The Issue · June 8, 2026

Riding Shotgun

GLP-1 drugs hit 20% of prescription spending at large self-funded plans, Cigna drops them from its own plan, and Nebraska expands its 529 plan.

By Andrew Dalton · June 8, 2026 · 31 stories
This issue's standings

My daughter Mac is learning to drive, and it's been a humbling reminder of how much expertise hides inside something that feels automatic.

I don't consciously think about mirror checks, blind spots, merging, or reading the car two ahead anymore — but she has to learn every one of those deliberately, one at a time, until they click and she's genuinely comfortable behind the wheel.

That's the same job I do for executives in the wild world of employee benefits: from the outside the terrain looks routine, but there's an enormous amount to weigh — cost, compliance, plan design, and people — and my role is to ride along, point out what actually matters, and get them confident enough to drive it themselves.

Mind

2 ¶
  • HR Executive — AI is quietly devaluing the resume: 92% of recruiting leaders now see AI-generated resumes in their applicant pools, and only about a third of employers trust that a resume reflects a candidate's real skills. Organizations that still treat the resume as their primary hiring signal are 35% more likely to report a bad hire.
  • Employee Benefit Trends — 53% of nurses report burnout over the past two years, and 21% have avoided seeking mental-health care for fear it could harm their careers. When more than a fifth of your workforce is too afraid to ask for help, confidential, stigma-free support stops being a perk and becomes infrastructure.
Also worth a read

Body

2 ¶
  • HR Executive — GLP-1 weight-loss drugs now account for 20.3% of prescription spending at large self-funded plans — roughly $7,400 per user per year — even though only 6% of enrollees take them. A single drug class is bending the entire pharmacy budget.
  • Employee Benefits RFP — Even Cigna is dropping GLP-1 obesity drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound from its own employee health plan effective July 1. When a major carrier won't cover them for its own people, every employer should expect this conversation at renewal.
Also worth a read

Money

2 ¶
  • Employee Wellness — Employer health-benefit costs rose 8% in 2025, and just 1% of members now drive 33.4% of all medical and pharmacy spend — while 64% of ER visits are for non-urgent issues that belong in primary care, urgent care, or telehealth. The cost problem is concentrated, and a lot of it is steerable.
  • HR Dive — U.S. healthcare hit $5.3 trillion in 2024, 47% of Americans say it's hard to afford, and one in three are now skipping or postponing necessary care. The steepest benefits-cost jump since 2010 is changing not just what coverage costs, but whether employees actually use it.
Also worth a read

Nebraska & Incentives

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  • Nebraska Unicameral — The Legislature indefinitely postponed a slate of area bills this session — inheritance-tax, source-of-income housing, and renewable-energy consumer-protection measures among them — so several employer- and employee-adjacent changes are off the table for now.
  • Nebraska Legislature — LB 748 expands Nebraska's 529 Education Savings Plan, widening its tax-advantaged uses toward workforce credentialing and certifications. It's a low-cost benefit employers can point employees to for education and reskilling expenses.
Also worth a read

The Bottom Line

So whether you're teaching a teenager to merge or steering a leadership team through GLP-1 costs, fertility regulations, and a 529 expansion, the work is the same: break the overwhelming into the manageable, build real confidence, and stay in the passenger seat until they're ready to take the wheel. Buckle up — there's a lot of road ahead this year.

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