ENTERTAINMENT
April 23, 2014 | By Richard Verrier
No joke: The walkout by editors and assistant editors on the NBC show "Last Comic Standing" is over after less than two days. An official with the Motion Picture Editors Guild said 15 workers returned to work Wednesday morning after the union reached an agreement with NBC to provide a union contract for the employees. "Thanks to the courage and cohesion they demonstrated, and to the overwhelming support showed to them by their Local 700 sisters and brothers and the entire IATSE [International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees]
BUSINESS
April 23, 2014 | By David Lazarus
Kathleen says the cost of her health insurance has soared. She wants to know why -- and who she can complain to. Kathleen isn't alone. A lot of people have seen their health-insurance premiums rise in recent months, and there's a reason for this. Obamacare. ASK LAZ: Smart answers to consumer questions That's not to say all such rate hikes are unjustified. In most cases, the costs are rising because the quality of the coverage is improving. The Affordable Care Act requires that all health insurance meets certain standards, and some plans are going up in cost for the simple reason that they're complying with the law. For more, plus who's taking complaints about such things, check out today's Ask Laz video.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 22, 2014 | By Ruben Vives
Long Beach health officials are warning residents of a sharp increase in whooping cough cases in the city. Health officials say 42 cases have been reported since January. Although officials did not immediately have a breakdown for the cases reported in the same period last year, they said 15 cases were reported for all of 2013. Four cases were reported in 2012. This year, most of the infected have been school-age children, officials said, adding that no deaths have been reported.
SCIENCE
April 22, 2014 | By Karen Kaplan
Among the various provisions of the Affordable Care Act, few are as controversial as the one requiring health insurance providers to include coverage for contraception. A new survey finds that support for this rule is widespread, with 69% of Americans in favor of the mandate. Among 2,124 adults surveyed in November 2013, 1,452 agreed that “health plans in the United States should be required to include coverage” for “birth control medications,” according to a research letter published online Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.
OPINION
April 22, 2014
Re "Patients lose in insurers' games," Column, April 18 David Lazarus tells of the ordeal a young female patient and her doctors went through to have breast reduction surgery covered by insurance, only to be denied. In the 1980s, I worked in a unit that reviewed appeals of medical claims denied under the group policies issued by my company. Many of the denied claims were for breast reduction. We reviewed these appeals carefully, as we recognized that the term "illness" included physical pain or limitation caused by something other than disease or injury.
BUSINESS
April 17, 2014 | David Lazarus
Dr. Theodore Corwin, a plastic surgeon in Thousand Oaks for the last 30 years, has had run-ins with insurers before, but never one so aggravating - and pointless - as this. A 26-year-old woman recently came to his office complaining of back, neck and shoulder pain, as well as numbness in her hands and arms, resulting from her unusually ample bust. She's 5-foot-6, not overweight, Corwin said. She wanted a breast reduction. "There seemed to be no question that her pain and numbness was caused by her carrying this excessive weight," Corwin told me. "It seemed like a straightforward diagnosis.