The hundreds of thousands of Americans whose individual insurance policies will be canceled as Obamacare takes full effect next year are experiencing a disruptive element of healthcare reform, the head of health insurer Cigna said on Thursday. In the past week, reports of pending plan cancellations have become a political problem for President Barack Obama, who promised years ago as he was pushing to pass the healthcare law that Americans who liked their health plans could keep them. Nearly half of U.S. consumers with individual health plans are also expected to qualify for tax credits to buy insurance on new state exchanges under Obamacare.
NEW YORK (AP) — Young New Yorkers who want to light up will soon have to wait for their 21st birthdays before they can buy a pack of smokes after lawmakers in the nation's most populous city voted overwhelmingly to raise the tobacco-purchasing age from 18 to 21.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Is peewee football too early to wonder about concussions? Maybe not: A major report says far too little is known about the risks in youth sports, especially for athletes who suit up before high school.
By Dana Feldman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Los Angeles suburb that sued to curb the strong, spicy odor emitted from a chili-processing plant lost its initial bid for a court injunction against the makers of the popular Sriracha-brand hot pepper sauce on Thursday. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert O'Brien denied a motion from the small city of Irwindale for a temporary restraining order against Huy Fong Foods, calling the request "rather edgy." "You're asking for a very radical order on a 24-hour notice," O'Brien said during the brief proceedings. The judge instead set a court hearing for November 12 to consider further arguments on whether there were grounds to issue a preliminary injunction against the chili factory while the court reviews the merits of a lawsuit brought against the company. Irwindale, east of Los Angeles, filed suit on Monday saying the company has refused to take sufficient action to abate noxious fumes emanating from the plant strong enough to cause eye and throat irritation in nearby residents.
A Japanese lawmaker handed Emperor Akihito a letter on Thursday expressing fear about the health impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, breaking a taboo by trying to involve the emperor in politics. Taro Yamamoto, who is also an anti-nuclear activist, gave Akihito the letter during a garden party, setting off a storm of protest on the Internet from critics shocked at his action. "I wanted to directly tell the emperor of the current situation," Yamamoto told reporters, referring to the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant north of Tokyo, which has been leaking radioactivity since it was battered by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
Insurer Cigna Corp said on Thursday it expects to increase its 2014 earnings from 2013, reflecting its smaller exposure to uncertainty around private Medicare and the rollout of individual insurance on new exchanges around the country. Cigna, which reported third-quarter profit that beat analysts' expectations on Thursday, has both a U.S. and overseas health insurance business and also sells disability and life insurance. Cigna said that diversification will help it next year, which it expects to be challenging because of broad changes in the healthcare industry. Larger competitors UnitedHealth Group Inc, WellPoint Inc and Aetna Inc have recently painted 2014 as uncertain because of private Medicare cuts and changes related to President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law.
By Susan Cornwell and David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Enrollment in health insurance plans on the troubled Obamacare website was very small in the first couple of days of operation, with just 248 Americans signing up, according to documents released on Thursday by a U.S. House of Representatives committee. The Obama administration has said it cannot provide enrollment figures from HealthCare.gov because it doesn't have the numbers. The federal website, where residents of 36 states can buy new healthcare plans under President Barack Obama's law, was launched on October 1. "We do not have any reliable data around enrollment, which is why we haven't given it to date," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told lawmakers on Wednesday.
BAGON, Myanmar (AP) — Five decades of isolation, military rule and woeful health care have left Myanmar with a particularly high rate of blindness. Now the veil of darkness is starting to lift, thanks in part to an "assembly line" surgical procedure that allows cataracts to be removed safely, without stitches, through two small incisions.
(Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Thursday reinstated restrictions on abortion providers in Texas that a lower court had blocked, siding with Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott who had asked for an emergency ruling while the case is appealed. The decision means that while an appeal is ongoing in the case, doctors who perform abortions in Texas will have to get agreements with local hospitals to admit patients as part of a sweeping new anti-abortion law. ...
ATLANTA (AP) — The federal government is issuing its first guidelines to schools on how to protect children with food allergies.
By Caren Bohan and Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican lawmakers opposed to Obamacare are grappling with a predicament of their own making as they decide whether to move their staff into the new insurance marketplaces tied to President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul. More than three years ago, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa proposed an amendment to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, requiring U.S. lawmakers and their aides to purchase insurance coverage on the new online marketplaces known as exchanges. Obama's Democratic Party, which in 2009 controlled both chambers of Congress, saw it largely as a political stunt by Republicans who see the law as government overreach and have campaigned to scrap it. Now, House lawmakers face a deadline of 5 p.m. (2100 GMT) on Thursday to decide whether to fully follow the requirement, or exploit a loophole that allows them to keep certain staff on their current health insurance plans.
