Will the White House hit their health care enrollment goal?

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Sunday marks the deadline for enrolling in the state and federal health exchanges this year. The push is on once again to get people to sign up.

There are signs that perhaps more than 10 million will enroll, fewer than initially expected, but better than a revised estimate showed.

To fill us in on the latest, were joined again by Mary Agnes Carey Of Kaiser Health News and Susan Dentzer. Shes a health analyst for the NewsHour.

And its good to see you both again.

(CROSSTALK)

MARY AGNES CAREY, Kaiser Health News: Great to be back.

SUSAN DENTZER: Thank you.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Time to talk health care.

So, Mary Agnes Carey, just overall, how has the process been going the second year?

MARY AGNES CAREY: Well, the Web site is a lot better. It actually works, and thats better for everyone trying to enroll.

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Will the White House hit their health care enrollment goal?

The Black Market For Stolen Health Care Data

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President Obama is at Stanford University today, hosting a cybersecurity summit. He and about a thousand guests are trying to figure out how to protect consumers online from hacks and data breaches.

Meanwhile, in the cyber underworld, criminals are trying to figure out how to turn every piece of our digital life into cash. The newest frontier: health records.

I grab a chair and sit down with Greg Virgin, CEO of the security firm RedJack.

"There are a lot of sites that have this information, and it's tough to tell the health records from the financial records," he says.

We're visiting sites that you can't find in a Google search. They have names that end with .su and .so, instead of the more familiar .com and .org.

After poking around for about an hour, we come across an advertisement by someone selling Medicare IDs.

We're not revealing the site address or name because we don't want the dealer to know we're watching.

According to the online rating system similar to Yelp, but for criminal sales the dealer delivers what's promised and gets 5 out of 5 stars. "He definitely seems legit" to the underworld, Virgin says.

The dealer is selling a value pack that includes 10 people's Medicare numbers only it's not cheap. It costs 22 bitcoin about $4,700 according to today's exchange rate.

Security experts say health data is showing up in the black market more and more. While prices vary, this data is more expensive than stolen credit card numbers which, they say, typically go for a few quarters or dollars.

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Health care deadline this weekend

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CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) -

Get ready - you only have the weekend left to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

The Obama administration says it should secure its target of just over 9 million people enrolled by February 15, the day open-enrollment ends for 2015 coverage.

Those without health care will face tax penalties.

H&R Block tax advisor Prentice Hardin says it's more than her clients expect right now. I don't think they realize the overall impact this may have, she told WBTV as she prepped for tax season.

And those penalties will go up for those that miss this weekend's deadline from about $95 per adult for the 2014 tax year to a minimum of $325 per adult without coverage for the 2015 calendar year.

But, buying insurance is getting more expensive too.

Former NASCAR driver Damon Lusk said he wanted to make the deadline to get insurance for his employees at his company, Race City Steel, but that premiums keep increasing.

It's just really hard to do that when you see these costs rising, he said. You have to know what you can afford and what you can't. It's definitely a shock to us how much things have increased.

Average monthly premiums across the country rose by 8 percent in federal market states, according to data the government released this week.

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Health care deadline this weekend

Health care law could make filing taxes complicated

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NEWS

Deadline to enroll in ACA is Sunday

Posted YESTERDAY, 9:53 PM Updated YESTERDAY, 11:07 PM

SAN ANTONIO - This Sunday marks the last day to enroll in health care coverage in the open enrollment period, with this year being the first that the Affordable Care Act will have a presence in the federal income tax forms.

For most Americans, tax filings and health insurance should have little impact. But for those six or seven million Americans who bought health insurance through the federal marketplace in 2014 or who didn't have any health care coverage, this tax season may be more complicated.

Certified public accountant Jim Oliver said a person who bought health insurance through the federal market place needs at least two forms -- a 1095A and form 8962.

Ultimately, if they did not do the form correctly and they do owe more in credit to the IRS and they file their taxes later on, they could end up owing the taxes, possibly some late payment penalties and interest," said Oliver.

