| Affordable health insurance for all Americans
Americans need access to health insurance, but there are divergent philosophies on the best way to provide it. Some believe the federal government should insure everyone and use tax dollars to do it. The result would be long waits for treatment, lower quality and higher taxes. There is a better way. Government should continue to provide insurance for the poor, elderly and disabled through Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP. The private insurance market in each state must be organized so everyone else is offered a choice of basic plans at affordable prices. If the world has learned anything from the 20th century, it is that an efficient marketplace beats government at delivering value and controlling costs. The power of consumers to drive quality up and prices down needs to be used in government-sponsored programs as well.
Taking control of your pension
Self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) take a further step towards mass-market acceptability on 6 April, when they finally become regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). The FSA will take responsibility for the regulation of all personal pensions on that day, giving disgruntled SIPP customers access to the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme for the first time. .
Royal Bank steps up insurance strategy
Royal Bank of Canada is putting more muscle into its insurance strategy that circumvents federal rules preventing banks from selling or marketing insurance products in their branches.Canada's biggest bank has 13 insurance offices that sit next door to RBC branches. By the end of this year, it hopes to have 30 to 40, said Jim Westlake, head of the bank's Canadian retail banking and global insurance business. .
ASSURANT INC at AIFA 32nd Annual Conference - Final
UNIDENTIFIED COMPANY REPRESENTATIVE: All right. Good afternoon, everybody. Sunit and I are sort of putting together this break out. We have got John Roberts, who runs the disability and life insurance and group life business at Assurant. Kevin McCarthy from UNUM and Paul Schnell from one of NFP'S firms, acquired firms, Dreyfuss & Birke. We are going to start off the session with John Roberts. John runs Assurant's group life and disability business. He is also President of Disability RMS, which is a turnkey disability solution, which is a subsidiary of Assurant. John, thanks for being with us today, we appreciate it. JOHN ROBERTS, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, ASSURANT, INC.: Thank you. Good afternoon. C'mon dude, you responded to the guy at lunch, I'm not going to get anything? I was eating lunch, and I turned to the person next to me and said, you know, I'm going to do this session, we are talking right about the session and I said, yes, I did that last year.
Major Iowans: Before Johnson — Fleck won US Open
This article was first published April 2, 1972 when Jack Fleck was inducted into The Register's sports hall of fame. Fleck, of Davenport, was the only native Iowan before Johnson to win a major golf championship.
BY MAURY WHITE
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
There have been large bombs exploded that caused less commotion than the news, frantically flashed out of San Francisco on June 18, 1955, that Jack Fleck had tied Ben Hogan for the U.S. Open title.
Hogan didn't take explanation at all. The dominant figure in professional golf, the Wee Iceman had claimed four of the previous seven Opens and might have had more if he hadn't been slowed by a near-fatal car crash in 1949.
The truth of it was, Bantam Ben was in fairly early on that memorable Saturday with a par 70 over the Olympic Country Club for a 287 and more than a few congratulated him for an unprecedented fifth title.
Great-West Lifeco's US Subsidiary Announces Agreement To Acquire ...
WINNIPEG, April 9, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Great-West Lifeco Inc. today announced that its U.S. subsidiary, Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company, has entered into an agreement to acquire an 80% majority interest in Benefit Management Corp., whose principal subsidiary is Allegiance Benefit Plan Management, Inc., a Montana-based third-party administrator of employee health plans. The existing majority shareholder will retain a 20% interest in Benefit Management Corp. Lifeco expects the transaction will be accretive to earnings in 2007 and subsequent years. The transaction will add nearly 90,000 medical members to Lifeco's Great-West Healthcare division. It includes Allegiance's physicians and hospitals network, as well as Benefit Management Corp.'s other subsidiaries. These include a new company that was created to sell fully-insured health plans in Montana, and a company that provides medical management services, primarily in Montana.
Partnership addresses health care needs of the vulnerable
Most Coloradoans have access to basic health care – checkups, immunizations, dental care and mental health counseling – through employer-sponsored insurance, but about 770,000 or 17 percent of residents lack any kind of health insurance. Medicaid is a publicly-funded health insurance program for about 400,000 low-income children, some of their parents, people with disabilities and elders. Likewise, the Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+) program insures about 50,000 children and pregnant women with incomes somewhat higher than Medicaid thresholds. Because of low reimbursement rates, however, Coloradoans enrolled in these publicly-funded programs may have difficulty obtaining care from private doctors and hospitals. Fortunately, there is a health care safety net, a collection of public and private clinics and hospital emergency departments that provides basic health care to these vulnerable populations.
House passes smoking ban measure
The Indiana House passed on a voice vote today a measure that would ban smoking in most public places, with a few exceptions such as bars.
The amendment, offered by Rep. Eric Turner, R-Marion, was added to Senate Bill 503, which contains Gov. Mitch Daniels' plan to offer health insurance to the working poor.
That bill comes up for a vote in the House on Tuesday. The final version, though, must be hammered out by lawmakers from the House and Senate in a conference committee formed to negotiate differences between the House and Senate over the plan.
One key area still left undecided is how to fund the plan. Daniels has asked for a cigarette tax increase of at least 25-cents per pack. However, no bill containing that tax increase has yet passed the legislature.
