Author: Chris Morran

As the United States continues to struggle to pull itself out of the current economic quagmire, it’s good to know that not all American companies are behaving like times are tough. Take Anthem Blue Cross of California, who announced this week that individual policy holders will see an average premium increase of 25% with some rate hikes set to reach 39%, prompting Congress and the White House to demand an immediate explanation.

A rep for Anthem’s parent company, healthcare behemoth WellPoint, released a letter outlining their reasoning. Among the points in the letter to Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius:

• The rate increases being reported in the media relate only to the individual insurance market, which represents less than 10% of our California members.

• Anthem operated at a loss in its individual business in California during 2009.

• An independent actuarial firm examined our rates and concluded they are both sound and necessary, reflecting the expected medical costs associated with membership in these plans. They meet or exceed the medical loss ratio required by California law.

• Our members have choice in coverage, and we work with them to find the best options for their needs. As a result, our products are very competitively priced when compared with other California plans, including our two largest not-for-profit competitors.

• A higher proportion of healthy individuals are choosing not to enroll, leaving an insured pool that utilizes significantly more services. This is why we need an effective personal coverage requirement.

Not surprisingly, Sebelius was not impressed.

“It remains difficult to understand how a company that made $2.7 billion in the last quarter of 2009 alone can justify massive increases that will leave consumers with nothing but bad options,” the Secretary responded. “High healthcare costs alone cannot account for a premium increase that is 10 times higher than national health spending growth.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada echoed this sentiment. “It means that more people won’t be able to afford any coverage at all,” said Reid. “It means more people will be living just one accident, one injury or one pink slip away from losing everything.”

Congress will take up this issue with a hearing before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce scheduled for Feb. 24, one day after the California Assembly’s health committee conducts its own hearing.

Is Anthem/WellPoint justified in raising rates? Beyond that, does Congress have the right to intervene?

Anthem’s parent company defends health insurance rate hike [L.A. Times]

The white coats over at the Centers for Disease Control have issues a bad news/good news report regarding the outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus — better known by its stage name, “swine flu.” The bad news is that more than 57 million Americans have gotten sick with H1N1. The good news, in a backhanded way, is that only around 0.02% of the cases were fatal.

The approximately 11,700 tragic deaths in the U.S. from H1N1 pale in comparison to previous flu pandemics, like the one in 1918. That plague had an estimated mortality rate of over 10% and claimed the lives of more than 500,000 people in the U.S. alone, and nearly 50 million globally.

In the report, the CDC warns that, though the spread of the virus is slowing, it is still spreading. But with approximately 70 million people having received H1N1 vaccinations, the odds of seeing another significant spike in reported cases are decreasing.

Of the nearly 11,700 deaths from H1N1, the CDC reports that only around 15% were from the 65-and-over age group. This differs greatly from expected flu statistics, wherein approximately 90% of the deaths every season come from this older demographic.

H1N1 Flu Affected 57 Million Americans, CDC Says [Wall Street Journal]

In case you hadn’t noticed, these aren’t the brightest economic times in U.S. history. Perhaps you were distracted by the guys repossessing your car. And a new Reuters/University of Michigan survey of consumer sentiment shows that y’all aren’t expecting the USS Recession to turn around anytime in the immediate future.

The survey’s preliminary index of sentiment for February was 73.7, a small slip from 74.4 in late January. One bright spot: A year ago that index was a lowly 56.3.

The middling number is a combination of improved economic conditions — the best since March 2008 — but sagging expectations from consumers whose rose-tinted glasses appear to be on the fritz.

“Few consumers anticipated any significant declines in the jobless rate any time soon, and the majority expected recurrent economic weaknesses over the next several years,” Richard Curtin, director of the surveys, said in a statement.

“The cumulative financial strain during the past few years, coupled with the fact that the majority still expect no gains in their incomes, work hours or home values in the year ahead, has meant that consumers have remained extremely cautious spenders.”

So is this a case of things actually getting better, but people just being too beat-down and wary to believe it?

