Health Care Reform

When it comes to complying with health care reform, meeting medical loss ratio requirements, acquiring and retaining the best risk, establishing cost-effective distribution channels and working with exchanges are U.S. payers' top priorities.

In Woburn, Mass.-based HighRoads' annual survey of Fortune 1,000 companies, it was found that 75 percent of employers plan to address the impact of health care reform in their open enrollment materials.

The next round of provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act goes into effect Thursday, Sept. 23.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners urged federal lawmakers this week to make sure health insurance agents and brokers have a secure future as health care reform moves forward.

With an annual 2010 average per covered employee health cost of just over $10,000, this means employers will see an increase of $100 to $200, which will be in addition to expected average annual cost increases of 8 percent to 10 percent.

Forty-five states and the District of Columbia will each receive $1 million to help improve health premium oversight, the Department of Health and Human Services announced this week.

Almost all (90 percent) of U.S. companies surveyed recently by Hewitt Associates say they anticipate losing their grandfathered health plan status by 2014, with the majority expecting to do so within the next two years.

estimates of the legislation understate the size of the population that might enroll in their parents' employment-based coverage, and the costs of the mandate are expected to increase health insurance premiums 1 percent by 2013.