Healthcare reform

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.

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.

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.

With mid-term elections bearing down, the government changed its regulation of Obamacare to give consumers and states more flexibility to decide on their health plans, insurers more time to sign up customers and taxpayers a chance to avoid more costs.

Many employers are turning to private health care exchanges to rein in costs — and benefit consulting firms are reaping the benefits, according to a new report from Moody’s Investor Services.

Health insurers such as WellPoint Inc. and Humana Inc. stand to gain $5.5 billion next year to cover losses from Obamacare in a program the law’s opponents label a bailout.

Facing an end-of-the-month deadline, the U.S. government is increasing efforts to enroll millions more Americans into Obamacare, including appeals from President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle.

The Obama administration last week said it will offer relief to consumers unable to purchase health insurance through state-run exchanges that have been hampered by technical difficulties.

The benefits industry is pushing back against a campaign by some policy-makers to increase federal oversight of self-insured health plans, particularly in regards to the purchasing of stop-loss insurance.

At a Republican think tank-sponsored forum on Thursday, congressmen from the right touted a patient and doctor-focused fix to health reform, but remain split on whether to repeal or make piecemeal changes to the Affordable Care Act. They also voiced concerns about employees’ ability to make ends meet as a consequence of the law.