Quantcast
Channel: Health Insurance Headlines on One News Page [United States]
Viewing all 22794 articles
Browse latest View live

Employer-Based Health Insurance 'Cheaper' Than Government-Sponsored Insurance? Say What?

0
0
Employer-Based Health Insurance 'Cheaper' Than Government-Sponsored Insurance? Say What? Reported by ajc.com 12 hours ago.

Share a faith? Now you can share costs of health insurance

0
0
More than 300,000 Americans are taking advantage of a little-known provision in the nation’s health-care law that gave its blessing to those opting out of the insurance mandate if they object on religious grounds. Reported by Seattle Times 12 hours ago.

Experient Health Talks Through the Obesity Cost Calculator Regarding Workplace Wellness in Latest Blog Post

0
0
Increasingly affecting workers all over the world, obesity remains a concern for the overall wellness of individuals.

Richmond, Va. (PRWEB) August 05, 2014

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s Obesity Cost Calculator helps organizations estimate obesity-related costs and compare the costs and benefits of user-defined interventions targeted at reducing obesity, Experient Health detailed in its latest blog post.

Experient Health is the health insurance arm of the Virginia Farm Bureau and uses its blog, launched last year, to educate the community on ways to manage and improve their health.

Increasingly affecting workers all over the world, obesity remains a concern for the overall wellness of individuals.

Forward-thinking organizations are looking for ways to quantify the magnitude of this challenge and to assess the options and benefits of providing interventions and incentives to better manage the health of their employees.

"However, before you begin using the cost calculator, there are things to consider," Experient Health wrote. "You will need to gather specific information about your company: average hourly wages, percentage of employees receiving health benefits and the BMIs of your employees. If you do not have some of this data for your company, the Obesity Cost Calculator will provide default values from nationally representative data sets to calculate the cost estimates."

The calculator estimates the costs of obesity based on characteristics of a company.

These characteristics include costs for medical expenditures and the dollar value of increased absenteeism resulting from obesity.

Costs are estimated separately based on body mass index (BMI)

The calculator has the opportunity to provide health benefits, as well as financial reward.

"The calculator provides a module to assess the expected savings of interventions to reduce obesity, potential reductions in medical costs and work loss resulting from interventions, and the number of years before a break-even period is reached," Experient Health wrote.

For more information regarding the Obesity Cost Calculator, visit Experient Health online here.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, http://www.cdc.gov. Reported by PRWeb 8 hours ago.

Insurance regulators say ACA individual plan costs will spike in 2015

0
0
The average price of health insurance for Floridians who purchase it on the individual market will rise by 13.2 percent, according to rate proposals released by the Office of Insurance Regulation. The proposal includes 14 companies that filed plans complying with the Affordable Care Act’s individual market in 2015, the Miami Herald said. Of 11 returning plans, eight expect rate increases ranging from 11 to 23 percent while three companies reported rate decreases. Gov. Rick Scott said the data… Reported by bizjournals 5 hours ago.

United States: The Affordable Care Act—Countdown To Compliance For Employers, Week 21: Self-Funded Group Health Plans, The Affordable Care Act And National Health Plan Identifier Numbers (HPIDs) - Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.

0
0
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ushered in broad national standards aimed at improving the efficiency of the U.S. health care system. Reported by Mondaq 4 hours ago.

Congress Could Easily Fix A Huge Obamacare Problem. It Won't

0
0
WASHINGTON -- A handful of simple words in a piece of legislation could prevent more than 4 million people losing their health insurance, but Congress isn't going to write them.

At issue are several lawsuits against Obamacare moving through the legal system that may go all the way to the Supreme Court. Among other things, the suits contend the precise phrasing of the Affordable Care Act means that low- and moderate-income health insurance consumers in most states can't receive subsidies to make coverage more affordable.

Lawmakers could end that threat any time by changing the law's wording to make it clear subsidies are available nationwide. But in today's take-no-prisoners Congress, Republicans won't let it happen and Democrats won't even try.

"The political point has been very clearly made by Democrats: Let's fix it," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who was chairman of the the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of five panels that wrote the law in 2009 and 2010, and is now its ranking Democrat. "The Republicans won't allow it. The only thing they want to pass is repeal."

It's a sign not just of the unruly politics of President Barack Obama's health care reform law, but of the dysfunction that has taken root in a national legislature that used to routinely pass so-called technical corrections bills to clear up legislative ambiguity and assert Congress' authority.

"In the past, when you had even highly charged or controversial legislation, the attitude that members had, for the most part, was 'What's done is done. It's the law now. Let's make it work as best we can,'" said Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and co-author of a book about Congress and contemporary politics entitled It's Even Worse Than It Looks.

"We're seeing this play out on a larger stage, on issue after issue after issue," such as this year's failure to pass an immigration and border security bill and the near-failure to keep highway funding flowing, Ornstein said. This follows other self-imposed crises, like last year's government shutdown.

Even confined to health care, there are numerous examples of Congress addressing problems in laws already enacted. Medicare itself has underdone many changes since 1965. The 2003 Medicare drug benefit law has been amended. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 was followed by the Balanced Budget Refinement Act of 1999. And that's not including the countless small corrections to legislative errors that become part of larger bills.

Instead, this is where we are on Obamacare. The day two federal appeals courts offered divergent opinions last month on whether subsidies could be given individuals purchasing coverage on a federally run health insurance exchange, critics of the law didn't move to clear any ambiguity. They jumped to kill the entire bill.

“Today’s ruling is also further proof that President Obama’s health care law is completely unworkable. It cannot be fixed," House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement July 22.

These lawsuits come down to the phrase "exchange established by the state,” which appears in the Affordable Care Act. In a nutshell, the plaintiffs argue this means the tax credits available to people who earn up to four times the poverty level, which is $94,200 for a family of four this year, only can go to people who bought their health insurance in one of the 15 state-run health insurance exchanges, not the federal exchanges in 36 states.

Like other Democrats, Waxman rejects the contention that the law doesn't intend subsidies to be granted nationally. But he does acknowledge the Affordable Care Act language needs to be cleaned up in places.

