Biz.PeanutButterNews.com

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — More than 1 million people could lose their jobless benefits and health insurance subsidy in March if Congress doesn’t act fast.

When it returns from the President’s Day recess on Monday, the Senate will have one week to extend the deadlines to apply for federal unemployment benefits and the COBRA health insurance subsidy. Currently, the jobless have until Feb. 28 to sign up.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

(Money Magazine) — Last month was open-enrollment season, and my wife and I got an unpleasant surprise. For 2010 we’re looking at an annual health-insurance premium that’s $1,600 higher than it is now, plus higher deductibles. Instead of flat co-pays, we’ll pay co-insurance, a share of the total costs. And this is with a plan provided by a Fortune 500 company that still spends big bucks on relatively generous benefits.

You may well be in the same boat. According to human-resources consultant Hewitt Associates, the average large-company employee will pay $4,023 in premiums and out-of-pocket costs next year — 10% more than in 2009 and more than three times the level in 2001.

Full Story at mcall.com

As the holiday shopping season kicks into high gear this week, it’s a good a time to ask: Are the toys we’re buying safer than the ones a couple years ago, when millions of playthings were recalled because of high lead levels and other hazards?

The world’s largest toy manufacturer, Mattel Inc., says yes, as do federal regulators.

But after spending a few hours roaming the Toy District in downtown Los Angeles, I’m not so sure.

In one shop, I found a package of brightly colored rattles and pacifiers manufactured in China. The package depicts babies in cribs playing with the contents, which include small pieces that could break or be bitten off.

It says in large print that the rattles and pacifiers are for ages 6 months and up.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — As the H1N1 swine flu virus starts its second major sweep through the U.S., business owners are bracing for the impact of a worse-than-usual flu season on their workforces. That’s reviving debate on a contentious issue: What kind of sick leave should companies offer employees — and should it be mandated by law?

“On the one hand, you have all of our top officials saying, ‘Do the responsible thing. If you’re sick, stay home,’” says Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group that is pushing for paid sick leave laws. “You have advice from the Centers for Disease Control on exactly how many days you should stay home, and how many days we need to keep kids at home. And at the same time, we have a country where almost half the workforce doesn’t have a single paid sick day.”

Full Story atmoney.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Some 5,000 patients suddenly found themselves without an ob/gyn last November when Dr. Tara Wah closed her practice in Tallahassee, Fla.

Wah, 55, informed her patients in a letter that she could “no longer afford to make ends meet.”

After 24 years, “I’m working longer hours than ever,” she wrote. “Insurance payments for patient care have stayed virtually the same for the last 15 years, while the cost of doing business, including health insurance, staff salaries and supplies have risen.”

The rising cost of malpractice insurance, particularly for her specialty, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Full Story at msnbc.com

WASHINGTON – The poverty rate among older Americans could be nearly twice as high as the traditional 10 percent level, according to a revision of a half-century-old formula for calculating medical costs and geographic variations in the cost of living.

The National Academy of Science’s formula, which is gaining credibility with public officials including some in the Obama administration, would put the poverty rate for Americans 65 and over at 18.6 percent, or 6.8 million people, compared with 9.7 percent, or 3.6 million people, under the existing measure. The original government formula, created in 1955, doesn’t take account of rising costs of medical care and other factors.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

(Fortune Small Business) — Congressional efforts to revamp the country’s healthcare system have sparked a fierce debate within the small business community, pitting owners who believe that reform would curb rising healthcare costs against neighbors who fear higher taxes. All sides of the debate were on display this summer as legislators met with their constituents around the country.

“It’s going to cost me more money,” fretted Iowa entrepreneur Joe Butler at an August roundtable that Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, held in Polk City, Iowa.

Butler owns an engineering consulting firm and hopes to bring his contract workers on staff within the next few months. “Until it all gets settled and I know exactly what’s going to happen,” he said, “I’m just kind of taking it slow.”

Full Story at money.cnn.com

That’s half of the $2.2 trillion the United States spends on health care each year, according to the most recent data from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute.

What counts as waste? The report identified 16 different areas in which health care dollars are squandered. But in talking to doctors, nurses, hospital groups and patient advocacy groups, six areas totaling nearly $500 billion stood out as issues to be dealt with in the health care reform debate.

Full Story at Money Features.blogs.money.cnn.com

There’s no question about it: When you go to a doctor nowadays, you’re more likely to be diagnosed with something, and sent home with a prescription, than you were a generation ago. A much tougher question to answer is whether or not these new diagnoses, and new tests and treatments that come along with them, are actually worth all the money they cost you and/or your insurance company.

As Darshak Sanghavi points out in an interesting piece in Slate, there are certainly plenty of people who think that they aren’t.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The definition of “rich” may be going up should lawmakers choose to impose extra taxes on the wealthy to pay for health reform.

Three committees writing the lead House bill have called for an additional tax to be imposed on income above $280,000 for singles and $350,000 for married couples. The so-called surtax would run as high as 5.4% on income over $1 million.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., this week began pushing for the surtax to apply only to singles making more than $500,000 and couples making more than $1 million.

President Obama also gave a nod to raising the threshold

Full Story At money.cnn.com

LOS ANGELES (Fortune) — – One of the executives whose hapless job it was to determine whether Michael Jackson really had it in him to mount a 50-show concert gig in London slated to begin next month told me a few weeks ago that Jackson was surprisingly robust.

What was clear, the executive recalled, was that Jackson was motivated not just by financial gain or rehabilitating his career — though he had dug himself quite a hole in both areas over the years. More than that, Jackson was doing it for his three young kids and his wish for them to see him back on top of his game — more “King of Pop” than the “Wacko Jacko” the tabloids had branded him (with considerable justification).

Full Story At CNNMoney.com

LONDON (CNNMoney.com) — U.S. stock futures sank Monday as investors worried about the economic impact of a global swine flu outbreak.

At 4:58 a.m. ET, Dow Jones industrial average, Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nadaq 100 futures were sharply lower.

Futures measure current index values against perceived future performance and offer an indication of how markets may open when trading begins in New York.

Swine flu outbreak: The World Health Organization has called the outbreak of swine flu a “public health emergency of international concern.”