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Walgreens is threatening to stop filling Medicaid prescriptions at 64 of its 121 pharmacies in Washington state because of state cuts in payments.

Walgreens, the biggest drug-store chain in the country, has been down this road before. It threatened to pull out of Medicaid programs last year before settlements were reached in Delaware and in an earlier dust-up in Washington state.

This time, the chain says it is losing money on 95% of the brand-name drugs it dispenses to Medicaid patients in Washington, so it will end Medicaid participation at the 64 stores on Feb. 15. Here’s the company’s announcement from last night and a report from Dow Jones Newswires.

All the bluster could go away with another settlement, of course. But the dispute also serves as a reminder of the continuing friction surrounding Medicaid reimbursement rates while most of the health-care focus is on the big overhaul taking place in that other place named Washington.

Congress plans to use Medicaid, which was set up in 1965 to provide health benefits for the poor, to expand coverage as part of the overhaul. That’s because many poor Americans actually don’t get benefits via Medicaid. The bills passed by the Senate and House would both increase the number of people with Medicaid, but the plans differ in the details about who would qualify and how the expanded program would work.

Because Medicaid’s payment rates to doctors are lower than those paid by Medicare and private insurers, lots of docs refuse to take Medicaid patients. That issue inevitably will become a bigger sore point if the Medicaid umbrella expands.

Walgreens Neon Sign by puroticorico via Flickr

A recent survey conducted by Activision and The Harrison Group seeks to show that the video game industry is doing a good enough job of self-policing. Their findings? More than 80% of parents are familiar with ESRB

The fastest winter car

Yes, it is! It’s a Subaru Impreza STI WRX!

Men! Do you smell so bad that even your laptop has started stinking? Desperate times call for desperate measures, which means you might just have to consider this USB scent flower.

As your lookey-holes can see, it’s in the shape of a flower, but don’t let that put you off. You can’t put a price on a harmonious working environment, nor be too picky about aesthetics. Besides, each bouquet—which retails for $9.99—has three refill cartridges which last for months. The USB flowers come in different colors and scents, so every day can be an Ocean Breeze, Purple Lavender, Pink Jasmine or White Chamomile day. Martha Stewart already owns 87 of them, I heard. [USB scent flower via ChipChick]

Building on Existing Philanthropic Partnerships in Haiti, Abbott Pharmaceutical and Nutritional Products Already on the Ground as Part of Relief Efforts

Abbott (NYSE: ABT) and its philanthropic foundation the Abbott Fund have committed to provide $1 million in initial humanitarian aid in response to the earthquake in Haiti.

This support includes grant funding and donations of critical pharmaceutical and nutritional products to strengthen the ability of humanitarian aid organizations to respond to immediate health needs in Haiti.

This includes an initial quantity of pharmaceutical and nutritional products that are already in use in a hospital in Haiti.

These relief efforts in Haiti build on Abbott’s existing philanthropic partnerships to expand access to health care in the country.

Since 2007, Abbott and the Abbott Fund have provided more than $34 million in grants and product donations to help address health needs in Haiti, including maternal and child health, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and malnutrition.

“The recent earthquake has had a devastating impact on Haiti’s limited health care system, which was already facing significant challenges,” said Catherine V. Babington, president, the Abbott Fund.

“Building on our existing partnerships with humanitarian organizations in Haiti, we are providing funding and product donations to help address the immense and immediate health needs.”

Initial support from the Abbott Fund for earthquake recovery efforts includes $100,000 in grants to three of Abbott’s trusted humanitarian aid partners: American Red Cross, Partners In Health and Catholic Medical Mission Board.

All of these organizations have an established presence in Haiti, and are already mobilizing relief efforts in the country.

Abbott also is actively working with AmeriCares, Direct Relief International and additional organizations to identify and distribute critical nutritional and pharmaceutical products, such as antibiotics and rehydration fluids, that will provide immediate relief for people affected by the earthquake in Haiti.

