and transition easier for their employees and the loved ones they leave behind.

Obamacare’s requirement that all Americans carry insurance or face penalties, part of the effort to gain universal coverage, may not be much of a rule at all.

With the Affordable Care Act expected to force employers to find more nimble ways to curb health care costs, Gov. Scott Walker has signed the “Healthy Jobs Act” into law, a new proposal that would offer tax credits to companies that provide workplace wellness programs.

Like it or not, limited plan options seem here to stay. Brokers and employers discuss their strategies for navigating through them.

President Barack Obama’s health care law is becoming more entrenched, with 64% of Americans now supporting it outright or backing small changes.

In Maine, the insurer that has enrolled the most Obamacare customers isn’t the state’s well-established Blue Cross Blue Shield plan, owned by WellPoint Inc. It’s WellPoint’s only rival.

Four of five U.S. companies have raised deductibles or are considering doing so as health costs increase, according to a Mercer survey of more than 700 employers.

Rising health care costs are driving employers to audit their covered dependents to eliminate working spouses.

When it comes to helping young adults avoid serious health problems later in life, assessing their personalities during routine medical exams could prove as useful as recording their family medical histories and smoking habits, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

About 4.2 million people signed up for Obamacare health plans through February as the administration tries to focus the attention of consumers on the March 31 deadline for Americans to enroll.

The Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General is opening an investigation into Maryland’s state-run health insurance marketplace, amid questions over spending on a still not fully-functioning website.

A new wellness mindset is brewing at the Palmyra, Wisc. headquarters of Standard Process, a whole food supplements distributor established in 1929. The health organization is planning to open its doors to employers across the country that are looking to incorporate organic strategies to improve the health of employees by including the services of an onsite chiropractor.

The private and public exchanges offer employers an opportunity to help manage costs and provide personalized benefits, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution, industry experts say.

Galen Institute’s Grace-Marie Turner talked conservatives’ view of both employers and brokers at a recent Washington policy conference on health reform alternatives. She shares her conclusions on the Affordable Care Act, next steps on broker compensation, and more.

U.S. Health Insurance Regulator Gary Cohen has long wanted to return home to California, and the end of open enrollment seemed like the perfect time to make that move, he told the media Thursday, two days after announcing his resignation.

Looking toward the end of 2014 open enrollment in the Affordable Care Act’s health exchanges, Gary Cohen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, said Thursday at an AHIP conference that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is expecting a “fairly significant spike in enrollments."

In two employer-focused sessions at AHIP’s annual policy conference in Washington this week, the excise tax in the ACA — known as the Cadillac tax — dominated the list of future concerns for plan sponsors.

Gary Cohen, the top U.S. health insurance regulator accused by congressional Republicans of misleading them before the troubled start of the Obamacare insurance website, will resign.

The move by Los Angeles City Council this week to ban electronic cigarettes from restaurants, bars, nightclubs and other public spaces in the city leaves employers grappling with the issue of whether to develop policies to regulate their use in the workplace.

A new trend in employee coaching and assistance programs applies the principles of neuroscience to help employees reduce stress, quit smoking and become more focused and productive.