Americans who use flexible spending accounts (FSAs) for healthcare costs may now be able to carry up to $500 of expiring money into the next year, the U.S. Treasury said on Thursday. An FSA allows individuals to set aside as much as $2,500 a year in pretax income for healthcare costs. In 2005, the Internal Revenue Service began allowing companies to offer their workers a 2.5 month grace period through mid-March during which they could use up any money that was left over. Now, an employer that sponsors an FSA can choose, as an alternative to that grace period, to allow its employees to carry over up to $500 to use during the entire following year.
A batch of canned sliced beef containing horsemeat has been removed from the shelves of retailers Home Bargains and Quality Save, Britain's Food Standards Agency said on Thursday . Routine tests by local government trading standards officers in Lincolnshire, eastern England, found the product, which was manufactured in Romania in January this year, contained horse DNA at a level of between 1 and 5 percent. Neither Home Bargains, the trading name of family-owned business TJ Morris, nor Quality Save, a chain of discount stores operating in northern England, could immediately be reached for comment. The beef tested negative for the drug phenylbutazone, or 'bute', the anti-inflammatory painkiller for sporting horses which is banned for animals intended for eventual human consumption as it is potentially harmful, the agency said.
By Susan Cornwell WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior House of Representatives lawmaker subpoenaed Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for documents related to the troubled launch of the Obamacare website, HealthCare.gov, his office said on Thursday. Representative Darrell Issa, Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, announced he had subpoenaed Sebelius for information he and Republican Senator Lamar Alexander have sought since October 10. Republicans have sought to derail the healthcare overhaul since Obama took office in 2009 and have seized on recent technical issues to further attack the law.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Experts from top technology and Internet companies including Google Inc, Oracle Corp and Red Hat Inc have joined the Obama administration's effort to fix its troubled HealthCare.gov website, a U.S. official said on Thursday. (Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
Japanese researchers said Thursday they had moved a step closer to an oral treatment for diabetes, offering hope of a breakthrough against a disease racking an increasingly obese world. Scientists at the University of Tokyo said they have created a compound that helps the body to control glucose in the bloodstream. In some people it leads to Type 2 diabetes, a condition that can cause heart disease, strokes and kidney failure. Doctors say the incidence of Type 2 diabetes has rocketed over the last few decades, a factor they blame largely on the growing number of overweight people.
Police have obtained a video that matches one that has been alleged to show Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine, but they won't confirm what the video shows, or say if they are contemplating charges against Ford. In a briefing on Thursday, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair identified Ford as a subject in a video that police recovered during a drug investigation called Project Brazen 2. "I can tell you that the digital video file that we have recovered depicts images which are consistent with those that had previously been reported in the press," Blair said. "I think it's fair to say the mayor does appear in that video but I'm not going to get into the detail of what activities are depicted on the video." In reports that have dominated Toronto's political scene for months, U.S. media blog Gawker and the Toronto Star newspaper said in May that their reporters were shown a video that appeared to show Ford smoking crack cocaine.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration released a strategic plan for preventing drug shortages on Thursday and proposed a rule to require drug and biotechnology companies to promptly notify the agency of potential disruptions to the supply of medically important drugs. The plan and proposal come in response to a 2011 order from President Barack Obama to solve the problem of drug shortages. The 2012 Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act called for the FDA to improve its response to imminent or existing drug shortages and to address the underlying causes of such shortages. The act also gave the FDA new authority to require drug manufacturers to notify it of potential supply disruptions.
LAGOS (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline Nigeria said on Thursday its nine month pretax profit was unchanged at 2.78 billion naira, the same level it was last year. Turnover at the local unit of Britain's biggest drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline grew to 21.33 billion naira during the nine months to September 30, against 18.75 billion naira a year earlier, the company said.
Credit: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
The wheels of an indoor bicycle are seen spinning at a SoulCycle class at their Union Square location in New York April 13, 2011. R
Despite a gym floor bulging with weight-lifting equipment, fitness experts said the only thing people need to push, pull and lift is the weight of their own body.
"If more people knew you could get a good physique using your body as a bar bell, they could take matters into their own hands," said Bret Contreras, author of "Bodyweight Strength Training Anatomy," a guide to bodyweight-only workouts aimed at everyone from the exercise-challenged to the personal trainer.