Consumer Sentiment Slips In Early February [Reuters]

Imagine you’re a teenager being forced to attend a family get-together the day after you totaled your parents’ car while doing donuts in the school parking lot. Awkward, right? Now, imagine you did that to around 8 million cars and you’ll have some understanding of just how tense the room will be when Toyota president Akio Toyoda makes the rounds stateside in a few weeks. It’s almost enough to pity the guy. No, wait… it’s not.

Toyoda, who also happens to be the grandson of the car giant’s founder, had planned to pay a visit to the U.S. next week to meet with dealers, suppliers and employees, but that trip got pushed back to March because of inclement weather.

It’s a real shame Toyoda couldn’t get an earlier flight, because it appears he’s likely to miss out on two Congressional hearings, and maybe the March 2 Senate hearing regarding the current massive recall of Toyotas. And his absence is not sitting well with some high-placed D.C. folks.

“Surely if Congress can be here, so can you,” California Congressman Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in a statement to Toyoda on Thursday. Issa also said he would fully support issuing a subpoena compelling the Toyota chief to appear before the committee.

In a piece written for The Washington Post earlier this week, Toyoda said, “Great companies learn from their mistakes, and we know that we have to win back the trust of our customers by adhering to the very values on which that trust was first built.”

And then early on Friday, a rep for the company said in a statement, “We’re trying to be proactive… Some consumers are worried, so even if the information doesn’t rise to the level of a recall, we are taking this step to restore the company’s credibility.”

But wouldn’t Toyoda appearing before Congress demonstrate — even a little bit — that his company is dedicated to transparency on the recall issue?

Toyota chief Toyoda vs. U.S. Congress over recalls, pedals, safety and testifying [USA Today]

Just a few days after a California woman filed a lawsuit against Jillian Michaels, one the hard-nosed trainers on NBC weight loss hit The Biggest Loser, alleging false advertising for her Maximum Strength Calorie Control diet supplement, a second purchaser of the product has filed a similar claim.

Rather than merely add her name to the existing suit, this newest filing also seeks class action status and uses nearly identical language. Once again, the plaintiff is claiming that she decided to buy Calorie Control because Michaels’ name and likeness was attached to it — only to find (shocker!) that she didn’t lose any weight.

Regarding the first lawsuit, reps for Michaels say they expect she will be vindicated in court.

Another Overweight Woman Sues Jillian Michaels [TMZ]

We live in a brave new world, people. Cars park themselves. Two-year-olds are Twittering. And now the TSA’s latest and greatest security technology has become sentient enough to let us all know that it does not approve of breast implants.

Sandra Fish of Politics Daily had her left breast reconstructed following a mastectomy. The writer recently got to enjoy the experience of stepping into a Millimeter Wave full-body scanner at lovely Denver International Airport. Unfortunately for her, this new-fangled enhancement to the airport’s security didn’t know what to do with her enhancement.

“The woman there asked me to step on the yellow footprints and raise my arms above my head. She murmured into a headset to start the scan. There was a quick motion through the plexiglass. She asked me to turn, step on the green footprints and hold my arms straight out. Another scan.

She motioned me out of the scanner and asked me to wait for word from someone in some secret room somewhere, someone looking at a vision of my body sans jeans, cardigan, turtleneck, etc. Hmmm . . .

Then she said she needed to check something. And she began sweeping her hands around my left breast and rib cage.”

After finally cluing the guard into the fact that she was the owner of a silicone implant, she was released without any further scans or manhandling.

A TSA spokesperson says the implant should not have set off an alert and that it must have been something else on Fish’s person. However, the owner of the artificial breast claims to have not had anything on her body other than comfy cotton clothing.

