Month: July 2014

The Obama administration is developing a method for religious organizations opposed to contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act to opt out of providing the coverage in their health plans without filling out a form. Under President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, known as Obamacare, employers must provide health insurance policies that cover preventive services for women, including contraception and sterilization. As a result, the Obama administration intends to augment its regulations to provide an alternative way for such religious organizations to provide notification while ensuring that enrollees in plans of such organizations receive separate coverage of contraceptive services.

By Eric Kelsey LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Los Angeles Clippers could face an exodus of players, sponsors, fans and their coach if embattled owner Donald Sterling is still associated with the team, Richard Parsons, the franchise's interim chief executive, said on Tuesday at a trial over the NBA team's $2 billion sale. Parsons, the former Time Warner CEO who was installed by the NBA to run the Clippers in May, testified that the team would likely lose profitability and its overall value if sponsors, one of its top revenue streams, leave because of Sterling. "We have a bunch of sponsors who are sitting at the edge of the pool and they don't want to go into the water," Parsons told Los Angeles Superior Court a day after failed settlement talks between Sterling, 80, and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who won the bidding for the team.

I really love food, the reality-TV star, set to soon marry fianc William Tell, recently told People. I'm not good … Weight loss won't help you get there.  …

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's health care law is snarled in another big legal battle, with two federal appeals courts issuing contradictory rulings on a key financing issue within hours of each other Tuesday.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — An investigation that found syringes were being reused at a West Virginia pain management clinic — whose operator had his medical license revoked in Texas — was triggered after a patient developed bacterial meningitis, a health official said Tuesday.

(Reuters) – Seven retired National Football League players are appealing a recent settlement between the league and about 5,000 former players stemming from a lawsuit over concussions suffered on the field, court records show. The appeal, filed in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday, came about two weeks after U.S. District Judge Anita Brody granted preliminary approval to a settlement that removed a $675 million cap on awards to former players who were part of the groundbreaking head injury lawsuit. Attorneys for the plaintiffs say 20,000 retired players could be covered under the agreement. The players filing the appeal said the settlement did not offer enough to those who had yet to see the worst of their symptoms appear, and did not cover all diagnoses suffered by players with head trauma.

Black lung opinions by Dr. Paul Wheeler of Johns Hopkins should be assumed to lack credibility, senators are told at a hearing.

By David Schwartz PHOENIX (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday vacated a stay of execution for an Arizona inmate who had sued the state demanding more information about the drugs that will be used in the lethal injection procedure he faces. Joseph Wood is one of six death row inmates who sued Arizona last month arguing that secrecy surrounding lethal-injection drugs used in botched executions in Ohio and Oklahoma violated their constitutional rights. He is set to executed at 10 a.m. local time on Wednesday inside the state prison complex in Florence, about 60 miles (97 km) southeast of Phoenix, officials at Arizona’s Department of Corrections said.

By David Ingram NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. judges have their work cut out for them untangling a legal knot created on Tuesday when two federal appeals courts released conflicting rulings hours apart going to the heart of the role the federal government will play in Obamacare. The latest conservative challenge to President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul will not necessarily land in the U.S. Supreme Court, although it could end up there as soon as this year if the two lower courts go on disagreeing. At stake is how millions of Americans pay for private health insurance, or if they can afford it at all. The 2010 Affordable Care Act authorized tax credits to subsidize private health insurance.

By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama's nominee to fix the Department of Veterans Affairs pledged on Tuesday to bring corporate-style discipline and accountability to the troubled agency plagued by healthcare delays and accusations of mismanagement and fraud. Bob McDonald, the former chief executive officer of Procter & Gamble Co, the world's largest manufacturer of household products, told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that he would work to reorganize the VA to deliver care more efficiently to veterans. In a confirmation hearing brimming with corporate management buzzwords, McDonald said he would immerse himself in the VA's operations and devise ways to focus each of the department's 341,000 employees on its core mission of serving veterans. He also told senators he would give them his cellphone number and encouraged them to use it, adding that as P&G's CEO, his phone was turned on "24 hours a day." McDonald, 61, was nominated to replace Eric Shinseki, who resigned as VA secretary in late May amid a scandal over the coverup of delays in scheduling medical appointments at dozens of VA hospitals and clinics across the country.

By Keith Coffman CENTENNIAL Colo. (Reuters) – Jury selection in the much-delayed trial of accused movie theater gunman James Holmes will begin on Dec. 8, a Colorado judge said on Tuesday, dismissing objections by the defense who said they needed more time. Arapahoe County District Judge Carlos Samour made the ruling at a pre-trial hearing in Centennial, a suburb of Denver.