Benefits Broker

After a seasonal adjustment, the manufacturing, educational services and health care sectors all experienced month-over-month double-digit job growth, according to the December Job Opportunity Report by Bullhorn, an employer software manufacturer.

Ameritas Life Insurance Corp., said its completed its acquisition of BNL Financial Corporation, the parent company of Brokers National Life Assurance Company, an Austin, Texas-based insurance company domiciled in Arkansas.

Health Net Inc. said Monday it will sell its Medicare Part D stand-alone prescription drug business to CVS Caremark for $160 million.

A rift between drugstore chain Walgreens and pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts has left patients in need of affordable prescriptions.

Executing a classic Washington dodge, Newt Gingrich told Americans that Medicare and Medicaid could be kept solid merely by ending fraud in the system, a promise of gain without pain that ignores the aging population and other great forces pressing on the programs.

Assistant Secretary of Labor for Disability Employment Policy Kathleen Martinez and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner David V. Aguilar signed an alliance agreement that supports President Obama's executive order to hire more disabled people by federal agencies.

With looming changes from health care reform on the horizon and increased cost-shifting to employees, voluntary benefits emerge as a bigger player in the benefit programs of the future.

The Obama administration is defending the health care overhaul in a new filing with the Supreme Court that calls the law an appropriate response to a "crisis in the national health care market."