Monday, April 15, 2013

Monday Afternoon LinkFest

■ As we've previously noted, The ObamaTax continues to kill jobs. Now, some folks who used to work at the movies will have to settle for just attending them (if they can even afford to):

"The nation's largest movie theater chain has cut the hours of thousands of employees, saying in a company memo that [ObamaTax] requirements are to blame ... Regal, which had revenue of $2.8 billion in 2011, is the latest company to respond this way to the Affordable Health Care Act's requirement that employees at companies of a certain size who work more than 30 hours per week be provided health coverage"

But they won't be the last. Count on it.


We generally discuss genetic issues as they relate to insurance, but this story is intriguing on its own:

"The Supreme Court seemed worried Monday about the idea of companies patenting genes that can be found inside the human body, as it heard arguments in a case that could profoundly reshape U.S. medical research and the fight against diseases like breast and ovarian cancer."

Turns out (and who knew?!) that the Patent Office has been "awarding patents on human genes for almost 30 years." Really? I don't get it.

This case, though, may be a bridge too far. It seems that Myriad Genetics is looking to patent "two genes linked to increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer," and some some folks aren't too crazy about the idea.


Finally, this little gem from FoIB Holly R:

"President Barack Obama's budget would raise her Medicare premiums and those of other comfortably retired seniors, adding to a surcharge that already costs some 2 million beneficiaries hundreds of dollars a year each."

Ooops.

In a variation on "bracket creep," millions of Medicare beneficiaries face increased premiums and cost-sharing because of inflation. Kind of a double whammy; as New Mexico resident Sheila Pugach (a retired city worker) puts it, "[I'm] being penalized for prudence, dinged for saving diligently."

Sorry to tell you this, Sheila, but you ain't seen nothin' yet.

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