State insurance regulators on Thursday unanimously recommended controversial rules that govern how much insurers must spend on patients' medical care, and they chose not to adopt any of several amendments that consumer advocates had feared would gut key provisions.
The rules, which involve an important part of the new health care overhaul law, now go to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who has final say. Leaders of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners voted after months of meetings and debate that involved industry and consumer representatives. The recommended rules center on the "medical loss ratio," which is how much insurers spend on medical care versus administration and profit.
State regulators recommend new health insurance rules
Moon's water is useful resource, says Nasa
There are oases of water-rich soil that could sustain astronauts on the Moon, according to Nasa. Scientists studied the full results of an experiment that smashed a rocket and a probe into a lunar crater last year. The impacts kicked up large amounts of rock and dust, revealing a suite of fascinating chemical compounds and far more water than anyone had imagined.
A Nasa-led team tells Science magazine that about 155kg of water vapour and water-ice were blown out of the crater. The researchers' analysis suggests some areas of lunar regolith, or soil, must contain as much as 5% by weight of water-ice.
The Other Citizens of Israel
Is there no limit to what the American government will accept from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his hard-line foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman?
With Netanyahu’s backing, the Israeli cabinet voted in support of Lieberman’s loyalty oath for non-Jewish immigrants, which requires allegiance to a “Jewish and democratic state” of Israel. It was as if Mexican immigrants to the United States would have to swear allegiance to a United States that is white and Protestant, while immigrants from Europe would face no such oath.
Federal agents round up mental health operators in $200 million Medicare fraud case
Federal agents arrested several South Florida healthcare operators early Thursday in one of the nation's biggest Medicare fraud cases, charging them with scheming to fleece $200 million from the taxpayer-funded program by billing for bogus mental health services.
Lawrence S. Duran, 48, of North Miami, and his company, American Therapeutic Corp., were charged along with other employees in a conspiracy indictment. The Miami-based company's chief executive officer, Marianella Valera, 39, was also among the defendants named in the indictment.
NPR commentator Juan Williams fired over Muslim remark
National Public Radio terminated the contract of commentator Juan Williams after he said on Fox’s "O’Reilly Factor" that people wearing Muslim garb on airplanes made him "worried" and "nervous."
The move was first reported Wednesday on Twitter by NPR’s media correspondent David Folkenflik, who said Williams’ remarks "were inconsistent with our editorial standards." Williams was discussing political correctness on Monday with host Bill O’Reilly and said that it can "lead to some kind of paralysis, where you don’t address reality."
Leading rabbi encourages IDF soldiers to use Palestinian human shields
"According to true Jewish values, your lives come before those of the enemy, whether he is a soldier or a civilian under protection. Therefore, you are forbidden from endangering your own life for the sake of the enemy, not even for a civilian," Shapira declared.
Shapira was arrested over the summer for encouraging Jews to kill Gentiles in his book "The King's Torah." The preface of the book, which was published in November, states that it is forbidden to kill non-Jews - but the book then apparently describes the context in which it is permitted to do so.
Examination of all possible causes for America's worsening life expectancy eliminates everything but modern health care as the cause.
Ultimately, health care seems to be the culprit in Americans' increasingly shorter lifespans. The authors investigated the impact of health insurance on mortality rates, and found that there is very little. They stated that insurance "coverage has large effects on use of health care but only small effects on mortality, which are concentrated in low-income groups."
They go on to note that only a very small difference in life expectancy can be found as a result of access to medical insurance. It should also be pointed out that these studies are looking for such a connection, so their inability to find one should be taken as highly significant.
Insurers Test New Cancer Pay Systems
Several large health insurers, including UnitedHealthcare and Aetna, are focusing on one of the country’s most costly diseases: cancer. The insurers have begun tightening oversight of the care provided to patients with many different types of cancer, hoping to lower expenses by experimenting with new ways to pay specialists.
UnitedHealthcare plans to announce on Wednesday a one-year project with five oncology practices, offering doctors an additional fee. The new fee is meant to encourage doctors to follow standard treatments rather than opting too often for individualized and unproven courses of therapy, which can include the most expensive drug combinations.
Efforts to Prosecute Blackwater Collapse
Nearly four years after the federal government began a string of investigations and criminal prosecutions against Blackwater Worldwide personnel accused of murder and other violent crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the cases are beginning to fall apart, burdened by a legal obstacle of the government’s own making.
In the most recent and closely watched case, the Justice Department on Monday said that it would not seek murder charges against Andrew J. Moonen, a Blackwater armorer accused of killing a guard assigned to the Iraqi vice president on Dec. 24, 2006.
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