Month: September 2013

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) – As many as 37 million Americans who receive health coverage through employers may be better off with the government-subsidized insurance plans that will be offered under President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law for next year, according to a study released on Monday. The analysis, compiled by researchers at Stanford School of Medicine and published in the journal Health Affairs, suggests that some employees may choose to dump the coverage they receive at work. …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration on Monday expressed concerns about a congressional Republican inquiry aimed at nonprofit groups and other organizations that are getting ready to enroll people in subsidized insurance under President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform. …

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. states that opt to expand Medicaid under President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA) can expect to enroll new patients who are younger, thinner, healthier, less depressed and more likely to be white than those now covered by Medicaid, U.S. researchers said on Monday. The latest findings add to a growing picture of the incoming class of Medicaid enrollees under the ACA, which gives states the option to expand their Medicaid rolls to include previously ineligible low-income adults. …

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Richard Van As, a South African carpenter, lost four fingers from his right hand to a circular saw two years ago.

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – An emaciated 58-year-old Uruguayan man found alive four months after disappearing in the remote Andes Mountains had fled Chile after accusations he sexually abused a minor, a local Chilean prosecutor's office said on Monday. Raul Fernando Gomez Circunegui, who reportedly survived the brutal Andean winter eating rats, raisins and leftover supplies in a shelter, is accused of abusing an 8-year-old in the poor neighborhood of Cerro Navia in Santiago. …

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada's largest newspaper acted in the public interest in May when it published a report that contained allegations that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford had been caught on video smoking crack cocaine, the Toronto Star's top editor told regulators on Monday. Toronto Star Editor-in-Chief Michael Cooke told the Ontario Press Council, a voluntary self-regulatory organization, that his newspaper's reporting on Ford, who has said he does not smoke crack, was both ethical and legal. …

(Reuters) – California said it is planning for a full launch of its Obamacare online health insurance exchange on October 1, after testing its functionality. Last month, the state said it was considering a soft launch of the exchange if tests showed it was not ready for wide public access. But tests of the system last week were encouraging, said Dana Howard, deputy director of communications for the Covered California exchange. “All of our testing so far indicates that there is not going to be a problem doing self-enrollment online on Oct 1,” Howard said. …

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Encouraging and counseling minority families to adopt healthier household routines led to a small decrease in children’s weight, in a new study. Researchers found encouraging families to eat meals together, limit TV time and get better sleep was linked to about a one-pound drop in kids’ weight relative to children in homes that didn’t receive the encouragement and counseling. “I can tell a family, ‘You really need to get more physical activity’ and the conversation can end there,” Dr. …

By Lewis Krauskopf NEW YORK (Reuters) – Investors in U.S. hospital companies are counting on the Obama administration to pull off its national healthcare reform for 2014 to drive earnings growth, but a series of delays to the program has some questioning how strong the launch will be at its start. The stakes are particularly high for hospital operators, whose financial performance has been weighed down by poor and uninsured patients being unable to pay their bills. The healthcare law aims to expand health coverage to millions more Americans, who will be able to sign up beginning on October 1. …

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – At least 38 people were killed and dozens injured on Monday when a bus went off a cliff on a hairpin bend in rural Guatemala, tumbling some 200 meters (660 feet) into a river at the bottom of a ravine, officials said. Rescue workers said that the bus, which plunged off of a paved highway roughly 60 km (37 miles) northwest of Guatemala City, was completely destroyed and that 46 people had been taken to nearby hospitals to be treated for injuries. …

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway's center-right opposition was on track to win Monday's election after promising tax cuts and improved welfare to voters weary of eight years of center-left rule, an official projection showed as polling closed. The opposition Conservative Party and three allied parties were set to win a majority with 93 seats in the 169-member parliament, it said, based on an official count of early votes. An exit poll by independent TV2 also projected 93. (Reporting By Alister Doyle)

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