While the ACA prohibits adjusting insurance costs for anything but a few limited factors, there is an exception for employers.

Stay calm and don't shake hands. (Fist bumps are probably okay.) And maybe fund the CDC better, improve public health awareness, and stop panicking in the stock market.

Companies' strategies to rein in health care spending historically have not amounted to much. Is it time to try something more drastic?

The company started the year by opening three HealthHub locations and plans to open 1,500 locations by the end of 2021.

OptumRX, UnitedHealth's PBM, will mandate that all new employer health-plan clients pass the drug discounts it obtains directly to plan participants.

In a mitigating tactic, the company's planned price disclosure will also include an estimate of what typical patients actually pay for drugs.

Building a drug-price negotiating unit from scratch isn't trivial, and the company is doing it on a very tight timeline.

Here are a few areas I'll be keeping an eye on in the pharmacy industry next year.