dailywireless.org ? Communications Law: Net Neutrality ...

Senate Communications Subcommittee chairman John Kerry is asking his colleagues to vote against the Congressional Review Act resolution to nullify the FCC?s network neutrality rules (pdf), which could get a vote on the Senate floor next week.

It has already passed the Republican-controlled House, but the Democrat-controlled Senate is resistant.

The FCC?s rules for internet openness are scheduled to go into effect Nov. 21, but they have been challenged in court by phone company Verizon and public interest groups such as Free Press ? the latter because the rules were not extended to wireless broadband.

The FCC?s net-neutrality rules prevent Internet service providers from slowing down or speeding up access to websites. Wireless carriers are banned from blocking lawful websites or applications that compete with their services.

But applications that offer wireless hotspots on phones, for example, are routinely blocked by wireless carriers ? unless consumers pay carriers additional fees for access to the same bucket of MBs.

?As the leading trade association for the wireless communications industry, CTIA also has a significant interest in defending the FCC?s decision not to impose additional regulatory burdens on mobile broadband providers,? the CTIA said in its filing.

In Kerry?s opinion, the FCC ?not only has the authority to protect the Open Internet, but the responsibility to do so.?

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) has been pushing the nullification resolution, and indicated earlier this week she had the support to at least bring it to a vote on the floor. ?The Internet is not broken and does not need fixing,? Hutchison told an audience at The Heritage Foundation.

According to The Daily Caller, Senator Hutchison said:

?We are hoping that next week we will be able to get the Resolution of Disapproval on the floor. We have over 40 signatures to have the expedited Congressional authority to take this resolution up, and the House has already passed it. It now rests in the Senate.?

In other legislative news, U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) are sponsoring the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act which provides legal clarity for the use of electronically-obtained location data.

Al Gidari, a partner at law firm Perkins Coie whose clients include mobile carriers, told Congress last year that wireless service providers receive an ?astronomical? number of requests for user records?including location. ?It is not uncommon for law enforcement to ask for a phone to be? tracked every 15 minutes, he said.

The GPS Act was introduced in June by Wyden and Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). It will give law enforcement and the telecommunications industry the rules needed for how data compiled by the newest technologies can be used and promulgated.

Roger Easton, the man who designed and invented the Global Positioning System (GPS), has formally asked the Supreme Court to consider his amicus curiae (friend of the court) opinion in the United States v. Jones case. Easton wants the Supreme Court to take a closer look at how GPS tracking technology works and act to protect the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans.

The New York Times has called the upcoming US v. Jones case ?the most important Fourth Amendment case in a decade.?

GPS Intelligence, of Scottsdale, Arizona, has sold ?thousands? of GPS monitoring devices to various police agencies, reports Wired. The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Tuesday.

The Jones case will set the precedent for the legality and limitations of GPS tracking without a warrant. The courts will address a question that has divided the lower courts: Do the police need a warrant to attach a GPS device to a suspect?s car and track its movements for weeks at a time?

Victoria?s myki travel card collects details of the user?s bus, train or tram journeys and, for registered users, links it to personal information such as their name, address and credit card details. In 2010, the transit agency received 12 requests for data. So far this year at least 19 requests have been processed.

Three toll industry heavyweights; E-ZPass, the Alliance for Toll Interoperability and IBTTA have come together formally pledging to work together toward the goal of national toll interoperability.

Smartphone ad tracking has grown in the last few years. Today commercial trading floors routinely exchange ?anonomized? information like a stock exchange. Connecting the ?dots? is now the province of giant commercial server farms.

Related Dailywireless articles include How Your Location & Preferences are Recorded, Behavioral Targeting: Kill/Capture, Google Vs The Feds and Spy Squirrels Captured.

Source: http://www.dailywireless.org/2011/11/07/communications-law-net-neutrality-surveillence/

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Insurance claims to exceed Bt600 billion - The Nation

Home ? business ? Insurance claims to exceed Bt600 billion

Insurance

Achara Pongvutitham
The Nation November 7, 2011 10:04 am

The greatest damage is in seven industrial estates: Saha Rattana Nakorn Industrial Estate, Rojana Industrial Park, Hi-Tech Industrial Estate, Factory Land, Bang Pa-in Industrial Estate, Nava Nakorn Industrial Estate, and Bangkadi Industrial Park. Combined damage was assessed by the IOC recently at more than Bt600 billion, on a total insured amount of Bt456.79 billion. Insurance companies will have to pay Bt200 billion for claims, accounting for about 30 per cent of the total loss.

