Will Health Reform Bring New Role, Respect To Primary Care Physicians?
By paying primary care doctors to cut specialist and hospital revenue, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield is helping to alter the medical spoils system.
Court Ruling Geared To ‘Closely Held’ Firms, But What Is That?
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, favors a tight definition for businesses that can be exempted from the health law’s contraceptive mandate. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggests the consequences may be farther reaching.
Employer Health Costs Forecast To Accelerate In 2015
Health costs will accelerate next year, but changes in how people buy care will help keep them from attaining the speed of several years ago, PricewaterhouseCoopers says in a new report. The prediction, based on interviews and modeling, splits the difference between hopes that costs will stay tame and fears that they’re off to the […]
Obamacare Health Spending Surge? Not So Fast
A growing economy and an Obamacare spending surge, many suspected, had ended five years of moderate health-spending growth. Early government figures showed medical-cost acceleration at the beginning of the year. “Health care spending rose at the fastest pace since 1980 in the first quarter as the new health insurance law prompted many more Americans to […]
Study: Health Law Boosts Hospital Psych Care For Young Adults
Expanded coverage for young adults under the Affordable Care Act substantially raised inpatient hospital visits related to mental health, finds a new study by researchers at Indiana and Purdue universities. That looks like good news: Better access to care for a population with higher-than-average levels of mental illness that too often endangers them and people […]
Can Employers Dump Workers To Health Exchanges? Yes, For A Price
How to expand Americans’ health insurance choices under the Affordable Care Act without sabotaging employer coverage? The Obama administration is still working to get the balance right. The latest tweak from the Internal Revenue Service essentially prohibits employers from giving workers tax-free dollars to buy policies in the online public marketplaces created by the health law. […]
Study: Limited Competition Raised Obamacare Prices
Many insurers only dipped a toe into the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplaces for their first year. Cigna, one of the country’s largest insurers, offered 2014 plans to individuals in fewer than half a dozen states. Humana is only in a little more than a dozen states. The biggest health insurer, UnitedHealthcare, didn’t offer any policies […]
Employers Eye Moving Sickest Workers To Insurance Exchanges
The idea, which could save companies big money, is stirring interest and concern.
WellPoint Softens Forecast For Obamacare Rate Hikes
Welcoming a surge of young, last-minute enrollees, the biggest player in the health law’s insurance marketplaces on Wednesday tempered its prediction for substantial 2015 rate increases. Five weeks ago WellPoint executive Ken Goulet told analysts that premium increases for 2015 plans “will probably be in double-digit plus.” On Wednesday’s conference call to discuss first-quarter results, […]
Who Really Pays For Health Care Might Surprise You
Implementation of the health law has renewed discussions of who wins, loses and gains access to health insurance. But questions persist. Here’s a corrective to common misconceptions about who pays for health care.
Health Plans Scramble To Calculate 2015 Rates
There’s a lot riding on these cost calculations for insurance companies, consumers and even the health law’s future.
Biggest Insurer Shocked With Hepatitis C Costs
UnitedHealth Group spent $100 million on hepatitis C drugs in the first three months of the year, much more than expected, the company said Thursday. The news helped drive down the biggest insurance company’s stock and underscores the challenge for all health care payers in covering Sovaldi, an expensive new pill for hepatitis C. “We’ve […]
Hospital Visits Fell When Seniors Got Drug Coverage
Eleven years ago Bob Bennett, then a Republican senator from Utah, made a fiscal sales pitch for including prescription drugs in Medicare coverage for seniors. “Medicare says if you go to the hospital and run up a bill of however many tens of thousands of dollars to stay that many days, we will pay for […]
Obama Administration Retreats On Private Medicare Rate Cuts
But insurers still contest the claim that rates will rise slightly after arriving at their own calculations of the originally proposed cuts.
Decoding The High-Stakes Debate Over Medicare Advantage Cuts
In high-visibility ad campaigns, insurers maintain that reduced payment rates, which are expected to be announced Monday, will do real harm. What should beneficiaries expect?
Insurers May Get Cost Break Thanks To Rocky ACA Rollout
The Obama administration keeps changing the rules on implementing the Affordable Care Act. Insurance companies keep complaining. But they’re unlikely to grouse about the latest adjustment. On Tuesday the Department of Health and Human Services signaled its intention to temporarily give insurers a break on the portion of premiums they must spend on medical care […]
What Will Obamacare Really Cost? They Might Be First To Know
A number of insurance companies have agreed to give an actuarial firm early information about enrollment and member health in the plans sold on the online marketplaces.
Survey: Employers Less Confident Of Future Health Benefits
Big employers are pretty sure they’ll keep offering workers health care coverage. But they seem a lot less sure than they used to be, according to a survey released Thursday. Only one large company in four recently surveyed by Towers Watson and the National Business Group on Health is confident it will provide medical coverage […]
Co-Ops Report Early Enrollment Successes And Expansion Plans
The Affordable Care Act’s nonprofit co-op health plans, which see themselves as the rebel alliance battling established insurers, have signed close to 300,000 members and are set to expand into three new states next year, officials say. Starting from zero in October, New York’s Health Republic Insurance has enrolled more than 50,000 policyholders, said John Morrison, who […]
Tips For New Obamacare Coverage: Stay In Network, Avoid Out-Of-Pocket Costs
Consumers who obtain insurance through the health law’s marketplaces will now have to figure out their plans’ specifics.
