Broker Regulation

Federal workers were $15 billion losers as Congress looked for ways to pay for parts of the just-passed legislation to extend the payroll tax cut and federal unemployment benefits through the end of the year.

Medco Health Solutions Inc.'s fourth-quarter net income rose 12 percent, as gains from generic prescriptions and the pharmacy benefits manager's specialty business helped offset costs from its pending acquisition by Express Scripts Inc.

Republican lawmakers in a handful of states are opening another front in the war against President Obama's health care overhaul, seizing on the hot-button issue of birth control with bills that would allow insurance companies to ignore new federal rules requiring them to cover contraception.

The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced that employers offering private health plans must provide employees with summary of benefits coverage, which is a user-friendly brief outlining available plan options and costs, including copays and deductibles.

The U.S. Department of Labor is issuing a $3,145,776 National Emergency Grant increment to continue its re-employment assistance to approximately 600 workers who were laid off at 21 Houston-area companies.

Federal regulators on Thursday allowed North Carolina insurers a one-year delay in meeting a benchmark requiring that more of each premium dollar to go toward medical services and less toward overhead and bonuses.