Live Insurance News

HHS forms new partnerships to promote health insurance

December 2, 2014November 29, 2014 Logan B.

Federal agency teams with retail groups to promote insurance coverage among holiday shoppers The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced that it has formed partnerships with several organizations to promote health insurance during the holiday shopping season. The federal agency has partnered with Westfield Shopping Centers, The National Community Pharmacists Association, and XO Group. Through these partnerships, the agency will be encouraging consumers to purchase health insurance coverage during Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, three of the most prominent shopping days in the United…

Federal health insurance exchange site goes live

November 14, 2014November 12, 2014 S.Vagus

HealthCare.gov is back and may be better than before HealthCare.gov, the federal health insurance exchange gateway, has gone live once again. Though the website is not officially selling policies until November 15, the Department of Health and Human Services is eager to show off the new site and highlight that changes that have been made to it. The federal agency is keen to avoid the technical missteps that were made during the last open enrollment period, which prevented many thousands of people from actually acquiring health insurance coverage through exchanges.…

Federal health insurance website has been revamped

November 6, 2014November 5, 2014 S.Vagus

HealthCare.gov has been refurbished and may be better than it was last year HealthCare.gov has been refurbished ahead of the beginning of this year’s open enrollment period. Last year, the site sought to offer people throughout the country with access to inexpensive health insurance policies they could find through their state’s insurance exchange. As is often the case, ambitious concepts tend to fail to live up to expectations and the site struggled to accomplish its goal. Severe technical difficulties rendered the site unusable for some people, which left them without…

Insurance plan loophole nearly closed

October 21, 2014October 19, 2014 H. Cutner

The government is coming close to stopping employers from being able to offer substandard coverage. Insurance plan consultants were recently surprised to discover that under the rules of the Affordable Care Act, employers are capable of offering policies to their employees for next year that do not include hospital benefits. This has caused the administration to take action to correct an official calculator for approving of insurance policies. Officials from the Treasury Department are now working on changing the path of an official calculator that gives approval to various types…

Thousands could lose their health insurance coverage in the US

September 18, 2014September 17, 2014 Marc

By the end of September, 115,000 people could lose their insurance coverage The Obama Administration has warned that as many as 115,000 people in 36 states could lose their health insurance coverage by September 30. This is due to unresolved data problems involving citizenship and immigration status. When insurance exchanges began their open enrollment period last year, millions of people applied for insurance coverage. The government suggests that a portion of these enrollees supplied false or incomplete information when using an exchange. The Department of Health and Human Services has…

Health insurance rates on the rise in Alaska

September 18, 2014September 15, 2014 S.Vagus

Insurance companies file for rate increases on individual policies sold in the state Health insurance companies in Alaska have filed for significant increases in premiums for the coverage that they offer for individual, non-subsidized coverage. State law tasks the Alaskan Division of Insurance with regulating rate increases, and the agency has, thus far, granted approval for rate increases averaging 37%. Rate increases will affect policies that go active in January 2015 and these rate increases will affect policies sold through the state’s health insurance exchange. Division of Insurance comes under…

Alaska stands up for its health insurance rate review process

September 15, 2014September 13, 2014 Logan B.

Alaskan spokeswoman notes that the state’s rate review process is adequate Alaska’s Division of Insurance has not applied for grants from the federal government to review health insurance premium increases. According to a spokeswoman for Governor Sean Parnell, Sharon Leighow, the state does not need federal grants because its rate review process is adequate. This is contrary to an assessment offered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which suggests that insurance coverage could be made more affordable in Alaska if the state had a better rate review…