Broker Regulation

The U.S. Department of Labor is releasing a $7.2 million National Emergency Grant increment to continue providing re-employment assistance to about 3,200 Florida workers who were impacted by layoffs after the termination of NASA's Space Shuttle Program.

Group health plan participants face an increasing out-of-pocket burden in the form of higher deductibles and co-insurance in addition to less access. This environment sets the stage for a resurgence of fixed indemnity plans, along with gap plans.

About 20 years ago in Canada Reid Rasmussen saw products crumble when government budgets limited peoples access to health care.

Arizona is one of more than two dozen states challenging the federal health care overhaul, but Republican Gov. Jan Brewer's administration is moving to implement part of the contested law by reviewing health insurance rates to see if they should be labeled unjustifiably high.

The Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight says "federal facilitated exchanges" will work about as closely with agents and brokers as the states will let them.

A planned graduation speech by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at Georgetown University is going forward, despite criticism from the Archdiocese of Washington that Sebelius is an inappropriate choice for the Jesuit school.