Month: December 2013

How many new organs did Adonis Ortiz, 3, really get?        

A gunman who shot and killed a doctor and wounded two other people in a medical office in Reno, Nevada, before taking his own life was apparently not acting randomly but his motives remain unknown, police said Wednesday. The shooting, the latest in a rash of deadly gun violence in public places in the United States this year, occurred Tuesday afternoon inside a building adjacent to the Renown Regional Medical Center, Reno Deputy Police Chief Tom Robinson said. He killed doctor Charles Gara Gholdoian, 46, a urologist, and injured a patient, Shawntae Spears, 20. "We're still trying to piece together the timeline of events," Deputy Police Chief Mac Venzon told reporters.

Some technical experts are perplexed at the U.S. government's plan to switch web hosts for its new health insurance portal, HealthCare.gov, in the midst of an expected last-minute rush to beat a March 31 enrollment deadline for 2014 coverage. Switching hosts is not in and of itself a huge risk if it is done carefully and with lots of preparation, according to technical experts interviewed by Reuters. It already has a poor technological track record in carrying out President Barack Obama's signature health law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which is intended to provide millions of uninsured with medical coverage. The timing of the change in host services "is nonsensical in all dimensions," said Peter Neupert, who managed similar transitions when he ran drugstore.com, a website he took public in 1999, and while working as a corporate vice president at Microsoft Corp. "Why would you plan for a big transition six months after going live?" said Neupert, now an operating partner with Health Evolution Partners, a private equity firm that invests in health companies.

By Patrick Temple-West WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. Senate panel voted on Friday to confirm President Barack Obama’s choice to be the next Internal Revenue Service commissioner, sending his nomination to the full Senate. In a voice vote, the Senate Finance Committee, as expected, confirmed John Koskinen to be the next chief tax collector. The earliest the full Senate could vote would be on Monday. In May, the agency apologized for targeting conservative political groups inappropriately and the furor that ensued cost then-acting Commissioner Steve Miller his job.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumers worried that tight deadlines around the holidays and lingering computer problems could thwart their efforts to secure coverage under President Barack Obama's health overhaul will get extra time to pay, the health insurance industry said Wednesday.

JUBA (Reuters) – South Sudan’s army said it had lost control of the flashpoint town of Bor on Wednesday, after clashes were reported there with fighters loyal to the country’s former vice president Riek Machar. Fighting that erupted in the capital Juba late on Sunday spread on Wednesday to Bor, north of the capital and scene of an ethnic massacre in 1991, witnesses said, raising fears of a slide into civil war. South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has accused Machar of starting the fighting and trying to launch a coup, charges denied by Machar. …

(Reuters) – Individuals who select their health insurance plan on the exchanges set up under the national healthcare reform law by the December 23 deadline will have until January 10 to pay and still receive coverage as of January 1, 2014, the nation's largest organization of insurers said on Wednesday. Some insurers had already announced similar moves individually, but now plans selling insurance on either the state or federal exchanges will voluntarily honor the delayed payment schedule, America's Health Insurance Plans said in a statement. But some state-based exchanges said they are not adopting the timeline, which could create confusion for consumers who must pay insurers to be covered. Many individuals will receive government subsidies to help offset the cost of insurance sold on the exchanges, but they still must pay the balance.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The new leader of Minnesota’s health insurance marketplace is acknowledging its launch has been rocky but says he’s committed to improvements.

LONDON (Reuters) – Sandoz, the generics division of Novartis, said on Wednesday it had initiated a late-stage clinical trial with its so-called biosimilar version of AbbVie’s best-selling drug Humira. It is Sandoz’s sixth copy of a biotech medicine to enter Phase III trials and could represent a major prize, since the Humira drug for rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and Crohn’s disease is the world’s top-selling prescription product with sales of around $10 billion a year. …