By Robert Powell; MarketWatch ~ Apr 05, 2014

When building retirement-income portfolio, advisers tend to fall into one of two camps.
There’s the save-the-principal-and-live-off-the-income camp. And there’s the income-is-income camp. Which should you choose? And how can you avoid making
mistakes with your retirement-income portfolio?

Well, to be fair, that depends on many factors: How much you have set aside in your nest egg? What sort of income your pensions, including Social Security, will provide? And what sort of income might you might earn from employment while in your 60s and 70s. It also depends on your lifestyle, and how much income you need to support the
retirement you desire.

By CONNIE CASS, Apr 4, 2:58 PM EDT

WASHINGTON     (AP) — Americans thinking about buying health insurance on their own later this year, or maybe switching to a different insurer, are probably out of luck. The policies are going off the market as a little-noticed consequence of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

With limited exceptions, insurance companies have stopped selling until next year the sorts of individual plans that used to be available year-round. That locks out many of the young and healthy as well as the sick and injured, even those who can afford to buy without government subsidies.

Mitch Tuchman, Contributor, 4/04/2014 @ 6:49AM

The idea of retiring from work is a relatively modern one, dating back to the middle of the 19th century. Most developed countries maintain a specific retirement “age,” usually the first year at which one can apply for public retirement benefits.

You don’t have to stop working, of course, and many Americans don’t stop working even after filing for Social Security benefits. Ideally, you work past 65 because you like the social and mental aspects of a daily occupation.

Howard Gold, April 4, 2014, 6:01 a.m. EDT

Financial advisers for years have warned about a looming shortfall between what people have saved and what they’ll need to maintain their standard of living in retirement.

And, certainly, what Americans have put away for retirement is paltry. Unless we all start saving like crazy, the pundits say, we’ll have nothing to live on during our so-called golden years. Or we’ll all have to work into our eighties — if they let us.

By Pete Kasperowicz, April 03, 2014, 05:46 pm

Several Democrats took to the House floor Thursday night to call on the Obama  administration not to cut Medicare Advantage payment rates.

The Democratic speeches opposing Obama are a turnaround from the usual fare  in the House, which routinely sees Republicans stand up to oppose the  implementation of ObamaCare. But pending cuts to the Medicare Advantage program  proposed by the administration in February are opposed by many Democrats, and  the cuts threaten to play into the midterm elections this year.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/healthcare/202631-dems-plead-with-obama-not-to-cut-medicare-advantage#ixzz2xwRn5PC3
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By Elise Viebeck, April 02, 2014, 06:41 pm

Federal health officials are preparing to release previously undisclosed  Medicare data as a way to heighten transparency and discourage waste in the  notoriously opaque U.S. healthcare system.

Expected within a week, the unprecedented report comes as part of the  Affordable Care Act and will reveal the services performed and payments received  by Medicare physicians in 2012. The initiative is primarily aimed at researchers  interested in studying usage trends and will not contain information about  specific beneficiaries.

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, Apr 2, 4:10 PM EDT

WASHINGTON     (AP) — A sense of belonging to the middle class occupies a cherished place in America. It conjures images of self-sufficient people with stable jobs and pleasant homes working toward prosperity.

Yet nearly five years after the Great Recession ended, more people are coming to the painful realization that they’re no longer part of it.

By Roni Caryn Rabin, Apr 01, 2014

Janis Finer, 57, a popular primary care physician in Tulsa, Okla., gave up her busy practice two years ago to care full time for hospitalized patients. The lure? Regular shifts, every other week off and a 10 percent increase in pay.

Lawrence Gassner, a Phoenix internist, was seeing four patients an hour. Then he pared back his practice to those who agreed to pay a premium for unhurried visits and round the clock access to him.  “I always felt rushed,” said the 56-year-old. “I always felt I was cutting my patients off.”

By Mark Miller, CHICAGO Tue Apr 1, 2014 12:53pm EDT

(Reuters) – This should be good news: At a time when worry about the retirement security of American workers is rising, traditional pension plans finished 2013 in their best shape last year since the financial crisis of 2008. Yet that may only be setting the table for more corporations to stop offering them.

The funding deficit of the 100 largest pension plans sponsored by publicly traded U.S. corporations plunged 57 percent in 2013, to $125.9 billion in the year-ago period, according to Towers Watson, the benefits consulting firm. (Funding is a measure of the assets that plans have on hand to pay projected obligations to beneficiaries.)