Payers

Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Adobe Stock

On Sept. 10, the White House announced it would, starting in October, send $500 refunds to nearly 1 million people who bought health insurance on the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace.

The payouts likely won’t make a major dent in enrollees’ health costs, however, Matthew Fiedler, senior fellow with the Center on Health Policy at nonprofit research organization Brookings Institution, told Healthcare Brew.

For one, that payment wouldn’t cover this year’s premium increases or next year’s planned increases. The average premium increased $65 a month, or $780 a year, according to KFF data. The rise was fueled, in part, by the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits, also referred to as subsidies. The refunds are also limited in scope and likely to be a one-time deal, Fiedler added.

“Essentially all marketplace enrollees have experienced large premium increases this year. This…partially offsets it on a one-time basis for only a small slice of those enrollees,” he said.

Get the rest of the details here.—CC

      

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You’ve probably heard of Mizuho because of their innovative work across a variety of industries. Now, they’re helping spread the word about how structural changes are transforming Japan’s markets.

Japan’s economy is entering a new phase: Mizuho Americas reports that wages are up, businesses are increasing returns on invested capital, and Japanese households are shifting money from deposits to investments.

This structural growth is changing the market. And there are still new areas of untapped opportunities waiting in the wings.

Here’s what you need to know.

Payers

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Whole Foods has been part of the Amazon family since 2017, but up until now employees of the grocery chain haven’t had access to the same benefits as employees of their parent company.

That’s changing, according to a recent announcement from Jason Buechel, VP of Amazon Worldwide Grocery Stores and CEO of Whole Foods Market.

Starting on Jan. 1, 2027, Whole Foods employees “will gain access to Amazon’s comprehensive benefits,” including health plans with coverage for fertility and other types of specialty care (like cancer support and mental health resources), as well as access to the e-commerce giant’s career development platform.

Whole Foods is also raising pay for hourly store employees, with average wages going up to $21 an hour starting on Sept. 28. Amazon is spending more than $230 million to expand these benefits to Whole Foods workers, Beuchel said.

Keep reading on HR Brew.—CV

      

Tech

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Adobe Stock

The AlphaGenome Atlas database, which is available for free to academic researchers, has 1 petabyte’s worth of data. (That’s equivalent to 500 hard drives with 2TB of storage each…so, uh, no need to clear space on your laptop). It’s also more than 30 times larger than the team’s database of protein structures, AlphaFold—the work that won former DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis a share of the 2024 chemistry Nobel Prize.

A single-letter change in DNA can be the cause of diseases like sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis. More than half of rare disease patients go undiagnosed, partly because clinicians still struggle to identify the underlying DNA changes. Some mutations have also been tied to certain cancers—finding them normally involves sifting through billions of data points, which the Atlas could now help with.

DeepMind also released the AlphaGenome Variant Impact (AVI) score, which rates how much a genetic mutation is likely to matter. It blends AlphaGenome’s predictions with an earlier model that predicts whether small changes in proteins are harmful. The AVI score could help researchers sort DNA changes by importance and investigate what each one could do.

Learn more about the technology here.—LC

      

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vital signs

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: Nearly 600. That’s how many postmarket studies of drugs and biologics are running behind schedule. The FDA orders these studies to resolve safety and efficacy questions. (KFF Health News)

Quote: “There are really extreme adverse outcomes by the system being underfunded in the way that it is that I don’t think we can put a price tag to.”—Rebecca Neusteter, executive director of the University of Chicago Urban Labs, on how the country’s 911 system isn’t prepared to deal with mental health crises (Tradeoffs)

Read: Drug safety advocates are trying to get a bill passed to make it clear where generic drugs are made, but senators stripped the legislation down. (ProPublica)

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Jobs

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• Behavioral Health Medical Director at Humana
• Medical Center Business Development Director at Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of North Tampa
• OB/GYN Site Director at St. Peter’s University Hospital
• Medical Director at CommonSpirit Health
• Director of Nursing at Glenwood Center