Healthcare reform

President Barack Obama said neither he nor members of his administration anticipated the magnitude of the flaws that hobbled the startup of the federal website for people to choose health-care plans under his new law.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Thursday shows Americans’ bad perception of the ACA is near an all-time high. Meanwhile, brokers’ negativity about their ability to do their jobs on the exchanges has subsided.

Premiums for health plans on new state exchanges under the Affordable Care Act are comparable to – and in some cases lower than – those being offered by employers with similar levels of coverage, according to a study released Thursday by PricewaterhouseCooper’s Health Research Institute.

Despite fixes made to the health insurance marketplaces, two-thirds of Americans (66%) surveyed in mid-January still say the opening has “not gone well” or worse, according to a new Associated Press-GfK survey.

WellPoint Inc., the second-biggest U.S. medical insurer, added 500,000 new members since Obamacare enrollment began and while they are older and sicker than current members, CEO isn’t worried about the risk pool.

EBA recently introduced a concept several brokers across the country are embracing — the retail storefront. But one broker doesn’t just want to attract individual clients to walk-in, he plans to use the space to enhance offerings for his group client employees, too.

More than half of Americans do not know the date by which they must purchase health insurance to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate provision, according to a Bankrate.com survey.

Republican U.S. senators opposed to Obamacare said the best alternative would be a narrower system of tax credits for Americans to buy health insurance without any of the mandates for people or companies to participate.

A recent assessment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s 2013 actions points to a trending change among discriminatory enforcement in disability policies that will most likely lead to additional headaches among companies trying to stay above water.

The vast majority of U.S. companies said the implementation of the Obama administration’s health care law will have no effect on their businesses or hiring plans, according to results of a poll issued Monday.

Through strategic partnerships, small brokerages can compete on a national level.

Three million people have enrolled in private health plans offered through the Obamacare insurance exchanges, U.S. officials said.

A Missouri law requiring licenses for counselors who help consumers find health insurance on Affordable Care Act exchanges was temporarily blocked by a U.S. judge, setting back a measure by a state hostile to the federal health care overhaul statute.

As a result of the continued uncertainty of Affordable Care Act’s impact, Moody’s changed the outlook for U.S. health insurers to negative from stable.

Excepted benefits are specified limited scope health benefits that are exempt or excepted from the insurance market reform provisions of the Affordable Care Act and the health insurance requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1986, known as HIPAA.

The percentage of adults without health insurance in the U.S. fell this month to the lowest level since the end of 2012 as the core provisions of Obamacare took effect, a Gallup poll found.

Some small businesses are facing a potential “double whammy” in 2016 from the Affordable Care Act, one expert warns.

Humana Inc. was sued by a Missouri man who claimed the insurer raised premiums for him and other customers and then failed to respond to requests to cancel policies, allegedly to increase revenue under the Affordable Care Act in what may be the first such lawsuit.

CMS accelerated $90 million deal, rather than go through normal one-year bidding process, as it did not believe current contractor could complete work on ‘urgently needed’ functionalities.

Health care exchanges and other issues related to the Affordable Care Act have garnered a great deal of attention. However, additional and less well-known ACA regulations went into effect on January 1. One of these impacts wellness programs, including the myriad initiatives employers have put in place to encourage employees to exercise, lose weight and otherwise improve their health to prevent illness, disability and its costs.