The following insurers made headlines this week. They are listed below, beginning with the most recent.
1. Nevada Health CO-OP to close
The Nevada Health CO-OP, a nonprofit health insurance option offered on the Nevada exchange, announced it will close on Jan. 1, 2016 due to challenging market conditions.
2. Opinion: A healthier side of insurance mega-mergers
In their opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, authors Victor R. Fuchs, PhD, a StanfordUniversity professor, and Peter V. Lee, executive director of California's state-run exchange Covered California, urge consumers to have a more positive outlook on insurance mega-mergers.
3. Humana, King's Daughters' Health partner for accountable care
Humana and King's Daughters' Health in Madison, Ind., announced a value-based agreement to improve health and better coordinate care for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries.
4. Aetna, MemorialCare to launch accountable care collaboration
Aetna and Fountain Valley, Calif.-based MemorialCare Health System announced a collaboration Wednesday to offer accountable care to patients in OrangeCounty and parts of Los Angeles County through a new commercial product, Aetna Whole HealthSM-MemorialCare.
5. Mergers among insurers ignite concerns over private Medicare
Approximately 97 percent of the markets of insurance companies offering private Medicare Advantage plans in 2012 were "highly concentrated," according to a report from the Commonwealth Fund. Recent mergers among insurers could increase concentration in these markets even more.
6. UAW's risky new healthcare deal
Detroit-based United Auto Workers has plans to overhaul healthcare for autoworkers through an independent co-op that experts are saying could be difficult to pull off, according to The Detroit Free Press.
7. Study: Large insurers showed greatest increase in premiums in 2015
The biggest insurers in the health insurance marketplace raised premiums an average of 75 percent more this year than smaller insurers in each state, according to a study in the Harvard Journal of Technology Science.