Public opinion supports the Democrats' point of view, sort of. A majority of Americans disapprove of the Affordable Care Act, as illustrated by a poll conducted last month by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, but a larger majority prefers fixing it to repealing it, which Republicans have voted to do dozens of times.

But rather than write a bill that would make those lawsuits disappear and force Republicans to oppose people losing their health insurance, Democrats won't even try. To do so would provide Republicans more ammunition against Obamacare, Waxman said. "We're just giving Republicans an opportunity to say, 'Look at all these problems,'" he said.

So obstruction from Republicans and defeatism, however realistic, from Democrats means that potentially huge problems like these Obamacare lawsuits go unaddressed. And there are other known issues with the law that are undercutting its aims.

Waxman cited another example, known as the "family glitch," which blocks subsidies for spouses and dependents of workers whose employers offer health insurance only to them, and not their families. That means one parent could get health benefits from work, but the rest of the family still couldn't afford coverage.

Sen. Brian Schatz (Hawaii) and four other Democrats actually introduced a bill to fix ambiguous language in one part of Obamacare that could deprive Native Americans of health benefits. A few lawmakers also have floated more fundamental changes to the Affordable Care Act, like a bill from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and then-Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), and a set of proposals from a sextet of moderate Democrats this year. None of them have gone anywhere.

When lawmakers have agreed to changes to Obamacare, it's mainly been to cut funding for things like preventive medicine and nonprofit insurance companies, or to ease tax filing for businesses -- not to make it work better.

And then there are the numerous cases where the Obama administration has stepped in to rectify confounding aspects of the law.

For instance, the Affordable Care Act requires members of Congress and their aides to get their benefits from the health insurance exchange in the District of Columbia, rather than from the federal employees' plan. But this part of the law wasn't clear whether the federal government would help pay for Capitol Hill employees' insurance, as it does for other government workers. So the administration wrote regulations saying it could. Some Republicans freaked out over the fix. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) is still suing the president over it.

The administration also has postponed a number of Obamacare policies, like the employer mandate, that Congress could have adjusted with legislation. In a more collaborative political universe, the White House would have pushed for a legislative fix. But Republicans made clear that they'd attach amendments delaying the individual mandate as well -- something that would derail the entire law. And so, the president chose to make an administrative delay and Boehner responded by pledging a lawsuit.

"One of the great ironies here is that with the obduracy in the House and among Senate Republicans -- 'All we want to do is focus on repeal' -- they're abdicating their own power," Ornstein said. "They're giving it to the courts. They're giving it, especially, to the executive branch. They're leaving a vacuum here, and that vacuum's going to be filled."

Sabrina Siddiqui and Laura Bassett contributed reporting. Reported by Huffington Post 4 hours ago.

United States: Circuit Courts Clash Over Tax Subsidies For Health Insurance Purchased On Federally-Run Exchanges - McGuireWoods LLP

0
0
This is the 44th in a series of WorkCite articles concerning the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and its companion statute. Reported by Mondaq 1 hour ago.

Vermont Drops the Maker of Its Glitchy Health Care Exchange Website

0
0
Vermont has moved to drop the company that was hired to create its state health insurance marketplace after months of issues with the website and missed deadlines to fix it. Reported by Boston.com 46 minutes ago.

Glance: percentage of uninsured in 2013, 2014

0
0
A look at the percentage of people without health insurance in each state in 2013 and midyear 2014: State % uninsured 2013 % uninsured midyear 2014 change in uninsured Alabama 17. Reported by ajc.com 1 day ago.

A New Study Has Some Bad News About The Big Slowdown In Healthcare Spending

0
0
A New Study Has Some Bad News About The Big Slowdown In Healthcare Spending The primary reason for the incredible slowdown in healthcare spending growth has been due to a sluggish economy, according to a new study from Northwestern University researchers.

The study, published in Health Affairs this week, suggests that as the economy continues to pick up steam, healthcare costs will also likely grow at higher rates than they have been for the past few years.

The primary driver of future debt and deficits in recent projections has been the growth of federal healthcare spending, something that has alarmed economists as a wave of baby boomers retires and more people are added to the Medicare and Medicaid rolls. 

But over the last four years, healthcare spending has grown at a historically slow rate. Economists have credited the Affordable Care Act in part, as well as other reforms. But according to the new study, the recession and struggling economy together accounted for around 70% of the slowdown in healthcare spending.

"By exploiting regional variations in the severity of the slowdown, we determined that the economic slowdown explained approximately 70% of the slowdown in health spending growth for the people in our sample," wrote the study's authors — David Dranove, Craig Garthwaite, and Christopher Ody.

"This suggests that the recent decline is not primarily the result of structural changes in the health sector or of components of the Affordable Care Act, and that — absent other changes in the health care system — an economic recovery will result in increased health spending."

Add the Northwestern study to a growing list of divergent analyses on the topic. Last year, researchers at Harvard University concluded the economy was not primarily responsible for the healthcare spending slowdown, providing evidence the trend could continue. The Kaiser Family Foundation found, however, that the economic downturn was responsible for about 77% of the health spending slowdown.

The Northwestern study relied on different methodology and techniques to arrive at its conclusion. It analyzed data from the Health Care Cost Institute of 47 million Americans who had employer-sponsored health insurance. 

The researchers compared healthcare spending trends from 2007-09 and 2009-11 in metropolitan areas that were hit particularly hard by the recession (like Las Vegas) and those that weren't (like Dallas). It found that in places like Las Vegas, in which there was a 5.6% employment-to-population decline from 2009-11, health spending only grew 5.4% from 2007-11. In Dallas, which saw a 3% employment-to-population decline, healthcare spending exploded by 28%.

Here's a chart showing that effect:

In their conclusion, the researchers warn their study does not mean spending will automatically increase, as reforms contained in the Affordable Care Act and elsewhere in the healthcare system could offset future growth. 

There are also a couple of caveats — even if only 30% of the slowdown is due to reforms, that's still a significant development.

Peter Orszag, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget, also pointed out a potential flaw — it only addresses people who have employer-sponsored insurance, and not Medicare. Medicare has seen extremely slow cost growth since the Affordable Care Act was passed — enough to extend the projected life of its major trust fund by at least 13 years.

