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As North Carolina is reeling from some of the highest health insurance rates in the nation under the Affordable Care Act, U.S. health secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell on Monday advised residents to shop around for better deals. Burwell stressed a lesson repeated often by ACA advocates: Rates can appear excessively high for the same plan year-over-year, but customers are likely to find better deals if they explore other plans. (Murawski, 11/2)

It's open enrollment season for individual health plans, and that's true whether you're looking to buy directly from an insurance company or through MNsure, Minnesota's health insurance exchange. (11/2)

Groups working to boost health insurance enrollment in Kansas are concerned their efforts could be undermined by the last-minute departure of one of the state’s largest insurers. Coventry Health Care of Kansas Inc. and Coventry Health & Life Insurance Co. — both subsidiaries of Aetna — abruptly decided to stop offering policies to Kansas consumers in the federal marketplace. The decision, made two weeks before the start of the open enrollment period, surprised state insurance regulators. (McLean, 11/2)

The once-a-year open enrollment period has begun for the more than 240,000 Oregonians who buy their own health coverage and are not on Medicare. Officials and insurance agents encourage consumers to start shopping now for next year's policy, as enrollment ends Jan. 31 – earlier than last year. If you want to have your new policy in place for the new year, you'll need to enroll in December – or by December 15 if you use the federal health insurance exchange, HealthCare.gov. (Budnick, 11/2)

Approximately 385,000 Virginians signed up for plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplace for 2015, but thousands more who are eligible for subsidies did not. (Smith, 11/2)