Known as "the Glute Guy," Arizona-based Contreras has been resistance training for 21 years. But in high school, he couldn't do a push-up.
"At 15 I was so skinny people used to make jokes," the 37-year old said. "I just got so tired of being made fun of I decided to take charge."
Often thought of as a stepping stone to weight training, bodyweight training can be a complete, whole body workout in itself, Contreras said.
Once the person masters the simpler version of a push-up, squat, or chin-up, a more advanced version can be tackled, often with a little help from the living room furniture.
"Find things in the environment: a table to get underneath, hold on to the sides of and then pull the body upward; a rafter for a pull-up," he said. "To work your glutes (buttocks muscles), all you need is a couch."
Contreras recommends the beginner start with 15 minutes a day and increase over time.
"It doesn't have to be intimidating," he said. "You could do a 20-minute workout three times a week and have an incredible physique, so long as you push hard and keep challenging yourself."
ANYTIME, ANYWHERE
Bodyweight exercises return people to the way they move naturally, according to Lisa Wheeler, national creative manager of group fitness at Equinox, the upscale chain of fitness centers.
"We squat, lunge, crawl, reach," she said, adding that a bodyweight class at Equinox is called "Animal Flow" because its crab crawls, lunges and swings were inspired by the primal movement patterns of man and beast.
"Bodyweight training is great for mobility, stability and creating movement patterns," she said. "You want to build a strong foundation, be stable around the shoulders, hips and spine."
Because the load doesn't change, progression is achieved by changing the center of gravity of the exerciser or the complexity of the movement.
Another challenge, she said, is getting enough pull to match the push of most bodyweight exercises.
"Bodyweight training can make everything else better," she said. "Dancers, moms, we all live push-pull now."
Jessica Matthews, an exercise physiologist with the American Council on Exercise, said bodyweight training blends with the trend toward functional training, or training that mimics the way we move in everyday life, as opposed to the older bodybuilder model of targeting one muscle group at a time.
"Our body is one kinetic chain, everything moves together, so most everyday exercises will move multiple muscle groups," she said.
Matthews said not only can bodyweight training be done anytime, anywhere, it also works easily into popular interval training, circuit and boot camp workouts.
"Using bodyweight exercises allow more of a cardiovascular component because you can move rapidly from one exercise to the next," Matthews said.
So are machines a thing of the past?
"I think there's a place for everything," she said, "For some people a fixed path might be the way to go. It boils down to having proper joint stability and quality range of movement, then adding load. Form is imperative."
(Reporting by Dorene Internicola; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Vicki Allen)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A trip down the grocery store produce aisle could soon feel like a stroll down "Sesame Street."
By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - The risks to public health from exposure to emissions from shale gas extraction or fracking are low as long as operations are properly run and regulated, the British government's health agency said on Thursday. In a review of the potential health impact of fracking, which involves the pumping of water and chemicals into dense shale formations to push out gas and oil, Public Health England (PHE) said any health impacts were likely to be minimal.
A Japanese lawmaker handed Emperor Akihito a letter on Thursday expressing fear about the health impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, breaking a taboo by trying to involve the emperor in politics. Taro Yamamoto, who is also an anti-nuclear activist, gave Akihito the letter during a garden party, setting off a storm of protest on the Internet from critics shocked at his action. "I wanted to directly tell the emperor of the current situation," Yamamoto told reporters, referring to the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant north of Tokyo, which has been leaking radioactivity since it was battered by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - China should close live poultry markets in big cities to disrupt the spread of a new strain of bird flu that resurfaced there earlier this month, scientists said, after a previous shutdown was found to have slashed the number of human cases. In a study published in The Lancet medical journal on Thursday, researchers from Hong Kong and China said that while closing markets during the height of the first outbreak of H7N9 in April may have been costly, it reduced human infections dramatically and should be done again if cases rise as feared. The findings - of a more than 97 percent reduction in the daily number of human cases of the new H7N9 strain after the markets were closed compared with before - should give policymakers confidence that the economic costs of shutting markets is balanced by significant health gains. "(This) is a highly effective intervention to prevent human disease and protect public health," said Benjamin Cowling of Hong Kong University, who led the study and had it published in the Lancet medical journal.
