Bruce Japsen, Contributor, 3/06/2014 @ 9:00AM

U.S. employers this year face their “smallest increases in health care costs in 15 years,” according to a new survey showing the latest evidence of health inflation slowing.

Towers Watson (TW), an employee benefits consulting firm and the National Business Group on Health, an association of large employers, said the cost of providing employer-sponsored benefits will rise 4.4 percent this year. Employer costs, which were $9,157 last year, are projected to rise to $9,560 in 2014.

By Amy Goldstein, Published: March 6, 2014

The new health insurance marketplaces appear to be making little headway in signing up Americans who lack insurance, the Affordable Care Act’s central goal, according to a pair of new surveys.

Only one in 10 uninsured people who qualify for private plans through the new marketplaces enrolled as of last month, one of the surveys shows. The other found that about half of uninsured adults have looked for information on the online exchanges or planned to look.

By Beth Pinsker, NEW YORK, Thu Mar 6, 2014 9:14am EST

(Reuters) – Shopping for employee health insurance on private marketplaces might be the way of the future for tens of millions. However, expert opinions about growth have been based on projections, not actual consumer behavior in the exchanges that only really got going last year.

Now one major pilot program has finished its second enrollment season, there’s actual data to evaluate usage as well as how consumers are faring on the private healthcare exchanges.

The Aon Active Health Exchange, a private health insurance market run by the benefit consultant Aon Hewitt, enrolled 600,000 employees and family members in 2014, after signing up 150,000 in 2013, according to a report released today.

Mike W. Thomas, Mar 6, 2014, 12:10pm CST

AT&T Inc. has one of the nation’s 10 most valuable brands, according to a ranking by consulting agency Brand Finance.

The agency came up with a list of the 500 most valuable brands based on estimated future revenue and the calculated royalty rate that would be charged for use of the brand.

AT&T (NYSE: T) ranked No. 7 on the list with a brand value of $45 billion, up from No. 11 a year ago.

Scott Gottlieb, Contributor, 3/05/2014 @ 5:28AM

The Obama Administration’s decision to give small businesses until October 2016 to conform their health insurance plans to new federal rules is a wise if not predictable gesture. But it doesn’t come without costs. Insurance premiums will rise in 2015 to reflect the price of this latest revision.

At issue are provisions in Obamacare that force every health plan sold in America to conform to a litany of new Federal mandates and regulations. Even many quality health plans didn’t meet all the new criteria, which require insurers to cover a long menu of medical services that many consumers neither want coverage for, nor need.

By Russ Britt, March 5, 2014, 4:15 PM

The other shoe dropped Wednesday afternoon as the Department of Health and Human Services announced it would extend the time frame during which those with health insurance plans that don’t comply with Obamacare can keep their plans.

There was one surprise, however, as HHS said that deadline would be extended by two years, not one as had been expected. President Barack Obama had said last fall that health plans consumers wanted to keep that didn’t comply with provisions of the Affordable Care Act could be extended by a year through 2014. It was reported earlier today that could extend into 2015.

By SCOTT SMITH Associated Press, Last Updated: March 05, 2014 – 6:53 pm

Fresno, California — A California Yellow Pages company filed a lawsuit against AT&T and its corporate partners Wednesday in a dispute over phone book advertising.

The lawsuit filed by Fresno-based Valley Yellow Pages says a rival phone book run by AT&T and Cerberus Capital Management LP are offering illegal, secret discounts to advertisers. The lawsuit seeks an end to the alleged practice and unspecified damages.

Ralph Alldredge, an attorney for Valley Yellow Pages, said the illegal advertising incentive goes back to 2012, when AT&T Inc. partnered with Cerberus to publish the phone directory. The laws Alldredge accuses AT&T and its partners of breaking stem from the 1930s and were written to keep large national companies from anticompetitive and fraudulent behavior used to crush smaller businesses.

By Shawn Tully, senior editor-at-large, March 4, 2014: 10:28 AM ET

FORTUNE — The new federal budget, unveiled on Tue., March 4, trumpets a major shift in America’s policy toward one of the most vexing problems in reforming our health care system: fixing the doctor shortage. Since 1997, the number of physicians entering the workforce each year has essentially been capped, while the demand for everything from hip replacements to treatments for diabetes to angioplasties has soared with our growing and aging population. Now, the Obama administration proposes spending an additional $5.23 billion over the next decade to mint new physicians. That sounds like a lot of money, and the proposal sounds like a big deal, because it officially breaks the old bottleneck that limits the supply of manpower we desperately need. But it doesn’t go nearly far enough.

By Kate Rogers, Published March 04, 2014

The president’s fix to keep his promise to Americans that if they liked their current coverage they could keep it under the Affordable Care Act has relieved many—except those in the insurance industry.

President Obama’s controversial fix, that he offered in November amidst the botched rollout of HealthCare.gov, allows people to keep their previously-cancelled plans through 2014 at the discretion of insurers and state regulators. The move set the insurance industry scrambling to figure out how to re-instate the policies. Industry insiders confirmed to FOXBusiness.com that the administration was planning to extend the fix, although it is not clear when the move will be announced or the length of the extension. The Hill first reported the extension would be at least another year, potentially through the end of Obama’s second term.

By Melanie Batley, Tuesday, 04 Mar 2014 11:45 AM

The Obama administration is expected to announce another delay to the implementation of Affordable Care Act to allow insurers to continue offering health plans that do not meet Obamacare’s minimum coverage requirements.

The move would prolong the one-year “keep your plan fix” so as to avoid another wave of health policy cancellations which could hurt Democrats just weeks before the November midterm elections,The Hill reports.

“The cancellations would have created a firestorm for Democratic candidates in the last, crucial weeks before Election Day,” The Hill said. “The White House is intent on protecting its allies in the Senate, where Democrats face a battle to keep control of the chamber.”