For all the frenzied speculation about how AI can transform health care, some companies are leveraging the technology for a decidedly simpler but still critical task: making shopping for health insurance less terrible.

Why it matters: Many Americans typically stick with their health plan year after year even when better and cheaper options are available, Maya writes.

• That's often because it's too hard to predict how much care they'll need or figure out if they can actually get a better deal.
• Companies are rolling out AI-powered tools aimed at making the shopping experience easier, and even brokers and agents selling health plans say they see the technology as a helpful aid, rather than an existential threat.

Context: The tools can be especially helpful for the tens of millions of people purchasing Medicare Advantage plans or shopping on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

• The average shopper on the ACA marketplaces during the current enrollment season has 100 plans to choose from, and Medicare Advantage options have surged in recent years.

How it works: The AI tools generally gather basic information about an individual insurance shopper and their expected health needs and then use that data to churn out predictions for the best health plan options.

• Alight, a company providing cloud-based HR services, said 95% of the employers it serves used AI technology — including a virtual assistant feature — to help employees pick health benefits during fall open enrollment.
• But machines aren't taking over everything. "AI is great, and it's fantastic, and can respond to so many different things. But it doesn't always have a psychological understanding" of what customers are seeking, said Carey Gruenbaum, CEO of AI-driven The Big Plan.

Reality check: Tech tools that help people pick health insurance aren't exactly new.

• But the current hype around AI could boost consumer interest in the tools, or at least give companies a new angle for promoting them.

More here

More than 500 drugs are expected to see price increases early this month, according to a new analysis.

Why it matters: Pharmaceutical companies are more likely to raise or lower drug prices around the start of a new year, but the practice may get more scrutiny as the Biden administration conducts the first-ever Medicare drug price negotiations and cracks down on companies that hike drug prices faster than inflation.

Driving the news: The tally of expected price hikes comes from Reuters' report on an analysis from health care research firm 3 Axis Advisors.

• Price increases in recent years have usually averaged around 5%-6%, amid public backlash over hikes.
• Three companies are expected to lower prices on at least 15 drugs, per Reuters.

Meanwhile, Sanofi's previously announced $35 monthly out-of-pocket cap for its most prescribed insulin product took effect Monday for patients with private health insurance.

• Sanofi joined two other major insulin makers, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, in lowering patient costs for insulin following political pressure from the Biden administration and some lawmakers. The Inflation Reduction Act capped the diabetes treatment's cost just for Medicare beneficiaries.
• The moves also save the drugmakers money they would otherwise owe to Medicaid under a tougher rebate policy that also took effect this year.

Also as of the new year, California has now made insurance coverage available to all undocumented immigrants.

Driving the news: More than 700,000 low-income undocumented adults are newly eligible for the state's Medicaid program, the final step in California's long-running effort to expand coverage to immigrants regardless of legal status.

• California was the first state to provide Medicaid coverage to undocumented people nearly a decade ago when it opened the program to children. That was followed by young adults, and then older adults before the latest expansion for people ages 26 to 49.
• This expansion, expected to cost the state $3.1 billion per year, comes as California faces a record $68 billion budget deficit.

Advocates for expansion say the coverage will help close an access gap and save the state money long-term because comprehensive care will help more people stay out of expensive care settings like emergency rooms, CalMatters notes.

• California Republicans have argued the expansion will strain resources and questioned if the state could afford it.

Of note: As of 2023, 11 states and Washington, D.C., provided comprehensive coverage to more than 1 million low-income immigrants regardless of their legal status, per KFF Health News.

• States vary in which age groups they cover, and some states cap enrollment in such programs.
• Like California, Oregon in July opened up coverage to all undocumented immigrants.

A plan from HHS to revitalize primary care has fallen short, experts say. (Washington Post)

Lawmakers are on the verge of lifting long-standing Medicaid limits on mental health care amid the addiction crisis. (Politico)

A federal judge sided with FTC over its order to block IQVIA from acquiring health care advertising firm DeepIntent. (Fierce Pharma)

Four years after COVID hit, here's how groups are trying to prevent the next pandemic. (USA Today)

Sidney Wolfe, a doctor who became a longtime consumer advocate who battled against pricey and ineffective medicines, died at 86 on Monday. (Reuters)