Payer

It's been a busy year by any measure for Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co., but especially within the world of health insurance.

UnitedHealthcare is discontinuing some Medicare Advantage plans and exiting some service areas for 2024. 

Medicare Advantage beneficiaries have 12 percent lower healthcare expenses than beneficiaries in fee-for-service Medicare, a whitepaper from researchers at Inovalon and Boston-based Harvard Medical School found. 

HHS has paused procedural Medicaid terminations in 30 states reporting issues with their automatic renewal systems, and coverage for nearly 500,000 people improperly disenrolled through the error will be restored, the agency said Sept. 21. 

Humana and UnitedHealthcare account for nearly half of Medicare Advantage enrollment, but just 20 percent of television advertising for MA plans, according to a report from KFF published Sept. 20. 

Elevance Health cannot prevent a former executive from beginning work at Molina Healthcare, a federal judge ruled. 

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing UnitedHealthcare over allegations the company discriminated against a fully remote employee by refusing to grant her a religious exemption from the company's COVID-19 vaccination requirement. 

Some payer CEOs are feeling optimistic about the future of marketplace insurance. 

Virginia reinstated around 45,000 people improperly removed from its Medicaid program, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Sept. 20. 

There have been rumblings in Mississippi recently about putting up the concept of Medicaid expansion for open debate in a state where current Gov. Tate Reeves has repeatedly ruled such a policy out.