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Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts
U.S. to Retirees on health insurance
Chicago has proposed a plan to migrate most of its 30,000 under-65 retirees to the state exchanges by 2017. The ACA's exchanges offer employers a way to cap or reduce their exposure to rising retiree health costs, most often without actually reducing the benefits provided.
"Companies are looking to save money, but not materially change the benefits retirees receive," says John Grosso, who leads a task force on retiree health care at Aon Hewitt. Only 7 percent of private sector employers offered health benefits to early retirees in 2010, and 6 percent offered it to Medicare-eligible retirees, according to the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). It's much more common among large companies: at businesses with 1,000 or more workers, 32 percent offered health coverage to Medicare-eligible retirees in 2011, and 38 percent offered it to early retirees.
The percentage of state government units offering retiree health insurance to Medicare-eligible workers was 63 percent in 2010, down from 89 percent in 2003, according to AHRQ.
Most retirees over 65 are enrolled in Medicare Part A (hospitalization) and Part B (outpatient services). Some employers are replacing in-house retiree drug coverage with group Part D plans. Meanwhile, for pre-Medicare retirees, the ACA's exchanges offer tax credits to offset premiums costs for families with incomes between 100 percent and 400 percent of the federally defined poverty guideline. "Employers aren't comfortable just putting retirees out there figure out how to evaluate 30 different plans in their zip code," Grosso says.
For Medicare-eligible retirees who lose employer coverage, the first decision is whether to stick with traditional fee-for-service Medicare or enroll in an all-in-one Medicare Advantage plan, says Paula Muschler, manager of the Allsup Medicare Advisor, a Medicare plan selection service.
Most Medicare Advantage plans are managed care health maintenance organizations (HMOS) or preferred provider organizations (PPOs). Muschler notes that a loss of employer-provided supplemental coverage triggers a 63-day open enrollment for Medigap, no matter your age, from the time you lost employer-provided coverage.
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Bank Of America Sold $850M In 'Toxic Waste' Mortgage Securities
The SEC and Department of Justice filed a civil suit today against BofA claiming the bank defrauded investors when it sold mortgage securities backed by more than $855 million in residential mortgages.
Bank of America entities in 2008 sold the RMBS (residential mortgage backed securities) and told investors they were backed by high quality, prime mortgage loans. The suit says an “unprecedented portion” of the mortgage loans had been originated through mortgage brokers unaffiliated with the Bank of America Entities through a so-called wholesale channel.
By the time BofA was selling the securities in 2008 the wholesale loans were being dubbed by then CEO Ken Lewis as “toxic waste,” according to the DoJ suit.
Bank of America disagrees with the suit’s assessment of the quality of the loans. The SEC is also considering charges related to charges against Merrill Lynch arising from its CDO investigation.
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The debate Obama Budget Battle of the
President Barack Obama is shifting his attention to the budget battles looming later this year by casting his differences with congressional Republicans as a struggle over the future of middle-income Americans.
Our focus has to be on the rudimentary financial issues that issue most to you, the persons we represent,” Obama said at Knox school in Galesburg, Illinois, the first of two locations he delivered yesterday. “And as Washington organises to enter another budget argument, the stakes for our middle class and everyone who is battling to get into the middle class could not be higher.”
When constituents of assembly return from their August recess, they and the president will confront a owner of conclusions influencing the finances, encompassing working out federal spending grades and lifting the government’s $16.7 trillion debt limit.
Republican lawmakers are requiring expending slashes in exchange for raising the debt limit while Obama contends for expending rises for infrastructure improvements, amplified informative possibilities and more support for study -- a recurring drama in fiscal negotiations since 2011.
Obama will pursue up his improved effort with a talk today at a port facility in Jacksonville, Florida, making the case for improving the nation’s streets, bridges, airports and harbors. In the approaching weeks he will break out other parts of his economic agenda, such as principles to improve learning and make school more affordable.
Washington’s aim
Following months when the aim of Washington has been on the president’s second-term job appointees, his impel for a new immigration regulation, endeavours to impede his signature health-care law and Republican-led investigations into his administration, Obama is searching to use the power of his agency to come back vigilance to the finances.
“With an endless parade of disruptions, political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball,” Obama said in Galesburg. “I am here to state this needs to stop.”
Even as the finances continues to elaborate and add jobs four years into the nation’s recovery from its lowest recession since the large Depression, Americans at the middle of financial ladder haven’t retrieved lost prosperity.
The economy increased at a 1.8 per hundred rate during the first three months of the year, more slowly than its 2.5 percent average pace throughout the last two decades. The unemployment rate, at 7.6 per hundred in June, continues overhead its 6 per hundred mean over the past 20 years.
