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Recent Posts

  • Tennessee Rapist Breaks into Woman’s House Three Times the Same Night to Assault Her June 29, 2018
  • Mentally Ill Man Arrested After Breaking into Retirement Home to Grope a Woman’s Chest June 28, 2018
  • “Syndrome” Author Blake Leibel Sentenced to Life in Prison for the Murder and Torture of Girlfriend June 27, 2018
  • Michigan Dad to Be Sentenced in the Beating Death of 3-Year-Old Infant June 26, 2018
  • Ohio Patrolman Booted from Police After Pulling Over His Daughter and Boyfriend June 26, 2018
  • Utah Mayor Shares Heartwarming Letter of Man Apologizing for Stealing a Stop Sign 75 Years Ago June 25, 2018
  • Mississippi Man Beheaded Mother After A Spat over Credit Cards June 25, 2018

Contract dispute between Blue shield and Sutter Health left thousands searching for health care

January 19, 2015 By Carol Harper

Blue-sutter-health

 

A contract dispute between Sutter Health and Blue shield may leave nearly 280,000 Northern and Central California consumers searching for someplace else to get health care.

Blue shield has already notified more than 139,000 of its customers last week and plans to inform 140,500 more later this month that they should better be prepared to find health care providers outside Sutter Health system. If the contract has not been signed, the customers will have to pay more if they choose to stay.

This means that many of the Blue shield customers could be cut off from Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley and Oakland, San Francisco’s California Pacific Medical Center and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. Depending on their type of plan, many have to find new hospitals and doctors by April and many have to until end of June.

Stephen Lawton of Hercules, who has been seeing the same physician since 1976 said “I don’t want another doctor, and there’s no reason I should have to have another doctor. While the whales fight it out, all of us little minnows get squished.”

Many of the disputes among the insurers and hospitals are resolved without involving the consumers. The last contract between Sutter and Blue Shield expired Dec. 31, and both sides continue to talk.

The battle pits a major not-for-profit health insurer, with profits of $171million on revenue of $10.5billion in 2013, against a formidable opponent, a nonprofit with 23 Northern California hospitals that made $300million in profits on operating revenue of $9.6billion that same year.

Sutter officials blamed Blue shield for the insurer’s proposal reducing payments for health services by what the hospital network says is too much.

Sutter spokesman Bill Gleeson said “Unfortunately, this large and very powerful health insurance company continues to demand substantial cuts in reimbursements that would have a devastating impact on Sutter Health’s ability to meet our patients’ needs,”

While Blue shield lashed back at Sutter, saying the health network charges 18 to 30 percent more than other providers for its services.

Paul Markovich, Blue Shield’s president and chief executive, at a meeting with The Chronicle’s editorial board on Wednesday said “We can’t keep paying at that level and increasing that amount,”

Markovich said he’s drawing a line over one issue: He says Sutter wants a mandatory arbitration clause in the contract that would prevent Blue Shield and self-insured customers, typically large companies that pay their own claims, from suing in open court. A lawsuit against Sutter in April by the United Food and Commercial Workers and its Employer alleging anticompetitive behavior is winding its way through San Francisco Superior Court.

Steven Rousso, principal with HFS Consultants, an Oakland consulting firm for hospitals and clinics, said the tussle comes down to two health care powerhouses duking it out over money.

“It all comes down to the financial terms of the contract. This is a battle of big dogs; there’s no little dog in this fight.” Rousso said.

The customers were really annoyed with the contract dispute among Blue shield and Sutter’s contract right after they signed up for 2015. “Next open season, if there’s no change here and I can’t go to Summit without paying a premium, Kaiser’s looking pretty good,” Van de Naillen said.

Filed Under: Health Tagged With: 2015, Clue shield, consumers, contract, dispute, heath care, Sutter Health, us

US Ends Enhanced Airport Ebola Screening For Travelers From Mali

January 6, 2015 By June Harris

Coast Guard Corpsman checks the temperature of a traveler at Washington Dulles International Airport

Voyagers from Mali will no more face enhanced screening upon landing in the United States, US authorities said on Monday, in a move reflecting the West African country’s gains over Ebola.

Beginning on Tuesday, travelers from Mali won’t need to go to the United States through five particular airports or be subjected to extra screening or checking for the infection, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Bureau of Homeland Security said in an announcement.

Authorities said the last Ebola patient in Mali tested negative on December. 5, and there are no other active cases in the nation, which has seen cases of the ailment as a consequence of the flare-up in adjacent Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Enhanced screening from passengers from those 3 countries are still in operation. Also, any individual who went from Mali and entered the United Stated before Tuesday must be screened for the infection for 21 days, the period it takes for symptoms to appear, the announcement said.

“Following isolated cases of Ebola in Mali would not automatically oblige re-institution of these measures, which are utilized just when there is a danger of prevalent transmission,” authorities said.

