By Scott Gottlieb; Forbes ~ Jan 06, 2014
The privately run Medicare plans known as “Medicare Advantage” have been in the political crosshairs of the Obama White House. Even after facing steep cuts under
Obamacare, the Advantage plans are now slated to take a brand new round of
reductions in 2015. These new cuts will cause the private Medicare option to
shrink further in the next few years, and pressure the insurance companies that
offer them.
By William Baldwin; Forbes ~ Jan 06, 2014
Would you like a triple-tax-free form of retirement saving? By that we
mean:
(1) You get a deduction when you put the money in.
(2) It compounds tax free.
(3) It comes out tax free.
By Harold Pollack; The Washington Post ~ Jan 05, 2014
It’s hard to remember now, as the Affordable Care Act’s biggest programs come into effect, but many central decisions regarding Obamacare’s structure were made before
anyone expected Barack Obama to be president. By the time he was a serious
contender, Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards had all coalesced
around strikingly similar health plans that would, in broad outline, become
Obamacare.
By Sharon Begley & Lewis Krauskopf; Reuters ~ Jan 04, 2014
NEW YORK, Jan 4 (Reuters) – U.S. medical providers are seeing only a trickle of patients newly insured under President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, as insurers, hospitals and doctors try to work out any hitches in coverage.
By Russ Britt; MarketWatch ~ Jan 03, 2014
Clearing out some of the notices we got before the holidays…..
One of the things that came to our attention was a handy tool from PricewaterhouseCoopers, which offers estimates on how much you can expect to pay for health insurance, based on the state where you live.
By Sabrina Tavernise; The New York Times ~ Jan 03, 2014
Supporters of President Obama’s health care law had predicted that expanding insurance coverage for the poor would reduce costly emergency room visits because people would go to primary care doctors instead. But a rigorous new experiment in
Oregon has raised questions about that assumption, finding that newly insured
people actually went to the emergency room a good deal more often
By Cecilia Kang; The Washington Post ~ Jan 03, 2014
AT&T on Friday offered T-Mobile customers up to $450 in incentives to switch carriers, the latest salvo in a fierce industry battle that is creating fresh opportunities
for consumers.
AT&T said the immediate offer includes $200 for each T-Mobile wireless phone line and $250 for device trade-ins. Customers who switch can choose a no-contract plan or the more expensive annual contract, which includes bigger data and voice limits.
With the launch of coverage under the health care law on Wednesday, a new set of taxes and fees is kicking in this year — as part of the hundreds of billions of dollars the government intends to raise over the next decade to help pay for the program.
Social Security recipients are getting a raise — but not much of one. In 2014 the average monthly Social Security payment will increase by $19 due to a 1.5 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), one of the smallest annual COLAs in the program’s history. Since 1975, only seven COLAs have been less than 2 percent. Four of those seven have occurred in the past five years, however. The 2013 COLA was 1.7 percent.1,2
By Mary Agnes Carey; Kaiser Health News ~ Jan 01, 2014
Starting Jan. 1, central provisions of the Affordable Care Act kick in, allowing many uninsured Americans to afford health insurance. But the landmark law still faces heavy
opposition from Republicans and from a public that remains skeptical the law can
improve health care coverage while lowering its cost.