The Federation of Thai Industries said the losses from those seven industrial estates would be Bt300 billion to Bt400 billion, covering 891 factories and 460,000 workers.

About 90 per cent of the total flood losses are reinsured, with the remaining sum also reinsured for another time. As a result, Thai insurers will not be hit too badly. Anon Vangvasu, senior vice president of the non-motor claims department of Bangkok Insurance, said BKI would take on only 5 per cent of the total losses. Affected companies are mainly Japanese manufacturers, and they had purchased risk coverage from Japanese insurers in Bangkok.

Japanese insurance companies operating in Thailand include Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance and Tokio Marine Srimuang Insurance.

Anon said claims would cost Thai insurance companies Bt3 billion to Bt4 billion.

He said the losses of companies in the seven flood-affected industrial estates would be classified into three groups: buildings and construction, stockpiles, and machinery. The initial assessment by insurers indicates that buildings will account for 10-15 per cent of the losses, stockpiles 40-50 per cent and machinery about 50 per cent.

"The floods have mostly damaged machines," Anon said, noting that the worst-case prediction was that machinery would account for 70 per cent of losses.

After the flood has receded, insurance companies will send assessors to the factories to determine the damage to machinery, then technicians will be allowed entry for maintenance before repairs, for instance applying moisture protection. The final process will be handled by technicians who restore the machines.

"Insurers should closely cooperate with affected companies to minimise losses by strictly abiding by those three after-flood processes," Anon said.

However, BKI's customers are mainly supply-chain manufacturers who want to resume operations as fast as they can. According to a survey by the General Insurance Association, affected companies bought only Bt7 billion worth of business-disruption insurance, so such firms want to repair their damaged machinery very quickly.

The biggest problem facing insurance companies is low numbers of staff and assessors. The OIC is considering easing some regulations to allow technicians to enter factories and make some repairs before insurance assessment starts in order to minimise losses.

"Those technicians will help reduce damage to heavy machinery and prepare plans for maintenance and repairs in advance. Moreover, they can report to parts suppliers whether any parts have to be imported," Anon said.

Nobody knows yet how many machines have been damaged by the floods but at least 100 engineers will be needed to manage the assessment. Insurers will compensate policyholders only after their damage claims have been validated.

Late last week, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services revised its outlook on the Thai non-life insurance sector to negative, as insurance losses could reach US$6 billion (Bt183 billion) against the industry's gross premiums of about $4.7 billion.

It said in a statement that significant flood-related losses could weaken the performance of Thailand's non-life insurers in 2011 and S&P now considers them susceptible to natural-catastrophe risks.

"The financial profile of some non-life insurers in Thailand will likely deteriorate significantly in 2011. A potential decline in underwriting profits stemming from flood-related claims and investment earnings because of equity market-related losses will contribute to the deterioration," it said.

S&P also pointed out that foreign insurers, especially Japanese firms, and foreign reinsurers currently appear to have to bear the bulk of the known losses in the industrial parks. But local insurers and reinsurers will be affected as well, despite bearing a smaller share of the losses.

Latest stories in this category


Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Insurance-claims-to-exceed-Bt600-billion-30169330.html

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Bieber, Gaga draw fans at MTV awards in Belfast

(AP) ? The American band Thirty Seconds to Mars won best alternative act at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Sunday night.

The show features headliners Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Coldplay and others at the annual awards ceremony, a highlight of the European entertainment calendar.

Chris Martin, Coldplay frontman, joked that the band was just "warming everyone up for Justin" on his way into the awards ceremony, which is being hosted by Bieber's girlfriend, the actress and singer Selena Gomez.

She admitted she was nervous about her performance while being photographed on the red carpet just before the show.

Gaga, who has enjoyed a year of sustained commercial success, leads the way with six nominations, while Mars and Katy Perry have four each.

Singer Adele, who lost out on the Mercury Prize, has been nominated for the best female award and best video and best song for her hit "Rolling In The Deep."

The awards, which were set up in 1994, have previously featured performances by stars including U2, Paul McCartney, Take That, Beyonce and Jay-Z.

Sunday's show marked the first time the MTV awards have been held in Belfast, a city long known for its vibrant music scene.

