News Briefs
✦ On Jan. 15, CMS finalized a rule that compels Medicaid, CHIP and Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchange plans to streamline their prior authorization processes. The regulation, which the administration proposed in D...
Centene, UnitedHealth Start New Year With Acquisitions
Although 2021 has just begun, major health insurers appear to be wasting no time when it comes to spending the influx of cash that they’ve collected as a result of reimbursing lower-than-normal medical claims duri...
McCarran-Ferguson Repeal Is Unlikely to Change Status Quo
Editor's Note: President Donald Trump signed the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act into law on Jan. 13.
In December, Congress repealed some federal antitrust exemptions for insurers, over the objection of s...
Study of N.J. System Sheds Light On Federal Surprise Billing Fix With Chart: New Jersey Arbitration System Tends to Favor Providers
An arbitration system to resolve payment disputes between insurers and out-of-network providers over surprise medical bills in New Jersey has resulted in payments that are much higher than prevailing in-network rate...
National Health Care Expenditures Grew Steadily in 2019
Total U.S. health care spending increased 4.6% to reach $3.8 trillion in 2019, according to CMS’s Office of the Actuary. Medicare spending experienced a higher growth rate in 2019 than in 2018, increasing by 6.7% ...
Insurers Sound Off on Recent Proposed Rules From CMS
While CMS has been busy issuing health care regulations in the Trump administration’s final days, industry trade groups have likewise been churning out comment letters that detail their position on those proposals...
News Briefs
✦ Three years after they unveiled a joint venture tasked with lowering the cost and improving the quality of employee health care, Amazon, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Berkshire Hathaway are disbanding the company...
Wall Street Is Optimistic About Health Insurers’ Fortunes in 2021
Equities analysts are bullish on the health insurance industry in 2021, despite the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Wall Street also expects more mergers and acquisitions will take place in 2021 than the...
2020 Year in Review: In Hindsight, It Was a Time Like No Other for Payers
For the health insurance industry — alongside the rest of the health care sector, and even the world — the COVID-19 pandemic was undeniably the event that dominated 2020. However, other issues also captured head...
HealthCare.gov Sign-Ups Rise in Most States
Over 8.2 million people selected or were automatically reenrolled in health plans for 2021 on HealthCare.gov as of the Dec. 15 deadline, which was just shy of the 8.3 million sign-ups for the 2020 plan year, accordi...