By Donna Fuscaldo; Fox Business ~ Nov 25, 2014

We buy our own car insurance and homeowners insurance but when it comes to healthcare, the majority of us let our employer do the choosing.

That may not be the case in years to come as more companies offer defined contribution health benefits, similar to how they offer 401(K) retirement plans.

“By 2025 the majority of businesses will have gotten out of health insurance,” predicts Rick Lindquist, president of Zane Benefits and co-author of The End of Employer-Provided Health Insurance: Why It’s Good for You, Your Family, and Your Company. “Over the next three years the majority of small businesses will get out.”

By Robert Langreth; Bloomberg ~ Nov 25, 2014

Steve Miller is waging war on high-priced medicine, guiding decisions to ban drugs from the health plans of millions of Americans and sending companies reeling in a $270 billion market.

He and his colleagues at Express Scripts Holding Co. (ESRX) say they are just getting started.

Miller is chief medical officer for the company, which oversees prescription benefits for health plans and employers covering 85 million patients. Unless more is done about a wave of new and expensive drugs, some priced at as much as $50,000 a month, Miller says that health plans are going to be swamped as costs double to half a trillion dollars as soon as 2020.

By Sarah Ferris; The Hill ~ Nov 25, 2014

Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) are renewing their push for a bill to allow prescription drugs to be imported from Canada.

Klobuchar and McCain first introduced their bill in July, but it saw no action. They now plan to revive the legislation in the lame-duck session, according to a report by The New York Times.

The senators say their bipartisan bill will force the pharmaceutical industry to lower prices of generic drugs that are sometimes twice as expensive in the U.S. as overseas. But the law faces strong opposition from U.S. companies, which have already helped stall the bill for years.

By Kelly Phillips Erb; Forbes ~ Nov 24, 2014

On January 1, 2014, about 55 tax-related deductions and credits had officially expired. They weren’t voted up or down: they were just temporary provisions that were allowed to expire.

Most assumed that Congress would eventually do what they’ve had a terrible habit of doing which is to wait a bit and extend the laws retroactively to January 1, 2014. But then January passed and nothing. Then February and nothing. Then March… You get the picture.

And now it’s November – nearly December, actually – and those tax extender bills are still sitting in Congress.

By Emily Brandon; US News & World Report ~ Nov 24, 2014

Social Security and Medicare will be making important changes to their programs next year. Individual retirement accounts and 401(k)s will also be tweaked in significant ways. Here’s a look at the new features your retirement benefits will have next year.

Social Security. Social Security recipients will receive 1.7 percent bigger payments in 2015, due to the annual cost-of-living adjustment. Most workers will continue to pay 6.2 percent of their earnings into the Social Security system, but the maximum taxable earnings amount will increase next year from $117,000 in 2014 to $118,500 in 2015. The Social Security administration will also mail Social Security statements to workers turning ages 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 and 60 in 2015 who have not created an online account.

From John C. Goodman; Forbes ~ Nov 20, 2014

A lot of people on the left are obsessed with enrolling every single American in a health insurance plan. Too bad they aren’t obsessed instead about giving every American access to health care.

If you lived in Canada or Britain you would immediately know the difference. Health insurance is a promise that may or may not deliver. Health care is the real thing.

Discovery: voters don’t care about the uninsured. During the 2008 Democratic primary every serious candidate repeated two words about health care – again and again like a mantra: “universal coverage.” Apparently, those were the words the Democratic base wanted to hear. After the primary was over, however, I can’t remember hearing those words from Barack Obama ever again.

By Robert Stammers; MarketWatch ~ Nov 20, 2014

Shakespeare once wrote, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” Sound advice, yet when it comes to their adult children, many parents are far too willing to keep the financial umbilical cord intact long after it should be severed.

Any financial assistance you decide to give to your adult children should be for the right reasons, especially for retired or nearly retired parents who can ill afford to dip into their nest egg.

By Robert Powell; MarketWatch ~ Nov 20, 2014

If you want to get a sense how best to generate income in retirement, consider doing what corporate pension plans do. Determine the “funded status” of your personal retirement plan.

How would you do that? Well, according to panelists participating in a panel discussion at a recent MarketWatch Retirement Adviser event in New York City, there several ways to determine whether you’ll have enough cash flow to support your desired lifestyle in retirement.

By Mark Merritt; The Hill ~ Nov 20, 2014

As policymakers explore ways to reduce prescription drug costs, the independent drugstore lobby wants legislation (HR 4437) that would force seniors to pay drugstores more for generic drugs.

Their goal is to gut one of Medicare Part D’s key cost-control tools: Maximum Allowable Cost (MAC) lists, which reflect market rates paid to drugstores. These lists are widely used by health plans to reduce costs for private-sector clients, union health and welfare funds, Medicaid and Medicare Part D. Forty-five state Medicaid programs now use MAC lists, up from 26 states in 1999. A recent analysis from the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) demonstrated “the significant value MAC programs have in containing Medicaid drug costs.” The OIG recommended that states strengthen MAC programs, not weaken them.

By Matthew Perrone; The Associated Press ~ Nov 20, 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) — Some low-cost generic drugs that have helped restrain health care costs for decades are seeing unexpected price spikes of up to 8,000 percent, prompting a backlash from patients, pharmacists and now Washington lawmakers.

A Senate panel met Thursday to scrutinize the recent, unexpected trend among generic medicines, which usually cost 30 to 80 percent less than their branded counterparts.

Experts said there are multiple, often unrelated, forces behind the price hikes, including drug ingredient shortages, industry consolidation and production slowdowns due to manufacturing problems. But the lawmakers convening Thursday’s hearing said the federal government needs to play a bigger role in restraining prices.