Find Out Why Agents Are Superheroes!

Stop by and say hello to us March 18-19 at the Inland Empire Association of Health Underwriters annual sales symposium at the Riverside Convention Center. This year’s theme is  “Agents Are Superheroes.”  Cal Broker will be there, along with  more than 50 other industry partners.  Info and registration here. Check out the schedule below…

HEALTH
Not A Lot of Love from Committee for Responsible Fed Budget

The nonprofit, nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget recently released an analysis of President Trump’s budget proposal and an analysis of a federal “Medicare for All” policy, similar to the single-payer bill introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, during the 2016 presidential campaign. The organization estimates the cost for “Medicare for All” would be anywhere from $28 trillion to $32 trillion over a decade and concludes that supporters “should work to identify new revenue, premiums, and/or spending cuts to finance new federal costs or else scale back their proposal if they are unable to identify sufficient funding.” The analysis of the budget is also far from glowing, including comments such as: …the budget is “riddled with gimmicks and unrealistic assumptions. In particular, it hides the cost of extending tax cuts in its baseline, circumvents budget caps in order to extend recent defense hikes through a war spending account, and relies on incredibly rosy economic growth assumptions.”

Trump Budget Proposal (Nutshell Version)

No time to sift through the budget proposal released this week? This is some of what you might care about: Trump’s budget proposal includes cutting Health and Human Services by 12 percent to $87.1 billion and slashing Medicaid spending by almost $1.5 trillion from 2020 to 2029 by repealing the ACA Medicaid expansion program and converting overall funding to state block grants. The administration also wants to slash Medicare spending by $845 billion over the next 10 years, with most reductions said to come from changing payments to providers and hospitals and limiting fraud and wasteful billing.

Docs Say Prior Auth Ridiculous

U.S. doctors aren’t happy with how insurers are handling the increasingly common prior authorization process, according to physician survey results released by the American Medical Association (AMA). The doctors charge that waiting for health plans to authorize necessary medical treatment is hazardous to patients’ health and that most health plans are not making meaningful progress on reforming the cumbersome prior authorization process.

House Moving to Shore Up ACA

House Dems are moving to shore up the Affordable Care Act, contending voters elected them to fight back against ACA attacks. According to the Washington Examiner, the proposals Dems are weighing “align neatly with the desires of the healthcare industry by injecting billions of federal dollars into Obamacare.” The proposals have been criticized, however, for including no measures to control overall healthcare spending. And, of course, there’s that contingency of Dems that favor Medicare for All.

But Why Don’t All Dems Favor Medicare for All?

So far 106 Dems have signed on as cosponsors of the latest House Medicare for All proposal, but that’s far fewer than the total number of Dems in the House. This post from Grit concludes that’s because of the insurance industry and pharma backing of those lawmakers. This was sent to us by a reader. So thanks for the info! Of course, it could also be because they simply don’t believe in it or don’t think the budget can handle it.

PBM

Anthem Building Next Gen PBM

Anthem Inc. contends its new pharmacy-benefits manager, IngenioRx, will be a more transparent, more customer-friendly business in an industry that has come under sharp criticism. During an investor presentation, Aetna executives said that the new PBM will pass along rebates to customers at the pharmacy counter. Critics have said that deep rebates on drugs help keep list prices high, which hurts patients who have to pay cash or a share of a drug’s total cost. Other PBMs have recently moved toward similar practices, reports Bloomberg.

EMPLOYEE BENEFITS

EaseCentral and Guardian Team Up

EaseCentral, the HR and benefits SaaS platform folks, announced an integration with The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America,  a leading provider of key insurance products and benefits. This integration will allow small businesses, with as little as two employees, to access quality employee benefits that they otherwise would not have access to. In addition to increasing access to Guardian plans, this integration will allow employees to submit enrollment information directly, online and will result in faster processing of ID cards.

LTC

Genworth Suspends LTC Through BGAs

Genworth Financial announced it will temporarily suspend sales of long-term care insurance and immediate annuities through the brokerage general agency (BGA) channel. The move took effect in all states at the start of this week. According to Genworth, sales through BGAs, or independent distributors, have already fallen sharply, in part because of the company’s low credit ratings.

FINANCIAL PLANNING

Nominations Open for Invest in Others Award