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Healthcare companies including Aetna Inc, Mercer and Towers Watson Co have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build exchanges that allow company employees to buy their own insurance, betting that Corporate America wants to get out of managing workers' health benefits. By last year, blue chip names like Sears Holding and Walgreen Co had signed on and industry experts predicted that more than 20 percent of the nation's employees would soon buy their health insurance in this way, compared with less than 2 percent today. But Reuters interviews with nearly a dozen industry executives has found that no major U.S. company signed up their employees for the first time to a private health insurance exchange for 2015. (Humer, 12/15)

Centene Corp. on Friday gave a stronger-than-expected outlook for next year, as the Medicaid-focused health insurer benefits from expansions into big states like Florida and Ohio and from surging membership rates. (Dulaney, 12/12)