By Susan Jones, March 10, 2014 – 6:42 AM
(CNSNews.com) – Defenders of Obamacare will point to a new Gallup poll showing that the percentage of Americans without health insurance continues to fall — to 15.9 percent so far in 2014, down from 17.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013.
By David Morgan, WASHINGTON Mon Mar 10, 2014 6:17pm EDT
(Reuters) – The Obama administration, in an abrupt about-face, said on Monday it would drop proposed changes to Medicare drug coverage that met wide opposition on grounds they would harm health benefits for the elderly and disabled.
Late last week, more than 370 organizations representing insurers, drug makers, pharmacies, health providers and patients urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to withdraw changes it had proposed for Medicare Part D.
By Robert Steyer, Updated
John Wasik, Contributor, 3/10/2014 @ 5:28PM
Not only is retirement planning a matter of saving enough, fund choices play a huge role. When Bankrate.com came out with a study today showing how tracking one stock index would make a huge difference in your retirement income stream, I was skeptical. Then I examined one fund connected with the strategy and saw how the results made sense.
Basically, Bankrate found that by adding a group of dividend-paying stocks as measured by the Dividend Aristocrats Index, performance would be higher — even with regular retirement withdrawals. Dividend aristocrats are companies that have been raising dividends for 25 years or more. They are the energizer bunnies of dividend payers. Here’s what Bankrate found:
By Kevin Bogardus, March 09, 2014, 06:00 am
Powerful physician groups that are Washington’s loudest voice for a permanent “doc fix” are shooting down a Republican effort to link the bill to a delay of ObamaCare’s individual mandate.
Doctors have lobbied aggressively for legislation that would repeal a flawed Medicare payment system that Capitol Hill has periodically patched since the 1990s.
House Republican lawmakers have set a vote for next week on a bill that could cover the $150 billion cost of the “doc fix” by ending the controversial mandate to have insurance — setting up a tough vote for Democrats who have mostly stood by President Obama’s signature program.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/medicare/200256-obamacare-bill-gets-chilly-reception#ixzz2varD2gP6
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The U.S. economy added slightly more jobs than expected in February, but the pattern of job creation remains very sluggish, and President Obama only has his own policies to blame.
That’s according to Heritage Foundation Chief Economist Stephen Moore. On Friday, the Labor Department announced the economy added 175,000 jobs last month, although the overall unemployment rate ticked up to 6.7 percent. The job numbers beat the expectation of 149,000 new jobs and mark the 48th straight month of positive job numbers, but the number of people leaving the labor force remains a major concern. Experts like Moore say by now the jobs numbers should be much better.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/03/economist-real-unemployment-rate-is-11/#B0XSgtJKGxVGJodq.99
By David Morgan, Sat Mar 8, 2014 7:00am EST
(Reuters) – Republicans, looking for ways to turn November’s congressional elections into a referendum on President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, are trying to portray Obamacare as a danger to Medicare.
The aim is to court one of the biggest and most reliable voting blocs in midterm elections, senior citizens and people near retirement, by depicting Republicans as defenders of the federal healthcare program for 42 million seniors.
By Thomas Gryta, March 8, 2014 2:00 p.m. ET
U.S. wireless carriers have rejiggered the prices of their service plans again, extending a period of unusual volatility triggered by an aggressive push for customers by T-Mobile US Inc.
AT&T Inc. is cutting prices on its wireless plans for the second time this year, lowering the monthly cost of a plan offering unlimited calls and texts and two gigabytes of Internet use by $15. The new plan, which begins Sunday, would lower the…
By Jason Millman, March 7 at 4:55 pm
The Obama administration has awarded a contract extension to a Healthcare.gov vendor, months after federal health officials had selected another firm to replace it.
According to a posting on the main federal contracting Web site Thursday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Verizon Terremark signed a contract extension in late January for cloud computing services, even though the federal agency overseeing HealthCare.gov had already selected HP Enterprise Services last July to take over the work.
By John Tozzi March 06, 2014
One of the ways Obamacare aims to curb health costs is by encouraging home care for the elderly instead of expensive nursing homes and hospital stays. So home health providers were surprised to learn in November that they’ll be taking a sizable hit as a result of the law: The rate Medicare pays them is scheduled to drop 14 percent over the next four years, the maximum reduction allowed under the Affordable Care Act. In announcing the cuts, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the lower rates “better align Medicare payments with home health agencies’ costs [of] providing care.”