Community First Health Plans will be hosting an enrollment event on Sunday from 10 a.m to 5 p.m. at 1410 Guadalupe Street, Suite 222.

To enroll, you're asked to bring your Social Security number, date of birth, resident card, tax return and current health insurance, if you have any, as well as your username and password for healthcare.gov, if you have one.

For more information visit communityfirsthealth.gov.

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Health care law could make filing taxes complicated

Health data analytics firm Inovalon is Washingtons newest public company

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Until Inovalon Holdings announced its intentions to go publicThursday, the Bowie-based company was a quiet player in a roaring industry.

The intersection of data and health has become a hot market in recent years as medical providers grapple with the duel challenges of improving care while reducing costs. Major technology companies, including IBM, Google and Oracle, have gotten into the game hoping that the industrys transformation will generate big profits.

But Inovalon has been there since 1998. Founded by a physician with an engineering background, the company collects data from hundreds of thousands of physicians and medical facilities across the country, then uses that aggregated information to help health care providers and insurance companies deliver better, more cost-effective treatment.

The volume of the data has never been so significant and the value of the data has never been so significant, said Keith Dunleavy, the companys founder and chief executive.

Inovalon became the Washington regions newest public company on Feb. 12, pulling in nearly $600 million after selling approximately 22.2 million shares at $27 each . The company trades on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol INOV.

The stock price popped to more than $33 per share at the start of trading Thursday, but ultimately ended the day back at the $27 asking price. On Friday, the stock price closed at $29 per share.

Dunleavy said health care providers and insurance companies started moving toward pay for performance in the 1990s, motivated in part by changes to the government-backed Medicaid and Medicare programs. The trend saw compensation for medical providers increasingly tied to improving a patients health rather than merely treating them.

The approval of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 has pushed the broader health care industry further in that direction while expediting the adoption of electronic health records and other technology. For companies like Inovalon, that means more data than ever before.

The market forces, both capitalistic forces as well as regulatory forces, are really driving in that same direction, Dunleavy said.

As other companies look to gain a foothold in the market, Inovalon already boasts customers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, Dunleavy said. The company plans to expand globally following Thursdays initial public offering and look for opportunities to apply its technology to other aspects of health care and related industries, he said.

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Health data analytics firm Inovalon is Washingtons newest public company

Studies Find More Genetic Links to Obesity

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WEDNESDAY, Feb. 11, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- New research offers more evidence that genes play a significant role in obesity.

The findings may help explain why some people are more likely to put on extra pounds and develop obesity-linked conditions, the investigators said.

The researchers analyzed genetic samples from more than 300,000 people and identified more than 140 locations across their sets of DNA that play a role in obesity. They also pinpointed new biological pathways that play important roles in body weight and fat distribution.

The findings appear in two companion papers published Feb. 11 in the journal Nature.

This is the first step toward identifying individual genes involved in body shape and size, the researchers said. The proteins produced by the genes could offer targets for the development of new drugs to fight obesity.

One of the papers focused on genes that affect where fat is stored in the body, which affects health risk. For example, people with more belly fat are more likely to have metabolic conditions such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease than those with more fat in the hips or distributed throughout the body.

"We need to know these genetic locations because different fat deposits pose different health risks," senior author Karen Mohlke, a professor of genetics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, said in a University of Michigan Health System news release.

"If we can figure out which genes influence where fat is deposited, it could help us understand the biology that leads to various health conditions, such as insulin resistance/diabetes, metabolic syndrome and heart disease," she explained.

The other paper looked at the link between genes and body mass index (BMI), an estimate of body fat based on height and weight. The researchers said they found 97 genetic associations linked to BMI. They also found that genetic locations associated with BMI are linked to areas that control factors such as appetite and energy use.

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Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi on Issue of Cloning Genetic Engineering Getting in the Way of God’s Work – Video

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Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi on Issue of Cloning Genetic Engineering Getting in the Way of God #39;s Work
Rabbi Mizrachi Website: http://www.divineinformation.com ----- Rabbi Mizrachi YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY_RXl0nXVp4w3VpEwsNhUg.