Abbott will continue to work with key humanitarian aid partners to assess ongoing needs and the state of the transportation infrastructure to move forward with relief efforts.

In addition, Abbott volunteers in the Dallas area will be supporting the efforts of the American Red Cross to respond to the disaster in Haiti.

Through the American Red Cross program, “Ready When the Time Comes,” 35 Abbott volunteers have received training over the past year, and are already assisting with fundraising and other efforts in Dallas to support American Red Cross relief programs on the ground in Haiti.

About Abbott and Abbott Fund

Abbott is a global, broad-based health care company devoted to the discovery, development, manufacturing and marketing of pharmaceuticals and medical products, including nutritionals, devices and diagnostics.

The company employs more than 72,000 people and markets its products in more than 130 countries. Abbott’s news releases and other information are available on the company’s Web site at abbott.com.

The Abbott Fund is a philanthropic foundation established by Abbott in 1951.  The Abbott Fund’s mission is to create healthier global communities by investing in creative ideas that promote science, expand access to health care and strengthen communities worldwide.

For more information on the Abbott Fund, please visit abbottfund.org.

By April Taylor

January 14, 2010

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Next Wednesday, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B) is holding a special shareholders meeting to approve the planned 50:1 split of its B shares. The B share split was announced in November, on the same day that the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (NYSE: BNI) acquisition was announced. The key rationale given for the split was to enable small Burlington Northern shareholders to select the tax-free share exchange rather than cash, though interestingly, the proxy statement announcing the special shareholders meeting indicates that the split will move forward independent of the railroad deal’s closure.

The rationale for the 50:1 split sounds shareholder-friendly — that is, for small Burlington Northern shareholders. But what about current Berkshire Hathaway shareholders? Over the years, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett has written about share splits, and not in a favorable way. In his 1983 letter to shareholders, Buffett wrote, “Were we to split the stock or take other actions focusing on stock price rather than business value, we would attract an entering class of buyers inferior to the exiting class of sellers.” Nearly a decade later in his 1992 letter, Buffett’s view on share splits remained consistent, “… there is no way that our shareholder group would be upgraded by the new shareholders enticed by a split. Instead we believe that modest degradation would occur.”

While stock splits are not uncommon — S&P 500 components AmerisourceBergen (NYSE: ABC), Brown-Forman (NYSE: BF-B), Fluor (NYSE: FLR), and Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) have all done splits in the last two years — it is difficult not to pay special attention to the Berkshire split. First, the split will dramatically change the share price; this is no garden variety 2:1 split. At 50:1, the split will drop Berkshire B share prices from $3,300 per share to roughly $66 per share, making the stock accessible to small investors and traders alike, and making its addition to the S&P 500 index conceivable. Second, it is hard to ignore the past views that Buffett has expressed on stock splits.

Call me old-school, but I like the four-figure share price. What do other Fools think? Will the 50:1 Berkshire Hathaway split morph the shareholder base into a fast-trigger trading crowd that will result in higher turnover of Berkshire B shares? Or will Berkshire see little change in its B share owners? Stay tuned for more Foolish analysis following the split.

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Recommended Amazon Reading

	The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder Buy new: $13.60 / Used from: $11.94 Usually ships in 24 hours
	The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America, Second Edition by Warren E. Buffett Buy new: $26.01 / Used from: $29.93 Usually ships in 24 hours

Très Bien Shop recently received the latest Junya Watanabe MAN Spring/Summer 2010 show video straight from Comme des Garcons. This certainly is one of my most anticipated collections for the season, and it didn’t disappoint. The Dandy is alive and well in this range, mixing together plaids and solids in a variety of colors. Accessories such as ascots and hats give excellent detail to the collection, which goes well with pieces that include vests, blazers, shorts, and cropped trousers.

Continue reading to view the show.

Junya Watanabe MAN Spring 2010 from Très Bien Shop on Vimeo.

