By Jonathan Clements; MarketWatch ~ Apr 20, 2014

We’re supposedly in a new era of financial sobriety. Yet the evidence suggests otherwise.

Amid the rubble of the 2008 financial crisis, there was talk of a return to thrift. For a brief period, it looked like it might happen. According to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, the monthly savings rate jumped to 8.1% in May 2009.

But that proved to be a statistical blip, not a permanent change. To understand what’s happened, consider the longer-term story.

Over the 35 years through 1984, the amount saved as a percentage of post-tax income averaged 11.1% a year, and there wasn’t a single year when it fell below 9%. In the years since, the annual savings rate has never gotten as high as 9%. The drop-off was especially sharp after 1992, with the savings rate eventually hitting a low of 2.6% in 2005. Shaken by the Great Recession, Americans boosted their savings rate to 6.1% in 2009. But as the economy has mended, our inclination to save has waned, reaching just 4.5% last year.

By Jonathan Clements; The Wall Street Journal ~ Apr 20, 2014

We’re supposedly in a new era of financial sobriety. Yet the evidence suggests otherwise.

Amid the rubble of the 2008 financial crisis, there was talk of a return to thrift. For a brief period, it looked like it might happen. According to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, the monthly savings rate jumped to 8.1% in May 2009.

But that proved to be a statistical blip, not a permanent change. To understand what’s happened, consider the longer-term story.

Over the 35 years through 1984, the amount saved as a percentage of post-tax income averaged 11.1% a year, and there wasn’t a single year when it fell below 9%. In the years since, the annual savings rate has never gotten as high as 9%. The drop-off was especially sharp after 1992, with the savings rate eventually hitting a low of 2.6% in 2005. Shaken by the Great Recession, Americans boosted their savings rate to 6.1% in 2009. But as the economy has mended, our inclination to save has waned, reaching just 4.5% last year.

By Jack Hough; The Wall Street Journal ~ Apr 20, 2014

Many retirees can secure outsize returns simply by delaying Social Security benefits to the maximum age of 70, rather than starting at 62, the minimum and most common starting age. For couples, in particular, getting the timing right could be worth an extra $250,000 or more.

Deciding to delay Social Security payments is a lot like buying an insurance product called a second-to-die annuity, in which savers can set aside money today to pay for a future stream of lifetime income for two. But in this case, the “insurance company”—Social Security—is giving away the store, because it hasn’t adjusted its prices much since the 1950s, even though life expectancies have soared since then.

Full retirement age is 66 to 67 for those born in 1943 or later. At that age, workers may collect their primary insurance amount, or PIA, based on past earnings. Early filers can start drawing benefits at age 62, though they’ll receive only 75% of their PIA. If retirees wait until age 70, they can collect 132% of their PIA.

By Mark Miller; Reuters ~ Apr 19, 2014

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Paper Social Security benefits statements, which used to be mailed out every year and then fell victim to budget cuts, are going to make a partial comeback.

Starting this September, the Social Security Administration (SSA) will resume mailings at five-year intervals to workers who have not signed up to view their statements online, an agency spokesman told Reuters. The statements will be sent to workers at ages 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 and 60, he said, adding the agency would continue to promote use of the online statements.

The SSA stopped mailing most paper statements in 2011 in response to budget pressures, and saved the SSA $70 million annually -about 50 cents per mailed statement. But the decision has been a sore point with some critics, who argue the statement provides a valuable annual reminder to workers of what they can expect to get back from payroll taxes in the future.

By Julie Pace: The Associated Press ~ Apr 19, 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) — People who have accounts on the enrollment website for President Barack Obama’s signature health care law are being told to change their passwords following an administration-wide review of the government’s vulnerability to the confounding Heartbleed Internet security flaw.

Senior administration officials said there is no indication that the HealthCare.gov site has been compromised and the action is being taken out of an abundance of caution. The government’s Heartbleed review is ongoing, the officials said, and users of other websites may also be told to change their passwords in the coming days, including those with accounts on the popular WhiteHouse.gov petitions page.

The Heartbleed programming flaw has caused major security concerns across the Internet and affected a widely used encryption technology that was designed to protect online accounts. Major Internet services have been working to insulate themselves against the problem and are also recommending that users change their website passwords.

By Peter Ubel; Forbes ~ Apr 18, 2014

People have criticized The Affordable Care Act for amounting to a large transfer of wealth, from wealthy Americans to those not as well off. But the real transfer of wealth has been from United States to other developed nations, whose healthcare costs we have subsidized for many years by paying so generously for many of our healthcare services. No better example of this comes to mind than the price we pay for pharmaceuticals in the US versus elsewhere. Below is a picture of what we pay for brand-name drugs here compared to peer nations.

Pharmaceutical products are cheaper abroad in part because companies know they can make money in the US market, and thus are willing to tolerate smaller profit margins in other countries.

By Mitch Tuchman; Forbes ~ Apr 17, 2014

Could you live on Social Security? That seems to be a stock answer for many folks nearing retirement, and it’s a tremendously misguided view.

According to the Social Security Administration’s latest statistical snapshot, here’s what people now taking Social Security really make: $1,297.55 a month. Totaled out across a full year, that’s just $15,571 to pay all of your expenses.

If you own your home and have no debts, you might be okay some months on that income level, but in time expenses will creep up. Transportation and healthcare, for instance. Living simply is not really an answer in a time of rising medical costs.

By Craig Galbraith; Channel Partners ~ Apr 17, 2014

Retired AT&T employees aren’t too happy with a rise in health-care premiums — unhappy enough for some of them to demonstrate with picket signs outside at least one office.

A number of them showed up outside the AT&T offices in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Wednesday, to protest what they say are rate hikes that have risen by as much as 300 percent.

“They gave this company decades of their life,” said Kristi Veit, Communication Workers of America, in an interview with KIII-VT. “We ask that the company in return be as considerate to our retirees, and we ask that we can re-discuss this issue.”

By Jason Millman; The Washington Post ~ Apr 16, 2014

There’s been much written in the past year about just how hard it is to get a simple price for a basic health-care procedure. The industry has heard the rumblings, and now it’s responding.

About two dozen industry stakeholders, including main lobbying groups for hospitals and health insurers, this morning are issuing new recommendations for how they can provide the cost of health-care services to patients.

The focus on health-care price transparency — discussed in Steven Brill’s 26,000-word opus on medical bills for Time last year — has intensified, not surprisingly, as people are picking up more of the tab for their health care. Employers are shifting more costs onto their workers, and many new health plans under Obamacare feature high out-of-pocket costs.

By Katie Thomas; The New York Times ~ Apr 16, 2014

Even as the cost of prescription drugs has plummeted for many Americans, a small slice of the population is being asked to shoulder more and more of the cost of expensive treatments for diseases like cancer and hepatitis C, according to a report to be released on Tuesday by a major drug research firm.

The findings echo the conclusions of two other reports released last week by major pharmacy benefit managers, which predicted that spending on so-called specialty drugs would continue to rise.

The report, by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, also found that consumers’ use of health care — visits to the doctor, hospital admissions and prescription drug use — rose in 2013 for the first time in three years, mainly because of the improving economy, it said.