Source: The Sacramento Bee Premiums are expected to rise in many parts of the country as a new sign-up season under President Barack Obama’s health care law starts Nov. 1. But consumers have options if they shop around, and an upgraded government website will help them compare. Consumers can see their own premiums for 2016 […]
Read moreSource: Fierce Health Payer An analysis of narrow networks on the Covered California health plan marketplace found that in most cases consumers don’t need to worry that they are trading quality of care for lower costs. While Covered California plans did offer narrower hospital networks, there was no significant relationship between raw network size and […]
Read moreSource: Los Angeles Times Nearly half of the estimated 700,000 Californians who have dropped their Obamacare policies during the past two years have enrolled in an employer-based plan, a new report from the Covered California exchange shows. In a news conference Thursday, Peter Lee, the organization’s executive director, said there were about 1.3 million Californians […]
Read moreSource: KQED News In advance of the Nov. 1 start of open enrollment for Covered California, new numbers show that just over half of the state’s remaining uninsured are eligible for health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The estimate was part of a state-by-state analysis compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Researchers found […]
Read moreSource: The Hill The public opposes ObamaCare’s “Cadillac Tax” on high-cost health insurance plans by a wide margin, according to a new poll. The poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which does nonpartisan healthcare analysis, finds that 60 percent of the public opposes the tax, while 28 percent favor it. The tax is meant to […]
Read moreSource: The Washington Post As a third open-enrollment season nears under the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration plans to focus on 10.5 million uninsured Americans, trying to persuade them to sign up for coverage that they have ignored or rejected in the past. According to estimates released Tuesday by Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia […]
Read moreSource: The Washington Times Employers are leaving a bigger chunk of the bill for care to workers who use their health insurance, and benefits experts see few signs of this trend slowing. Most companies now offer health coverage that requires employees to pay an annual deductible before insurance kicks in, and the size of that […]
Read moreNew IRS ACA Reporting Forms Source: Bloomberg The forms that employers must use to fulfill annual information reporting requirements under the Affordable Care Act were released Sept. 17 by the Internal Revenue Service. Employers have to file the forms in the first quarter of 2016 to provide a month-by-month breakdown of health-care coverage offered during […]
Read moreConsumers Can Check Medical Prices, Quality Scores on New State Website Source: Los Angeles Times Lifting some of the secrecy surrounding California healthcare, state officials unveiled a website where consumers can look up average prices for common medical procedures — as well as quality scores for providers. California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, consumer advocates and […]
Read moreBy sheer number of covered lives, Kaiser Permanente has been California’s largest health insurer for decades. But if Anthem gets its way — no longer. The Indianapolis-based insurer is currently the second-largest health insurer in the Golden State, and one of the three largest health insurers in the nation. Its planned mega-merger with Cigna is […]
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