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Vermont Is Preparing New Health Care System

Vermont Health Officials will change the health care system.

Vermont Health Officials seem to have big plans regarding their health care system. They approved a plan that will invest more money is promoting services that keep people healthy instead of spending that money on treating diseases. It was a long journey before they approved this plan, that is supposed to reduce the costs Vermont residents have to pay for meds.

Of course, there is still a lot of work to do. Health officials have to sign contracts with insurance providers and talked to them about what changes this new project will involve. Moreover, they have to decide the amount of money the hospitals would be paid. Event though the Vermont officials know it will not be easy, they think they will achieve their goal. A new health care system should not only improve people’s health but also make them pay less for the meds. This requires the involvement of the authorities and hospitals, which do not always agree on the topic.

When the system will start, health care providers will receive an amount of money for every patient. If the person who gets sick has a little health issue, the provider will be able to keep the money that will not be spent. However, if the person needs more care, the provider will not be able to receive more money for the treatment.

Things will not change in a day. There will be years before all the patients will benefit from the new health care system. According to the officials, in six years 70 percent of people are supposed to be involved in the new system.

Even though the new system will improve the economy of the state, there are also some risks. The transition costs will not be easy to cover and the officials still do not know if all the providers will want to be involved in the new program.

People should focus more on preventing diseases instead of treating them. A healthy diet will cost you less that meds or surgeries. Moreover, exercising is also an important issue as most of the Americans adults are overweight. As long as people will not invest in health education, it will be harder for the authorities to reduce the costs.

What do you think about the new health system? Will it improve people’s lives?

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Saudi Arabia Has Just Bought Huge Stake in Uber

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Scenic view of Saudi Arabia’s capital city Riyadh at twilight.

Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund has just poured US$3.5 billion in the San Francisco-based ride-hailing company Uber Technologies. Officially, Saudi Arabia now holds a 5 percent stake in the U.S. company.

The move is part of a larger fundraising round which is expected to help Uber raise $5 billion. Uber’s valuation is nearly $68 billion, which is larger than GM’s valuation of $48 billion.

Uber managed to reach such astronomical valuation over just six years. The company currently needs more cash to stifle domestic competition and battle Google Inc and Apple which are working on driverless vehicles that may leave Uber drivers without a job.

Nevertheless, the money may allow the taxi app firm also invest more in its R&D arm which is reportedly developing a fleet of autonomous cars as well.

Yet, the Saudis are not the only ones to invest in the U.S. company. Japan-based Toyota Motor Corp also invested in it. In the meantime, Apple bought a large stake in the Chinese dopplegänger of Uber, Didi Chuxing Technology Co., while Volkswagen made a $300 million investment in Uber’s Jewish rival Gett.

General Motors is interested in Uber’s U.S. rival Lyft, and plans to deploy together a fleet of driverless electric cabs by next year.

With the latest investment, Uber has smashed its previous fundraising record of $2.8 billion and the global record of $4.5 billion set by the Chinese-based e-commerce giant Alibaba Group.

Saudi Arabia is interested in startups such as Uber because it tries to find other sources of revenue and cut the nation’s reliance on crude oil. The Kingdom’s government announced in April that it plans to sell 5 percent of a state-owned oil behemoth by the end of the year.

The Saudi sovereign-wealth fund recently said that its chairman Yasir Al Rumayyan will now join Uber’s board of directors. Al Rumayyan will run the business alongside the company’s founders Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick, Huffington Post’s owner Arianna Huffington, and Google’s David Drummond among others.

Uber also needs more cash to lure in new drivers and subsidize promotional rides when entering new markets. Its Chinese rival Didi Chuxing also uses subsidies to keep its business going. Alibaba, Tencent and Apple have helped the Chinese startup raise $5 billion in equities this year.

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No Agreement Yet on the Trans-Pacific Partnership

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Trans-Pacific Partnership talks in Hawaii have ended without an agreement, but most of the involved parties are citing significant progress on the agreement.

Trade ministers and negotiators from the twelve countries supposed to be involved in the world’s largest economic agreement have apparently deadlocked on a couple of issues during talks that continued into the early hours on Saturday, according to multiple reports citing sources aware of the talks. The deal reportedly stalled in two points: auto and dairy trade.

However, most of the ministers seemed to display optimism regarding a deal being reached in the near future. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman read a statement endorsed by all parties stating that future discussion, while not yet set, have been agreed to by representatives of all countries. He also added that a number of past issues have been resolved at the Hawaii talks, such as trade protection for local gastronomic specialties.

