Insurance

Commentary: The employer community has made its voice clear on the Affordable Care Act’s excise tax. Legislators seem to have heard. Will it make a difference?

U.S. Sens. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) introduced legislation Thursday seeking to repeal the Affordable Care Act’s excise tax on high-cost group plans.

The share of people without health insurance in the U.S. fell to 10.4 percent last year as the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of public and private coverage programs took effect.

Commentary: Data breaches, cost transparency and telehealth rank among the Health Research Institute’s top trends plan sponsors need to pay attention to.

The public employees responsible for overseeing $600 million in contracts to build Healthcare.gov were inadequately trained, kept sloppy records, and failed to identify delays and problems that contributed to millions in cost overruns, a new government report finds.

Despite eligibility for cost-sharing reductions, more than 2 million public exchange enrollees did not select eligible plans.

Professional services company Towers Watson has agreed to acquire Brovada, a Canadian insurance technology business best known for the BrovadaOne platform, an application for integrating and automating interactions between insurers, and their agents and brokers.

In the first year of open enrollment on its private benefit exchange, brokerage Lovitt & Touché made some mistakes. But the firm won’t be repeating them, says the Phoenix-based brokerage’s senior vice president.

Broker group hopeful hotline is “first step” in making enrollment through federally-facilitated marketplace an even playing field for agents and brokers

Sun Life Financial’s acquisition of the employee benefits unit of Assurant is just the latest move in the insurer’s growth strategy for the U.S. market.

The DOL’s proposed fiduciary rule presents complex challenges to advisers, clients and will exacerbate the savings crisis in America, NAIFA warned Congress Thursday — two weeks before the comment period on the controversial rule closes.

The recently announced mergers of four of the nation’s largest health insurance companies threatens to decrease competition in multiple markets, a threat the American Medical Association says will exceed federal antitrust guidelines and warrants regulatory review. Experts agree brokers will need to work with employer clients to find creative solutions to work with limited plan choices and keep premium costs down.

Sun Life Financial Inc., Canada’s third-largest life insurer, has agreed to buy the employee-benefits business of Assurant Inc. to further expand its presence in the U.S.

The IRS says employers can now do a trial run of their electronic form filing for reporting requirements under the ACA, giving nervous employers and their benefit advisers a way to test for readiness in advance of the reporting deadlines.

About 9.9 million people got health insurance coverage through the marketplaces set up by the ACA as of June 30, a decline from earlier in the year though still higher than the White House administration’s target.

Transgender individuals would gain new health care protections in rules proposed Thursday by U.S. regulators.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services awards $7 million more than last year to grantees in 34 states.

Ford Motor Co. executive chairman Bill Ford said the company is considering a health-care co-op, an issue the United Auto Workers union has raised in negotiations on a new contract.

Greg Giangrande, executive vice president, chief human resources officer for Time Inc., is the recipient of EBN’s 2015 Benefits Leadership in Health Care Award.

A PBE's consumer-facing portal may be "the sexy piece," an Accenture exec says, but many clients are looking for help beyond open enrollment.