"What this study doesn't address is Medicare, where the deceleration can't be explained by the economy," Orszag said in an email. "That's why I keep harping on Medicare as a better indicator of potential structural change than either total or commercial spending — Medicare is not strongly influenced by the economy and its enrollment is growing gradually, not in a step-function as the exchanges and Medicaid eligibility ramp up." 

Join the conversation about this story » Reported by Business Insider 1 day ago.

Expand FMLA -- Good for Women, Good for Families, Good for All

0
0
The 21st anniversary of the implementation of the Family and Medical Leave Act on August 5 provides an important moment to examine how far our nation has come since President Clinton signed FMLA into law in 1993 and how far we still need to go.

First drafted in 1984, passage of FMLA took nine years of effort by many organizations, policy-makers and activists. It is the first national legislation that established an employment standard recognizing that women and men need time to provide care for family members and for personal illness without jeopardizing their jobs.

Finally, this country started to acknowledge that a workplace that honors family values is good for all of us, and good for the economy.

Since its inception, FMLA has been used more than 100 million times, helping 35 million people keep their jobs and health insurance while they cared for a family health crisis or a new baby.

But FMLA still has a long way to go. Because FMLA leave is generally unpaid with eligibility and use restrictions, many who qualify for it can't afford to take it, others suffer financially when they do, and millions more who'd like to benefit from it are excluded.

Shelby Ramirez, a 9to5 activist in Denver, experienced the positive side of being to use FMLA. She's also seen its challenges.

Shelby works full-time as a hotel security guard. She is the mother of two daughters and a grandmother of two. Like many people, Shelby also cares for an elderly parent.

When her younger daughter needed surgery at the same time her parent needed immediate medical attention, Shelby was able to take time to care for them, thanks to FMLA. But that time was unpaid.

"Having to take time off unpaid was an enormous financial burden for me," said Shelby. "After not paying rent and utilities, it took me four months to only partly get caught up with bills. Although FMLA is great and I was able to keep my job, having paid family and medical leave is necessary now and for the future for our families."

Ramirez now spends her free time fighting for this change, and her efforts landed her a lunch date with President Barack Obama at the White House Summit on Working Families in June.

The benefits of paid leave are vast: lower unemployment rates and greater job security, financial independence, improved health outcomes, economic growth and savings to businesses by reducing worker replacement costs.

Paid leave insurance programs have passed in California, New Jersey and Rhode Island, and are being considered by working families, unions, businesses and policy-makers in a dozen other states. In California, employers report that the program has had either a positive or no noticeable effect on turnover, productivity, profitability and morale.

In Washington State, a paid leave program awaits funding. New York State is the next state likely to pass a family leave insurance program. Vermont, Connecticut and New Hampshire have each approved a task force to explore the issue. And several other states, including Colorado, Hawaii, Nebraska and Wisconsin are laying the groundwork for similar legislation.

Paid family and medical leave strengthens families, protects public health and boosts the economy.

Too many people across the country still lack this crucial workplace policy. Today, only 12 percent of the U.S. workforce has paid family leave through their employers, and less than 40 percent has access to any kind of employer-provided short-term disability insurance to cover serious personal illness. This is especially important for women, who make up more than two-thirds of family and informal caregivers.

It's time to celebrate the FMLA by expanding it to benefit women, to benefit families, to benefit all of us.

*We can do better. We must do better.* Reported by Huffington Post 1 day ago.

Gallup: Washington 4th in reducing uninsured residents

0
0
The percentage of Washington residents without health insurance dropped from 16.8 percent last year to 10.7 percent by mid-2014 according to a national survey released Tuesday by Gallup. Reported by Seattle Times 1 day ago.

Mo Brooks Looking Ready To Ascend As America's Next Top Nativist Crank

0
0
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is set to retire from Congress in January of next year, so you've probably been wondering: Who is going to replace her in the House of Representatives' Nativist Crank Caucus, alongside Reps. Steve King (R-Iowa) and Louis Gohmert (R-Texas). Well, after this week, it seems that the answer is much clearer. It's going to be Rep. Morris "Mo" Brooks, Republican from Alabama's 5th District. Welcome, Mo!

Brooks very firmly cemented his nativist crankery bona fides this week with this gorgeous rhetorical fillip:
"This is a part of the war on whites that's being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they're launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else," he said during an interview Monday with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham. "It's part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things. Well, that's not true."
As Jonathan Chait notes, this whole "war on whites" thing is, at first blush, conceptually incoherent:
On the surface, you might find it silly to imagine that the Democrats would antagonize the majority segment of the American public. Democrats definitely need white people (whites supplied 56 percent of Barack Obama's vote in 2012; nonwhites supplied just 11 percent of Mitt Romney's votes). White people have other uses for Democrats, like providing campaign donations, filling cabinet roles and Congressional seats, and so on. From a pure strategic standpoint, launching a war on white people would seem like a bad idea.
"A little out there" is how Ingraham herself characterized the notion. But perhaps we need a deeper-level explanation of how this "war on whites" actually works. As a white person, perhaps I can offer some insight.

See, the fundamental issue at the heart of a perceived "war on whites" has little to do with voting blocs or any particular behavior. The "war on whites" begins, conceptually, by imagining the benefits of a political system as finite in quantity, meted out as part of a zero-sum game. That is to say, no hypothetical benefit flowing outward to one political constituency does not simultaneously deprive another constituency of a similar benefit. In this worldview, the extension of, say, access to health insurance to citizens who did not previously have it does not result in positive outcomes for society as a whole. Rather, it is theft. (And then probably "The Road To Serfdom," because this worldview is steeped in college sophomore arcana.)

Let me further whitesplain the "War On Whites" with a metaphor. Imagine, if you will, there is all this cake. Just mountains of never-ending cake! And there's all these white people, cold chowing down on the cake. "Yum, yum," say the white people, as they shovel cake into their gullets, "this is some bomb-ass cake, yes sir." And then suddenly they see, across the street, some black guy, or maybe he is Asian, or a woman or something, and that person makes a friendly wave to the white people and says, "You guys, this cake is totally delicious!" And the Mo Brookses of the world go white (ha-ha) with rage! Sure, there is a lot of cake left, and the white people are full and can't possibly eat any more, but that one slice of cake that the black guy ate (or maybe he or she is Hispanic, it really doesn't matter in this metaphor) could have been eaten by a white person. That's the "War On Whites."