Source: Très Bien Shop Vimeo

I love my city. I’ve called Downtown home for 10 years. I’ve seen my share of successes and failures down here. (Monroe’s will always hold a special place in my heart.) When I first joined the Downtown Pioneers, the energy Downtown was like a few sparkling grains of sand. You found a grain at the Web Theater, you picked up another grain or two over at the Bentley Projects or Lodo, and on the right night a golden handful at Modified Arts. If you weren’t careful or if the wrong person breathed on it, the sand would blow away, leaving nothing to show for your dedication and no way to prove to  the naysayers that what you found was unique and worth nurturing.

Well, my fellow Downtown Pioneers, we have our victory at long last! The community we’ve cared for and lovingly nurtured with scraped and bleeding hands has finally come to life. Its energy is palpable, heavy in your hand. You can breathe it in like fresh herbs or your favorite corner restaurant. And we can laugh in the faces of the naysayers as they now scramble for a plot in our beautiful urban garden.

If you would like to experience what I have just described then I say, “No more excuses!” You will not find a better example of what Downtown has become than this weekend, which just so happens to be my favorite weekend of the entire year. Want to know why? Here’s the rundown: The P.F. Chang’s Rock N’ Roll Marathon will bring at least 40,000 bodies Downtown. AMA Supercross will bring another 50,000 inside Chase Field, and another 10,o00 taking part in the FanFest all day Saturday before the racing begins. The Herberger is playing host to one of the best musicals ever written, Ain’t Misbehavin’, and will surely bring another few thousand people Downtown for the last shows of the musical’s wildly successful run. Kathy Griffin is in town at Dodge (5,000 people there), Master Peter’s Puppet Show’s Don Quixote will pack 2,400 into Symphony Hall, Disney On Ice has four shows scheduled at US Airways Center with 9,000 attending each one, and the World Music Festival is bringing two acts and 2,400 people to the Orpheum Theater.  

That doesn’t include the great family activites at Arizona Science Center, the Saturday market at Phoenix Public Market, Third Fridays Concert at Civic Space Park, or any of the restaurants and bars that will be spilling over with people.

So… remember that Downtown energy I mentioned earlier?

During his speech at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show, Cadillac General Manager Bryan Nesbitt confirmed that all Cadillac models in the future will feature a V or Platinum Series model.

“In luxury segments where overwhelming luxury performance is the primary desire we will apply our V Series design and technical capabilities to create a dominating presence,” said Nesbitt. “And when gracious comfort, elegance and an extra measure of hand crafted materials are expected, Platinum will be our offering.”

At the 2010 NAIAS, Cadillac showed its new CTS-V Coupe and the XTS Platinum Concept. Of course, we’re hoping that the production XTS gets a V series variant very soon.

2010 Cadillac XTS Platinum Concept:

– By: Omar Rana

En el Centro Técnico de Seat, en Martorell, se han reunido los representantes y especialistas de los centros de investigación, universidades y centros tecnológicos que participan en el CENIT Verde, el proyecto por el cual España se va a beneficiar de estos centros de investigación para crear una tecnología propia de baterías, puntos de recarga y motores eléctricos para electrificar el parque automotor español.

Seat, como anfitriona del proyecto y con el apoyo del Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial, recibió a los 32 representantes de las empresas y universidades, en lo que ha pasado a ser la primer reunión de todos los miembros del CENIT Verde.

Las meta final es contar con un millón de coches eléctricos circulando en España para el año 2014. Las expectativas son muy buenas y existe voluntad (junto con el apoyo correspondiente de 34 millones de Euros).

Aunque a veces se llegan a extremos exagerados (como quien dijo que para el 2019 no se podrá circular con un coche que no sea eléctrico), el proyecto avanza y extiende los beneficios que el coche eléctrico tendrá en la industria española y para el consumidor.

