HealthCare.gov, the website for health insurance under President Barack Obama's health care law, has been revamped as its second enrollment season approaches. But things are still complicated, since other major provisions of the Affordable Care Act are taking effect for the first time. A look at some of the website and program changes ahead. Old: 76 online screens to muddle through in insurance application. New: 16 screens — for the basic application that most new customers will use. But about a third of those new customers are expected to have more complicated cases, and how they'll fare remains to be seen.
Carondelet Health, a part of the Ascension hospital chain, said Tuesday that it had signed a definitive agreement to sell its two Kansas City area hospitals to Prime Healthcare Services. St. Joseph Medical Center in Kansas City and St. Mary's Medical Center in Blue Springs will become part of the for-profit Prime hospital chain, subject to regulatory approval. The terms of the sale, originally announced in July, remain confidential. Three Carondelet Health long-term-care facilities — Carondelet Manor, Villa Saint Joseph and St. Mary's Manor — and the two hospitals' charitable foundations will remain part of Ascension and are not included in the sale agreement.
A year ago, the launch of HealthCare.gov ushered in our country's most significant attempt to overhaul the healthcare system, expand access, and control costs. A recent report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) suggests that these efforts have been partly successful, noting that healthcare spending growth in the United States slowed to just 3.6% in 2013. But these broad, national numbers leave out a crucial part of the story. For large, private employers -- the ones who provide health coverage for roughly half of all Americans -- costs are still increasing. Premiums keep going up, and individuals and enterprises alike are footing ever larger bills.
This last year has been brutal in terms of breaches involving the theft of credit and debit card data. Oh sure, it's been tough for retailers, but how has it been for criminals? With such a glut of card data on the carder market, the prices are being gutted. How are thieves supposed to turn a profit in light of this oversupply? Fear not, gentle reader! There is plenty of valuable data out there for an enterprising miscreant to sell to make the payment on his or her beloved BMW. And it looks like they'll be coming after your medical data next.
Google is testing a new feature that will let web users talk to a physician via video chat without leaving home. The virtual consultations will be offered via Google's Helpouts service, which launched last year as a marketplace where experts can create, post and sell access to pre-recorded and live how-to and training videos, and for the moment at least, the tests are small-scale and restricted to the U.S. In typical Google fashion, the new feature went completely under the radar until someone on Reddit stumbled upon it over the weekend. But since the mainstream media has picked up on the story, Google has offered more background on the idea.
Health officials scrambled to learn how a Dallas health care worker caught Ebola at a Texas hospital where she had cared for a man who died from the deadly virus. The woman was identified Monday as nurse Nina Pham, her family confirmed. Pham, 26, became infected while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient to die in the USA. Pham, who graduated from Texas Christian University's nursing program in 2010, is the first person known to contract the disease in the USA.