(And yes, a lot of working-class white people have been so badly conned by grifters or politicians or corporations or interest groups that they don't have the same access to said cake, but that is not a "War On Whites." That describes the "class war," which working-class people of all races and creeds have lost, permanently and decisively.)

By articulating this vision, Brooks has probably sealed his spot in the "America's Next Top Nativist Crank" finals. But Brooks has been doing enough to impress the judges in the preliminary rounds. To wit:

-- Back in July of 2011, Brooks told WHNT-TV in Alabama that he would "do anything short of shooting" undocumented immigrants. (Which technically makes Brooks a "RINO.")

-- A day later, Brooks said that he was "not going to back off" his whole, "anything short of shooting" people stance "because these folks want to resort to name-calling." (He was referring to remarks made by Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-Texas), who had suggested that "referencing acts of violence has no place in the discussion for realistic solutions to our country's immigration problems," and that Brooks was "irresponsible,""hateful" and "dehumanizing" for having done so.)

-- In November of 2011, Brooks was ecstatic about how Alabama's newly enacted immigration laws had led Latino parents to pull their kids from school: "Illegal aliens are continuing to leave Alabama -- not as fast as we would want, not as many as we would want -- but still they’re leaving and it makes us happy." Decidedly not happy were Alabama farmers, whose businesses were negatively impacted after Brooks' "now Americans will take these jobs" theory didn't pan out.

-- In July of 2014, Brooks offered up some back-of-the-envelope math on the cost of deporting "illegal alien children.""For example, there are reportedly roughly 50,000 illegal alien children who have recently entered the United States. At $500 per ticket per illegal alien child, they could all be flown commercial air back to their parents at a total taxpayer cost of $25 million, even less if military air transport is used." (According to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, the true cost of deporting an undocumented immigrant is approximately $12,500.)

-- On Aug. 1, Brooks told MSNBC's Chris Hayes that "all 500,000 Dreamers" and the 8 million undocumented immigrants currently holding jobs should be deported immediately. (Brooks apparently did not make note of the fact that his own optimistic back-of-the-envelope estimates were now approaching a total of $4.25 billion.)

-- And via Buzzfeed's Andrew Kaczynski, today we have Brooks offering his opinion on why the ENLIST Act, which would offer undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship by joining the U.S. Armed Services and putting their lives on the line for the United States, is a bad idea: "These individuals have to be absolutely 100 percent loyal and trustworthy, as best as we can make them, 'cause they're gonna have access to all sorts of military weaponry -- even to the point of having access to weapons of mass destruction like our nuclear arsenal. And I'm gonna have much greater faith in the loyalty of an American citizen than someone who is a citizen of a foreign nation."

I don't think that one gets the keys to our ICBMs as soon as one gets out of basic training, but I'm a lover, not a fighter, and Brooks is ostensibly the guy who knows how the government works, so I guess we should take his word for it.

So Brooks is pretty uniquely positioned to fill Bachmann's spot more than adequately in the Nativist Crank Caucus. Why, if Brooks had some nutty anti-gay stuff in his portfolio, I doubt you'd miss Bachmann at all. (Oh, hey, here you go.) Reported by Huffington Post 23 hours ago.

HUFFPOST HILL - War On Whites Rages: Zeroes Of People Dead

0
0
Rand Paul was accosted by immigrant activists but didn’t do the manly thing and stare down and mutter into his food like John Boehner did. Andrew Cuomo is being challenged by “Zephyr Teachout,” which is almost as ridiculous as “Carl Paladino.” And Ron Johnson is still trying to get a court to take away his own staff's health insurance, making “Awkward signed photo of member with departing staffer “ his office’s second-worst perk. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Tuesday, August 5th, 2014:

*OBAMA READYING EXECUTIVE ACTION ON TAX OFFSHORING* - AP: "Aiming to sidestep a logjam in Congress, the Obama administration is looking for steps it could take on its own to prevent American companies from reincorporating overseas to shirk U.S. taxes, officials said Tuesday. President Barack Obama has denounced so-called 'tax inversions' as unpatriotic and has urged Congress to stop them, in an election-year push that Democrats hope will appeal to middle-class voters who feel corporate America isn't paying its fair share. Republicans and Democrats disagree about the best solution, rendering congressional action this year unlikely. But tinkering with inversion without going through Congress would open up Obama to charges he's unilaterally rewriting the tax code, just as House Republicans are already suing Obama for allegedly exceeding his authorities. Last month, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the administration had already examined its options and determined it didn't have the authority to address inversions administratively. "If we did, we would be doing more," Lew said." [AP]

Ron Johnson will not give up his fight against health insurance for congressional staffers, Niels Lesniewski reports.

*STEVE KING GOES NUTS* - Or should we say cantaloupes? Paige Lavender: "Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) had a tense confrontation with two Dreamers in Iowa that was captured on video and posted to YouTube on Monday. The video's description identifies the pair as Erika Andiola and Cesar Vargas. In the video, Andiola approaches King and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), telling them she's a Dreamer who's originally from Mexico but was raised in the United States and is a graduate of Arizona State University. (*Paul quickly got up and left*.).... DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, exempts many undocumented immigrants who arrived as children from deportation for a renewable two-year period and allows them to work in the United States. King voted on Friday for a bill that would end the program. '*I just don't understand why you've been wanting to do that*,' Andiola says to King, who then stands up to confront the woman. *'You're very good at English,' King says as he grabs Andiola's hand. 'You know what I'm saying.'* 'I was raised in the United States,' Andiola replies. 'Right, so you can understand the English language,' King replies." [HuffPost]

*RAND PAUL DINES & DASHES* - Check out these hilarious gifs of Rand Paul sensing danger and then getting the hell out of there with his mouth still full of hamburger. Pundits disagree whether Paul's swift exit most resembled "Brave Sir Robin Ran Away" or George Costanza screaming "FIRE" while shoving grandmas and youngsters out of his way.

