January 30, 2013
By David Beasley
ATLANTA | Tue Jan 29, 2013 3:07pm EST
Jan 29 (Reuters) – The flu isn’t the only illness adults should be immunized against, U.S. health officials said on Tuesday, as a new study found current adult vaccination rates in the country “unacceptably low.”
The report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concluded that a “substantial increase” in adult vaccinations is needed to prevent diseases including pneumonia, tetanus, diphtheria, hepatitis, shingles and whooping cough.
“Far too few adults are getting vaccinated against these important diseases, and we need to do more,” said Dr. Howard Koh, an assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
In 2011, there were 37,000 cases of . . . to finish the article click here.
January 22, 2013
Jerry Geisel
Employers will not face massive penalties mandated by the health care reform law if they do not offer coverage to all their full-time employees, according to newly proposed Internal Revenue Service regulations.
The massive $2,000-per-full-time-employee penalty will not apply so long as employers offer coverage to at least 95% of their full-time employees and their dependents up to age 26, the IRS said.
Those eagerly awaited regulations, which were issued last week, end more than a year and a half of uncertainty involving a health care reform law provision of crucial importance to employers.
$2,000 penalty
Read literally, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act imposes, effective in 2014, a penalty of up to $2,000 per full-time employee on employers with at least 50 employee even if just one full-time employee is not offered coverage, is eligible for a federal premium subsidy, and used the subsidy to buy coverage in a public health insurance exchange.
That prospect alarmed employers. Without regulatory flexibility, Click Here to continue article.
