Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Financial Losses Prompt Highmark To Cut Health Plan Offerings On Obamacare Exchanges
Highmark Health said it would reduce its range of offerings on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, becoming the latest insurer to retrench amid steep financial losses. The big Pittsburgh-based nonprofit company said it would continue to sell plans related to the federal health overhaul in all of the areas it currently serves, which span Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia. But 鈥渨e will have less products in the market overall,鈥 said David L. Holmberg, the company鈥檚 chief executive, who said Highmark had lost $318 million on its individual health-law plans in the first six months of 2015, after rolling out a very broad array of options that had attracted many consumers with chronic conditions who required costly care. (Wilde Mathews, 9/3)
California鈥檚 largest health plan group this week declared its opposition to both of the healthcare special session bills that would impose new taxes on managed-care organizations, the latest sign that a replacement for a soon-to-expire health plan tax is unlikely to emerge before lawmakers adjourn next week. (Miller, 9/3)
It's an unusual move, to lock out the people running a local health plan serving about 204,000 people, and to assume state stewardship of that plan. But that's what the California Department of Managed Health Care and its director Shelley Rouillard did, just over one year ago in Alameda County in the East Bay. (Gorn, 9/3)
And, as enrollment season approaches, KHN writes on聽the benefits of COBRA vs. health law plans and North Carolina's聽Navigator Consortium gets a grant to help sign up consumers -
As the open enrollment season for employer-sponsored health insurance gets underway this fall, experts say there鈥檚 one group that should definitely consider changing plans: people who have coverage through their former employer under the federal law known as COBRA. ... Before the health law passed, people who lost their jobs may not have had other options. Plans on the individual market could turn people down because of their health, and the coverage was often skimpy and expensive in any case. Times have changed. (Andrews, 9/4)
A group of 14 health care, social service and legal aid organizations has received more than $2.6 million in federal funding to help North Carolina residents sign up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Officials with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Wednesday that the N.C. Navigator Consortium will receive the grant to help consumers sign up during the open enrollment period for 2015-2016. (9/3)
