Healthcare reform

Brokers may be the best intermediary to communicate a matter of pediatric dental compliance to employers and medical carriers operating in numerous states as regulations shift.

Consumer spending climbed by $20.4 billion at an annualized rate adjusted for inflation in February, and $13 billion of the increase came from outlays on health services spurred by the ACA, according to Commerce Department data.

People who waited until the last minute to sign up for Obamacare were significantly younger than those first in line, as the percentage of enrollees younger than 35 jumped in the last month. President Obama said Thursday that 8 million people have enrolled in private insurance plans through the public exchanges.

With open enrollment officially over, suggestions are emerging from industry experts on how to tweak the next round of ACA sign-ups.

Tuesday was the last day of a two-week health law extension for hundreds of thousands of people who couldn’t finish their enrollment by March 31, the official deadline to sign up for a federally subsidized insurance plan in 2014.

The Congressional Budget Office, the main arbiter of Obamacare’s effects on the economy, left unchanged its estimate of the number of people expected to gain insurance coverage under the law.

Advisers say employers are increasingly purchasing voluntary dental plans as an effort to cut costs, meet new ACA requirements and retain employees.

Benefit advisers are hopeful Sylvia Mathews Burwell will repair strained communications between industry and HHS, while others view her nomination as largely a political move designed to push Obama’s divisive health care reform agenda.

With the departure of the HHS secretary comes an opportunity for brokers and agents to have their voices heard by a new leader as they continue to assist consumers with the ACA’s exchanges.

Commentary: Columnist Craig Davidson questions whether this was a true resignation or was she a "sacrificial lamb?"

Commentary: Sebelius was in an “unwinnable position," according to the former head of sales and marketing at Covered California, Michael Lujan. The former insurance agent writes that more engagement with the benefits industry would have behooved the troubled health secretary.

Kathleen Sebelius, the U.S. health secretary who steered the troubled rollout of President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, will resign just as the program topped its first-year enrollment goal, according to two people familiar with the decision.

Legal analysis: Are employees hired through a staffing firm or professional employer organization considered full-time employees under the ACA? Answering this question wrong could cost your clients a great deal.

About 400,000 people signed up for private health insurance under Obamacare since a deadline passed that was initially supposed to end enrollment, the U.S. health secretary said Thursday.

At a legislative conference for the Big “I” agent advocacy group in Washington on Thursday, the ACA was noticeably missing from everything from legislators’ talks to the group’s lobbying agenda for the year.

While all eyes had been on HIX enrollment numbers during the ACA’s first open-enrollment period, millions of Americans also chose health insurance options off the exchange. What does this mean for adverse selection and future premium pricing?

House Republicans are delaying the rollout of their alternative proposal to Obamacare, according to lawmakers and aides involved in the process.

The ACA's first open enrollment period presented some expected — and some out-of-the-blue — challenges for carriers, agents and others tasked with enrolling millions of individuals on the health insurance exchanges. Those challenges should serve as lessons and preparation exercises for the next open enrollment, several industry experts advise.

The number of uninsured Americans has dropped to its lowest level recorded since 2008, a new Gallup poll finds, attributing the decrease to ACA successes.

Commentary: More DOL audits are conducted around wage and hour issues than any other topic. Be careful to not dismiss this matter, as there could be major benefits-related consequences for employers if problems are found, writes columnist Craig Davidson.