No Kaiser Health News because of the Juneteenth holiday.
About health insurance/insurers
Growth Trends for ICHRA & QSEHRA [ICHRA: Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement for employers of all sizes QSEHRA: Qualified Small Employer HRA for fewer than 50 employees]: Small employer ICHRA adoption is up 52% 2024-2025 among Founding Members. Aggregated ALE [Applicable Large Employer], an employer with 50 or greater full-time employees adoption is up 34% 2024-2025, with some cohorts showing 49% year-over-year growth.
Comment: Scan the charts to see how these plans are growing.
Is Price Transparency Helping? OUR FINDINGS REVEALED
—Significant price convergence, with:
High rates declining by 6.3% annually
Low rates increasing by 3.4% annually
—Pervasive price convergence across 83% of the markets we examined
—Greater price convergence in outpatient services compared to inpatient services
Comment: Price transparency was meant to help individuals shop for services, However, this analysis examined commercially negotiated rates, i.e., institutional payers used the transparency to negotiated better rates. While this change helps individuals with respect to premiums, it does not help them with out of pocket expenses (unless the payers negotiate on their behalf).
About hospitals and healthcare systems
26 health systems dropping Medicare Advantage plans FYI
About pharma
FDA to tighten up on use of American patients' biological material in "hostile countries": Less than two weeks after meeting with experts to discuss ways to help speed the development of cell and gene therapies, the FDA is moving to impose stricter oversight on clinical trials that involve exporting Americans' living cells outside the country for genetic engineering. The agency singled out destinations such as China and other "hostile countries," amid concerns that the international transfer and manipulation of the biological material may have exposed sensitive genetic data to "misuse" by foreign governments.