(This version CORRECTS Updates with the first award. Corrects spelling Katy Perry. Will be updated with all the awards.)

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-11-06-EU-Britain-MTV-Awards/id-45d138fd23014741b87020d346cb9126

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Monster of a claim: Ogopogo caught on video

A man visiting British Columbia's Lake Okanagan last week claims to have captured video of Ogopogo, Canada's version of the Loch Ness Monster.

According to a report in the Vancouver Sun, "An Okanagan man has video he says proves the Ogopogo may be more than just a figment of our imagination. Richard Huls says he always believed in the possibility of the monster rumored to be living in Okanagan Lake. Last Thursday, while visiting a West Kelowna winery, Huls shot video that he believes proves something does indeed live in the water. 'It was not going with the waves,' Huls said. 'It was not a wave obviously, just a darker color. The size and the fact that they were not parallel with the waves made me think it had to be something else."

Ogopogo, some believe, has its roots in native Canadian Indian legends that told of a beast called N'ha-a-itk that would demand a live sacrifice from travelers for safe passage across Lake Okanagan. Hundreds of years ago, whenever Indians would venture into the lake, they brought chickens or other small animals to kill and drop into the water to assure a protected journey. It's clear, however, that these stories were not referring to a literal lake monster but instead to a legendary water spirit, and are not historical evidence for Ogopogo.

The lake has been searched before. A 1991 expedition financed by Japan's Nippon Television looked for the monster with high-tech devices, including a remotely-operated vehicle and a miniature submarine. The pilot took the vehicle to a depth of 840 feet along the lake bottom at the deepest part of the lake, but no Ogopogos were sighted, nor did the submarine discover any of the creatures' carcasses or bones. There remains no hard evidence of the monster, which is said to have a series of humps and a head resembling a snake, horse or bulldog. In fact, a great many sightings simply report a straight, featureless "log" that seemed to be floating in the waves.

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The best film evidence of Ogopogo is about a minute of footage shot in 1968 by a man named Arthur Folden. On a sunny day in August of that year, Folden noticed "something large and lifelike" out on the calm water. Folden, a home movie buff, pulled out his camera and captured the object in the water. The film begins with a noticeable disturbance in the water. The object begins moving to the right of the screen and picks up speed as it swims, creating a noticeable wake.

I was asked by National Geographic to participate in an expedition searching for Ogopogo in 2005, and to evaluate Folden's film. Through scientific experiments, we concluded that the object Folden filmed was in fact a real animal (and not a wave or floating log), but its size had been greatly overestimated. It was probably a water fowl or beaver that was too far away to be properly identified. The new video of Ogopogo by Huls seems to be very similar in that regard.

So what exactly did Huls record? The video quality is poor, and the camera is shaky, so it's hard to tell what the object is, or even if it's moving. But a closer look at the 30-second video reveals that, instead of one long object, there are actually two shorter ones, and they seem to be floating next to each other at slightly different angles. There are no humps, nor head, nor form; only two long, darkish, more or less straight forms that appear to be a few dozen feet long. Perhaps not coincidentally, Lake Okanagan has tens of thousands of logs harvested by the timber industry floating just under the lake's surface.

Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @ llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and author of Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries. His Web site is www.BenjaminRadford.com.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45197887/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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Kenny Loggins, Blake Shelton team up at CMA Awards

FILE - In this June 29, 2011 file photo, country singer Blake Shelton poses for photographers after finale of "The Voice" in Burbank, Calif. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, file)

FILE - In this June 29, 2011 file photo, country singer Blake Shelton poses for photographers after finale of "The Voice" in Burbank, Calif. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, file)

(AP) ? Blake Shelton and Kenny Loggins missed their calling. The two new friends are opening the Country Music Association Awards on Wednesday with a version of Loggins' hit film theme song "Footloose," but they really should hit the road as a comedy team.

Loggins stayed step for step with the notoriously funny singer and star of "The Voice" on Monday after rehearsals.

Asked how his experience has been so far, Loggins said: "I'm bored to death," flooring everyone within earshot before adding, "It's really fun to be part of the CMAs. I never thought I would be up on that stage, so I'm very pleased. And, of course ... What's your name again?"

"Uh, Kenny Chesney," Shelton replied.

"Kenny is terrific," Loggins quipped, "and will some day be a huge star."

