Category

Understanding Health Care Reform

Sep 08
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What to expect for your 2017 Obamacare Plan

By | Obamacare, Understanding Health Care Reform | No Comments

Fixing the insurance exchanges By Bob Herman | August 6, 2016 Like basketball players who are sick of losing a game, many health insurers who ventured into the new marketplaces are sending a clear message: We’re taking our ball and going home. And if the government wants them to play again, they want more of the rules changed. The large publicly traded insurers wrapped up second-quarter results last week. Adverse selection continued to weigh down the finances of health plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. More companies are dropping enrollment to satisfy investors. But many health policy experts say the Obama administration will alter the still-nascent exchanges to make them more financially palatable for insurers. The marketplaces also will shift to even more high-deductible, narrow-network plans that are common in managed Medicaid. “I do remain bullish on the marketplaces,” said Katherine Hempstead, a senior adviser at the Robert Wood…

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Apr 24
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Big retirement mistake: Boomers with no estate plan

By | Making the Most of your Medicare, Uncategorized, Understanding Health Care Reform | No Comments

Many Baby Boomers are neglecting a key part of their retirement plans — creating an estate plan. And while death is not a pleasant thing to think about, death without an estate plan can create havoc for your surviving family members, financial planners warn. “I think that on a list of things to do, it’s at the bottom, if it even makes the list,” says Nicole Hart, director of trusts and estates at Sontag Advisory, a New York-based wealth adviser. It’s important not to look at financial planning in a vacuum,” says Manhattan estate planning and elder care attorney Ann-Margaret Carrozza. “Estate planning is intertwined with the financial plan.” “If you are looking at Baby Boomers, they are looking at what their cash flow will be in retirement,” says Carol Kroch, managing director, wealth and philanthropic planning at Wilmington Trust in Wilmington, Del. “Can they do the things they want…

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Jan 12
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“Dallas Buyers Club” Missouri’s “Right to Try” law.

By | Making the Most of your Medicare, Uncategorized, Understanding Health Care Reform, Wellness Wednesday | No Comments

Whether it’s colon cancer, pancreatic cancer or other variation of terminal illness many clients who exhaust their treatment options now have a beacon of hope thanks to a new law that went into effect last year. Missouri became the second state after Colorado to put a “Right to Try” law into effect. The Right to Try “RTT” bill (HB 1685) empowers terminally ill patients the right to try medications that have not been approved by the FDA. The RTT bill aims to hasten access to unapproved drugs by eliminating the FDA’s role in the process. Since the 1960s, FDA has mandated  that medications go through a rigorous three-stage investigation before doctors can prescribe them.  RTT laws will help patients running out of time to expedite this process to obtain medication that may otherwise take as long as a decade to receive FDA approval. Read more on experimental therapy and how other…

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Jan 04
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The Liberation of Growing Old

By | Making the Most of your Medicare, Understanding Health Care Reform | No Comments

  Great read on Ageism! If we make the world better for old people, we make it better for everyone! The best part of my job is working side by side with people 65 and older: parents, grandparents…even great grandparents. A few weeks back one of my clients, an astute 95 yr old, told me stories of what it was like to grow up in the 30’s and 40’s. He was born in Italy and came over to the States upon which he met his wife and started his own business. He had extensive travel experience with plenty of ups and downs in his business affairs. All of which, he shared. Since it was nearly lunch I decided to change the subject to something a bit more saucy. Italian Food. I wanted his take on the Italian food scene in Saint Louis. Specifically, who has the best lasagne. His answer:…

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Dec 22
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ObamaCare’s Threat to Private Practice

By | Obamacare, Understanding Health Care Reform | No Comments

Here’s a dirty little secret about recent attempts to fix ObamaCare. The “reforms,” approved by Senate and House leaders this summer and set to advance in the next Congress, adopt many of the Medicare payment reforms already in the Affordable Care Act. Both favor the consolidation of previously independent doctors into salaried roles inside larger institutions, usually tied to a central hospital, in effect ending independent medical practices. Continue at: http://www.wsj.com/articles/scott-gottlieb-obamacares-threat-to-private-practice-1417990367

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