European Stocks Have Worst First-Quarter Performance Since 2003
March 30 (Bloomberg) -- European stocks failed to sustain an earlier advance, posting the worst first-quarter performance since 2003. Vodafone Group Plc led a slide by telephone operators on concern operating profit margins at the world's biggest mobile phone company are shrinking. Rio Tinto Plc and Xstrata Plc limited declines after copper rose. The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index was little changed at 374.22 in London, posting a quarterly gain of 2.5 percent. The Stoxx 50 slid 0.2 percent. The Euro Stoxx 50, a measure for the 13 nations sharing the euro, rose less than 0.1 percent. Concern that economic growth in the U.S. is slowing as well as a meltdown in Chinese stocks in February took the shine of a rally in the first three months of 2007 that sent the Stoxx 600 to a six-year high.
How To Get Your First Mortgage
Editor's Note: First time home buyers can be confused by the process. There is the loan process, pre-qualification, looking for a home, documents for title, loans, insurance taxes etc. Here is an article on the subject: When it comes to lifetime markers getting a first mortgage is a major event. With a mortgage you''re magically transformed from occupant to owner and from tenant to titleholder. Applying for a mortgage used to be seen as a battle of sorts, a competition where the only winners were those who sold headache remedies and paper by the truckload. But now finding the right mortgage is faster and easier than ever -- but only if you know how to make the system work for you. If you compare loan applications today with the ordeals of even ten years ago you can see a marked difference.
Rockland medical group cutting ties with Empire insurance
WEST NYACK - One of the largest medical groups in Rockland is dropping its affiliation with Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance, prompting thousands of patients to scramble to either change doctors or change insurers to maintain their health care. Rockland Pulmonary & Medical Associates, a group of 17 physicians, physician-assistants and nurse practitioners, will no longer accept Empire Blue Cross as of May 1, according to a letter they sent to patients. "This is not something we want to do, and this is not a step we took lightly," said Dr. Mary Leahy, a longtime member of the group. "All we want to do is take care of patients and provide them with excellent medical care." Empire, one of the largest insurance companies in the state, has not increased its payments to the group for nearly 10 years, Leahy said.
Stumbo says Dems have to beat Fletcher
Atty. Gen. Greg Stumbo, campaigning in the governor's race with Bruce Lunsford in the May 22 Primary, came to Leitchfield Wednesday (4/4) to strategize with local supporters. It wasn't his first connection to the county. Stumbo's Office of Consumer Portec-tion sued the Old Falls of Rough Green Farm developers in 2005, saying the Green Farm Resort “sold residential building lots... through the use of false, misleading or deceptive practices." In an interview with the News-Gazette, Stumbo said he expected the state's Republicans would nominate Incumbent Ernie Fletcher. He said Anne Northup, R-Louisville, “is running well in Jefferson County, but when she gets out of Jefferson, she's in trouble. He called affordable health care the centerpiece of the Lunsford-Stumbo campaign.
Moving closerto universal health insurance
Cover the Uninsured Week is April 23-29. Public health and the medical care provider community are once again teaming up to bring attention to the increasingly desperate situation of those without the ability to afford health care and medications. An estimated 51.2 million Americans are now uninsured. In Michigan there are about 1.2 million of us without coverage. Chances are you are without health insurance or you have a friend, neighbor or relative in this situation. Right now this means almost 12 percent of our community members can't pay for care and it is estimated that will be one-in-four people in another seven years. If you think this is not your problem, you are wrong. Even those with insurance are paying for those without. Plus, there is a good chance that any one of us will be without health insurance in the near future.
LIC pioneers Micro-Insurance in India by e-enabling the Company's ...
3i Infotech Ltd on April 04, 2007 has announced that it has been awarded a contract from the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), to enable Micro Insurance Agents, Institutions such as Non-Government Organizations (NGO), Self Help Groups (SHG) and Micro Finance Institutions (MFI) to transact insurance business on behalf of the Corporation in online/offline mode. LIC is one of the largest life insurance Companies in the world with an in-force policy base of 190 Million.
With its focus on Micro Insurance LIC plans to offer a policy aimed at people from the age group of 18-60 years, available for a minimum sum assured of Rs 5,000. With the help of this software, LIC will now be able to make this policy available to the rural and semi urban masses through its 10,000 agents including NGOs, Self Help Groups and Micro Finance Institutions spread across the country.
County board members attack Gov's tax plan
Several Lake County Board members strained at the leash in attacking the recent proposal by Gov. Rod Blagojevich to provide health insurance to all Illinois citizens. Covering the estimated 1.4 million Illinois residents who have no health-care coverage will cost more than $2 billion. Funding for Blagojevich's "Ilinois Covered" plan will be raised with a 1 percent tax on gross corporate revenues and taxing employers who don't provide health insurance. .
Lawmakers looking to double money for kids' health insurance
WASHINGTON (GNS) - Congress took the first step Thursday to double the budget for a program running out of money that provides health insurance for 6 million low-income kids. The Senate Budget Committee voted 12-11 to approve $50 billion over five years for the State Children's Health Insurance Program, up from $25 billion. That would allow the program to cover an additional 6 million children. .
John Hancock Ranks Number One In Pension Closeout Sales In 2006
BOSTON, April 4 /PRNewswire/ -- John Hancock led the life insurance industry in single premium pension closeout sales in 2006, according to a recent survey of 18 major life insurers by LIMRA International (LIMRA). John Hancock's pension closeout sales reached $415.2 million in 2006, capturing approximately 23 percent of the industry's total sales for the year, according to LIMRA. Ron McHugh, Senior Vice President, John Hancock Financial Services, said the company sees solid opportunity in the market and that John Hancock's commitment to customer service and its outstanding financial strength ratings position John Hancock well for future growth in the business. "With the passage of the Pension Protection Act last year and the ongoing shift toward defined contribution plans, we expect the single premium pension closeout market to grow significantly over the next few years," Mr.
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