Healthcare

The recently released white paper from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners on the role of producers in state exchanges, while helpful, leaves many crucial questions unanswered.

Chief financial officers at some of the nation's largest banks and financial services firms are downright bullish on the U.S. economy's overall outlook but nagging concerns about health care reform and the uncertainty of those costs are tempering their optimism.

Senate Democrats on Wednesday defeated a Republican plan to scale back health benefits for future retirees and forced their opponents to take a stand on the unpopular proposal.

Compared to the rest of the world, Americans generally receive a pitifully low amount of paid vacation. Americans seem to want to live a life of work, based on our lack of paid vacation laws as well as the number of vacation time off the average American employee gets.

Cash balance plans are becoming increasingly popular with small businesses as well as Fortune 500 companies, says Dan Kravitz, president and CEO of Kravitz, Inc., an independent firm of retirement consultants headquartered in Southern California.

In order for states to self-fund their exchanges, beginning in 2015, they may tack a surcharge fee onto the income stream of agents and brokers, says Charles “Chip” Kerby III, owner and attorney of Washington-based Liberte Group, LLC.

A white paper from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners affirms the need for a key role for producers in the coming state health insurance exchanges and the appropriateness of compensating them in several ways for their services.

Ordering fewer tests and prescribing fewer antibiotics will not only curb health care spending, but also improve the quality of primary care, a large group of U.S. doctors said Monday.

Regulations on PPACA’s state exchanges are expected in June, according to Mark C. Nielsen, an attorney with Washington-based Groom Law Group.

Despite the widely held belief that younger investors have become tremendously risk-averse due to the economic crisis, Vanguard is finding that younger investors have increased their equity exposure considerably.