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Health insurers: With great power over data comes great responsibility

Like many Americans, I have long since accepted that yes, Big Brother is watching and no, we can't really do anything about it. Those who still think otherwise, I've always figured, are...

Employer-based health insurance: Should it stay or should it go?

I did a double-take when I read a line in a new book by Rita Numerof, Ph.D., in which she writes that "employers would love to get out of the insurance business." The reason, she argues, is that employers increasingly have to pass rising premium costs onto employees and focus on price rather than value, making for an annual headache when negotiating rates with insurers. But if the system is so broken, why haven't employers yet gotten out of managing health benefits? One simple answer, Numerof told me in an exclusive interview, is that change does not come easily.

 

In struggle over future of ACA exchanges, consumers caught in the middle

I often think of the old expression "I only have two hands" when my plate seems too full or in any situation when people or organizations have expectations assigned to them that they...

Questions about HHS transparency impede health reform progress

You might think that after the Supreme Court rejected a series of Affordable Care Act challenges and a presidential veto nixed Congress' repeal attempt, ACA opponents might take a break to lick...

Amid Obamacare turmoil, payers and providers must mend fences and collaborate

Guest post from Rita Numerof, Ph.D., president of healthcare management consulting firm Numerof & Associates In the healthcare industry, the relationship between payers and providers has long...

10 health insurance stories to watch in 2016

It looks as though change will continue to be a constant in the health insurance industry in 2016. After all, this is the age of the Affordable Care Act, a massively disruptive force that continues...

Partnerships help Humana reap better 'Return on Health'

Guest post by Chris Kay, chief innovation officer of Humana There's a paradigm shift going on in the U.S. healthcare system. It's a shift from volume to value, a shift from cost to care. And...

Aetna CMO: Harness the power of scale to cut costs, improve outcomes

Guest post from Harold M. Paz, M.D., Aetna's chief medical officer While there are many viewpoints on the best way to fix our healthcare system, we can agree that a better system means bringing...

With a laundry list of fraud concerns, Part D payments are far from perfect

As one of the youngest government-run health programs, Medicare Part D has been around for less than a decade, meaning it's just reaching the beginning stages of adolescence. And, like most...

RWJF's Kathy Hempstead: Shift from PPO plans 'raises the stakes' for health insurers

As someone currently immersed in planning a wedding--and constantly teetering on "decision fatigue"--I'm suspicious of the conventional wisdom that more choices are always better. As...