By Tony Colarossi; MarketWatch ~ May 09, 2016

Americans should be rewarded for living healthier

They say in life you can only be certain of two things: death and taxes. But these days you can add rising health-insurance premiums to that list.

Annual health-insurance premiums for the average family are 4.4% higher in 2016 compared with last year, now above $16,800. Those increases are hard to take because they advance much faster than the average paycheck. Between 1999 and 2009, the average U.S. salary rose 38%, but health-care premiums jumped an incredible 131%.

By Stephen Feller; United Press International ~ May 06, 2016

CHICAGO, May 6 (UPI) — More than 2,000 doctors are calling for the establishment of a single-payer health insurance system, signing on to a plan they say would take healthcare non-profit and allow care to be available for everybody who needs it.

The Physicians for a National Health Program on Thursday released their plan to move to a Medicare-style system open to all American citizens, outlining it in an editorial published in the American Journal of Public Health.

From PMD Staff; Money Digest ~ May 05, 2016

Many retirement savers focus on the big things, and rightfully so. Building and following a budget, no matter your income level, is a big thing. So is establishing financial goals that make sense, along with an investing strategy that helps you reach those goals.

Where many of us lose our way is with what may seem like little things; but it’s those little things that can kill either your budget or your overall financial strategy. Why? Because retirement planning isn’t a short-term endeavor, nor is it a simple process.

By Stephanie Armour; The Wall Street Journal ~ May 05, 2016

An Obama administration proposal to reduce Medicare’s profit incentives to doctors who administer drugs is drawing such intense congressional criticism that some policy analysts question whether it will survive intact.

Dozens of House Republicans are demanding the proposal be withdrawn, and Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee are raising concerns with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the program. The pushback is growing in advance of a May 9 deadline for public comments.

By Jason Notte; Main St ~ May 05, 2016

U.S. workers are worried about the costs of long-term care, but they still don’t know what they are.

According to a survey by long-term care insurance provider Genworth, which clearly has a stake in the outcome, 70% of people over 65 will need long-term care. However, based on a survey of wealthy investors by financial firm UBS Wealth Management, 77% have not set funds aside for future medical expenses, and just 8% have received advice on managing future healthcare costs.

From News Wire Feed; Light Reading ~ May 05, 2016

WASHINGTON, DC — Doubling its military hiring commitment, AT&T* has announced it plans to hire an additional 10,000 veterans for a total of 20,000 by 2020. This commitment was announced at today’s White House Joining Forces event, along with more than 50 other companies dedicated to hiring and training veterans and military spouses.

From KHN Morning Briefing; Kaiser Health News ~ May 04, 2016

Only heart disease and cancer take more lives than medical errors in America, and the exact toll is unknown because the coding system used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to record death certificate data doesn’t capture things like communication breakdowns, diagnostic errors and poor judgment that cost lives, says a new study in the journal BMJ.

By Jack Craver; BenefitsPRO ~ May 04, 2016

Three-quarters of Americans say they are concerned about health care costs rising next year.

Given how rapidly the cost of health care has risen in the past decade, it’s not surprising that many are anxious about future price increases. But the survey from TransUnion finds evidence that even more people are concerned about rising costs than last year.

By Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D. and Maura Calsyn, Huffington Post – May 2, 2016

A patient in your average doctor’s office, Ms. Myers, has rheumatoid arthritis. Her physician, Dr. Jones, administers an injectable immunotherapy drug, Remicade, as her treatment. Medicare pays Dr. Jones 106 percent of the average sales price (ASP) for the drug, which comes to more than $3,000 every two months. The extra six percent is supposed to cover the drug’s ordering, tracking, storing, and processing, as well as to account for the variation in prices that drug companies charge different doctors.

By Jenifer McKim & Koby Levin; Weymouth News ~ May 01, 2016

Kenneth and Sadako Miller were struggling to pay their bills six years ago when they saw a TV commercial that seemed to provide an answer to their financial woes.

The elderly couple, a disabled Vietnam veteran and his Japanese-born wife, called the number on the screen and soon obtained a government-insured reverse mortgage – a product marketed as a way to turn the value of your home into cash payments without a sale, and still live in it.