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With healthcare costs continually rising, an increasing number of employers are providing their employees with more choices when it comes to health insurance plans. This is helping employers save money on insurance premiums, but it’s making the decision process more difficult for employees. The key to helping employees make the best decision in a consumer-driven […]

Healthcare costs are rising. And as employers face higher price tags, many are pushing costs onto workers to help maintain budgets. The average cost per covered employee has increased by nearly $500 in the span of one year, according to the Society for Human Resource Management’s new Health Care Benchmarking Report, released Tuesday. Employers spent […]

For 2017, PwC’s Health Research Institute projects a 6.5% growth rate in medical cost trends, the same as in the current year. They also report signs that the decade’s slowing medical cost growth rate could tick back up as new healthcare access points increase utilization. Alex Tolbert is the founder of Bernard Health, a company […]

The healthcare industry is in the midst of a shift toward consumerism. Driven by rising healthcare costs, employers continue to shift financial responsibility to their employees in the form of higher deductibles and out of pocket costs. This change represents a complete paradigm shift for consumers, who must now take a more active role in […]

Do you remember Dec. 18 when Congress and the president delayed the Cadillac tax until 2020? Do you remember reading that the same new law also placed a one-year moratorium on the annual fee the Affordable Care Act imposes on most health insurers? Because this moratorium was for 2017, I filed this latter news in […]

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is laser-like focused on scrutinizing employer personnel policies. In yet another example of this ongoing campaign, a recent administrative law judge (ALJ) decision highlights how some common employer’s handbook policies can be found to be unlawful. Here are just a few of the policies the ALJ considered and found illegal: […]

(Bloomberg) — Premiums for the most popular type of insurance plans sold through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces will rise faster in 2017 than in recent years, according to a study released Wednesday. Consumer payments for the two lowest-cost “silver” plans will rise by an average of 10 percent to 11 percent next year, […]

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones is opposing efforts by Aetna to acquire Humana. The California Department of Managed Health Care gave the Aetna-Humana its blessing Monday. Aetna, which is based in Hartford, Connecticut, and Louisville, Kentucky-based Humana, say they need to team up to do a better job of bargaining with large hospital companies and […]

(Bloomberg View) — One can imagine all sorts of Republican health care plans that might now be under consideration if John McCain had won the election in 2008, or if Obamacare had failed to pass. (Of course, one can also imagine that there would be no plan at all, other than “Let’s not talk about […]

Soon the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will begin notifying employers about employees receiving advance premium tax credits (APTC) or subsidies for 2016 on the ACA federally facilitated exchange. For an idea of what the notice will look like, see the sample employer notice recently posted by HHS. In his May 10, 2016 post […]