Healthcare plans

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.

Whether plan sponsors like it or not, employees’ expectations of the health insurance purchasing process are being shaped by influences outside of their control.

In exclusive interviews, Mercer’s Julio Portalatin and the heads of several other top brokerages — Gallagher, Lockton, Higginbotham, Willis and Pacific Resources —speak with EBA about their strategies for sustained development and staying ahead of the competition.

The IRS has issued a notice, regulations and other guidance related to the ACA, including information on getting a hardship exemption from the individual mandate for health insurance coverage.

Commentary: Reference-based pricing is slowly catching on with self-insured companies, says AmWINS Group Benefits’ Sam Fleet.

With mental illness and substance abuse costing employers an estimated $100 billion annually in indirect costs alone, benefit decision-makers are seeing value in promoting employee assistance programs as a means to improve their workforce’s mental well-being.

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.

HHS proposes making some significant changes to the ACA in 2016, including controversial new requirements for brokers and agents that some say put them at an unfair disadvantage.

Commentary: What makes employers slow to adopt a defined contribution strategy? There are many reasons, says bswift’s Brianna Petro.

A randomized controlled trial found that users of the SmartQuit program, created by Seattle-based 2Morrow, Inc., were 2.5 to three times more likely to quit smoking than those who tried to quit on their own. The program will be offered through employers, health plans and states.

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.

What health, retirement, technology, voluntary, and wellness issues will benefit professionals be wrestling with next year? The editors of Employee Benefit Adviser and Employee Benefit News have put together a web seminar series with top benefit experts to offer insights on the biggest 2015 trends.

No short-term effects are expected from House GOP’s ACA subsidy lawsuit, but industry experts expect long-term implications on presidential authority and upcoming elections.

Prenatal and postpartum care programs are not only a benefit for employees who are expecting, they can also help employers avoid unnecessary costs related to preterm births.

Wizened consumers who are able to analyze their entire out-of-pocket exposure. That’s the goal of ConnectedHealth’s private exchange, says Joe Donlan, the company’s president. However, he predicts that increased consumer engagement is just part of the wave toward more employers adopting private exchanges. Donlan shares his view on where the industry is headed and how brokers fit into the exchange system.

U.S. House Republicans made good on a vote to sue the Obama administration over implementation of the 2010 health-care law with a lawsuit naming the Department of Health and Human Services and the Treasury as defendants in what they claim to be a case of constitutional overreach.

The IRS plans to close a major loophole in the ACA by banning employers who offer ‘skinny’ medical plans without hospitalization coverage from qualifying as minimum value plans under the health reform law.

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.

Health insurance industry has lowest satisfaction rating in nearly a decade, report says.

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.