Payer

The Texas House of Representatives gave preliminary approval to a controversial bill Tuesday that requires women to pay an additional insurance premium if they want their health plan to cover non-emergency abortions, according to the Texas Tribune.

Four of the five major commercial payers saw their stock prices rise last week.

The future of cost-sharing reduction payments topped the minds of state officials congregating at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' summer meeting in Philadelphia, The New York Times reports.

Peter Beilenson, MD, CEO of Baltimore-based insurer Evergreen Health, resigned Aug. 1, according to Baltimore Business Journal.

Durham, N.C.-based Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina selected Patrick Conway, MD, a CMS official, to serve as president and CEO, effective Oct. 1.

Indianapolis-based Anthem will depart Nevada's ACA exchange and pull its individual exchange products from more than half of Georgia's counties for 2018, Reuters reports.

Price held more clout than insurers' network and brand when consumers chose health plans on the individual ACA exchanges, according to recent Leavitt Partners study. 

Bruce Lawrence, president and CEO of Oklahoma City-based Integris Health, penned an op-ed in NewsOK addressing what he labeled "misinformation" provided by Tulsa-based Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma about the organizations' negotiation stalemate.

Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini said a single-payer health system wouldn't "generate any savings for the American public" during an interview on CNBC's "Closing Bell" Aug. 3.

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania placed Penn Treaty American Corp., an Allentown, Pa.-based long-term care insurer, and its two subsidiaries in liquidation March 1. As a result, health insurers in the states Penn Treaty is licensed to do business assumed…