By John C. Goodman; Forbes ~ Oct 28, 2014

One of the best kept secrets of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is that it imposes a global budget on Medicare spending – for the first time in the program’s history. Heretofore, Medicare was a pure entitlement program. The government had to pay for whatever care the elderly and the disabled obtained. But going forward, the health reform law imposes a cap on spending.

For most of its history, per capita Medicare spending in real terms grew at about twice the rate of growth of real per capita GDP – just like the rest of the health care system. But going forward, the law requires Medicare to grow at a rate that is not much more than the growth of GDP – regardless of what happens to other health care spending. If the historical trend continues, that means spending on health care for the elderly and the disabled will grow about half as fast as spending on everyone else’s care.

By Edward Wyatt; The New York Times ~ Oct 28, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday charged AT&T with deceiving smartphone customers who signed up for an “unlimited” data plan only to find that AT&T drastically reduced the speed at which their phones could use the Internet once they had used a certain amount of data each month.

Since 2011, data speeds have been reduced for more than 3.5 million AT&T customers on more than 25 million occasions, the F.T.C. said.

AT&T notified customers in mid-2011 that they might face “reduced data speeds” if they were in the top 5 percent of users. But the commission said that notification was inadequate because it did not specify that customers’ speeds would be reduced by up to 95 percent — essentially making their smartphones inoperable for the purpose of accessing the Internet.

By Julian Hattem; The Hill ~ Oct 27, 2014

If people want to prioritize one website over another on their own Internet service, they should be able to, according to AT&T.

Company officials last week met with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lawyers to argue that the agency should not ban Internet “fast lanes” that individual users want placed on their service.

For instance, a business might want to give workers faster access to certain websites over others when traffic gets clogged, to incentivize employees to stay on task rather than surf the web, AT&T argued.

By Alan Breznick; Light Reading ~ Oct 27, 2014

Although its growth pace is clearly slowing down on an annualized basis, AT&T U-verse is continuing to make great strides against cable operators, Verizon FiOS and other US pay-TV providers — and it’s aiming to do more.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) reported last week that it signed up another 216,000 subscribers for U-verse TV in the third quarter. While that’s up from the 190,000 TV subs it picked up in the second quarter and the 201,000 TV subs it added in the first quarter, it’s down from the 265,000 video customers it signed up in the year-ago period.

Yet even with the slower pace, AT&T put more distance between U-verse and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ)’s comparable FiOS platform, which added a relatively paltry 114,000 video subscribers in the summer quarter. As a result, U-verse now has nearly 6.1 million TV subs, as opposed to 5.5 million for FiOS. U-verse also has more pay-TV subs than all US cable operators except for the two biggest, Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) and Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC).

By Carolyn T. Geer; The Wall Street Journal ~ Oct 26, 2014

Going through open enrollment at work? Be sure to consider both your health and wealth.

The process of choosing a medical plan and allocating your money among various other benefits allows you to reassess whether you are saving enough for retirement, and in the right ways.

Experts advise saving at least 15% of your annual income (including any employer contributions) for retirement. And with the array of savings and reimbursement accounts on offer, you’ll need to decide which ones to fund, and in what order to fund them.

By Erika Rawes, The Cheat Sheet; USA TODAY ~ Oct 25, 2014

During debates and speeches, politicians often bring up the financial burden that’s placed on the middle class. We talk about the middle class as though they are this singular entity, who used to thrive until they underwent persecution by the evil 1%. But, realistically speaking, the middle class and the 99% are not really synonymous. So, who are the middle class?

In its discussion of historical middle class societies, The Economist reports, “Their members are neither rich nor poor but somewhere in-between. . . . ‘Middle-class’ describes an income category but also a set of attitudes . . . An essential characteristic is the possession of a reasonable amount of discretionary income. Middle-class people do not live from hand to mouth, job to job, season to season, as the poor do.”

By Janet Novack; Forbes ~ Oct 24, 2014

Poll after poll shows that Americans are more politically polarized than in any time in recent history, but not when it comes to Social Security. Even among those who identify themselves as “consistently conservative,” 59% now oppose any benefit cuts, and as many (12%) favor increasing benefits as phasing it out as a government program, the Pew Research Center reported recently. It’s hard to believe that just a decade ago, a newly reelected President George W. Bush declared he intended to spend some of his “political capital” by pushing for the partial privatization of Social Security.

By Larry Light; Forbes ~ Oct 24, 2014

Like anything else important, keeping your finances up to date involves a system. Roger Wohlner, a fee-only financial advisor at Asset Strategy Consultants based in Arlington Heights, Ill., has a very practical one. His advice:

With most of this year suddenly behind us, plenty of financial chores remain for you in 2014. Here are eight to-do items for your list.

1. Review your 401(k). With the Standard & Poor’s 500 and other market indexes at or near all-time highs, revisit your 401(k) asset allocation and, if needed, rebalance. Why not take this chance to activate the auto-rebalance feature if your plan offers one?

By Lisa Gillespie from KHN Daily News; Kaiser Health News

Family medicine doctors are joining forces to win a bigger role in health care – and be paid for it.

Eight family-physician-related groups, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, have formed Family Medicine for America’s Health, a coalition to sweeten the public perception of what they do and advance their interests through state and federal policies.

The launch of their five-year, $20 million campaign Thursday comes at a critical time for primary-care doctors. Thanks to the health law, millions more people can seek care with newly gained insurance. But there’s growing debate about whether nurse practitioners and physician assistants should provide a lot more basic care, either on their own or as part of clinics sponsored by pharmacies or other businesses. Some major doctor groups have challenged the ability of lesser-trained medical professionals to independently treat patients.