Igor Bobic has a helpful rundown of Rand Paul's many flip-flops over the past year or so. Thanks, Igor!

*DAILY DELANEY DOWNER* - The credit rating people at Standard & Poor's endorse the idea that income inequality is hurting overall economic growth. [womp womp]

The PCCC is endorsing Zephyr Teachout over Andrew Cuomo in the New York governor's race, because his week can't get any worse. This makes PCCC the first national progressive organization to publicly break with Cuomo. Also, "Zephyr Teachout."

Does somebody keep forwarding you this newsletter? Get your own copy. It's free! Sign up here. Send tips/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to huffposthill@huffingtonpost.com. Follow us on Twitter - @HuffPostHill

*TEA PARTY 'CHARITY' TURNS OUT TO BE A SCAM* - The IRS should look into this sort of thing. Kim Barker: "Move America Forward calls itself the nation's 'largest grassroots pro-troop organization,' and has recruited a bevy of Republican luminaries, including former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney, to support its efforts. *Yet an examination of its fundraising appeals, tax records and other documents shows that Move America Forward has repeatedly misled donors and inflated its charitable accomplishments, while funneling millions of dollars in revenue to the men behind the group and their political consulting firms*." [ProPublica]

*INTELLIGENCE AGENCY STOLE SCOOP, GAVE IT TO AP* - @AP: The AP is looking for intelligence agencies with dubious media relations practices. Grim: "The Associated Press dropped a significant scoop on Tuesday afternoon, reporting that in the last several years the U.S. government's terrorism watch list has doubled. A few minutes after the AP story, then consisting of three paragraphs, was posted at 12:32 p.m., The Intercept published a much more comprehensive article....The government, it turned out, had 'spoiled the scoop,' an informally forbidden practice in the world of journalism. To spoil a scoop, the subject of a story, when asked for comment, tips off a different, typically friendlier outlet in the hopes of diminishing the attention the first outlet would have received. Tuesday's AP story was much friendlier to the government's position, explaining the surge of individuals added to the watch list as an ongoing response to a foiled terror plot. The practice of spoiling a scoop is frowned upon because it destroys trust between the journalist and the subject. In the future, the journalist is much less willing to share the contents of his or her reporting with that subject, which means the subject is given less time, or no time at all, to respond with concerns about the reporting....After the AP story ran, The Intercept requested a conference call with the National Counterterrorism Center. A source with knowledge of the call said that the government agency admitted having fed the story to the AP, but didn't think the reporter would publish before The Intercept did. "That was our bad," the official said." [HuffPost]

*IMPEACHMENT FURTHER DISCUSSED BY REPUBLICANS* - Andrew Kaczynski: "Republican Rep. Walter Jones thinks Speaker John Boehner’s lawsuit is a waste of taxpayer money — he says the impeachment of President Obama would be a better option. 'I am one that believes sincerely that the Constitution says that when a president, be it a Republican or a Democrat exceeds his authority and you can’t stop the president from exceeding his authority, *then we do have what’s called impeachment*,' Jones said on the Talk of the Town radio program Monday." [BuzzFeed]

*IMPEACHMENT BONUS!* "Texas Republican *Rep. Bill Flores thinks that 'a fair number of people' in the House of Representatives would be willing to vote to impeach President Obama*, but that such a vote would be meaningless because it would fail in the Senate and hurt House Republicans politically." [BuzzFeed]

*THIS SIMPLE LIFEHACK WILL HELP YOU FIX OBAMACARE IN JUST A FEW WORDS* - Jeff Young stumbles upon the next generation of politics: Upworthy legislating: "Among other things, the [lawsuits against Obamacare] contend the precise phrasing of the Affordable Care Act means that low- and moderate-income health insurance consumers in most states can't receive subsidies to make coverage more affordable. *Lawmakers could end that threat any time by changing the law's wording to make it clear subsidies are available nationwide. But in today's take-no-prisoners Congress, Republicans won't let it happen and Democrats won't even try*...It's a sign not just of the unruly politics of President Barack Obama's health care reform law, but of the dysfunction that has taken root in a national legislature that used to routinely pass so-called technical corrections bills to clear up legislative ambiguity and assert Congress' authority...Even confined to health care, there are numerous examples of Congress addressing problems in laws already enacted. Medicare itself has underdone many changes since 1965. The 2003 Medicare drug benefit law has been amended. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 was followed by the Balanced Budget Refinement Act of 1999. And that's not including the countless small corrections to legislative errors that become part of larger bills." [HuffPost]

*MITCH MCCONNELL LOVES WOMEN* - Jen Bendery: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) unveiled a new campaign ad on Tuesday that gives an incredibly misleading account of his record on the Violence Against Women Act, a bill he has voted against repeatedly -- most recently opposing it over its expanded protections for victims of domestic abuse. In the ad, called 'As If,' McConnell's wife defends his record on women's issues against 'desperate' attacks from his Democratic challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes. A narrator's voice says McConnell co-sponsored the original VAWA and has 'always supported its purpose.' In fact, the narrator says, McConnell voted for 'even stronger protections' than President Barack Obama advocated, though it's unclear which protections that refers to. But the ad only tells a small piece of the story. *McConnell did co-sponsor the original bill in 1991, which never got a vote, but he pulled his sponsorship when it came up again in 1993 and voted against the version that became law in 1994. More recently, McConnell voted against reauthorizing VAWA in 2012 and then again in 2013*. Instead, he pushed for a scaled-back GOP version of the legislation that left out protections for LGBT, Native American and undocumented immigrant victims of domestic abuse. Democrats ultimately prevailed, winning over other Republicans to back the broader bill." [HuffPost]