New Zealand’s trade minister, Tim Groser, was of the same mindset while pointing out that the biggest problem for his country was dairy trade regulations: New Zealand and Australia are pushing for more access to the North American dairy market, which is reportedly opposed by Canada. Meanwhile, Mexico’s Minister of Economy Ildefonso Guajardo said that pharmaceutical trade was another of the hot issues, with the U.S. reportedly seeking to make life easier for its big pharma corporations when it comes to exporting their products.

The twelve ministers and hundreds of negotiators have been holding the talks at a hotel in Maui since Tuesday. The Trans-Pacific Partnership would disable certain trade tarrifs and protectionist policies between the involved countries – the United States, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Japan, Brunei, New Zealand, Vietnam, Singapore, Chile, Mexico and Vietnam – which together form more than 40 per cent of the world’s economy. It would also set in place standardized and common trade rules, making foreign trade and investment between the countries easier.

However, the United States’ participation in the deal is uncertain if no agreement is reached before 2016, as a republican win in next year’s presidential elections would give them all the necessary tools for withdrawing from the agreement. The Trans-Pacific Partnership has been criticized by republicans and even a significant part of the Democratic Party who consider that it is actually detrimental to low-tier workers and companies, while only being lucrative for big companies and corporations.

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Samsung Shareholders Approve Deal Which Sees Lee Family Gain More Control

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Samsung shareholders have approved a takeover bid on Sunday which offers more control over the conglomerate to the company’s founding family, in spite of a swarm of protests and opposition from minor investors led by a hedge fund owned by American investor Paul Elliott Singer.

Almost 70 percent of Samsung C&T – the South Korean’s conglomerate largest and most important group – shareholders voted in favor of a takeover bid from another Samsung Group company called Cheil Industries, which is owned by the Lee family, which founded and traditionally controlled the group over the decades. The deal needed the approval of at least two thirds (66,7 percent) of shareholders to go through.

The deal was aggressively opposed by the American hedge fund Elliott Associates, who owns the third largest amount of shares in C&T and rallied opposition of minor investors against the move which provides even more control of the group for the Lee family. Lee Jae-Yong, the son of health-troubled Samsung Group chairman Lee-Kun Hee, will now have an important stake in Samsung Electronics, C&T’s most profitable and well-known subsidiary.

The most important part of the deal is the fact that this was accomplished with only $8 billion, the entire worth of the takeover, whereas buying individual shares would have cost Lee figures going into the tens of billions. Elliot Associates has deemed this deal as unfair for minority shareholders, and carried a significant legal campaign spearheaded by founder Paul Elliott Singer, trying to block the deal both by legal means and by convincing minor investors to vote against it.

The stand-off degenerated into a more personal battle between Singer and the Samsung founding family, after several cartoons allegedly depicting the American investor as a corporate extorsionist and making use of his Jewish background were posted on C&T’s website days ahead of the vote. The cartoons, which reportedly didn’t mention Singer specifically but featured a caricature under the title “Vulture Man”, have since been removed, while the Samsung Group has officially denied any claims of anti-semitism in a statement.

Elliott Associates L.P. owns 7.1 percent in C&T shares, and stated that its only intent was to secure a deal which better reflected the interests of minority shareholders, and has tried to stop the vote from happening by launching several lawsuits. However, a Seoul high court rejected the company’s last possible appeal on Thursday, leaving no legal means to block the vote. This has sparked criticism over the South Korean legislation not offering enough protection for minor shareholders and foreign investors in such cases.

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Duke Energy Shareholders’ Lawsuit is Imminent

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In February 2014 the town of Eden, North Carolina was faced with a severe environmental disaster after a spillover of a coal ash dump at a Duke Energy power plant located closely.

The spillover resulted in lawsuits connected primarily to the breaching of environmental laws. Safety regulations of power plants and coal ash dumps and the grave endangerment of citizens’ lives quickly added to the list and with good reason.

At that point, the spill translated in 70 miles of the Dan River being covered in toxic sludge, a clear violation of the Clean Water Act. More recently, North Carolina’s Department of Environment and Natural resources announced that more than 90 percent of the water wells tested near the Duke Energy power plant and coal ash pits fail to comply with state standards.

Consequently, communities in this area have been informed that water coming from these wells is not safe and should not be consumed.

