On December 13, 2016, President Obama signed the 21st Century Cures Act into law. Called “the most important bill of the year,” the bipartisan Act…
DOL proposes changes to Form 5500
The U.S. Department of Labor plans to revise Form 5500 to require insurers and health plans to report more information. The proposed changes focus on…
Drug Costs Continue To Rise
Although the rate at which overall health costs are rising is historically low, employers, experts, and politicians are expressing alarm at the rising cost of…
PACE Act Passage Elicits Praise and Frustration
Earlier this month, President Obama signed the bipartisan PACE Act to stop the Affordable Care Act (ACA) from changing rules that apply to employers with…
Big Changes at Assurant
Last week, Assurant, Inc. announced an agreement to sell its employee benefits business to Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, a subsidiary of Sun Life…
National Uninsured Rate Falls Below 10%
Two national surveys show that the percentage of people without health insurance has dropped steadily since the Affordable Care Act’s public insurance exchanges launched in…
Aetna-Humana merger drives fee-based model
With Aetna poised to acquire Humana in 2016, industry observers have noted how industry consolidation generally and Aetna’s growing market share in particular will lead…
2016 Rate Review Submissions Filed
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires individual and small group rate increases that exceed 10% to be published, reviewed, and approved by state or federal…
Arise to offer AboutHealth plans
AboutHealth, one of two new health system partnerships in Wisconsin, recently announced plans to sell health plans to individuals and employer groups through a co-branding…
Many reasons for Milwaukee area’s high health costs
An article by Guy Boulton in Friday’s edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel looked at four studies on health costs and concluded that the Milwaukee…