*RECORD NUMBER OF AMERICANS WANT BUMS THROWN OUT, INCLUDING THEIR BUMS* - Congress and reality television seem to be the two things Americans hate the most yet can't seem to get enough of. Ariel Edwards-Levy: "Most Americans aren't going to miss Congress while it's on summer break. *A majority 51 percent of Americans disapprove of their own congressional representative, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Tuesday. That's the first time in the quarter-century history of the poll that the disapproval rating has risen above 50 percent, outstripping even the 47 percent who disapproved during last year's government shutdown*. Terrible ratings for Congress, which has an average approval rating of under 12 percent, are nothing new (a recent survey asking Americans how they'd fix Congress prompted such helpful suggestions as 'lock them in a room together until they get along' and 'well placed dynamite'). In the past, though, Americans have tended to feel more warmly toward their own district's representative than toward the legislative branch as a whole. Lately, however, that number too has taken a dive in national polling. That still doesn't mean that most incumbents' jobs are at risk. In the June before Republicans took back the House in 2010, 40 percent of Americans told Gallup their representative didn't deserve to be re-elected, yet 85 percent of members seeking re-election held onto their seats anyhow." [HuffPost]

*BARNEY FRANK AT ODD WITH GAY RIGHTS ESTABLISHMENT* - Though this is a very serious matter, we could easily foresee Frank transitioning into retirement as the LGBT community's Andy Rooney. Amanda Terkel: "Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) rebuked the gay rights groups opposing a bill that would ban workplace discrimination on the basis on sexual orientation and gender identity, calling their strategy 'ridiculous.' A handful of groups said last month that they no longer back the Senate-passed version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act because of its sweeping religious exemption, which would allow religiously affiliated businesses to fire someone for being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The provision's language goes far beyond religious exemptions afforded under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion or national origin. *'There is an element in my community that insists on being the cutting edge, and they are determined never to be for anything that could pass because that means that they are stodgy. I mean this quite literally,'* the openly gay former congressman said in an interview with The Huffington Post. "The goalposts have not just been moved, they have been propelled at atomic speed. The arguments are ridiculous." [HuffPost]

*BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR* - Here's a baby enjoying Katy Perry.

*WAR ON WHITES ENTERS SECOND DAY* - Sam Levine: "Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) stood by his recent remarks that white people are the ones who are truly suffering in America, arguing Tuesday that it's currently legal to discriminate against Caucasians. In an interview on The Laura Ingraham Show Monday, Brooks accused Democrats of turning minority voters against Republicans. 'This is a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they’re launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else,' he said….*Despite receiving a significant amount of blowback Monday afternoon, Brooks stood by his comments Tuesday in an interview with USA Today*. 'It is repugnant for Democrats time after time after time to resort to cries of racism to divide Americans and drive up voter turn out,' Brooks said. “That is exactly what they are doing in order to drive up their vote and they are doing it when there is no racial discrimination involved.'" [HuffPost]

"[I]f you look at current federal law, there is only one skin color that you can lawfully discriminate against. That’s Caucasians -- whites," he added.

*COMFORT FOOD*

- How to make killer pancakes. [http://bit.ly/UZnNkN]

- Russian man commands a flock of ducks. [http://bit.ly/1npctW5]

- A retro video of a rich cat and its owner explaining the history of cats. [http://bit.ly/1tT5hdk]

- Footage of a simulated shark attack will probably spoil your coming beach vacation. [http://uproxx.it/1srMiUZ]

- Child's food bracket brings clarity to the ongoing "pooh versus McDonald's" debate. [http://huff.to/1ujv4Zl]

- Clickholes' feature on Whysk, an app that locates nearby monks who will carry you to your destination. [http://bit.ly/1o73Q8Q]

- Existential dog is filled with ennui. [http://huff.to/1pWo9kU]

*TWITTERAMA*

@elisefoley: “…the myth that women buy shoes for men. They buy them for other women…” - tuned into The Five for a sec

@igorbobic: not all white men

@NickBaumann: Turn up your Dowd/Another round of Plotz

*Got something to add? Send tips/quotes/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to Eliot Nelson (eliot@huffingtonpost.com) or Arthur Delaney (arthur@huffingtonpost.com). Follow us on Twitter @HuffPostHill (twitter.com/HuffPostHill). Sign up here: http://huff.to/an2k2e* Reported by Huffington Post 22 hours ago.

HUFFPOLLSTER: Polls Find Pat Roberts Likely To Stave Off Primary Challenge

0
0
Voters are headed to the polls in four more states. The uninsured rate is falling in states that welcomed the ACA. And America's hatred of Congress is getting personal. This is HuffPollster for Tuesday, August 5, 2014.

*ANOTHER ROUND OF PRIMARIES KICKS OFF* - Samantha Lachman: "Since Congress has left town for its five-week recess and focus is turning elsewhere, this week's elections across the country will be met with an even higher level of scrutiny. *Six states have primaries over the course of six days: Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington on Tuesday; Tennessee on Thursday; and Hawaii on Saturday.* One of the Democratic Party's few competitive Senate primaries will be decided in Hawaii, while Republican Sens. Pat Roberts (Kan.) and Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) appear to have fended off challenges from more-conservative primary opponents. Those accustomed to having a Rep. Dingell will probably continue having one -- John Dingell (D-Mich.), who is retiring after 59 years in Congress, will most likely be succeeded by his wife, Debbie. On the Republican side, an anti-abortion rights representative who pressured both his ex-wife and a patient who was his mistress to have abortions will see if voters have forgiven him for his hypocrisy. In another Republican race, a former Santa Claus impersonator and reindeer farmer could be booted out of Congress after just one term." [HuffPost]

*Roberts leads in Kansas GOP Senate primary* - Few of Tuesday's races are hotly contested enough to attract much public polling. The most prominent: Sen. Pat Roberts' (R-Kan.) re-election campaign against tea party-backed radiologist Milton Wolf. Though Roberts faced criticism earlier in the year after a New York Times article found he didn't own a home in Kansas, he easily surpassed Wolf in fundraising.* All six publicly released surveys on the race give Roberts a double-digit lead* -- the narrowest margin, in a poll conducted for the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, still has him 12 points ahead. (That group has since touted a more recent poll that they say narrows Roberts' lead to 9 points, but didn't provide any details about the pollster or methodology.) [Pollster chart]

*More thoughts on what to watch for this week:*

-*Philip Elliott* rounds out up some of the ballot measures and House races to look for. [AP]

-*Abby Livingston* lists six things to watch in Michigan and Kansas' House races. [Roll Call]

-*Harry Enten* says a Senate upset this week is unlikely, but there's more chance of an upset in Tennessee. [538]

