Healthy Indiana Plan, which was created in 2007, is experiencing one of the fastest launches of any Medicaid-expansion program in the country. By mid-2008, the program had more than 14,000 Hoosiers en…
Kaiser Permanente of Colorado has agreed to provide $155 million in premium credits to Colorado consumers, translating to a $287 credit to individual and family plan members in 2009 and 2010. The agre…
Iowa's governor has signed a healthcare reform law that increases coverage for children with family incomes up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. The legislature also expanded the abilit…
Health plans in the Carolinas are managing specialty pharmacy costs at virtually every step of the process, from negotiating prices with manufacturers to creating special convenient networks. Blue Cro…
Two collaborative efforts involving multiple health insurers in Pennsylvania have the potential to improve the quality of healthcare in the state. The first is a transparency effort involving how care…
TennCare, the large Medicaid managed care program, recently awarded two new contracts to health plans to manage the care for enrollees in west and east portions of the state. The contracts went to Ame…
Wisconsin is joining the ranks of states who are carving out the pharmacy benefits in their Medicaid and other health programs in an attempt to maximize rebates from drug manufacturers. And though the…
Maryland has become one of the first states to pass laws regulating the licensing and transparency of pharmacy benefits managers operating in the state. The bills were supported by the Pharmaceutical…
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan got only a portion of the insurance reforms it sought in the Michigan legislature, at least in part because of opposition from its competitor health plans. But the c…
Summary Healthcare reform fizzled out in both Kansas and Missouri in the past legislative sessions. A legislative revolt from his own party forced Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt to back off his Insure Misso…
Passage of the state's new Cover Florida program is likely to put some of the 3.8 million uninsured residents into health insurance, but critics question how much help the low-premium/limited bene…
New York's proposal to curb “fourth tier” drug pricing has health plans alarmed that lawmakers might curb their ability to structure health benefits, particularly in cost-sharing for exp…
Aetna is among national insurers working to chip away at the market dominance of the Regence Group and Premera Blue Cross in Oregon and Washington. Oregon's Medicaid expansion program, called Oreg…
Texas' health plans have long benefitted from the Lone Star State's mandatory generic dispensing law, but have gone beyond that to achieve significant generic utilization and subsequent saving…
Massachusetts is at a crossroads with its Commonwealth Care and Choice programs with enrollment exceeding expectations but costs coming in over earlier estimates. The Massachusetts Legislature is cons…