The Fine Print

Ask medical malpractice insurance companies what they fear most and the answer will likely be “a ‘jumbo’ verdict.‘”

In insurance speak, a jumbo verdict often stems from a case where something went drastically and tragically wrong during a birth, and the child, mother or both suffered permanent injury. It’s easy to see how this can happen: it can result from a breach birth, prolonged labor or the umbilical cord wrapped around the baby’s neck.

In many instances physicians deal with such complications by delivering the baby Cesarean — making an incision in the uterus and removing the infant. In many cases, the problem is not the doctor’s or hospital’s fault. (continue reading…)

Once upon a time, children grew up and left home. Now, if they leave, they often come back. And even if they don’t, for many reasons, they’re still dependent on their parents.

Thanks to the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act — portions of which were being hotly debated in the U.S. Supreme Court last week — there’s yet another reason for them to be tied to the nest. Insurers must offer parents the option of keeping their adult children covered under the parents’ medical plan until age 26.

Since the law went into effect last year, some 2.5 million young people have gained coverage, filling a huge health insurance gap. Traditionally, many health insurance plans dropped children from parental insurance plans when they turned 19 or graduated college. But a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that private health insurance coverage actually increased for those ages 19 to 25 between 2009 and 2010 - likely due to the law allowing them to stay on a parent’s plan. (continue reading…)

Doctors have been preaching for decades about the health risks of obesity.

Now economists are weighing in, and the numbers are even scarier than the ones on your bathroom scale.

A new study released by the Campaign to End Obesity warns of crippling expenses. (continue reading…)

The media predicts that the pummeling the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act took last week in the U.S. Supreme Court shows that at least five justices are prepared to torpedo its core mandate: that everyone must buy health insurance or pay a penalty. This would reportedly sink the law as deep as the rusting Titanic.

But as Mark Twain once said, “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” The same may be true for President Obama’s health care program.

‘Cruel and unusual’

The lead actor in this comedy-tragedy is Antonin Scalia (pictured), who not only asked the toughest questions, but cracked wise about the court having to read the 2,700 pages of the act, referring to reading it as “cruel and unusual punishment.” Scalia and his fellow conservative judges are expected to unite on whether the president is stretching the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution by forcing people to buy health insurance, or risk being - penalized. (continue reading…)

Can the government make you buy broccoli?

It might sound like the topic of an AM radio talk show. But the offbeat query has been popping up in debates over health care reform, and this week it came up again at none other than the U.S. Supreme Court.

Justice Antonin Scalia raised the question in the second day of hearings over the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Scalia asked how far the government could go if it could require people to buy health insurance through the law’s individual mandate. (continue reading…)