Search the News Archive

House GOP Pushing Medicare Overhaul in 2016

" 'Next year, what we hope to turn to is the third and final step for saving Medicare in the long term, which is offering better and smarter personalized Medicare options for seniors,' [Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Kevin Brady] said. He specifically named combining Medicare's hospital and physician coverage, with an out-of-pocket spending cap, and 'providing a personalized Medicare option that most call premium support.' The details of how the policy would actually work are what Brady and his staff plan to start crafting next year."

If You Like Your Obamacare Plan, It'll Cost You

"People who decide to stick with the coverage they've already gotten through Obamacare, rather than switching plans, are at risk for some of the biggest premium spikes anywhere in the system. And some people won't even know their costs went up until they get a bill from the IRS. Insurance plans generally raise their premiums every year, but those costs are just the tip of the iceberg for millions of Obamacare enrollees. A series of other, largely invisible factors will also push up many consumers' premiums."

Insurers Concerned About Obamacare's Catch-22 for MLR Calculations

"Insurers don't think it's fair to penalize them for expenses they incurred solely because of the government's broken website or the administration's last-minute policy changes.... The Affordable Care Act says individual policies can spend only 20 percent of their premiums on overhead and profit. If they spend more, they have to rebate the difference to their customers. Some plans worry they'll go over the limit this year because of the extra administrative costs the administration has dumped on them since October."

How Much Big Insurance Paid a Small-Business Group to Fight a Premium Tax

"The nation's leading health insurance industry group gave $850,000 to a top small-business trade association as part of a campaign to repeal a key provision of President Obama's health care law ... America's Health Insurance Plans cut the six-figure check to the National Federation of Independent Business as part of a partnership aimed at blocking a tax on health care premiums that goes into effect next year and will cost insurers roughly $100 billion over the next decade."

Obama Administation Regs Fill in Health Law Details

"The new rules issued by the Health and Human Services Administration spell out how a centerpiece of the law -- its requirement that insurers cover even sick or old applicants -- will work. They also sketch out what minimum package of benefits must be included in health plans sold on state exchanges.... A rule on health insurance market reforms spells out how the health law's "guaranteed issue" and "community rating" requirements will work in practice. Those rules ban insurer discrimination against customers with pre-existing health problems and limit how much insurers can vary premium prices on the basis of age, tobacco use, family size and geography."

Saving for Retirement Used to Be Simple; Now It's Rife with Contingencies

The problem is that there's no safe-yet-lucrative way to save anymore. The broad stock market has had several epic rallies and nosedives in the past decade, and many experts say that wild swings are here to stay. All the while, inflation will inevitably eat away at the value of people's savings. What's more, the safe, fixed-income investments -- from bank CDs to government bonds -- are paying next to nothing these days.

Health Insurers Plan to Pass Along New Tax to Patients

Health insurers are not pulling any punches. They say they plan to pass new taxes under the 2010 health reform law directly to consumers through higher premiums.

CSRS vs. FERS: The Reaction

Excerpt: Last week's column comparing CSRS to FERS certainly attracted a lot of feedback. I expected some skepticism, but not the level of hostility in some of the responses.

CSRS vs. FERS -- A Discussion

Excerpt: Which federal retirement system is better? If you ask most employees, they seem to think the Civil Service Retirement System provides more generous benefits than its newer counterpart, the Federal Employees Retirement System.

Thousands of Federal Employees Mistakenly Placed Into FERS System without Their Consent

Excerpt: The glitch mostly affected employees who had worked under the old system, left government and later returned to the public sector, and employees who had experienced changes in appointment types or who had worked in excepted service agencies and then moved to the standard personnel system.