{"id":878336,"date":"2026-10-11T07:38:48","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T07:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/878336\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T07:38:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T07:38:48","slug":"the-great-healthcare-cost-hike-is-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/878336\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Healthcare Cost Hike Is Here"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">And these totals understate the full cost increase, since many employers have made plans less generous to hold costs down. One common change is to raise deductibles, which shifts costs onto workers. Another is to cut back on what&#8217;s covered. The share of large employers covering GLP-1s for obesity, for example, has fallen from <a class=\"rich-text-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessgrouphealth.org\/topics\/blog\/how-are-employers-managing-glp-1-coverage-amid-rising-demand-and-costs\" target=\"undefined\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">72% to 60%<\/a>. Remove those changes, and the consulting firms estimate costs would have climbed another one to three percentage points.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re on Medicaid\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">The third shock is to the Medicaid program. Starting January 1, 2027, OBBBA requires the <a class=\"rich-text-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kff.org\/medicaid\/medicaid-work-requirements-tracker-overview\/\" target=\"undefined\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">44 states<\/a> (including Washington, D.C.) that expanded Medicaid to require adults covered by the expansion to document\u00a0 80 hours a month of work, school, or community service. The <a class=\"rich-text-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbo.gov\/publication\/61569\" target=\"undefined\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">CBO<\/a> estimates that the requirement will push about 5.7 million people off Medicaid by 2034, leaving 5.3 million more people uninsured.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">Most of those people should not lose coverage. The evidence suggests they will meet the criteria and lose coverage anyway because of the paperwork burden. When Arkansas imposed a work requirement in 2018, employment did not change. Instead, more than <a class=\"rich-text-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.healthaffairs.org\/doi\/10.1377\/hlthaff.2020.00538\" target=\"undefined\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">18,000<\/a> people lost coverage within seven months, even though <a class=\"rich-text-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.healthaffairs.org\/doi\/10.1377\/hlthaff.2020.00538\" target=\"undefined\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">95%<\/a> either met the requirement or qualified for an exemption.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And these totals understate the full cost increase, since many employers have made plans less generous to hold&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":878337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[110,97,252,253],"class_list":["post-878336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-economics","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}