Affordable Health Insurance

United States (KaiserHealth) – The Obama administration today unveiled final regulations that detail what information health insurers must provide on new consumer labels mandated by the federal health law to explain their plans. “All consumers, for the first time, will really be able to clearly comprehend the sometimes confusing language insurance plans often use in marketing,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in a printed statement. “This will give them a new edge in deciding which plan will best suit their needs and those of their families or employees.” The standardized forms will be available beginning Sept. 23 for about 150 million Americans with private health insurance, federal health officials. The rules set the design for easy-to-understand forms describing health insurance benefits. The forms are intended to provide the same details on all policies using the same language – defined in an accompanying glossary — so that consumers can compare policies. The law also mandates coverage examples that explain how much a plan pays on average for common medical conditions. It even eliminates “fine [...] Continue Reading…

Windsor Genova – AHN News News Writer
The Hague, Netherlands (AHN) – A Dutch court on Tuesday denied Apple Inc.’s appeal to ban the sale of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Europe. The Gerechthof’s-Gravenhage appeals court in The Hague, Netherlands upheld a lower court’s ruling in August last year that the design of the Samsung tablet is different from the iPad and does not infringe on the latter’s design patent. The ruling ends a preliminary injunction issued by another Dutch court against Samsung stopping it from selling the tablet in Europe. The Korean company’s Dutch subsidiaries are now poised to distribute the Galaxy Tab 10.1 throughout the European Union. However, in Germany, a court-ordered temporary ban on the sale of the same product is in effect. A court in Dusseldorf will issue next week a ruling in the case pitting the same smartphone makers. Samsung, which welcomed the Dutch appeal court’s verdict, had produced a modified Galaxy Tab, version 10.1N, in a bid to get around the ban. Apple also asked the Dusseldorf court to ban [...] Continue Reading…

Windsor Genova – AHN News News Writer
Henderson, NV, United States (AHN) – Zappos.com has reset the passwords of its 24 million users after the server of the online shoe and clothing store was hacked and customers’ personal information were believed stolen. The Amazon-owned company is calling on its customers to reset their passwords as the hacker of one of their Kentucky servers may have stolen their names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, the last four digits of their credit card numbers and encrypted passwords. Zappos.com also e-mailed customers warning them that they may receive phishing e-mails from the hackers asking for their account or financial details. CEO Tony Hsieh assured that the database that stores customers’ critical credit card and other payment data was not affected or accessed, according to Forbes.com. Hsieh said the hacking incident is now under investigation. He said employees will respond to queries via e-mail as their phone system cannot accommodate the millions of Zappos.com users expected to call. Amazon bought Zappos in 2009 for $807 million on top of $40 [...] Continue Reading…

Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – Kansas and Oklahoma are the seventh and eighth states to get the thumbs down from the federal government on their requests to phase in new regulations that could result in health insurance rebates to consumers. Under the Affordable Care Act, companies that sell individual insurance policies must spend at least 80 cents of each premium dollar on health care or quality improvement for their members. Companies that fall short of the 80 percent standard will have to pay rebates to their customers to make up the difference. Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger and Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John D. Doak had asked the federal Department of Health and Human Services for waivers that would allow the state to slowly phase in the requirement. Both requests were denied Wednesday. HHS official Steve Larsen says he’s seen no evidence that the new requirement will destabilize the individual insurance market in Kansas. In fact, Larsen anticipates that none of the eight companies currently writing individual health insurance policies in Kansas will pull out of [...] Continue Reading…

Kris Alingod – AHN News Contributor
Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The Federal Aviation Administration was expected on Wednesday to release new rules to prevent accidents in commercial airlines due to pilot fatigue. The announcement comes four months after a congressionally prescribed deadline and more than a year after lawmakers passed legislation strengthening air safety, including a requirement that the FAA reform decades-old flight-and-duty time regulations and set minimum rest requirements for pilots. The Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act was enacted in August last year, largely in response to a crash near Buffalo, NY, in 2009 that killed 50 people. Under the measure, which passed by a unanimous House vote, commercial carriers have to submit and regularly update a fatigue risk management plan, which the FAA will approve every two years. In addition, the FAA is required to issue regulations within a year of the law’s enactment, limiting the number of flight and duty hours allowed for pilots based on the time of the flight and time zone. The new [...] Continue Reading…

Linda Young – AHN News Writer
Tokyo, Japan (AHN) – Unemployment and retail sales both rose in Japan although household spending dropped. Retail sales rose by 1.9 percent in October compared to the same month a year earlier. It was the first increase in retail sales in three months. However, the unemployment rate also rose, climbing to 4.5 percent in October from 4.1 percent a month earlier. However, the increase in retail sales did not translate to an increase in household spending. Private consumption moved down to a lower than expected increase of only 0.4 percent during October.

