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.

By Peter Sullivan; The Hill ~ Apr 21, 2015

Leading healthcare provider groups are objecting to Medicare cuts being used to help pay for a new House Republican trade bill.

The Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) bill helps workers displaced by trade and provides a tax credit to help pay for health insurance. It was rolled out in addition to a proposal to give President Obama “fast-track” authority on trade.

By Andrew V. Pestano; United Press International ~ Apr 20, 2015

WASHINGTON, April 20 (UPI) — Medicare cards will no longer display Social Security numbers, in an effort to change the way doctors are paid for treating Medicare patients and to prevent identity theft.

President Barack Obama requested a $50 million down payment “to support the removal of Social Security numbers from Medicare cards” in his 2016 budget. Federal auditors and investigators have recommended removing the numbers for more than a decade, and Obama signed a bill doing so last week.