March 29, 2010 at 10:44 a.m.
Filed under:
Autos,
Health care,
Retirement,
Unions
Associated Press | The United Auto Workers union is hoping to raise at least $1.3 billion for its retiree health care trust fund by selling all of its 362 million warrants for Ford Motor Co. stock.
The trust will auction the warrants, which were issued in December 2009 as part of contract talks with the union, starting at 8 a.m. Tuesday, Ford said Monday in a statement. The automaker and union agreed to set up the trust to help Ford remove retiree health care costs from its books while it was in financial trouble in 2007.
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March 29, 2010 at 9:54 a.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Politics
From Business Insider | With companies like Caterpillar and Deere estimating that they will see a combined $250 million in charges because of the health care reform bill, the White House is ratcheting up its response. On March 25, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke posted an entry on the White House blog, writing, “When taken as a whole, the bill will reduce premiums and increase business competitiveness in the U.S.”
Get the full story: businessinsider.com.
March 26, 2010 at 1:46 p.m.
Filed under:
Chicago executives,
Health care
By Bruce Japsen | Hospira
Inc. chief executive Christopher Begley was awarded stock, bonus and
salary of more than $5.6 million last year, the Lake Forest-based
hospital products maker said in its annual proxy statement filed this
afternoon.
Begley’s salary rose 2 percent to $1.05 million from $1.03 million in
2008. Meanwhile, his bonus more than doubled to $2.1 million last year
compared to $976,740 in 2008.
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March 26, 2010 at 1:43 p.m.
Filed under:
Government,
Health care,
Taxes
Associated Press | AT&T Inc. said Friday it will take a $1 billion non-cash charge in the first quarter related to the health care overhaul.
AT&T’s charge is the largest announced so far. Earlier this week,
AK Steel Corp., Caterpillar Inc., Deere & Co. and Valero Energy
announced similar accounting charges, saying the health care law that
President Barack Obama signed Tuesday will raise their expenses.
AT&T
President and CEO Randall Stephenson today in Las Vegas.(AP Photo/Isaac Brekken)
AT&T said the charge is to reflect the change of the tax treatment
of Medicare subsidies. Companies say the health care overhaul will make
a subsidy that companies receive for retiree drug coverage taxable in
2011.
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March 25, 2010 at 10:44 a.m.
Filed under:
Construction,
Health care,
Manufacturing
Dow Jones Newswires | Caterpillar Inc. said it will take a $100 million charge to earnings this quarter to reflect taxes stemming from the newly enacted U.S. health-care legislation.
Deere & Co., the biggest U.S. maker of farm equipment, said
Thursday that changes to the health care law signed into law this week
will raise related costs this year by $150 million and became the
second major company in as many days to say it would take a charge for
fiscal 2010.
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March 23, 2010 at 11:20 a.m.
Filed under:
Advertising/Marketing,
Health care,
Litigation,
Retail
By Wailin Wong | Deerfield-based pharmacy chain Walgreen Co. will pay nearly $6 million in a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over charges of deceptive advertising for its “Wal-Born” dietary supplements.
The FTC already settled cases with CVS and Rite Aid last year over the same issue. The agency also settled in 2008 with Airborne Health Inc., the maker of the Airborne supplements on which the Wal-Born products were modeled. Advertising for these supplements used “baseless claims that (they) could prevent colds, fight germs and boost the immune system,” the FTC said in a statement.
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March 22, 2010 at 3:39 p.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
M&A,
Pharmaceuticals
By Wailin Wong |
Abbott Laboratories has completed its $123 million purchase of Starlims
Technologies Ltd., a company that specializes in analyzing laboratory
data.
Abbott announced the deal in December. The North Chicago-based drug and
medical-device company said the acquisition will bolster its position in
laboratory informatics, or managing “the increasing amount of data
generated in laboratories.” Starlims makes Web-based software
applications that store, retrieve and analyze this data, Abbott said.
Shares of Abbott rose 0.8 percent to $53.87 on Monday.
March 22, 2010 at 1:51 p.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Litigation,
Politics
Associated Press | Gov. Pat Quinn says Illinois won’t try to
block the health care reform that Congress has passed.