By Jim Finkle BOSTON (Reuters) - The security of the Obama administration's healthcare website was at "high risk" because of lack of testing before it opened for enrollment on October 1, according to a government memorandum reviewed by Reuters on Wednesday. The HealthCare.gov site collects a trove of sensitive data such as social security numbers, email addresses, phone numbers and birth dates that could be used by criminals in an array of schemes. "From a security perspective, the aspects of the system that were not tested due to the ongoing development exposed a level of uncertainty that can be deemed as a high risk," said the memo from Department of Health and Human Services officials James Kerry and Henry Chao. According to the document, the recommendation was approved by Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the lead agency at HHS managing the 2010 Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare.
By Roberta Rampton BOSTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama has steered clear of Wednesday's matchup between the Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals in game six of the World Series during his visit to Boston, partly to avoid being an extra burden on a baseball-mad city. Obama visited Boston to discuss his landmark health insurance law at a time Boston authorities are stretched thin with preparations for a game that gives the Red Sox a chance to win the championship at home for first time in 95 years. "I am well aware that a presidential visit is not the biggest thing going on today in Boston," Obama told a crowd at the city's historic Fanueil Hall, two-and-a-half miles from Fenway Park, where the game will be played.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's embattled top health official declared herself accountable Wednesday for failures of the much-maligned health insurance website as a newly surfaced government memo pointed to security concerns that were laid out just days before its launch.
By P.J. Huffstutter CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co plans to resume sales of the controversial Zilmax animal feed additive in the United States and Canada after it completes an audit of how the product is used, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday. Merck halted sales of the muscle-building drug in August after Tyson Foods Inc. said it would stop accepting Zilmax-fed beef given some cattle were observed arriving for slaughter with signs they were having difficulty walking or moving. Merck has said it stands behind the safety of its product, but the pause added to global concerns over its use. On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Merck's Animal Health unit said that while "it is too early to speculate on when we will resume sales for Zilmax in the U.S. and Canada," Merck was pushing forward with its quality control program to ensure the drug was being properly used.
Top health and fitness apps in this week's iTunes charts include an app for tracking developmental milestones in your baby's first year and yet another app for transforming couch potatoes into 5K runners.
NEW YORK (AP) — Doctors may one day be able to control a patient's HIV infection in a new way: injecting swarms of germ-fighting antibodies, two new studies suggest.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli drug manufacturer Teva Pharmaceuticals Ltd. announced Wednesday its CEO had resigned, following a public uproar over a contentious restructuring plan set to cut thousands of jobs worldwide.
By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After transitioning from a Hollywood heartthrob to a critically acclaimed actor, then fronting a rock band with worldwide success, Jared Leto takes on one of his biggest challenges yet, playing a transgender HIV patient in his return to film. "Dallas Buyers Club," out in U.S. theaters on Friday, is based on a real story. Leto, 41, plays Rayon, a HIV-positive transgender woman who helps homophobic drug addict Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey) smuggle much needed medication not approved in the United States to other AIDS patients. Leto, who rose to fame as a complex teenager on 1990s TV series "My So-Called Life" and has had roles in 1999's "Fight Club," 2000's "Requiem for a Dream" and 2002's "Panic Room," recently focused on being the frontman of the rock band 30 Seconds to Mars.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defending President Barack Obama's much-maligned health care overhaul in Congress, his top health official was confronted Wednesday with a government memo raising new security concerns about the trouble-prone website that consumers are using to enroll.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defending President Barack Obama's much-maligned health care law in Congress, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was confronted Wednesday with a government memo that raised security concerns about the website consumers are using to enroll.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defending President Barack Obama's much-maligned health care law in Congress, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was confronted Wednesday with a government memo that raised security concerns about the website consumers are using to enroll.
"You deserve better. I apologize,” Sebelius said. “I'm accountable to you for fixing these problems."
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's top health care official told Congress on Wednesday that she's responsible for the "debacle" of cascading technical problems that overwhelmed a government website intended to make shopping for health insurance clear and simple.
By Tova Cohen and Steven Scheer TEL AVIV (Reuters) - High-tech entrepreneur Eyal Waldman decided he had had enough of Israeli investors when they told him to choose between his titles of chairman and chief executive at the company he co-founded, Mellanox Technologies. So in August, Waldman delisted the chip designer - Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's sixth-largest company, with a market value at the time of 6 billion shekels ($1.7 billion) - dealing a heavy blow to an ailing bourse that had already seen its chief executive and chairman resign a month earlier. Waldman said the attitude of Israeli institutional investors, who had been empowered by changes to the Securities Law, was suffocating. Since Mellanox delisted, a handful of Tel Aviv's largest companies have threatened to follow suit unless Israel becomes more business friendly.