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San Antonio, TX, United States (KaiserHealth) – A lawsuit filed in Dallas against one of the nation’s largest hospice companies identifies how Medicare’s payment methods can offer unintended financial incentives to inappropriately move patients from HMOs into hospice programs and then into hospitals. In a complaint unsealed last week in a federal court, a former general manager of Vitas HealthCare Corp.’s San Antonio office alleged the company defrauded Medicare through a “conspiracy” with two HMO companies. Vitas and the companies have denied the allegations. The Department of Justice and the state of Texas have declined to join with the plaintiffs in the suit “at this time.” Here’s how the complaint alleges the arrangement worked: Since Medicare Advantage pays HMOs monthly per-patient fees, the HMOs had a financial incentive to avoid chronically ill patients, who need lots of treatments. So the HMOs referred many of their chronically ill patients for hospice care at Vitas, which accepted them even though their conditions weren’t considered terminal. Although expensive for the HMOs, these patients made money for Vitas, the complaint [...] Continue Reading…

Diane Alter – AHN News Reporter
West Palm Beach, FL, United States (AHN) – There are a few things you should remember this weekend when you “fall back” for Daylight Savings Times. First, remember to set your clocks back one hour before you go to sleep Saturday. Daylight Savings Time for 2011 officially ends at 2 a.m. Sunday in the United States and Canada. Second, make time to check and replace the batteries in your smoke detectors. Not all areas in the United States observe Daylight Savings Time. These include the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Hawaii and most of Arizona except for the Navajo reservation. While many people look forward to the extra hour of sleep, Daylight Savings Time can wreak havoc on our basic circadian rhythm (the body clock). It is easier to stay up an hour later than to go to sleep an hour earlier, health experts say. But there are some things that you can do to help your body adjust. To sleep well, your body clock must be [...] Continue Reading…

Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – Signing up for health insurance during your company’s annual enrollment period, which for many plans is right now, may feel like taking a nasty dose of medicine: You know it’s good for you, but it sure doesn’t go down easy. On the plus side, nearly two-thirds of companies are still offering health insurance to their employees, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual survey of employer health benefits. That’s worth a lot. But that coverage won’t come cheap, as premiums, deductibles and cost sharing continue to rise, sometimes even more steeply than in previous years. More employers are also moving to high-deductible plans that shift increasing expenses onto their employees, requiring them to pay more before benefits kick in. And companies are making it pricier to insure spouses and children. There is a bright spot, however: Employees who participate in the increasing number of company wellness programs can often reduce premium and other cost increases. “It makes sense for the employer,” says Ron Fontanetta, a director at benefits consultant [...] Continue Reading…

Windsor Genova – AHN News News Writer
Waterloo, Canada (AHN) – Research in Motion (RIM) has fully restored its BlackBerry services on Thursday ending three days of agonizing downtime for many of its 70 million customers worldwide. RIM president and co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis posted a video on its website apologizing for the inconvenience caused by the outage that prevented BlackBerry users from e-mailing and browsing the Internet on the smartphone. Lazaridis also told reporters in a conference call that the email backlog that followed after a backup server in Europe failed caused much of the problem. He advised BlackBerry users to reset their smartphones get in it synchronized again with the network by taking out the battery for a short time. The outage, the worst in RIM’s history, began in Europe on Monday and spread worldwide by Wednesday. The hardware for a backup switching architecture failed and technicians have to restart the server. But the backlog of messages and data traffic took troubleshooters time to send and prolonged the disruption. Lazaridis said measures were undertaken, [...] Continue Reading…