Only time will tell if this becomes a true nuisance, especially as these Millimeter Wave scanners are installed in airports located in cities like Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

My Left Breast Put Fancy TSA Scanner to the Test [Politics Daily]

The folks at Google are a busy bunch — in the same day that they made your Gmail contact list a public matter with their Facebook wannabe Google Buzz, they pulled the plug without warning on a handful of popular music blogs in their blogger.com network for alleged violations of that holiest of Internet grails, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

While Google would not comment on any specific sites that were taken down in recent days, they did issue a statement:

“Last summer, we updated our enforcement of the DMCA. Our current policy is that when we receive a DMCA complaint, we:

• Notify the blogger about the complaint by e-mail and on the Blogger dashboard.
• Reset the offending post to ‘draft’ status, allowing the blogger to remove the offending content.
• Send a copy of the complaint to ChillingEffects.org.

When we receive multiple DMCA complaints about the same blog, and have no indication that the offending content is being used in an authorized manner, we will remove the blog.”

There is an appeals process that can be taken by blogs that feel they’ve been unjustly caught up in this latest DMCA manhunt. But several of the more popular sites have already chosen to move to new URLs.

A quick note about music blog removals [Blogger Buzz]

Colonel Sanders has gone missing. Okay, not the actual man — he died in 1980 — but a bronze bust of the goateed Kentucky Fried Chicken founder has disappeared from its hallowed position outside a KFC in Berea, KY. The statue, valued at $1,200, is now the target of a police manhunt and the subject of a reward: $500 of free chicken.

“It’s like, this big, his whole head. It’s really detailed, all the features and everything,” the manager of the victimized KFC said following the theft. “Some employees were in the dining room when four young guys came in… When she came back to the dining area, it was gone.”

Hall said police confirmed that four male youths were spied fleeing on foot from the fast food restaurant.

Perhaps the police should check out Craiglist?

It is not yet known whether the $500 reward extends to both original recipe and extra crispy, or whether or not they will charge extra for all white meat.

Stay tuned to Consumerist as this breaking story continues to develop.

Col. Sanders statue stolen from KFC [UPI]

On NBC’s The Biggest Loser, trainer Jillian Michaels is known for her no-bull-allowed attitude in the gym as she attempts to help her obese pupils drop massive amounts of weight in a very short time. But one woman is now seeking class-action status for a lawsuit that claims Jillian should have had the same no-nonsense stance toward a diet supplement she’s lent her name to.

In a suit filed yesterday in a Los Angeles court, Christie Christensen alleges false advertising of a product called Jillian Michaels Maximum Strength Calorie Control, which she claims did nothing to curb her appetite or help her shed pounds.

At the crux of the lawsuit is the product’s slogan, “Two Capsules Before Main Meals and You Lose Weight… That’s It!”

In the suit, which also names manufacturer Basic Research and seeks unspecified damages, the plaintiff states, “Ms. Michaels knows better — taking two pills before eating does not miraculously cause weight loss.”

The court filing states Christensen purchased the product because it was endorsed by Michaels, who also lends her name to at least four other diet supplements, along with a handful of other fitness products.

‘Biggest Loser’ Star – Big Fat Liar … Allegedly [TMZ]

In a move that surely has some folks at Verizon looking for a change of pants, Google announced today that it is planning to build and test a ultra-high-speed broadband network that would deliver data at 1 Gb per second, up to 100x that of current Internet connections. Oh, and they want to offer it on the cheap.

“Imagine sitting in a rural health clinic, streaming three-dimensional medical imaging over the web and discussing a unique condition with a specialist in New York,” reads the statement, announced on Google’s official blog this morning. “Or downloading a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five minutes. Or collaborating with classmates around the world while watching live 3-D video of a university lecture. Universal, ultra high-speed Internet access will make all this and more possible.”

Planning to start with a test network of as few as 50,000 and as many as 500,000 users, Google has put out requests for information in an effort to identify interested communities.

Here’s a video, for those of you who like such things:

Think big with a gig: Our experimental fiber network [Official Google Blog]

Before Honda dealers begin making fun of their Toyota-selling foes, they might want to check out the latest press release from their own company, which has just announced that they’re expanding a 2008 recall that had initially only represented about 4,000 cars in North America. And by “expanding,” they mean “adding more than 400,000” to the total.

Honda announced late last night that they are recalling an additional 438,000 vehicles globally — 379,000 in the U.S. alone — to replace an airbag inflator that could possibly inflate with pressure enough to cause injury or death.

