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Health care costs are expected to increase by 10.6% into side by side year, the smallest increase in six years, according to a report by Aon Consulting Worldwide, the AP/Baltimore Sun reports. For the report, study managing director Bill Sharon, a senior vice president of the United States at Aon, and colleagues surveyed nigh 70 U.S. health insurers regarding their 12-month evaluation periods origin this twelvemonth between April and September. According to the AP/Sun, costs go along to rise to maintain pace with increasing affected role demand for services, necessities for an aging U.S. population and higher prescription drug and technology costs.
The 10.6% projection is slightly smaller than Aon's 2007 forecast of 10.9% and is far lower than 2002 estimates of more than 16% (AP/Baltimore Sun, 8/12). However, the health care growth rate inactive outstrips the national rate of inflation, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Aon officials aforesaid that employers could reduce the increment rate of their wellness care costs by three to four percentage points by instituting cost containment strategies, such as health and disease management programs (Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, 8/12).
According to the AP/Sun, experts aver the written report indicates that nationwide efforts to reduce health costs have been effective. Sharon said that employer health programs stimulate helped reduce health care cost increment. In addition, he aforesaid that efforts by health care providers also have contributed to curbing growth. Robert Zirkelbach of America's Health Insurance Plans aforesaid that health insurers have contributed by enacting disease management programs and encouraging plan enrollees to manipulation generic drugs instead of more expensive, brand-name drugs.
Health care monetary value growth has declined each year since 2002, according to Aon forecasts. However, Sharon said that the reductions in growth make gotten littler each twelvemonth, signaling that current cost-containment strategies are reaching their maximum potential (AP/Baltimore Sun, 8/12).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You bathroom view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for electronic mail delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.
Saturday, 23 August 2008
Wednesday, 13 August 2008
Thug or Tame? Rappers Stray From Street
It used to be that you could take the rapper extinct of the hood merely not the hood out of the rapper.
But what happens when the rapper leaves the streets of Los Angeles for the gold-plated paths of Bollywood?
(ABC News)More Photos
Snoop Dogg, the West Coast doorknocker who ran with the Crips crew and served time for selling cocain, traded his baggy jeans for a slim-fit kurta and his cornrows for a diamond-studded turban to appear in "Singh Is Kinng," a Bollywood moving-picture show that scarce hit theaters in limited release. He raps on the film's title cut, spitting lines like "Yo, what up. This Big Snoop Dogg. Represent the Punjabi," and "What up to all the ladies hanging kO'd in Mumbai."
What up, so: In a video posted online, Snoop said he'd like to follow up the "Singh Is Kinng" track, already bumping in bars and clubs crosswise India, with a tour.
"Snoop Dogg has a portion of fans in India and I love 'em right back," he said. "Get ready for me."
Of course, Snoop's far from the first-class honours degree rapper to look extraneous the hip-hop community to raise his pop culture quotient. Diddy pioneered that trend.
Among Diddy's host of ventures: developing reality series for MTV and VH1, endorsing high-end Ciroc vodka, starring in the Broadway production-cum-Emmy-nominated TV movie "A Raisin in the Sun" and putting out a line of fragrances, the latest of which will be called, simply, "I Am King."
Jay-Z followed in his footsteps. He co-owns the chain of 40/40 Clubs and the New Jersey Nets and latterly sealed a game-changing $150 million handle with concert promoter Live Nation, which promises to finance his entertainment ventures for the next 10 years, however vast they may be.
But some of the up-to-the-minute partnerships 'tween rappers and pop culture seem downright bizarre. Snoop Dogg rapping in a Bollywood film and starring in an E! reality show? LL Cool J designing a kids article of clothing line for Sears? Aren't these guys supposed to be thug?
Apparently, it actually ain't null but a G thang -- that's G as in august, not mobster. With the recording manufacture unsure exactly how to monetize music, rappers demand to go where there's money to be made and a market to be tapped, whether it's the children's clothing department, the South Asian subcontinent or reality TV, street cred be damned.
"It's very much a sign of how times have changed in the hip-hop world," said James Auburn, a hip-hop historian. "MC Hammer did a lot of product endorsements. He was considered a sellout and not true to his base, merely now rappers can startle their have clothing lines and make all the money in the cosmos. It's
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
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