Shelton, whose version of "Footloose" leads the soundtrack of the recently released countrified "Footloose" remake, is up for a leading five awards Wednesday night when the show airs live on ABC at 8 p.m. EST, including entertainer of the year.

Loggins is here for that performance, but it's not his first trip to the CMAs or Nashville. He's attended the show before as a spectator and has formed a band with Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member Gary Burr and San Antonio singer Georgia Middleman.

"I'm trying to get him to move to Nashville," Shelton said. "He belongs here."

___

AP writer Caitlin R. King in Nashville contributed to this report.

___

Online:

http://www.cmaawards.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-11-08-US-Music-CMA-Shelton-Loggins/id-afd8345653244961b3cfe2554eff21dc

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Big asteroid in closest swing by Earth in 35 years

Lance Benner, research scientist at JPL displays a recent image of asteroid 2005 YU55 near the 230-foot wide radio telescope at the Goldstone Deep Space facility in Ft. Irwin, Calif., is seen, Monday, Nov 7, 2011. The radio telescope has been tracking asteroid 2005 YU55. At closest approach, the quarter-mile-wide space rock will pass within 202,000 miles of our planet at 6:28 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday. (AP Photo/Orange County Register, ) MAGS OUT; LOS ANGELES TIMES OUT

Lance Benner, research scientist at JPL displays a recent image of asteroid 2005 YU55 near the 230-foot wide radio telescope at the Goldstone Deep Space facility in Ft. Irwin, Calif., is seen, Monday, Nov 7, 2011. The radio telescope has been tracking asteroid 2005 YU55. At closest approach, the quarter-mile-wide space rock will pass within 202,000 miles of our planet at 6:28 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday. (AP Photo/Orange County Register, ) MAGS OUT; LOS ANGELES TIMES OUT

This image made from radar data obtained on Nov. 7, 2011 at 11:45 a.m. PST (2:45 p.m. EST/1945 UTC) and provided by NASA shows asteroid 2005 YU55 when the space rock was at 3.6 lunar distances, which is about 860,000 miles, or 1.38 million kilometers, from Earth. The asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier is set to make a close but harmless swing by Earth on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011. Scientists at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program, which tracks asteroids and comets, ruled out any chance of impact. (AP Photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The 230-foot wide radio telescope at the Goldstone Deep Space facility in Ft. Irwin, Calif., is seen, Monday, Nov 7, 2011. The radio telescope has been tracking asteroid 2005 YU55. At closest approach, the quarter-mile-wide space rock will pass within 202,000 miles of our planet at 6:28 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday. (AP Photo/Orange County Register, ) MAGS OUT; LOS ANGELES TIMES OUT

The 230-foot wide radio telescope at the Goldstone Deep Space facility in Ft. Irwin, Calif., is seen, Monday, Nov 7, 2011. The radio telescope has been tracking asteroid 2005 YU55. At closest approach, the quarter-mile-wide space rock will pass within 202,000 miles of our planet at 6:28 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday. (AP Photo/Orange County Register, Leonard Ortiz) MAGS OUT; LOS ANGELES TIMES OUT

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? An asteroid as big as an aircraft carrier is zipping by Earth on Tuesday in the closest encounter by such a massive space rock in more than three decades.

Scientists ruled out any chance of a collision but turned their telescopes skyward to learn more about the object known as 2005 YU55.

Its closest approach to Earth was pegged at a distance of 202,000 miles at 6:28 p.m. EST. That's just inside the moon's orbit; the average distance between Earth and the moon is 239,000 miles.

The last time a large cosmic interloper came that close to Earth was in 1976 and it won't happen again until 2028.

Scientists at NASA's Deep Space Network in the California desert have tracked the quarter-mile-wide asteroid since last week as it approached from the direction of the sun at 29,000 mph.

Astronomers and amateur skygazers around the world kept watch, too.

The Clay Center Observatory in Brookline, Mass., planned an all-night viewing party so children and parents could peer through research-grade telescopes and listen to lectures. The asteroid can't be detected with the naked eye.

"It's a fantastic opportunity to educate the public that there are things out in space that we need to be aware of" including this latest flyby, said observatory director Ron Dantowitz.

Dantowitz added: "It will miss the Earth. We try to mention that in every breath."

