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Since making their debut in 1946, baby boomers have been a major force for social change in the United States. Their epic numbers and independent spirit have influenced everything from politics to pop culture, transformed the make-up of the American family and workforce, reshaped societal norms, and created our modern notion of consumerism. Boomers have redefined each phase of life, and they’re expected to do the same as they age. Last year, the oldest boomers turned 65, marking the start of monumental growth in the senior population.

Earlier this month, I participated in a panel discussion about what the aging of the baby boomers will mean for our country. The discussion, which included Arianna Huffington and a few other experts on aging, was part of the Aging in America Conference, the annual meeting of the American Society on Aging.

With 77 million people in their ranks, boomers are expected to intensify many of the challenges already facing our country, and much of the discussion among my fellow panelists focused on those challenges.

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rhonda-l-randall-do/baby-boomers-redefining-aging_b_1448949.html

Health-care players are finding that crunching the numbers can pay off in both better care and lower costs

By SHARA TIBKEN

Under pressure to do more with less, insurers, pharmacy benefit managers and health-care providers are all pushing data analysis to new heights.

Insurers have been crunching numbers for years to figure out which patients are most likely to generate high costs. Now other groups are gauging probabilities of relapses, and the likelihood of a patient’s not taking his or her medicine. Using models that draw on massive troves of medical and other data, some are also focusing on seemingly healthy individuals, trying to prevent problems before they occur.

Full Article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304692804577285821129341442.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

WASHINGTON — Baby boomers will transform aging in America over the next decade, as the generation faces both opportunities and potential crises, according to a panel of experts at the Aging in America conference on April 1.

By 2020, the population of Americans age 55 to 64 will have grown an unprecedented 73 percent since 2000, noted moderator Ken Dychtwald, president and CEO of the consulting firm AgeWave. “Anyone who thinks [the boomers] will turn 65 and be the same as the generation before are missing out on the last 60 years of sociology,” he said. “The boomers change every stage of life through which they migrate.”

Arianna Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of AOL Huffington Post Media Group; Dr. Rhonda Randall, chief medical officer of United Healthcare; author and columnist Gail Sheehy; and professor Fernando Torres-Gil of the UCLA Center for Policy Research on Aging made up the rest of the panel.

Historically, Americans led “linear” lives because so many only lived

Full article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/02/aging-in-america-baby-boomers-arianna-huffington_n_1397686.html

Once a year, employees of the Swiss Village Retirement Community in Berne, Ind., have a checkup that will help determine how much they pay for health coverage. Those who don’t smoke, aren’t obese and whose blood pressure and cholesterol fall below specific levels get to shave as much as $2,000 off their annual health insurance deductibles.

At Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle, a real estate firm, workers can earn up to $300 in cash for having a physical and hitting certain medical goals, or completing health coaching programs.

Gone are the days of just signing up for health insurance and hoping you don’t have to use it. Now, more employees are being asked to roll up their sleeves for medical tests — and to exercise, participate in disease-management programs and quit smoking to qualify for hundreds, even thousands of dollars’ worth of premium or deductible discounts.

Proponents say such plans offer people a financial incentive to make healthier choices and manage chronic conditions such as obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, which are driving up health care costs in the USA. Even so, studies of the effect of such policies on lifestyle changes are inconclusive. And advocates for people with chronic health conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes, fear that tying premium costs directly to test results could lead to discrimination.

Employee reaction has also been mixed. “It’s an invasion of privacy,” says Bradley Seff, 54, a court reporter who in August 2010 filed a lawsuit against his employer, Broward County, Fla., for introducing such a plan.

Nonetheless, such plans appear to be the wave of the future. Faced with crippling health care costs, the number of employers embracing such programs inched up from 49% in 2010 to 54% last year — and more say they expect to do so soon, according to a survey by consultants Aon Hewitt. Big-name participants include insurer UnitedHealthcare, car rental firm Hertz, postage meter maker Pitney Bowes and media owner Gannett, owner of USA TODAY. More employers are expected to adopt them starting in 2014, when the health law — if the Supreme Court upholds it — would allow them to offer larger incentives or penalties.

Full Article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/story/2012-04-01/employee-health-incentives/53932628/1

WASHINGTON BUREAU – Florida has shut down implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) as a result of a recent federal court ruling declaring the law to be unconstitutional.

Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said Tuesday at a meeting of the Florida Health Insurance Advisory Board (FHIAB)that PPACA, a major component of the federal Affordable Care Act package, “is not now in effect in Florida.”

McCarty said he is temporarily suspending an application for a waiver or adjustment of new health insurance medical loss ratios.

“We are going to take stock and see what our options are,” McCarty said.

McCarty said he told Jay Angoff, director of the HHS Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, that Florida would not be spending any of the funds it had been allocated to implement the insurance exchange program.

He said at the meeting that he had concerns about possible inappropriate federal interference with implementation of the exchanges in Connecticut, and “yesterday’s decision just made it a cinch.”

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, R, said, “We’re not going to spend a lot of time and money with regard to trying to get ready to implement that until we know exactly what is going to happen…. And I hope and I believe that either it will be declared unconstitutional or it will be repealed.”