Vehicles included in the expanded recall include 2001 and 2002 Accords, Civics, Odysseys, CR-Vs, and selected 2002 Acura TL vehicles.

Honda revealed that 12 incidents have been reported relating to the airbag inflator problem.

The original recall, issued in Nov. 2008, only affected 3,940 U.S. vehicles, but was expanded in 2009 to include another 443,727 additional vehicles in the United States.

Honda says it plans to notify affected customers by mail and phone with instructions on how to have their vehicles inspected and updated at an authorized dealer. They also claim that not every vehicle in the model and production years mentioned is affected.

Honda Expands Airbag Recall[CNN Money]
Statement by American Honda Motor Co., Inc., Regarding Expansion of Driver’s Airbag Inflator Recall [Honda]

Just in case you didn’t already know this from all the times you’ve seen someone bust out their iPhone just to pull up imdb.com or Wikipedia to settle a bar bet, a new study published by our hot cousins at Consumer Reports shows that users of Apple’s super phone are using up to five times more data each month than Blackberry owners and nearly double that of other smart phones.

Since AT&T won’t share data usage stats, even when asked really nicely, Consumer Reports commissioned a study to see just how much data all those iPhone users were soaking up looking at GoogleMaps, checking sports scores and reading Consumerist. And according to the results, the average iPhone user’s uploads and downloads are around 273 MB per month, while Blackberry folks only chewed up a paltry-by-comparison 54 MB each month.

The study also revealed that, unlike Blackberry or smart phone users, iPhoners are really getting the most out of their data plan. While 80% of non-work Blackberry users and 54% of smart phone users are utilizing less than 50 MB of data each month, less than 20% of iPhone owners are using below the 50 MB mark.

If you’re one of those people who really likes graphs, here’s one for you:

Exclusive: iPhones hog much more data than other smart phones [Consumer Reports]

Sunday night’s thrilling thrashing of Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts at the hands of the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV wasn’t just the most-viewed show in TV history, with over 150 million people tuning into the CBS broadcast, it was also the most advertising-heavy Super Bowl in the history of the football season’s grand finale.

According to a report from Kantar Media that documents all of the ads and advertisers from Sunday evening, CBS ran just under 48 minutes of commercials (not counting their own promo pieces) during the game, several minutes more than last year’s record-setting telecast.

While some might argue this exhibits a willingness on the part of advertisers to once again spend big bucks on high-profile TV spots, Kantar also points out that Super Bowl XLIV featured the highest number of cheaper, shorter 15-second ads in almost a decade.

Additionally, this year saw the top four ad buyers (Anheuser-Busch InBev, Hyundai, Coca Cola, PepsiCo) dominate the night, accounting for 25% of all purchased ad time. Of note, though PepsiCo was a top-4 advertiser, none of their Super Bowl ads were for Pepsi beverages. The company ceded the floor to Coke and opted instead to spend their cash on pushing Doritos to the munching audience.

Also worth mentioning from the Kantar report is that 63% of the Super Bowl XLIV advertisers are not currently listed as Top 200 ad buyers, a 5% increase over last year and nearly double the 2001-2005 average, meaning that smaller companies chose to take advantage of the visibility the Super Bowl affords while the bigger names decided to stay home and watch the game (and the ads) on TV like the rest of us.

Kantar Media Provides Full Analysis of 2010 Super Bowl Advertising [Kantar Media]

For those of us who really enjoy streaming Netflix movies through our Xbox 360 or PS3, it seemed like wonderful news yesterday when it was reported that some Watch It Now flicks would be made available in both 1080p and 5.1 surround in the near future. Alas, after some clarification, it looks like only part of this is true.

In a statement released by Netflix, the company clarified that is does indeed intend to bring customers HD movies (at 720p) in glorious 5.1 surround sometime this year, there is no definite plan to unleash 1080p Watch It Now films in 2010.

Xbox 360 users hungry for a taste of streaming 1080p movies can currently feed their HD beast through Microsoft’s Zune store, which uses Microsoft’s Silverlight player.

