WASHINGTON (AP) — The House and Senate have passed competing versions of legislation to prevent the federal trust funds providing highway and transit funds from running dry next month and to buy more time for Congress to draft a new highway bill.
By Glenn Ruffenach; MarketWatch ~ Jul 28, 2014
If you’re trying to estimate health-care expenses in retirement, a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation highlights some important numbers.
Medical bills in later life can put even the sturdiest of nest eggs at risk. A study released in June by Fidelity Benefits Consulting estimated that a 65-year-old couple retiring in 2014 will need an average of $220,000 (in today’s dollars) to cover medical expenses throughout retirement. What’s more, that figure doesn’t account for over-the-counter medications, most dental services and long-term care.
By Damian Paletta; The Wall Street Journal ~ Jul 28, 2014
WASHINGTON—Medicare’s hospital-insurance program spent less on benefits in 2013 than it did the previous year, despite covering an additional 1 million people, according to a federal report released Monday, the latest sign that growth in health costs is tapering off.
The findings come in the annual report card from the trustees of Medicare and Social Security. They project Medicare will be able to continue paying full hospital benefits for its elderly or disabled clients without any changes in the law through 2030—four years later than last year’s estimate.
By Andrew M. Seaman; Reuters ~ Jul 28, 2014
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Drugs that have been investigated to increase so-called “good” cholesterol may not prevent deaths, heart attacks or strokes as many hoped, according to a new analysis.
Due to limitations in existing studies and ongoing experiments involving these and other drugs, researchers not involved with the analysis caution that it’s too early to give up on medications that increase high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, however.
From Joyce Migdall; The Washington Post ~ Jul 28, 2014
Contrary to the secondary headline — “Retirees are unaffected when third-party insurers pick up risk” — on “Why more companies want to wipe pensions off their books” [Business, July 24], retirees’ pensions are jeopardized when they are stripped off companies’ books via sale to an insurance company. Would savers be unaffected if their FDIC-insured bank CDs were sold to Prudential, eliminating the FDIC insurance? Retirees assume the added risk.
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar; The Associated Press ~ Jul 27, 2014
WASHINGTON (AP) — If you have health insurance on your job, you probably don’t give much thought to each year’s renewal. But make the same assumption in one of the new health law plans, and it could lead to costly surprises.
Insurance exchange customers who opt for convenience by automatically renewing their coverage for 2015 are likely to receive dated and inaccurate financial aid amounts from the government, say industry officials, advocates and other experts.
By Erik Carter; Forbes ~ Jul 25, 2014
Are your investments allocated properly between your various retirement accounts? If you’re like many investors, at best you might manage your 401(k), IRAs, and taxable accounts separately and at worst, you have no idea what you even have in those accounts. If either of those sound like you, you’re probably missing some opportunities to enhance your after-tax returns.
By Anthony Giorgianni; Fox Business ~ Jul 24, 2014
Tax season may be long over, but tax-related scams aren’t. At least three states recently warned about scammers posing as IRS agents demanding payment of overdue taxes.
“These scammers have become increasingly aggressive over the last few months,” Attorney General Tom Horne of Arizona said in a statement.
By Alan Breznick; Light Reading ~ Jul 24, 2014
Leaving Verizon FiOS in its dust, AT&T U-verse continued to maintain a breakneck growth pace in the second quarter, albeit at a somewhat slower rate than in previous quarters.
AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) reported late Wednesday that it signed up another 190,000 subscribers for U-verse TV in the second quarter. That’s down from its gains of 201,000 TV subs in the first quarter and 233,000 in the same period a year ago. But it’s still far more than the 100,000 new FiOS video subs that Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) reported a day earlier and stands in stark contrast to the video subscriber losses that most US MSOs are still experiencing.