Duke Energy seems to be under fire as the North Carolina law suit is on the roll for nine violations of the Clean Water Act, related lawsuits are issuing and the shareholders are also in course of a lawsuit.

The shareholder case against Duke Energy is being treated in the Delaware Chancery Court. Vice Chancellor John Noble announced that until the North Carolina case draws to a conclusion, he is still considering the company’s request to put the lawsuit on hold for another six months.

The shareholder plaintiffs of the energetic company declared that the reason for which they are suing the company is that the Duke Energy officials were aware of breaching fiduciary duties. Allegedly, they knew that the company was violating federal environmental laws which exposed it to losses in the form of penalties, fines and cleanup costs at those locations where the coal ash spill affected the population, as well as the environment.

To this extent, Duke Energy agreed in February to a settlement amounting to a total of 102 million dollars in the North Carolina federal criminal case. The sum covers 68 million dollars accountable for fines and restitution and 34 million dollars accountable for community services and mitigation, paid by shareholders.

Against this background it is understandable that the shareholders are looking for restitution from the officials of the company. However, it is clear that the breach of environmental laws and the public outcry driven by affected communities is driving Duke Energy down on the market as well as in customer confidence.

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Cancer Drug Spending Reaches $100B Mark

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As medicine prices continue to drop, spending on cancer drugs has reached a new milestone: $100 billion in 2014.

That’s more than 10 percent up from 2013, and a significant increase from $75 billion five years ago, announced a report published Tuesday by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. Targeted treatments, which target specific drivers of cancer, now claim almost half of total spending, IMS announced.

As more new cancer medicine gets approved, spending is likely to raise its pace. In the last five years, the average global growth rate on cancer medicines has been 6.5 percent, according to IMS. The research company predicts that rate to increase to 8 percent through 2018.

“Earlier diagnosis, longer treatment duration and increased effectiveness of drug therapies are contributing to rising levels of spending on medicines for cancer care. Measures of value continue to be tested by payers and providers who, in some health systems, most notably the U.S., have growing concerns about the financial burden faced by cancer patients,” IMS scientists, led by executive director Murray Aitken, wrote in the report’s summary.

Forty-five new drugs for cancer entered the market between the years 2010 and 2014, while 10 last hit the scene year alone. Two of those drugs are immunotherapies, a new class that stimulates the immune system to fight cancer. They are called Keytruda, from Merck, and Opdivo, from Bristol-Myers Squibb, and are very expensive: $12,500 a month.

Pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts, which opposed new medicines for hepatitis C to obtain discounts last year, has mentioned that one of its next aims will be cancer medicines.

But with those high prices come important improvements in results. IMS says two thirds of Americans diagnosed with cancer ae now living at least five years, compared to just more than half a year in 1990.

“Although the changes are incremental year to year, cumulatively, more patients are gaining years of life,” IMS explained. It mentioned an 18 percent improvement was recorded in the five-year survival rate for prostate cancer patients from 1990 to 2010, while a 8 percent improvement was found in breast cancer and 12 percent in liver cancer.

Drug prices, especially in cancer, have been an increasing concern for years. The topic will be discussed at the largest annual cancer research conference, the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, a couple of weeks from now, in Chicago.

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US nonfarm payrolls surges 295,000 in February

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American employers stepped up hiring in February with the unemployment rate dropping to its lowest level since the spring before US President Barack Obama assumed office.

Market analysts say this could impose severe pressure on the Federal Reserve Bank to raise interest rates in June.

Nonfarm payrolls surged 295,000 in February after rising 239,000 in January, according to the US Labor Department report. The broad gain in job market came despite severe disruptions due to harsh winters that made life restless across large parts of the United States in the middle of February.

The rate of unemployment fell two-tenths of a percentage point to 5.5 percent, which is its lowest level since May 2008, tumbling into territory that some Federal Reserve officials consider consistent with complete employment.

Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West in San Francisco, said, “The labor market is on a roll. This should ease fears at the Fed that the global downturn and sharp drop in oil prices are materially disrupting the US economic outlook, and keep the Fed firmly on course for a June lift-off.”

The stocks at Wall Street and shorter-dated government bonds dropped sharply as traders continued to bet when the US central bank would raise key rates.

The US dollar hit an 11-1/2-year high against the euro, which has been under severe pressure ever after the European Central Bank (ECB) announced a bond-buying program in order to lower euro zone borrowing costs.

