Health Plan Weekly

If the enhanced subsidies of Affordable Care Act plans expire at the end of this year, multiple new studies have found that states could see millions of their residents lose health care coverage and jobs, leading to billions in lost state and local revenue.

The enhanced subsidies increased the level of advance premium tax credits (APTCs) available to lower-income individuals (making $0-premium plans widely available to that group) and extended APTC eligibility to people with incomes at or above 400% of the federal poverty level (FPL). Without a permanent extension of the enhanced subsidies, subsidized ACA enrollees would see their premium payments rise sharply starting Jan. 1, 2026.

Most consumers do not understand some common health insurance terms and take less than an hour when choosing their health plan, according to a recent survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). Paul Fronstin, Ph.D., EBRI’s director of health benefits research, tells AIS Health that the findings indicate plans, employers and brokers need to do a better job at explaining people’s benefits and encouraging them to make more informed decisions.  

EBRI partnered for the 20th Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey with Greenwald Research, a Washington, D.C., firm that surveyed 2,011 adults from 21 to 64 years old who completed their responses from Oct. 24 through Nov. 25, 2024. The sample included 1,549 people in traditional health plans and 462 in high-deductible health plans (HDHPs). EBRI received financial support for the survey from nine organizations, including the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Cigna Healthcare and CareFirst, but Fronstin says EBRI has full control over what is published.  

Here’s how major health insurers’ stock performed in February 2025. UnitedHealth Group had the highest closing stock price among major commercial insurers as of February 28, 2025, at $474.96. Humana Inc. had the highest closing stock price among major Medicare insurers at $270.42.

Just two months after becoming Blue Shield of California’s first female CEO, Lois Quam has stepped down from the insurer’s top role. Blue Shield said on March 11 that its board of directors appointed Mike Stuart, the current chief financial officer, as interim president and CEO while the board searches for Quam’s successor. The insurer offered no reason for Quam’s departure. Quam came to Blue Shield from Pathfinder, a nonprofit global health organization serving women and girls, where she served as CEO. When it named Quam as its new CEO in January, Blue Shield also unveiled a corporate restructuring. Under that restructuring, a new, nonprofit corporate entity named Ascendiun now houses Blue Shield of California and its subsidiary, Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan; Altais, a clinical services firm; and Stellarus, a company designed to scale health care solutions.  

Until February, Jeffrey Grant had no immediate plans to retire from his role as the deputy director for operations at CMS’s Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO), which oversees the Affordable Care Act marketplaces and other programs. 

But he says that changed when it became clear that the new administration — as part of a broader effort to pare back the federal workforce — wanted to cut from what Grant describes as an already-understaffed CMS.