House earnings
While the standard standard & Poor’s 500 supply catalogue is up more than 18 per hundred this year and has almost increase two-fold since Obama took agency in 2009, the median house earnings of $51,500 in May remains 5 percent smaller than in June 2009, the authorized end of the recession, according to approximates by Sentier Research.
“Unfortunately, there is little genuine progress that has been made for the middle class,” Lance Roberts, chief strategist who assists organise $600 million at StreetTalk Advisors in Houston, Texas, said in an e-mail.
Obama may be setting an contention that accuse for inaction “can be laid squarely at the feet of the Republicans former to the 2014 election cycle,” Roberts said.
dwelling Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, has indicated he’s ready for a battle with the White House and the Democratic-led council over the liability ceiling.
“We’re not going to lift the liability ceiling without genuine slashes in spending,” Boehner notified reporters July 23 in Washington.
Obama has said he will deny to accept anything short of a clean debt-limit increase.
Government Spending
In Galesburg and a later address in Warrensburg, Missouri, the president accused his critics of being short-sighted. He said the U.S. must maintain funding for education, training, infrastructure and research to maintain a competitive edge in the global economy.
“If we don’t make investments in education and manufacturing and science and research and transportation and information networks, we will be waving the white flag while other countries forge ahead,” he said at the University of Central Missouri.
Obama spent a portion of his Galesburg speech on the brewing -- and past -- debt ceiling debate.
“We’ve seen a sizable group of Republican lawmakers suggest they wouldn’t vote to pay the very bills that Congress rang up, a fiasco that harmed a fragile recovery in 2011, and one we can’t afford to repeat,” he said.
Debt argument
In the liability ceiling argument two years before, lawmakers and the White House assaulted for months before Obama signed an boost into regulation on Aug. 2, 2011, the day the Treasury Department warned that U.S. borrowing administration would expire.
While Standard & Poor’s stripped the U.S. of its AAA top borrowing ranking as a outcome, investors indicated they weren’t concerned about the government’s debt or its proficiency to pay its accounts. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes on Aug. 5, 2011, when S&P broadcast the downgrade, was 2.56 per hundred. The yield dropped as reduced as 1.39 per hundred on July 24, 2012.
As of yesterday, the yield had risen to 2.50 percent in the middle of speculation the government Reserve is nearer to winding down its asset-purchase program.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke notified a congressional section last week that another prolonged argument over the debt ceiling could hamper the recovery. He furthermore said continued tight fiscal principle intimidates to hold back growth.
Republican Reaction
Republicans yesterday said Obama is proposing more of the identical prescriptions he has offered since he was first elected. member of the senate John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, released a declaration before Obama reached in Illinois saying the president got most of his economic bundle passed in his first period.
“We now understand what the outcomes have been,” Cornyn said. “Add it all up, and we’ve been experiencing the weakest economic recovery in the longest period of high unemployment since the large despondency in the 1930’s.”
Boehner, in a dwelling talk, said Obama’s address would accomplish not anything. “It’s a depression shell,” he said. “It’s an Easter egg with no candy in it.”
He called on Obama to pace acceptance of TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL pipeline, delay implementation of the health-care regulation that Congress passed in 2010 and “stop threatening to close down the government except we lift taxes.”
source : http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-24/obama-says-opponents-distract-from-steps-to-boost-economy.html
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AT&T Profit Falls Review
AT&T Inc. (T), the biggest U.S. teletelephone business, dispatched profit that dropped just underneath analysts’ estimates as charges increased for smartphone discounts utilised to convince more customers to sign long-term agreements.
Second-quarter profits were 67 cents a share, departing out one-time pieces, Dallas-based AT&T said today in a declaration. Analysts had estimated earnings of 68 cents, according to facts and figures compiled by Bloomberg. Sales rose 1.6 per hundred to $32.1 billion, topping the mean approximate of $31.8 billion.
AT&T supplemented 551,000 contract customers, contrasted with 320,000 a year ago. Analysts had projected 499,000 new monthly subscribers, according to an mean of 10 estimates compiled by Bloomberg. AT&T head Executive agent Randall Stephenson has been unveiling new subscription designs for hefty Internet users to catch up with Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile-phone carrier, which added 941,000 agreement users last quarter.
“For at smallest the near-term, AT&T does have a number of devices at its disposal that could help to at smallest partially counteract the impact of comparable stresses appearing in the market,” Amir Rozwadowski, an analyst with Barclays Plc, composed in a note yesterday.
The portions fallen as much as 1.3 per hundred in extended trading after the earnings broadcast. The supply had risen less than 1 per hundred to $35.81 at the close in New York. The portions are up 6.2 percent this year.
Net earnings fell to $3.82 billion, or 71 cents a share, from $3.9 billion, or 66 cents, a year earlier. modified for the sale of a unit, revenue would have increased 2.6 percent, AT&T said.
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