By: ShadeManVendetta

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Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi on Issue of Cloning Genetic Engineering Getting in the Way of God's Work - Video

A Third Act For Biofuels

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Editors note:Ryan Clarke is a biochemistry PhD candidate with an interest in genetic engineering. He is a published scientist with a background in synthetic biology and social analytics.James Hyun is aPhD student in the life sciences with a background in molecular biology. He haspublished numerous scientific paperswheregenetically engineered microorganisms were used to produce high value therapeutic proteins.

In the midst of the lowest oil prices our nation has seen in six years, its easy to forget that the primary energy source in the world is in finite supply. Fracking and extraction from shale have enhanced the potential amount of obtainable oil (and Americas total reserves have the potential to be the highest in the world), but these means are still limited by the Earths reserves.

In fact, British Petroleum projects that we will deplete the Earths oil reservoirs in roughly 50 years. With this sobering reality looming over our heads, we can look to recent advances in the biotechnology of biofuel production as a potential solution. Moving beyond bioethanol, the unsuspecting platform of algae may be the most promising.

Our vision for a carbon neutral world is one in which the ultimate goal is replacing petroleum-based energy consumption systems with clean energy production/consumption. However, replacing fossil fuel-derived energy with renewable sources such as wind, solar or hydro is a daunting task. These electricity-producing energy sources have a lower energy density, which is measured in joules per liter or kilogram, or BTUs (British Thermal Unit):

Furthermore, solar, wind and hydro cannot be controlled with an on and off switch. Rather, the electricity generated must be used immediately or stored in batteries and is considerably more expensive than fossil fuels. On a large scale, a coal mine or oil field, for instance, yields five to 50 times more power per square meter than a solar facility, 10 to 100 times more than a wind farm, and 100 to 1,000 times more than a biomass plant like corn.

If we want to avoid hitting the brick wall of a global energy drought when we tap our final oil reserves, we must do what humans do best: solve the problems we have created ourselves. Big oil and other major players in the market are highly cognizant that current petroleum supplies are finite, so they have been heavily investing (i.e. BP has invested $4 billion since 2005) in alternative energy sources to alleviate our dependency on classic fossil fuels. A significant portion of this funding is focused on biofuels, which might be the most realistic answer to the fossil fuel issue.

Biomasses to Bioethanol.The conversion of cellulose (a prolific sugar produced in plants), such as corns and sugar cane, to ethanol through chemically catalytic procedures has been a major prospect for ridding petroleum dependency for 20 years in the U.S.

Unfortunately, it turns out our existing combustion engines can only handle 10 percent ethanol mixtures with our gasoline (denoted as E10 fuels) on average, unless the engine has been modified or produced (flex-fuel engines) to handle 85 percent ethanol (E85 fuels), which is much less common. In America, there are roughly 10 million flex-fuel vehicles out of the total 250 million, so an infrastructure turnover is required for ethanol to be a plausible alternative.

The utmost defeating point for the ethanol argument is that oil yields 50 times more energy than ethanol from corn and 10 times more than ethanol from sugar cane, according to ecological economist Cutler Cleveland.

If we were to commit to ethanol as a petroleum replacement and ethanol werethe sole source used to achieve the 2020 federal mandates for renewable fuel, then 100 percent of the corn currently available in the U.S. would be required. To meet these mandates and maintain todays 30 percent corn crop utilization would require an increase in corn harvest by 423 percent.

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A Third Act For Biofuels

Genetic counseling: DNA testing for the patient

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Proc (Bayl Univ Med Cent). 2005 Apr; 18(2): 134137.

1From the Department of Pathology, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas.

Presented at the Department of Pathology Fall Symposium, Baylor University Medical Center, November 23, 2004.

Genetic counseling deals with the human problems associated with the occurrence, or the risk of occurrence, of a genetic disorder in the family (1). Genetic counseling is essentially a communication processabout medical facts, the contribution of heredity to certain conditions, the interpretation of test results, and the options available. It also involves supportive counseling to enable patients to make decisions and to make the best possible adjustment to the presence or risk of genetic disease. Genetic counselors have master's degrees from certified programs and are certified by either the American Board of Medical Genetics or the American Board of Genetic Counseling.