US authorities established extra layers of airline traveler screening in October as part of an intensified attempt to stop the spread of the infection. Despite the fact that the impact of the outburst is focused in West Africa, the September death a Liberian man who fell sick in Texas shook Americans.

Filed Under: Health Tagged With: Airport entry screening, CDC, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, outbreak, Sierra Leone, us, West Africa

Keurig Green Mountain Recalled 6.6Mn Coffee Makers Because Of Reported Burn Injuries

December 24, 2014 By Denise Ehrlich

Keurig-Coffeemaker

Gloomy news for coffee enthusiasts!

Keurig Green Mountain recalled around 6.6 million MINI Plus Brewing Systems in the United States and 564,000 in Canada emulating burn reports, as indicated by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The model number is K10 and recalled brewers have an ID number beginning with “31,” as indicated by the safety commission on Tuesday.

The commission reports, “They are single-serve, hot drink brewers and were sold in 13 separate colors,” the commission reports.

What’s the reason? There were around 200 reports of hot water coming out of the brewer made by the Waterbury, Vt. Inc, including 90 reports of burn injuries.

The machines were sold from December 2009 through December 2014 at a price of about $100.

Clients are told to contact Keurig for a free repair of their machine.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: 6.6m, burn injuries, Canada, Keurig Green Mountain, MINI Plus Brewing Systems, us

Prime Pump: Central Banks’ New Push

November 22, 2014 By Cliff Jenkins Scott

Central-banks-in-new-push-Prime-Pump

Two main central banks moved Friday to pump up waning worldwide development, sending stock exchanges towering yet bringing up new issues about the constraints of a 7-years stab to use monetary policy to address economic issues.

The People’s Bank of China affirmed a shock decrease in benchmark loaning and deposit rates, the first cuts since 2012, after other measures to enhance vacillating development missed the mark. Afterwards, Mario Draghi, European Central Bank President said the bank may take new measures to boost up inflation, now close to zero, his strongest flag yet that the ECB is getting closer to purchasing a more extensive swath of eurozone bonds.

The moves came about two weeks after the Bank of Japan said it would increase its own securities-buy program known as quantitative easing, or QE, as the Japanese economy fell into a slump.

After twin steps Friday, half a world apart, sent worldwide stock costs strongly higher, reinforced the US dollar and increased oil prices.

The Shanghai Composite Index climbed 1.4%, while Germany’s DAX file hopped 2.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average completed up 0.51%, and at 17810.06 is presently closed in on the 18000 threshold that has never been exceeded. The Nikkei rose 0.3%.

Among the whirlwind of national bank movement, the dollar was the champ among worldwide currencies, climbing 0.27% against a broad index of other currencies to put it up 9% for the year.

Despite the fact that the moves to simpler cash in Europe and Asia are useful for depositors, they appear with manifold risks. They could propagate or flicker resource bubbles, or stoke an excessive amount of inflation if taken too far. Likewise, they don’t address the structural issues that lawmakers in every economy are stressed to fix.

The steps, especially in Europe, speak to an inconspicuous underwriting of the Federal Reserve’s easy-money methodology to post-crisis economy, yet come as the US central bank moves its low-interest rate strategies. The Fed a month ago finished a six-year trial regarding security buys, and it has started discussing when to begin raising transient interest rates as the US economy enhances, however, those debates are early and rate increases are likely months away, at the earliest.

Worldwide financial shortcoming creates a quandary for the US. If the Fed pulls away from easy money as other central banks increase cash pumping strategies, it could drive up the value of the US dollar, straining US exports. It also may put descending pressure on US inflation and on commodity prices, which are normally denominated in dollars.

A Cornell University Professor and previous International Monetary Fund economist, Eswar Prasad, said those improvements would make it harder for the Fed to progress on rate increments.

The most recent activities propose that strategy creators in the significant economies are becoming more frantic as they stand up to debilitating local prospects, especially when delicate worldwide interest is weighing down costs and keeping inflation at levels numerous central banks consider frighteningly low.

“We can’t be self-satisfied,” said Mr. Draghi in Frankfurt. “We must be extremely watchful that low inflation does not begin infiltrating through the economy in ways that further exacerbate the economic condition and inflation standpoint.”

Yearly inflation was running at 0.4% in the eurozone a month ago, far beneath the ECB’s 2% focus on, an indication of frail primary economic development.

Mr. Draghi’s remarks raised desires the ECB may soon purchase a lot of corporate debt or government bonds of eurozone affiliates. Bond purchasing is expected to hold down long haul interest rates and drive depositors into more hazardous resources for invigorate borrowing, investment and spending. The practice is a defy in Europe, where the central bank confronts confinements on its capacity to buy individual country debt.

Europe and Japan have comparative issues: Flat-to-declining monetary yield that is pulling inflation down underneath 2% targets. Also, China sees a descending pressure on consumer prices and absolute devaluation in its industrial segment, indications of an economy losing impetus, but from a much speedier development pace.