If an asteroid that size would hit, Purdue University professor Jay Melosh calculated the consequences. The impact would carve a crater four miles across and 1,700 feet deep. And if it slammed into the ocean, it would trigger 70-foot-high tsunami waves.

Since its discovery six years ago, scientists have been monitoring the spherical, coal-colored asteroid as it slowly spins through space and were confident it posed no danger.

Asteroids are leftovers from the formation of the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists believe their growth was stunted by Jupiter's gravitational pull and never had the chance to become full-fledged planets. Pieces of asteroids periodically break off and make fiery plunges through the atmosphere as meteorites.

Don Yeomans, who heads NASA's Near Earth Object Program, said 2005 YU55 is the type of asteroid that humans may want to visit because it contains carbon-based materials and possibly frozen water.

With the space shuttle program retired, the Obama administration wants astronauts to land on an asteroid as a stepping stone to Mars.

"This would be an ideal object," Yeomans said.

___

Online:

NASA's Near-Earth Object Program: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov

___

Follow Alicia Chang's coverage at http://www.twitter.com/SciWriAlicia

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2011-11-08-US-SCI-Asteroid-Flyby/id-0c95b10f666a49cfabd685dd4a792adb

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News networks take different approach to Cain case (AP)

NEW YORK ? The three different all-news television networks took three different approaches to covering Monday's emergence of a fourth woman to accuse Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain of sexual harassment.

CNN showed the woman, Sharon Bialek, deliver her statement live at a news conference with lawyer Gloria Allred. MSNBC did not show the statement but began talking about her accusations on the air as she was making them, while an on-screen headline proclaimed: "NBC News has not confirmed 4th accuser's story."

Fox News Channel did not air the news conference, concentrating instead on reports that a verdict had been reached in the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor, but told viewers they could watch a live stream of the news conference on the network's website.

The Chicago-area woman is a former employee of the Educational Foundation of the National Restaurant Association, an industry trade group led by Cain at the time of the alleged 1997 incident. Bialek said she had sought Cain's help after being fired from her job and he made an unwanted sexual advance.

CNN aired statements by Bialek and her attorney but cut off its live report before any questions were asked to switch to anchor Wolf Blitzer, who read a statement of denial from Cain's campaign. Blitzer called them "very ugly, disgusting allegations."

Fox political reporter Carl Cameron previewed the news conference Monday morning. Cameron noted that the Cain campaign had pointed out that Allred has donated to Democratic campaigns "and has been accused of pretty obvious self-promotion with some of her clients."

After the news conference, Fox's Megyn Kelly briefly reported on the allegations, and Cameron returned for a report on Shepard Smith's 3 p.m. EST newscast.

Network news executives had to weigh the potential explosive newsworthiness of Bialek's accusations, particularly when the previous three previous complaints against Cain had no names publicly attached, against their inability to check on the accusations before Bialek went before cameras.

"We wanted to be able to take a look at the press conference and do some reporting before we aired it," said MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines. Fox did not discuss its decision-making and CNN had no immediate comment.

CNN anchorwoman Brooke Baldwin noted later on Monday afternoon that the network had been "unable to speak with this woman ourselves, unable to vet her claims."

The ABC, CBS and NBC broadcast networks did not do special reports on Bialek's accusations.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111107/ap_en_ot/us_cain_media

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Medicare change tied to safer weight loss surgery (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) ? After Medicare changed its rules regarding coverage for weight loss surgeries in 2006, the cost for the procedures went down while safety measures increased, according to a new study.

Researchers found that the benefits were primarily due to a rules change that allowed Medicare to pay for a newer, less invasive procedure called laparoscopic adjustable banding.

Prior to the 2006 changes, Medicare, the federally-funded health insurance for older or disabled people, only reimbursed doctors for performing gastric bypass surgeries.

"This is one of the more recent natural experiments by Medicare to try and change the health care system for the better," said Dr. David Flum, the study's lead author and a professor at the University of Washington. "The message is, it worked."

Laparoscopic gastric banding helps people lose weight by squeezing off a portion of the stomach into a small pouch that can handle only limited amounts of food.

Gastric bypass also makes the stomach smaller, while detouring food around part of the small intestine.

Flum and his team gathered data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on people with Medicare insurance who underwent weight loss surgery between 2004 and 2008.

Throughout the study period, more than 47,000 people had weight loss surgery.

Before the 2006 rules changes, no one in this group received laparoscopic banding. After the changes, that procedure made up more than a third of the weight loss surgeries.

