Exchanges

Large employers are playing a waiting game in the coming year on health care cost saving strategies as many wait and see how Washington politics play out.

Private benefit exchanges continue to grow – albeit slowly – but the pace of change is expected to pick up as employers consider their benefit options for 2016.

The federal health insurance marketplace may have issued subsides to persons not eligible to receive them during the first open enrollment period, a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General has found.

The DOL’s proposed fiduciary rule would likely push some commission-based brokers out of the retirement market altogether, NAIFA’s JuIi McNeely testified during the second day of DOL hearings on the proposed rule.

Of the many industry critiques of the Department of Labor's fiduciary proposal, one of the most oft-repeated is the assertion that new regulations would cut off access to advice for low- and middle income investors — precisely the segment of consumers the initiative aims to protect.

The Plan Sponsor Council of America outlines its concerns over the DOL’s proposal to impose fiduciary requirements on retirement advisers.

Concerns about over-regulation and accusations of industry cynicism led the opening of the Labor Department's hearings on its proposal to impose fiduciary requirements on retirement advisers — the latest phase of its contentious process to craft new rules on consumer protections.

Connecticut’s AccessHealthCT is poised to become the nation’s first state-run marketplace that will be financially self-sustaining in 2016 when federal grants end for these online marketplaces as stipulated under the Affordable Care Act.

While Montana has one of the nation’s lowest head counts, it ranked a close second behind New Hampshire in terms of the highest rate of 2015 public exchange re-enrollment among 34 states that direct their residents to Healthcare.gov.

Working in partnership with USI and GoHealth, the payroll firm’s platform will serve populations with employer-provided benefits as well as those who must purchase through public exchanges.