*UNINSURED RATES FALL IN STATES THAT WELCOMED ACA* - Jeffrey Young: "Obamacare is already making a big difference in the states that actually embraced it. States that expanded Medicaid and created their own health insurance exchanges, or worked closely with the federal government to cover more people, have shown the largest drops in their uninsured rates this year, according to a new poll released by Gallup and Healthways on Tuesday. Leading the pack was Arkansas, where the uninsured rate has fallen by 10.1 percentage points so far this year, and Kentucky, where it has fallen 8.5 percentage points….The Gallup poll underscores the crucial role played by states, which varied in their approach to Obamacare from fully cooperating with its implementation to actively obstructing it….The results of those decisions are clear. *States that welcomed the law saw significant drops in their uninsured rate, according to Gallup.* The findings are consistent with other recent research showing the uninsured rate barely moved in states that didn't expand Medicaid." [HuffPost]*MOST AMERICANS NO LONGER LIKE THEIR OWN MEMBER OF CONGRESS* - HuffPollster: "*A majority 51 percent of Americans disapprove of their own congressional representative, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Tuesday.* That's the first time in the quarter-century history of the poll that the disapproval rating has risen above 50 percent, outstripping even the 47 percent who disapproved during last year's government shutdown. Terrible ratings for Congress, which has an average approval rating of under 12 percent, are nothing new (a recent survey asking Americans how they'd fix Congress prompted such helpful suggestions as "lock them in a room together until they get along" and "well placed dynamite"). In the past, though, Americans have tended to feel more warmly toward their own district's representative than toward the legislative branch as a whole….That still doesn't mean that most incumbents' jobs are at risk. In the June before Republicans took back the House in 2010, 40 percent of Americans told Gallup their representative didn't deserve to be re-elected, yet 85 percent of members seeking re-election held onto their seats anyhow." [HuffPost, via WashPost]

*AMERICANS WANT BETTER INFRASTRUCTURE, DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR IT* - Joan Lowy and Jennifer Agiesta: "Small wonder Congress has kept federal highway and transit programs teetering on the edge of insolvency for years, unable to find a politically acceptable long-term source of funds. The public can't make up its mind on how to pay for them either. Six in 10 Americans think the economic benefits of good highways, railroads and airports outweigh the cost to taxpayers. *Yet there is scant support for some of the most frequently discussed options for paying for construction of new roads or the upkeep of existing ones*, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll….[A] majority of all Americans — 58 percent — oppose raising federal gasoline taxes to fund transportation projects such as the repair, replacement or expansion of roads and bridges. Only 14 percent support an increase. And by a better than 2-to-1 margin, Americans oppose having private companies pay for construction of new roads and bridges in exchange for the right to charge tolls. Moving to a usage tax based on how many miles a vehicle drives also draws more opposition than support — 40 percent oppose it, while 20 percent support it. Support for shifting more responsibility for paying for such projects to state and local government is a tepid 30 percent." [AP]

*Similar findings* - The results echo a HuffPost/YouGov survey in July, in which 45 percent of Americans said the federal government should spend more on infrastructure, and 64 percent that they live near at least a few unsafe bridges or roads. Just 30 percent, however, said they'd be willing to pay an additional 6 cents per gallon for gasoline. [HuffPost]

*HUFFPOLLSTER VIA EMAIL!* - You can receive this daily update every weekday via email! Just click here, enter your email address, and and click "sign up." That's all there is to it (and you can unsubscribe anytime).

*TUESDAY'S 'OUTLIERS'* - Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:

-Democrats and independents say they're hearing more good news about jobs than they did in February; Republicans' minds haven't changed. [Pew Research]

- Public Policy Polling (D) finds a nearly tied Senate race in Arkansas, with Democrat Mark Begich leading challengers in Alaska. [PPP on Arkansas, Alaska]

-Civitas (R) has Kay Hagan and Thom Tillis deadlocked in the North Carolina Senate race. [Civitas]

-Most Americans say the U.S. should be even-handed toward the conflict in the Middle East. [WSJ]

-British, but not American opinions on the Middle East have shifted toward the Palestinians. [YouGov] Reported by Huffington Post 22 hours ago.

Kerry Bentivolio, 'Accidental Congressman,' Loses Primary To Romney-Backed David Trott

0
0
Rep. Kerry Bentivolio has lost the Republican primary for Michigan's 11th District, the Associated Press reports.

Bentivolio, the "accidental congressman" elected after veteran Rep. Thad McCotter failed to get on the ballot in 2012, was defeated by attorney David Trott in Tuesday's primary. Bentivolio was considered one of 2014's most vulnerable incumbents.

The intraparty battle shaped up to be one of this election cycle's strangest races. HuffPost's Samantha Lachman reported earlier this week:
Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-Mich.) won almost inadvertently in 2012 after former Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) failed to qualify for the Republican primary ballot and ultimately resigned his seat. Bentivolio, a former reindeer farmer and Santa Claus impersonator, has been polling poorly against attorney David Trott, Michigan's so-called "foreclosure king," who has been endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
Bentivolio is just the third incumbent to lose a primary this election cycle, following Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.) and Ralph Hall (Texas).

Below, more details from the Associated Press:

The 53-year-old Trott, who contributed nearly $2.5 million of his own money to his campaign, will face the winner of a four-way Democratic primary in the fall to represent the district covering a swath of Detroit's western and northern suburbs.

Bentivolio, 62, was the third U.S. House incumbent to lose this year after Texas Rep. Ralph Hall and former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in Virginia.

His defeat was not a surprise as Bentivolio was considered by some to be an "accidental" congressman. He was elected in 2012 because the Republican incumbent, former Rep. Thad McCotter, inexplicably turned in fraudulent voter signatures when seeking a spot on the ballot.

Bentivolio is a former teacher, auto designer and reindeer farmer who served in the Army and later the National Guard.

"While I served my country in two wars, he was serving foreclosure notices," Bentivolio said of Trott, whose company specializes in foreclosing on homes on behalf of banks and other lenders.

Trott said the "size and scope of the federal government" is the single biggest problem facing residents of Michigan and called for reducing wasteful government spending and cutting the debt and the deficit. He received backing from various chambers of commerce and other groups.