This article reviews several case scenarios in order to highlight some themes and lessons from genetic counseling.

In recent years, obstetricians have begun offering cystic fibrosis carrier screening to all couples either planning a pregnancy or in the early stages of pregnancy. The incidence of cystic fibrosis in Caucasians is about 1 in 2500. Caucasian men and women with no family history of cystic fibrosis would each have a 1 in 25 chance of being a carrier, i.e., of having one of over 1300 different mutations in the CFTR gene. The screening test usually includes analysis for only 23 to 25 of the most common mutations. At this time, sequencing the gene from beginning to end to search for a mutation would be too expensive and time consuming as a screening test.

The decision to undergo carrier screening is a personal one. Some people consider cystic fibrosis a serious disorder appropriate for screening, and others do not. Those who do not may focus on the fact that half of those with the disease survive until the age of 30 or 31, and cystic fibrosis does not involve mental retardation or birth defects. A couple may opt for screening for one or several reasons: because the chance of being a carrier seems high to them, because they would consider prenatal diagnosis if they were shown to be carriers, or because results are usually reassuring. Similarly, those who don't feel the odds of being a carrier are high enough may not be interested in the screening test. Others may not be interested because the cost is not covered by their insurance, the test is imperfect and will not identify all carriers, or they would rather not have the information. Indeed, getting information can provoke anxiety, and some patients prefer not to go down that path.

Some practitioners discourage screening unless the patient plans to pursue prenatal diagnosis. However, my experience has shown that people often change their minds. Some come in with very set ideas about what they would and would not do; until they're faced with a particular circumstance, they may not re-ally know. The point is, options need to be made available.

We will discuss a case in which the woman was screened and found to have mutation G542X (Figure ). This means that in the 542 amino acid position, glycine has been converted to a stop codon. She is a cystic fibrosis carrier. Since cystic fibrosis is an autosomal recessive disorder, this should not affect her health. However, her husband was subsequently screened, and he was shown to have the most common mutation, F508, a deletion of phenylalanine at position 508. Even though they have different mutations, the mutations are in the same gene. The child now has a 1 in 4 risk of inheriting both mutations and therefore having cystic fibrosis.

Pedigree of a couple presenting for carrier screening for cystic fibrosis. (See discussion in the text.) Squares represent males, circles represent females, diamonds are used when the gender is unknown or unspecified, and a P within ...

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Genetic counseling: DNA testing for the patient

Local business leaders told to start thinking of region as a creative center

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Published: Friday, February 13, 2015 at 2:57 p.m. Last Modified: Friday, February 13, 2015 at 4:17 p.m.

SARASOTA - Living in a global, digitally connected world, Southwest Florida leaders need to start thinking of the region as a creative center, futurist and author David Houle told the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce on Friday.

At the same time, the community should begin edging away from defining itself primarily by its beaches.

Houle contends rising sea levels brought on by continued global warming will cause many beaches to disappear as early as the 2030s or 2040s.

"Ask people outside Florida what they think of as Florida, and they say Disney World and beaches," Houle told the chamber's annual kickoff breakfast, attended by 450 and held at the Polo Grill. "That is not a strategy.

"The issues the state has to face in next 15 years are water usage, education and completely redoing the transportation, energy and communications infrastructure in the state," Houle said.

The author of six books, "futurist in residence" at the Ringling College of Art & Design and a Herald-Tribune columnist, Houle splits time between Evanston, Illinois, and Sarasota.

His new book, written with Ringling professor Tim Rumage and due out in April, will argue that world leaders need to make drastic changes to prevent environmental catastrophe.

Such thinking should be at the forefront in Southwest Florida, where a growing population and an eroding shoreline will have a dramatic impact going forward.

Houle also argues technological advancements are rippling through society and are affecting the very development of children.

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Local business leaders told to start thinking of region as a creative center