The U.S. Health and Human Services Department issued final rules for its medical loss ratio, declining the request of insurance agent trade groups and state insurance regulators to exempt agent and broker compensation.

Health insurance agent and broker commissions were cut by a number of insurers because of the new medical loss ratio (MLR) included in the federal health reform law, according to the nonpartisan Government Accounting Office.

A new government report on long-term care insurance rate increases puts an end to “hyperbole” about how policyholders will act, according to a LTC industry official.

UnitedHealth has filed suit against the U.S. Defense Department over its awarding of the Tricare South Region contract to Humana, who it took the contract from two years ago.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) upheld a decision to award a $3.1 billion Tricare dental plan contract to a different insurer, its first change in 15 years.

An insurance trade group says the U.S. House is “moving in the right direction” toward affirming state-based insurance regulation by voting to defund health insurance exchanges.

Elimination of the individual mandate from the federal health reform law would not kill the effort, according to 41 health insurance industry experts, who suggested nine possible alternatives.

Rep. Dennis Moore, a Democrat from Kansas, has asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate alleged abuses of federally sanctioned risk retention groups (RRGs) by some state insurance regulators.

Saying it is “extremely disappointed” with the decision, Aetna plans to determine why it was disqualified from winning a multi-billion dollar contract to provide health care to members of the military.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was less celebratory April 1 than he’s been in the nearly two weeks since the passage of historic health care reform, striking a gloomy tone as he spoke about America’s troubled fiscal future.