Normally, under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a judge’s ruling cannot be enforced for 14 days after entry of judgment.

In theory, if the federal government proceeds with implementing PPACA without seeking a stay, a PPACA opponent could ask a federal court to cite U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for contempt of court.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, the Pensacola, Fla., who declared PPACA to be unconstitutional Monday, compared the law to “a finely crafted watch” in which there are “too many moving parts” for him to “dissect out the proper from the improper, and the able-to-stand-alone from the unable-to-stand-alone.”

Full article: http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2011/02/02/florida-stops-implementing-ppaca

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) came under heavy fire at a hearing today before a House health panel, with witnesses calling the law unconstitutional and saying it is an inappropriate subsidy for health insurers and the insured.

Witnesses said the legislation will raise employment costs when fully implemented in 2014 and that the “individual mandate is not a tax because its primary purpose is to punish, not to raise revenue.”

Ironically, the only PPACA supporter to testify at the hearing cited the 1944 Supreme Court case, United States v. South-Eastern Underwriters Ass’n.
The 1944 decision prompted Congress to enact the McCarran-Ferguson Act.

That law reserves insurance regulation to the states. “It is common ground on all sides of the ACA litigation that the Commerce Clause gives Congress broad authority to regulate insurance,” stated Neil S. Siegel a professor of law and political science at the Duke University Law School.

“It is thus also undisputed in the litigation that Congress has the constitutional authority to guarantee access to health insurance in the ACA by prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions, canceling insurance absent fraud, charging higher premiums based on medical history, and imposing lifetime limits on benefits,” Siegal said.

The hearing, the Individual and Employee Mandates in the Democrats’ Health Care Law, was held by the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee.
The panel is chaired by Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif.
Critics of the law included Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network.

She said the Obama administration’s expansive interpretation of its authority in the PPACA “goes against 200 years of history and all Supreme Court precedent.”

continued: http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2012/03/29/employer-mandate-under-fire?utm_source=HCRW&utm_medium=eNL&utm_campaign=LifeHealthPro_eNLs

Contact David Doerges, 727-542-8686 for Group Health Values

One of the most popular and little-questioned meme’s in the financial world is that health care stocks will benefit from an aging baby boomer population. The idea is that boomers will need health care and will spend whatever is necessary to extend their longevity and quality of life.

Following the boomers as an investment strategy has become a study in demographics ever since that generation was first defined by Landon Jones in his 1980 book Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation. I’ve written about this demographic’s impact on the U.S. economy and financial markets many times, specifically, its effect on the insurance sector.

In short, as the flat treasury yield curve forces down investment returns for insurance companies, it will force premiums to rise to offset that loss. As the costs of insurance premiums rise, individuals will have to reduce consumption of insurance products.

There are two fundamental kinds of insurance: mandatory and discretionary. Mandatory insurance is property and casualty insurance; for most people, this means home and auto. Life and health insurance are discretionary. It is logical to anticipate that as the cost of home and auto insurance rises (and there is little that those consumers can do to mitigate this), consumption of life and health insurance will decrease to balance cash flow requirements at the margin.

Aggravating this issue is the fact that the generation behind the boomers is about 40% its size, which will increase the competition for new clients in the life and health sector. This will also increase mergers among competitors.

The germane issue is the derivative impact of reduced insurance on the consumption of health care services in general. Individuals reducing their health care coverage or having it reduced for them by their employers are adding self-insurance coverage as a result. That will increasingly absorb the financial risk of incurring the expenses for health care personally and individually. These costs will be borne in one of two ways, the most obvious being financial. What they save on premiums will be more than offset in the event they decide to pay out of pocket for corrective health care treatment. The less obvious cost — but very important for investors in health care stocks — is the cost to the health of an individual who forgoes care altogether.

Unfortunately, this is a very real and tragic possibility, regardless of whether or not the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is ultimately ruled as being constitutional by the Supreme Court later this year.

Full Article: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/whats-ailing-health-sector-222707321.html

Losses mount from scams targeting older Americans.

See article: http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2012/03/06/aging-in-america-scammers-vs-seniors?t=boomer-market&utm_source=SeniorMarketInsider&utm_medium=eNL&utm_campaign=LifeHealthPro_eNLs

March 14, 2012.

A new report shows that health care companies received a greater percentage (37 percent) of angel investment dollars than startups from any other industry in 2011.

Within the health care sector, medical devices dominated angel investment. Sixty percent of health care investments went to medical devices and equipment, far exceeding pharmaceuticals, drugs and biotechnology, which received about 21 percent of all health care dollars.

The data from the report is based on 573 deals that total $873 million in investment dollars. The so-called “Halo Report” was produced by the Angel Resource Institute, Silicon Valley Bank and CB Insights.

Why Health Care?

“The importance of the health care sector to angel investors stems in part from the fact that angels typically are more comfortable investing in areas in which they have expertise, and several angel investors are prominent former health care executives,” said Anand Sanwal, CEO of CB Insights.

More Information
Read the full MedCity news article here:
http://www.medcitynews.com/2012/03/healthcare-drew-more-angel-investment-than-any-other-industry-last-year/

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