This spring, Keith Pitzele ended his company’s health plan and sent his workers to the Obamacare exchange. It was a bumpy experience he’s glad he won’t have to repeat next year. Does that mean most employers won’t follow suit?
After suffering a financial swoon a year ago, Indiana’s hospitals look like they’re back on firmer—though not rock-solid—footing.
Believe it or not, wellness is now a minefield for businesses. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has taken up three lawsuits against companies because of their wellness programs. And new research finds that wellness programs probably cost employers money.
No Hoosier employers want to pay Obamacare’s 40 percent excise tax on health benefits, which hits in 2018. So they are embracing high-deductible plans and putting more responsibility for health care spending on workers.
Deloitte consultants say hospitals are about to go the way of department stores, airlines and banks by clustering into fewer and fewer competitors. There’s plenty of evidence from Indiana to support that theory.
Facing the loss of key hospital contracts, the Indiana Blood Center cut 27 jobs on Friday, announced the retirement of its CEO and said it will join a consortium of Midwest blood centers.
Even without Medicaid expansion, Obamacare appears to have substantially reduced the more than 900,000 Hoosiers that go without health insurance during a year.
There are more choices and better deals in the 2015 Obamacare exchange, but if you want the same coverage as last year, it’s going to cost you more.
On Obamacare, the new Republican-controlled Congress should “leave the façade of the building and then demolish the inside of it,” according to one GOP leader. If Republicans take that approach, here are four things that could change in the next two years.
Retail clinics and urgent care centers are proliferating. That could expand the market for health care. But if consumers decide instead to make strip malls the front door to their health care—rather than traditional physician offices—the hospital systems could see their market shares waning.
Obamacare's community rating rules would give 25-percent-off coupons to boomers while sticking millennials with a 75-percent surcharge, according to recent data from employer health plans.
Lilly CEO John Lechleiter kicked off the company’s quarterly conference call with investors and analysts by declaring an end to the “unprecedented challenge” that Lilly lived through the past four years.
The federal government has spent $27 billion—and hospital systems have spent even more—to roll out electronic medical records across the industry. But even advocates say the results have been “disappointing.”
A new think tank report, which appears to jibe with Obama administration concerns, calls for “significant revision” to the Pence plan.
The Hoosiers waiting for Gov. Mike Pence and President Obama to work out a deal to expand health coverage have median household incomes of less than $10,000, typically have no college education and are disproportionately minorities.
Medicare will reduce payments to 68 Indiana hospitals—a 62-percent increase from last year—for having too many patients return within 30 days.
WellPoint created an HMO joint venture with seven big hospitals in Los Angeles. Could it do something similar here? Quite possibly.
Paying off medical debts over time is now a common experience for families with health insurance and becoming more so. And that is inducing big changes in the health care marketplace.
For Indiana employers with fewer than 10 workers, health insurance premiums have risen 11.5 percent, on average, from 2001 to 2013. That ranked second-highest among all states.
