150,000 abandon Highmark plansPITTSBURGH — Highmark says roughly 150,000 people have abandoned health insurance plans they had bought from the Pittsburgh-based insurer on the individual market for 2016.Highmark said about 350,000 members were enrolled in 2015 for individual plans sold both on and off the federal marketplace. That number dropped to about 195,000 members for 2016.Highmark set some of the lowest premiums in the country during the federal marketplace’s first two years of operation. The insurer lost about $773 million on the plans.Highmark has responded to federal marketplace-related losses by reducing hospital and doctor networks, reducing or eliminating broker commissions, and lowering payments to doctors who treat patients with those plans.

Chipotle sales down 26 percent in Feb.NEW YORK — Chipotle says sales trends are showing improvement but were still down 26 percent for February as it tries to recover from a series of food scares.The drop in sales at established locations for February follows a 36 percent decline for January. The February results were boosted by an extra day in the month this year, the company said.Chipotle has stepped up food safety measures and stepped up its marketing and promotions to try to draw consumers back.

Google: 77 percent of traffic encryptedSAN FRANCISCO — Google has disclosed how much of the traffic to its search engine and other services is being protected from hackers as part of its push to encrypt all online activity.Encryption shields 77 percent of the requests sent globally to Google’s data centers, up from 52 percent at the end of 2013, according to company statistics. The numbers cover all Google services expect its YouTube video site.