Quinn on Monday said Illinois embraces the reforms, unlike other states.
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March 22, 2010 at 12:06 p.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Pharmaceuticals,
Stock activity
Associated Press | Health stocks lifted the market Monday following House approval of an overhaul bill that would extend insurance to millions. Drug maker Pfizer Inc. rose 32 cents to $17.23, while insurer Aetna Inc. rose 38 cents to $34.84.
Investors had expected the health care bill would pass the House, but the approval late Sunday removed uncertainty about the rules that would govern the industry. A companion bill now goes back to the Senate. The changes could have far-reaching effects on health insurers and drug makers.
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March 20, 2010 at 1:25 p.m.
Filed under:
Government,
Health care
By Bruce Japsen |
Another large Chicago-based health care lobby, the American Hospital
Association today endorsed the Democratic health reform bill as
President Barack Obama and leaders in the U.S. House push to win over
undecided House members who will vote on the bill as early as Sunday.
Even though hospitals face reductions in payments from the federal
Medicare health insurance program for the elderly under the proposed
legislation, these facilities say the bill will extend coverage to 32
million people who have no medical care coverage.
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March 19, 2010 at 12:17 p.m.
Filed under:
Government,
Health care,
Politics
By Bruce Japsen
| The American Medical Association this afternoon endorsed the Democratic health reform bill as President Barack Obama and leaders in the U.S. House push to win over undecided House members who will vote on the bill this weekend.
“The pending bill is imperfect but…we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” said Dr. James Rohack, president of the Chicago-based national doctor group. “The status quo is simply not acceptable.”
The AMA represents a quarter million U.S. physicians.
March 19, 2010 at 11:09 a.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Pharmaceuticals
Zocor on the shelves of Walgreen’s. (Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune)
Associated Press | The Food and Drug Administration says the highest available dose of the
cholesterol drug Zocor can cause muscle damage as well as severe and
potentially lethal kidney damage.
The agency says statin drugs like Zocor are known to cause muscle damage
in some patients, but the risk is more severe when patients are taking
80 milligram doses of Zocor. The risks include rhabdomyolysis, a form of
muscle damage that can lead to kidney damage or failure, and death.
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March 19, 2010 at 7:10 a.m.
Filed under:
Construction,
Economy,
Government,
Health care,
Politics
A worker at Caterpillar’s plant in Mossville, Ill. (José Moré/Chicago Tribune)
Dow Jones Newswires | Caterpillar Inc. said the health-care
overhaul legislation being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives would increase the company’s health-care costs by more than $100 million in the first year alone.
In a letter Thursday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, Caterpillar urged lawmakers to vote against the plan “because of the substantial cost burdens it would place on our shareholders, employees and retirees.”
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March 18, 2010 at 12:59 p.m.
Filed under:
Health care,
Litigation,
Taxes
A patient at Provena Covenant Medical Center in Urbana in September. (David Pierini/Chicago Tribune)
| By Bruce Japsen | The Illinois Supreme Court ruled this morning that Provena Covenant Medical Center in Urbana did not provide enough charity care to qualify for a property tax exemption.
The widely watched ruling, which rejected the Catholic hospital’s appeal of a tax review board decision to take away its tax exempt status in 2003, could set the stage for charity care expectations at hospitals around the country.
The ruling — supported by three judges, supported in part by two and not voted on by two others — means the hospital will have to begin paying property taxes. It has been considered a nonprofit hospital like most hospitals in the U.S. that are exempt from state property taxes |
|
See also
• Read the summary and full decision |
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March 16, 2010 at 3:29 p.m.
Filed under:
Health care
Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. secretary of health and human services, right, meeting with Sandy Praeger, commissioner of the Kansas Insurance Department, and other insurance industry executives, on March 4, 2010. (Brendan Hoffman/Bloomberg)
By Bruce Japsen | President Obama’s top health official predicted that health care reform will pass the U.S. House of
Representatives this weekend, and said
consumers will benefit right away from more transparency from insurers.
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said in
Chicago this afternoon that having health plans report their rates to
the government would help slow the rise in premiums right away.
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