Year: 2014

By Sharon Bernstein SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) – Julie Davis has every reason to be skeptical of Obamacare: She's a Republican, her father is a physician who is wary of socialized medicine and her insurance was canceled because of new requirements imposed by the healthcare law this year. But the 44-year-old filmmaker says her decision to seek coverage under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform was a practical one, made with little political angst but plenty of doubt over whether the program will really benefit her family. Davis's choice underscores the disconnect between Washington politics – particularly the Republican Party's push to kill Obama's Affordable Care Act and portray the law as an ill-devised social program bound to fail – and the experiences of at least some rank-and-file party members who are finding practical reasons to sign up. The discrepancy may complicate GOP efforts to use voter dissatisfaction over Obamacare's troubled launch to win control of the Senate in November.

U.S. health insurer WellPoint Inc said on Wednesday the applicants for the new Obamacare health plans are of the age and demographics it had expected, indicating that medical costs will not soar beyond the prices it charges. WellPoint, which released lower fourth-quarter results on Wednesday, said that based on age, insurance plan selection, income levels, gender and available pharmacy data, it believes it has set the right premium rates for these new customers. Insurance plans under President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law went on sale October 1 and into effect on January 1. Initial enrollment data nationwide has shown that the first wave of people who enrolled are older people who can be more expensive to insure because they often have more health problems than young people.

Brain scans may help identify children with learning difficulties much earlier by measuring their short-term memory capacity, according to a Swedish study published Wednesday. The study by a team of researchers at Karolinska Institute, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, showed that it is possible to map the development of short-term memory capacity with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI scans). "It would be possible in principle to use the MR scanner to predict something about future development that cannot be predicted by psychological tests alone," neuroscience professor Torkel Klingberg told AFP.

By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Creating government savings accounts for children’s future education when they’re young may improve their development, according to a new study. Researchers found that young Oklahomans who had $1,000 deposited for them in a special education savings account scored better on measures of social and emotional behavior by age 4, compared to those who didn’t get an account.

The lesson from a stabbing death in Russia: Alcohol and literature can be a lethal mix. “The literary dispute soon grew into a banal conflict, on the basis of which the 53-year-old admirer of poetry killed his opponent with the help of a knife,” the regional branch of the federal Investigative Committee said in a statement.

The diet claims use of specific food combinations will lead to weight loss. … Healthy diet and exercise in combination is the real “ticket” to a healthy …