By Sean Buckley; Fierce Telecom ~ Apr 28, 2015

AT&T (NYSE: T) may be the largest Ethernet provider in the U.S., but to fulfill the requirements of large multi-national corporation customers (MNCs) that reside outside of its wireline territory, it would like to have a standard method to establish Ethernet interconnection with other providers.

Dan Blemings, director of Ethernet product management for AT&T mobile and business solutions, said in an interview with FierceTelecom that Ethernet interconnection even today is still a challenge.

From Howard Gleckman; Forbes ~ Apr 27, 2015

Earlier this year, the Obama Administration proposed a small and almost unnoticed change in retirement savings rules that could be a big help to middle-income seniors who want to preserve assets to pay for medical and long-term care costs in very old age.

By Melinda Beck; The Wall Street Journal ~ Apr 26, 2015

Nearly 40% of health-care providers treating Medicare patients will have their payments docked 1.5% this year because they didn’t submit data on patients’ health to the government, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said.

More than 460,000 providers failed to comply with the Physician Quality Reporting System in 2013, of about 1.25 million eligible providers, according to the CMS report released last week. Some 70% of those that didn’t participate treat fewer than 100 Medicare patients a year, the agency said.

By Larry Darrell; Bidness Etc ~ Apr 25, 2015

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) has made a transaction worth $17.5 billion on Thursday, by selling its bonds for funding its long-awaited deal with DIRECTV (NASDAQ:DTV). This stands as the third-largest on-record corporate debt offering, and has sheared around $10 million in the yearly interest charges from the deal, after receiving investor orders that were around four times the offered amount.

By Brenton Smity, The Hill – April 24, 2015

Last week, Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) dedicated time to champion entitlement reform at a 4-stop tour through New Hampshire. The governor said “Washington is afraid to have an honest conversation about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid with the people of our country. I am not.”

So let’s be honest.

By Dave Michaels; Bloomberg ~ Apr 24, 2015

The Obama administration plan to tighten rules on brokers is facing blowback from the president’s own party.

Key Senate Democrats met this week with Labor Secretary Tom Perez to argue that his plan — which would force brokers handling retirement accounts to put their clients’ interests ahead of their own — could backfire and make it harder for consumers to get investment advice.

By Ed Silverman; The Wall Street Journal ~ Apr 24, 2015

Should drug makers be required to disclose their costs to justify rising prices?

This is what a growing number of state legislatures are considering. Over the past several weeks, lawmakers in a handful of states stretching from California to Massachusetts have introduced bills in a bid to force the pharmaceutical industry to conduct an economic striptease.

By Stephen Ohlemacher; The Associated Press ~ Apr 22, 2015

WASHINGTON (AP) — The IRS’ overloaded phone system hung up on more than 8 million taxpayers this filing season as the agency cut millions of dollars from taxpayer services to help pay to enforce President Barack Obama’s health law.

For those who weren’t disconnected, only 40 percent actually got through to a person. And many of those people had to wait on hold for more than 30 minutes, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said Wednesday.

From News Wire Feed; Light Reading ~ Apr 22, 2015

DALLAS — AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today reported solid first-quarter results with strong wireless net adds, best-ever first-quarter postpaid churn and strong demand for strategic business services.

“The first quarter was a significant step in a transformative year for AT&T” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO. “The repositioning of our wireless customer base to no-device-subsidy plans drove industry-leading postpaid churn.

By Sarah Thomas; Light Reading ~ Apr 22, 2015

AT&T CFO John Stephens shrugged off Google’s new Fi MVNO on the carrier’s earnings call on Wednesday, implying it’s too limited in devices, distribution and customer care to pose a threat.

“It’s just another one of the plays in the environment out there,” Stephens said, noting that AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) likes to present more device choices to its customers and that they value distribution and customer care, two things that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Fi is limited in.