He said President Barack Obama's health care law has been "an absolute disaster," costing millions of Americans their health insurance coverage while driving up insurance rates for millions more. Reported by Huffington Post 19 hours ago.

How Employer-Based Health Insurance Actually Is Cheaper Than Government-Sponsored Insurance

0
0
How Employer-Based Health Insurance Actually Is Cheaper Than Government-Sponsored Insurance Reported by ajc.com 18 hours ago.

Austin Benefits Group Named Among 101 Best and Brightest Companies

0
0
Austin Benefits Group, a full service employee benefits agency, has been named one of Metro Detroit’s 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For™. As a third-year recipient of this prestigious award, Austin Benefits Group continues to set the bar higher in its commitment to excellence.

Bloomfield Hills, MI (PRWEB) August 06, 2014

Austin Benefits Group, a full service employee benefits agency, has been named one of Metro Detroit’s 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For™. As a third-year recipient of this prestigious award, Austin Benefits Group continues to set the bar higher in its commitment to excellence.

“Attracting and retaining top talent at Austin is essential to our mission to deliver world-class service to clients and their employees. Our strong commitment to each other as colleagues transcends to the client level, which is part of our success story,” says Cathy Siska, vice president of Client Services.

The Best and Brightest Companies to Work For™ distinction award honors companies like Austin that present a commitment to excellence in their human resources practices and employee enrichment. Nominated companies were assessed on communication, work-life balance, employee education, diversity, recognition and retention. Companies are nominated annually and go through a series of assessments to maintain their best and brightest status.

Austin provides an exceptional employee benefits package to staff in addition to offering flexible schedules, opportunities for continuous education and company-sponsored wellness activities. “I’m so thankful that when I come to work every day, I work alongside a group of people who are dedicated to their jobs and their clients. Plus, getting treated to lunch a few times a month as an extra perk doesn't hurt either,” says Melissa Carey, account manager.

About Austin Benefits Group: Austin Benefits Group (formerly Austin Financial Group) is Michigan’s premier full-service employee benefits agency. Founded in 2000 by Dean Austin, the company specializes in custom employee benefit packages, health insurance, Obamacare compliance and corporate wellness programs.

Contact:
Marissa Blaski
Austin Benefits Group
248.594.5550
marissa.blaski(at)austinfg(dot)com

### Reported by PRWeb 14 hours ago.

UnitedHealthcare Exec Describes Results of Oncology-Focused Bundling Pilot in AIS Newsletter

0
0
Lee Newcomer, M.D., a senior vice president at UnitedHealthcare, discussed the results of a successful pilot oncology project the insurer conducted in the Aug. 4 issue of Atlantic Information Services’s Health Plan Week.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) August 06, 2014

Recent results from a UnitedHealthcare oncology-focused bundling pilot have caught the attention of the health insurance industry by demonstrating that the model saves money for more than just procedural care, like knee replacements. For its Aug. 4 issue, Atlantic Information Services, Inc.’s Health Plan Week (HPW) interviewed Lee Newcomer, M.D., a senior vice president at UnitedHealthcare with strategic responsibility for oncology, genetics and women’s health, on the recently released pilot program’s results. The pilot paid doctors upfront for treating cancer patients and showed a 34% cost reduction compared with fee-for-service (FFS) payment. The insurer says this was, to its knowledge, the first trial of a true episode or bundled payment in medical oncology.

“The goal of the program was to disintermediate the relationship between physician income and the drugs they prescribed,” Newcomer told HPW. “In medical oncology, physicians buy these drugs at wholesale, yet they [sell] them [back] to us. In the current environment, that spread funds about 70% of the practice income or profits.” Under the pilot, which covered 810 cancer patients, medical oncologists were reimbursed upfront for an entire treatment program, and examined the difference in cost before and after the payment change. For patients taking part in the study, the total cost of medical care was $64.76 million, a savings of $33.36 million when compared with the control group.

“Our study made it very clear that it is possible to get at the true expense of cancer care,” Newcomer said. “Fewer hospitalizations, which meant fewer problems for patients and decreased drug spend. This challenges the assumption that drug spend influences doctors. We did not find that to be the case at all.”

Newcomer said that UnitedHealthcare plans to restart the pilot program and re-measure the results in a few years.

Visit http://aishealth.com/archive/nhpw080414-02 to read the article in its entirety, which includes analysis and commentary from Francois de Brantes, executive director, Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute, David Muhlestein, Ph.D., director of research for consulting firm Leavitt Partners, LLC, and James Whisler, a principal at Deloitte Consulting and the lead of the firm’s health actuarial practice.

About Health Plan Week
Published since 1991, the 8-page weekly newsletter Health Plan Week provides timely, objective business, financial and regulatory news of the health insurance industry. Coverage includes new benefit designs and underwriting practices, new products and marketing strategies, mergers and alliances, financial performance and results, Medicare and Medicaid opportunities, disease management, and the flood of reform-driven regulatory initiatives including medical loss ratios, exchanges, ACOs and myriad benefit design changes that are mandated. Visit http://aishealth.com/marketplace/health-plan-week for more information.

About Atlantic Information Services
Atlantic Information Services, Inc. (AIS) is a publishing and information company that has been serving the health care industry for more than 25 years. It develops highly targeted news, data and strategic information for managers in hospitals, health plans, medical group practices, pharmaceutical companies and other health care organizations. AIS products include print and electronic newsletters, websites, looseleafs, books, strategic reports, databases, webinars and conferences. Learn more at http://AISHealth.com. Reported by PRWeb 11 hours ago.

Bloomin’s Dirk Montgomery lands new gig at health insurer

0
0
Health Insurance Innovations Inc. has tapped a veteran of the restaurant and retail industries as its new chief financial officer. Dirk Montgomery will start work Sept. 2 as executive vice president and CFO at the Tampa-based health insurance products provider. He replaces James Dietz, who is leaving to pursue other opportunities, a statement said. Montgomery was CFO and chief value chain officer at Tampa-based Bloomin’ Brands (NASDAQ: BLMN) from 2006 through early 2013, where he played a key… Reported by bizjournals 10 hours ago.
Viewing all 22794 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images