By Matthew Campbell & Jeffrey McCracken; Bloomberg ~ May 07, 2014

AT&T Inc. (T), the second-biggest U.S. mobile-phone carrier, is in talks to buy satellite-television company DirecTV (DTV), people with knowledge of the situation said.

DirecTV is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as it explores a sale, one of the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information. DirecTV has a market value of $45 billion after rising 43 percent in the past year.

Comcast Corp. (CMCSA)’s plan to acquire Time Warner Cable Inc. — to create an even bigger provider of both TV and Internet in the U.S. — is accelerating the need for consolidation in the rest of the industry. Meanwhile, the pool of pay-TV customers is peaking as viewers increasingly watch video online, making fast broadband connections a key offering.

By Joanne Butler; The Daily Caller ~ May 07, 2014

Lost in the cheering over from President Obama’s hype section over last Friday’s jobs report was a major factor: the millions of unemployed on the federal disability rolls. If we added them, plus those who have given up looking for work, then April’s unemployment numbers don’t look so bright – a shameful prognosis in the sixth year of the Obama administration.

By Timothy Williams; The New York Times ~ May 06, 2014

The number of Americans 65 and older is expected to nearly double by the middle of the century when they will make up more than a fifth of the nation’s population, according to a Census Bureau report released Tuesday.

By 2050, 83.7 million Americans will be 65 or older, compared with 43.1 million in 2012, the report said. Fewer than 10 percent were older than 65 in 1970.

While demographers have long projected a significantly older country later this century, declines in fertility and mortality rates are hastening the shift, leading to what are expected to be profound changes for issues ranging from Social Security and health care to education.

By Mark Miller; Reuters ~ May 06, 2014

CHICAGO (Reuters) – If only we could revive the good old pension. You retire after 30 or 40 years at a company, get the gold watch, and the monthly checks start flowing.

Many Americans still get those checks, but Corporate America has been running away from defined-benefit (DB) pensions for decades, and many experts see that as a key cause of our retirement security crisis. Pensions provide a guaranteed lifetime income stream, while owners of 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts take on two impossible-to-control risks: stock market volatility and uncertainty about their own longevity.

By Ron Shinkman; Fierce Health Finance ~ May 05, 2014

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services proposes a modest bump in payments for hospice providers, but the agency also wants to limit dispensing prescriptions to reduce unnecessary and pricey duplications.

A proposed rule from CMS issued late last week would increase hospice payments by a total of $230 million, or 1.3 percent, in fiscal 2015. The rule also calls for hospices to improve their quality reporting, which the agency estimates will cost the sector about $8.8 million to implement.

Hospice care experienced rapid growth in recent years, as terminally ill patients wish to die at home or in a setting more palatable than a hospital. And such care tends to be less expensive and comforting to the patient than acute care.

By Carolyn McClanahan; Forbes ~ May 04, 2014

Despite the gloom and doom of Obamacare predictions, capitalism is alive and well in the health care marketplace. In the first quarter after the insurance provisions of the Affordable Care Act have gone “live,” the insurers are now releasing their earnings reports. How is it looking so far? Great for the insurers, not so great for the insured. I show why it matters.

· WellPoint beat earnings estimates by 20 cents a share and raised earnings estimates for the year. From their press release, “Our membership is growing across our platforms and we are pleased with the progress we have seen in the exchanges.” Their dividend paid to investors will be $0.4375 per share, which on an annualized basis results in $493.6 million paid to shareholders in 2014.

By Ann Carrns; The New York Times ~ May 02, 2014

UNLIKE other areas of health care, the cost of hiring someone to help tend to an aging family member at home has been relatively stable.

You’ll now pay a median rate of $19 per hour for a hired homemaker, who does household tasks like cooking and cleaning, according to the latest report on the cost of care from Genworth Financial, which sells long-term care insurance. You’ll pay a bit more, about $20 per hour, for a home health aide, who helps with personal care like dressing and bathing but not medical care.

By Kate Rogers; Fox Business ~ May 02, 2014

Ask any emergency room doctor about the importance of time, and they’ll likely tell you that seconds can make the difference between life and death. And a new computing startup is taking that into account, leveraging technology that provides a patient’s medical history in the blink of an eye, literally.

San Francisco-based Wearable Intelligence is partnering with Google (GOOG) to save doctors time in the ER with its software that works with Google Glass that shows providers patients’ full medical records in front of their eyes so they don’t have to toggle between terminals and charts while tending to patients.

Co-founders Yan-David Erlich and Ryan Junee are participating in a new program, “Glass for Work,” aimed at providing tools for businesses to integrate Google’s wearable device into their office setting.

By Neil Irwin; The New York Times ~ May 01, 2014

The days of Americans getting health insurance through their employers may be numbered — and the change could be just as profound as the shift of employers forcing employees to manage their own retirement savings.

As the Affordable Care Act goes from thousands of pages of legalese to actual, real-life public policy, the future of employer-provided health insurance is one of the most fascinating questions. Will employers call for — and their workers accept — the practice of buying health insurance through government exchanges? How much will companies save, and will they pass those savings on to employees? Will it make workers more mobile and ready to shift jobs, or will employer-paid health insurance become a sought-after perk?

By Russ Britt; MarketWatch ~ May 01, 2014

Obamacare presents an opportunity for businesses to cut more than $3 trillion in costs over the next decade by shifting more health-care responsibility over to employees, according to a report issued Thursday from S&P Capital IQ.

The financial information provider says in its findings that as much as $3.25 trillion could be saved by companies with 50 or more employees through 2025 as a result of costs shifting to the government under the Affordable Care Act, or ACA. S&P 500 companies could save $700 billion in that same time frame, the report says.

The ACA requires companies with 50 employees or more to offer coverage or pay a tax — with the option that they can shift administration of plans over to the exchanges.