Healthcare reform

We’re starting your week with three important facts, developments or conversations from recent and upcoming events. This week, we’ll look at why uninsured Americans’ hospital bills are so high, more official steps forward by HHS on public exchanges and HHS goals for tech improvements in 2013.

Probably you. The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) is moving forward in its quest to define who is a fiduciary for various client/adviser transactions.

We’re starting your week with three important facts, developments or conversations from recent and upcoming events. This week, we look at the new IRS guidelines, final ruling from CMS on MLR ratio and what’s going on in Europe with retirement taxes.

Nelson Griswold on what insurance brokerages need to keep up with health reform.

Health-contingent wellness programs can increase incentives for quitting tobacco use.

Ignorance will not be bliss come October when state and federal exchanges begin enrolling individuals and small-employer groups.

The health care reform law has many moving parts and a great deal of regulations yet to come, which will keep benefits professionals on their toes all year.

Enlist your broker as a partner toe help you stay on top of health care reform rules and regulations, writes Contributing Editor Laurie Miller.

Only 6% of those surveyed by Aon Hewitt plan to exit employer-sponsored health care entirely, but around 28% are eyeing the next three to five years for a move to a private health care exchange.

A glass-half-full crowd of benefits brokers and agents – that could be the theme of this year’s National Association of Health Underwriters Capitol Conference. The organization concluded its three day lobbying stint Wednesday with a morning of discussion panels on health reform, remarks from a Republican congresswoman, a talk with a representative from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and an address from NAHU’s president.

Buck Consultants announced this week that it would be starting a private health care exchange while Liazon unveiled a new web partnership to support its own.

Lawmakers, nonprofit groups address gathering of benefit advisers to discuss brokers’ role in health care reform.

Early bird gets the worm. That’s an applicable motto for the National Association of Health Underwriters Capitol Conference attendees, who packed into a hotel on Capitol Hill early Tuesday morning for an overflowing session of speakers, from a senator to a president of a health insurance enrollment non-profit to Mercer and Wellpoint representatives.

The answer to that question is still fuzzy. That’s because while the Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed to Employee Benefit News that health reimbursement arrangements and health savings accounts will be offered on the public exchanges, the organization still hasn’t released the details and regulations surrounding these accounts.

The answer to that question is still fuzzy. That’s because while the Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed to Employee Benefit Adviser that HRAs and HSAs will be offered on the public exchanges, the organization still hasn’t released the details and regulations surrounding these accounts.

The National Association of Health Underwriters hosts its annual Capitol Conference on Capitol Hill this week, bringing business leaders and bipartisan legislators together to discuss the changing marketplace and pending health reform regulations. Employee Benefit Adviser will be on site at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill to bring you coverage from this summit.

At a recent session presented by the Midwest Business Group on Health, one large and one small employer offered insights into how they made the decision to maintain health benefits or offer workers coverage via an exchange.

Even companies who have no interest in getting involved with a public health care exchange for active employees might help steer their pre-65 retirees toward the marketplace, experts with Fidelity Investments said Thursday.

The Department of Health and Human Services yesterday issued a final rule on the essential health benefits required of insurers under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

“We are making progress, we are on track and we will be ready,” Gary Cohen, director of the Department of Health and Human Services consumer information division, told the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing in Washington.