As "lap banding" was introduced, the number of people who died after surgery fell by more than half.

Fifteen out of every 1,000 people who had weight loss surgery before Medicare changed its rules died within 90 days of the procedure. After the rules change, seven out of every 1,000 people died after the surgery.

Readmissions to the hospital also dropped, from 19 patients out of every 100 before Medicare changed its rules, to 15 out of every 100 patients after the changes.

The cost of the procedures also decreased over time.

Before 2006, Medicare paid roughly $24,000 for each procedure. Afterward, it paid about $20,000.

From Flum's study it appears that another part of the rules change, which limited reimbursements only to hospitals that receive a particular accreditation, made little difference to the cost or safety of the procedures.

Hospitals receive accreditation through the American College of Surgeons or the American Society for Bariatric Surgery by performing a certain number of procedures each year and by having staff and facilities that meet certain standards.

Before Medicare's new requirement for accreditation in 2006, patients received surgery at 928 sites. Afterward, patients went to 662 facilities for surgery.

"I think Medicare should get rid of that requirement," said Dr. Edward Livingston, a professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center who was not involved in this study.

Livingston's concern is that the changes to Medicare made it harder for some people to find an accredited facility in their area.

"This is a particular problem for rural America...where patients have to travel great distances" to locate a center that Medicare will reimburse, Livingston told Reuters Health.

He said that having facilities within easy reach is especially important for the growing proportion of people receiving laparoscopic banding, because the procedure requires frequent follow up care.

"One of the downsides (to Medicare's coverage decision) is that access to care was decreased in places that were not accredited," said Flum, "but I think that setting some accreditation standards around safety or volume makes a lot of sense."

Other than to say CMS is pleased that the coverage decision appeared to improve health outcomes for people with Medicare, an official at CMS would not comment on the study because the agency is considering changing the rules again.

Medicare's current coverage for weight loss surgery excludes one type, called sleeve gastrectomy, and officials are seeking input on whether there are enough data on its effects and safety to include the procedure.

Through the health care reform law passed in 2010, the federal government is making more efforts to steer patients toward the safest, most effective and cheapest procedures.

The law established the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, for instance, which funds comparisons of different approaches to preventing or treating diseases.

Flum said Medicare's decision to change weight loss surgery coverage is the type of move he'd like to see shake out of the push to encourage more informed decisions about what procedures should be paid for.

"This is a model of how health care reform could play out to help people," he said.

One of the lingering questions surrounding Medicare's changes is whether the shift toward laparoscopic banding actually achieves better weight loss for patients compared to gastric bypass.

Recent studies have found that gastric bypass leads to faster weight loss and greater appetite control than the banding approach, making bypass potentially superior for some patients (see Reuters Health story of October 14, 2011). Others have found better diabetes control with bypass versus banding.

Flum is part of a group studying the long term outcomes of lap-banding, and whether it can also help stave off diabetes and heart disease as doctors hope. His study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense

Livingston agreed that it will be important to determine if lap banding is as effective as other surgeries.

"You can do a safe operation, but if it doesn't work you haven't gained anything," Livingston said.

SOURCE: Annals of Surgery, online October 4, 2011.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/health/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111104/hl_nm/us_medicare_weight_loss

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Andy Williams Determined To Beat Cancer - Starpulse.com

Andy WilliamsVeteran singer Andy Williams has opened up about his recent cancer diagnosis, insisting he is determined to win his battle with the disease.

The 83-year-old crooner cancelled several performances recently after falling sick with an undisclosed medical condition.

He has now confirmed he is undergoing treatment for bladder cancer, but is staying positive about his health crisis.

Williams made the announcement during his show at the Moon River Theater in Branson, Missouri on Saturday night, telling the crowd, "I do have cancer of the bladder. But that is no longer a death sentence. People with cancer are getting through this thing. They're kicking it, and they're winning more and more every year. And I'm going to be one of them."

The star also thanked his fans for supporting him in his "time of need", according to the Branson Tri-Lakes News, and vowed to return in 2012 to celebrate his 75th year in the entertainment industry, adding, "I'll be coming back here next year, in September and October. I'm going to do the shows I've planned to do."

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Andy Williams

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Photo Credits: Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos

Source: http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2011/11/06/andy_williams_determined_to_beat_cance

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