Sooner or Later: Timing of US rate hike again in focus

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The stock investors at Wall Street seem to be bracing up for further signals next week that the US Federal Reserve Bank could raise the major rates sooner rather than later this year, amid the sales in retail sector expected to recover after tumbling for two straight months.

A boost in retail sales could show the consumers are getting benefits from sharply reduced oil prices. But the financial analysts say spending in February may have been curbed by unusually vulnerable weather conditions prevailing in parts of the United States.

The stronger-than-expected jobs report, released on Friday, also boosted the expectations of a rate hike as soon as June, making the market to sell off.

The Nasdaq was over 70 points off the 5,000-level hit this week for the first time in the past 15 years. The S&P 500, on the other hand, ended the week more than two percent off its closing record high on March 2.

Meanwhile, several Fed officials came up with their comments while underlining their expectations of a rate hike in June.

Richmond Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Lacker supported the notion of raising the key rates in June.

Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Pittsburgh-based Fort Pitt Capital Group, said, “The Federal Reserve is back at the top of the circle in terms of the investor focus. The economy has been getting better, and what I think they’re trying to do is overstay the party to make sure the economy really is better. I think they’re feeling some pressure to show that they really are data driven.”

As a stronger economy is better for the country’s stock market in the long run, the investors have high concerns that if the US central bank raises rates too soon, it could dampen the pace of economic growth that has been slow to rebound.

Harsh winter hurts sales of leading US auto makers in February

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The leading auto makers in the US on Tuesday showed a cold steam in their sales in February as the harsh winters crippled most parts of the country, hurting the automobile industry.

The analysts had expected robust sales gains by the auto industry in February after last year’s bone-chilling winters left many buyers to stay at their homes.

In February, both Nissan Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV were found missing the analysts’ expectations in their sales. The sales of auto maker Ford Motor Co. fell two percent in the month.

General Motors Co. stood out among its rivals after it posted a rise of 4.2 percent in its sales, which is better-than-expected, as its sales of truck surged to an impressive 36 percent.

The GMC brand of General Motors showed a 19.3 percent increase in its sales, and the Chevrolet sales gained 3.8 percent. Sales of both Buick and Cadillac declined 9.2 percent and 12.6 percent respectively.

Ford said that it delivered 180,383 vehicles in February after its Lincoln brand had a 7.5 percent drop in sales and its namesake brand posted a 1.7 percent fall.

The car sales fell 8.1 percent, offset in part by a rise of four percent in the sales of truck.

Nissan said that its sales grew 2.7 percent to 118,436 last month, missing the expectations for a 7.2 percent rise after its car sales plunged 2.9 percent, but its truck sales grew 11.5 percent. The sales of its Infiniti division rose 19.8 percent, while Nissan division surged 1.1 percent.

The sales of Fiat Chrysler increased six percent to 163,586 last month. The Edmunds.com sales posted an 8.2 percent surge. Its Ram brand reported a 12 percent increase in its sales, as the Jeep brand reported a 21 percent surge in sales.

Chrysler’s projections for the total industry sales in the US were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 16.5 million units. Edmunds, on the other hand, made forecast of 16.6 million units.

Target mulls ‘several thousands’ of job cuts in US and India

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US retail giant Target on Tuesday said that it has planned cutting ‘several thousand’ jobs over the next two years in an attempt to save USD 2 billion in costs as part of its restructuring program.

The Minneapolis-based company on Tuesday issued a statement, saying the job cuts will be made mainly in its headquarters in US and India.

The statement further said that the company will be eliminating the positions in order to create “centralized teams based on specialized expertise”.

Currently, Target employs 350,000 people worldwide. It has nearly 1,800 box stores. About 26,000 workers are employed at corporate locations in Minneapolis and India.

According to the analysts, the cost-cutting is a key part of Target’s restructuring plan to improve growth.

Calling the proposed transformation challenging, still necessary, Chief executive Brian Cornell said in a statement, “[I] am confident that by implementing our strategy, simplifying how we work and practicing financial discipline, we will ignite Target’s innovative spirit and deliver sustained growth.”

The decision for job cuts comes in the aftermath of the announcement by the retail company in January that it was pulling out of the Canadian market at a loss of USD 5.4 million.

The firm has also planned investment of up to USD 2.2 billion in the current fiscal year to match up with its online rivals in retail sector, while simultaneously revamping its merchandise to drive the sales growth.

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