The Fed chased low-rate, QE experimentation for about 5 years. It pushed US fleeting rates to close to zero in December 2008 and guaranteed to keep them there for long stretches. Persuaded that wasn’t sufficient, it then propelled a few rounds of bond buys that helped push its portfolio of securities, credits and other resources from less than $900 billion to more than $4 trillion.

The approaches didn’t result in the hyperinflation or evident resource/asset bubbles that a few officials and commentators dreaded. The way that the US economy is currently showing improvement over Europe’s or Japan’s proposes the strategies helped enhance development, despite the fact that the level of backing is a matter of incredible discrepancy among economists.

A few spectators have questions about whether easy money strategies will work now in the spots approving them.

“Central banks have done about as much as they can,” said Liaquat Ahamed, creator of “Masters of Finance,” which reported the mistakes, which the worldwide central bankers made before and amid the Great Depression.

He said, Japan is loaded by an exceedingly incompetent domestic economy, and Europe by a fragmented and brittle banking system. Pumping modest credit into these economies won’t straightforwardly settle those issues. “They may be simply replicating the US when they have distinctive issues,” he said. “The world has depended excessively on central banks.”

In the US, Fed authorities have been disappointed that they were consistently depended on to goad development, while the Obama administration and Congress quarreled over fiscal policies that impede development in the short-run without tending to anticipate long-run budget deficiencies.

China is an alternate story. In developed economies, where development is slower, fleeting interest rates have as of now been pushed to almost zero and central banks have engaged unconventional measures to enhance growth. Rates in China are higher, leaving the central bank more room to cut them if it wants to stimulate borrowing and spending.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: Bonds, central banks, China, ECB, Eswar Prasad, Europe, European Central Bank, Eurozone bonds, Fed, Inflation, Japan, Liaquat Ahamed, Mario Draghi, Obama Administration, People's Bank of China, Prime Pump, us, US dollar

Spooky GHOST LIGHT exposes DEAD GALAXIES torn apart over 6 Billion years

November 1, 2014 By Denise Ehrlich

Spooky-Ghost-Light-revealed-by-Hubble-astronomers

Recently Astro Boffins have observed a dull, ghostly glow of stars belched from ancient galaxies which, NASA revealed were gravitationally ripped apart several billion years ago.

The US and European Space Agency’s Hubble telescope have spotted the frenzied, straying stars. The Hubble telescope is the only instrument capable of making such an observation because of its infra-red sensitivity to extremely dim light, NASA said.

NASA said, “The chaos happened 4 billion light-years away, inside an enormous collection of nearly 500 galaxies named Pandora’s Cluster or Abell 2744 (which weighs roughly more than 4 trillion solar masses).”

Moreover, “the scattered stars are no longer bound to any one galaxy, and float generously between galaxies in the cluster. Hubble astronomers observed the light from the orphaned stars and collected forensic proof that proposes as many as 6 galaxies were frayed to pieces inside the cluster over a period of 6 billion years,” NASA revealed.

On the basis of computational modeling of the gravitational dynamics among galaxies in a cluster, researchers believe that the galaxies may have been as big as our Milky Way. The Astro Boffins revealed that the combined light of about 200 billion evicted stars added nearly 10% of the cluster’s brightness.

Mireia Montes of the The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias said, “The results are in good agreement with what has been predicted to happen inside massive galaxy clusters.”

Filed Under: Science Tagged With: 4 billion light years, Abell 2744, Astro Boffins, European Space Agency, galaxies, Hubble Telescope, Mireia Montes, nasa, Pandora’s Cluster, spooky ghost, us

Secret U.S Spacecraft Returning Home Today After 2 Years & Finishing 3rd Secret Mission

October 14, 2014 By June Harris

airfore-space-plane-return

The space craft X-37 B will return back to earth this week possibly on Tuesday. The Orbital Test vehicle was on a secret mission and stayed in the orbit for an unprecedented period of 671 days. After its 22 months stay, the plane will touch down in California at Vandenberg Air force Base. Preparations are being made in order to land the reusable Space Craft safely. It possesses radars sensors and cameras like other conventional spy satellites.

It was launched in to the space on 12th of December, 2012. It is equipped with sensors which have the tendency to alter after coming back to Earth as per the requirement of different missions. This tendency make the space craft a cheaper option than satellite as those satellites cost billions of dollars and can be used for one time only as they cannot be reconfigured and its disposal is inevitable after a single mission.

30th Space Wing commander Col. Keith Baits said, on Friday, in a press statement said, “Team Vandenberg stands ready to implement safe landing operations for the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, the third time for this unique mission”.

Previously it was launched in April 2010 for its first mission. But the mission has never been revealed to the world. It is also being speculated that its mission may be the stealing and snatching of foreign satellites or to hit their enemies as orbital bomber. Nothing can be said on confirmed basis until U.S Air force comes in open to reveal its mission.

Filed Under: Science Tagged With: 2 years, after 2 years, home, returning, secret, spacecraft, spacecraft returning, us

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