1080p streaming not coming to Netflix this year [cnet]

Just about the only commercial from Sunday night’s Super Bowl ad blitz that still had anyone talking the next day was CBS’ spot for The Late Show with David Letterman, which featured Dave watching the big game on his couch with Oprah Winfrey and his once-again time-slot competitor Jay Leno. So how did this all happen? Jay went on his own show last night to explain… well, sort of.

“As you know, I watched the game with Oprah and Letterman,” he told the audience on Monday. “We all watched together. Letterman and I hadn’t seen each other in over 18 years. We lost touch. He found me on Facebook. He made a friend request, I accepted, and we hooked up and watched the game.”

Anyone familiar with the Fox medical hit House knows that the show’s cranky, mad-genius protagonist often makes an end-run around hospital protocol, red tape and common sense. Which means the writers are often forced to omit any pesky “there’s no way that’s covered by their insurance” scenes. But Monday night’s episode got its hands on the hot-button issue of health insurance in an almost realistic way. There was also a guy trying to get a prescription for breast milk.

Unlike your usual hour of House, this week’s show focused on his much-put-upon boss, Dr. Lisa Cuddy, as she tried to negotiate the hurdles of her gig as the hospital’s dean of medicine.

One subplot featured a carpenter, Mr. Acevedo, who was attempting to sue the hospital because they had done too good of a job sewing his thumb back on after he severed it in an accident. The patient’s lawyer explained that his client had asked the docs to do only the small amount of surgery covered by his insurance. But the surgeon, Dr. Chase, decided to go ahead and reattach the thumb anyway.

According to PoliteDissent.com, a blog that exists to pick apart the medical facts and fictions on House, the patient might have a pretty good case:

Both Cuddy and the lawyer are glossing over the key fact that the treatment Mr. Acevedo received was not covered by the informed consent he signed. Chase may have done what he thought was best for the patient, but he did it through lying and dishonesty. Sure, Mr. Acevedo kept his thumb, and this will probably restrain the jury’s and judge’s enthusiasm for a large payout, but there is clear written evidence that Chase was deceitful in his treatment of the patient. The hospital’s insurance company will pay this off long before it sees a courtroom. And as for Chase, skipping informed consent or lying on it is a good way to lose a medical license.

Now to the guy trying to get a scrip for mother’s milk. A cancer patient had heard that breast milk could be used as a treatment for his disease but could not afford to pay for it himself, so he went to Cuddy with the misguided notion that his insurance will pay for anything, so long as there’s a prescription. Unfortunately, as Scott from Polite Dissent confirms, “the insurance company will not pay for it, even with a prescription — they’ll consider it an experimental treatment.”

So the moral of this story? Don’t get your medical or insurance advice from TV. That’s what the Internet is for.

Episode 13 (Season 6): “5 to 9″ [Polite Dissent]

Apparently, the most dangerous creatures stalking the lush woodlands of Forks, Washington — the real-life town that’s also the setting for the insanely popular Twilight series of books and movies — aren’t the hunky teen vampires with sparkly skin or shirtless Native American werewolves, but documentary filmmakers that dare to tread on the feet of the films’ producers.

In a recently filed lawsuit, the good folks at Summit Entertainment, the folks behind the Twilight Saga, are sinking their legal fangs into the neck of a company called Topics Entertainment, claiming that Topics violated their trademark by producing and advertising a documentary about Fork that is too similar to a doc Summit plans on releasing later this year.

Topics has reportedly been attempting to get DVDs of their film, Forks: Bitten by Twilight, into stores like Best Buy and Target, but Summit has sought an injunction against any future sales of the documentary — along with damages — alleging that they used trademarked artwork and that their box design is too close to cover of Summit’s movie, Twilight in Forks: The Saga of the Real Town.

Twilight and its sequel New Moon have already grossed over $1.8 billion in theaters. The third film, Eclipse, is due out this summer.

‘Twilight’ Lawsuit – That’s Our Moonlit Forest! [TMZ]