Core and Group Health

Senior administration officials tell The Associated Press that President Barack Obama on Friday will announce that religious employers will not have to cover birth control for their employees after all.

A round-up of the weeks employee benefits news, reports and controversy

Neace Lukens, an AssuredPartners, Inc. company, has bought Jenkins Insurance Services, a Sellersburg, Indiana-based employee benefits insurance firm.

Consumers who had high medical expenditures in 2011, who pay for their own individually-purchased health insurance, who are self-employed, or who care for aging parents should educate themselves on the opportunities to deduct a portion of these expenses from their federal income tax. These tax tips are courtesy of eHealthInsurance.

Republicans vowed Wednesday to reverse President Barack Obama's new policy on birth control, lambasting the requirement that religious schools and hospitals provide employees with free contraceptives as an "unambiguous attack on religious freedom in our country."

Citi Investment Research analysts said Tuesday that CVS Caremark Corp. and some smaller pharmacy benefits management companies should benefit in 2012 and 2013 from the split between Walgreen Co. and leading PBM Express Scripts Inc.