Vía | Seat Prensa

Today’s special catch-up edition of the Smartphone Round Robin here at PreCentral.net has us looking at the Android platform. I’ve started up a thread with a few relevant questions over at the Android forums at Android Central. If you’re interested, I sure could use the help thinking about the platform and, yes, every day you post over there is another chance to win an Android phone of your choice.

PreCentral peeps: Matthew Miller of Nokia Experts is taking a look at webOS this week. If you haven’t, go on over to this thread and have a chat with Matthew about your platform-of-choice. There’s a Palm phone in the offing there too and by the time the contest ends, the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will definitely be on the table!

My video hands-on with Android after the break!

read more

Um vídeo divulgado pela CBS News mostra a forma violenta como a terra tremeu no terramoto de Haiti.

WebTuga – [Video] Terramoto em Haiti

Jan 14, 2010 11:32

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While Cadbury shares saw some life on hopes for a rival bid from Hershey — boosted by reporting from the FT that a rival offer was further along than much of the market had assumed — naysaying analysts and pundits have been quick to point out that the financials of a Hershey bid are hard to stomach.

Hershey is only half the size of Cadbury, and a big share issue would dilute the stake of the controlling Hershey Trust, which has been every bit as crucial to defining the company as the kiss. The FT report says Hershey is working on a private equity element with none other than Byron Trott, Warren Buffett’s banker of choice. The idea that Buffett, who is Kraft’s biggest shareholder, could play both sides of a bidding war is, if not new, certainly intriguing, particularly given his apparent distaste for Kraft selling its own shares to keep its bid attractive.

And while Cadbury has repeatedly denied it is looking for a white knight, a deal that would leave its management in place, perhaps in exchange for keeping the Hershey Trust intact, could be attractive enough to consider breaking off a piece of Cadbury to give to a private equity investor to chew on … its gum business, for example.

Share Investor Links

Share Investor Blog – Stockmarket & Business commentary
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Discuss this topic @ Share Investor Forum – Register free
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Recommended Amazon Reading

	The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder Buy new: $13.60 / Used from: $11.94 Usually ships in 24 hours
	The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America, Second Edition by Warren E. Buffett Buy new: $26.01 / Used from: $29.93 Usually ships in 24 hours

Economists offer their comments on December’s decline in retail sales.

• The 0.3% m/m decline in retail sales in December is a reminder that consumers still aren’t buying into the economic recovery. Without a more significant acceleration in consumption growth that recovery is ultimately doomed to disappoint. – Paul Ashworth, Capital Economics
• On balance in spite of the disappointing sales in December the trajectory of total consumer spending on a quarter over quarter basis is improving…The disappointment with holiday sales in December seems to be more a result of a shift in spending patterns rather than another poor Christmas shopping season. Sales in October and November rose very robustly (1.2%, and 1.8%, respectively). It seems as though concerned retailers began offering price discounts on merchandise earlier than normal and holiday shoppers took advantage of it. Sales at generally merchandisers increased 0.7% and 0.5% in the previous two months and then dropped 0.8% in December. Since merchants choose to be very conservative in their inventory stocking for the holiday period, the large discounts that encourage sales in January will likely be much smaller than normal. – Brian Fabbri, BNP Paribas
• Weaker than expected report. While much of the downside surprise in December sales was offset by an upward revision to November, the result is no change to our expectation for consumption in Q4, but a weaker ramp heading into Q1. –Morgan Stanley
• The pattern of recent economic data matched the weather for most of the country over the last two months of 2009 with a warm November and a cooler than expected December… Apparently, no one wanted to buy a television in the snow. Electronics and appliance store sales fell with a thud by 2.6 percent. But other categories were also weak. Food and beverage store sales dipped by 0.8 percent as did sales at general merchandise stores. Clothing store sales slipped by 0.6 percent, the same for sales at restaurants and bars. Despite a 2.8 percent increase in unit auto sales for the month of December, retail sales for autos fell by 0.2 percent, suggesting deeper discounting and a shift to smaller cars. – PNC
• Today’s retail sales report suggests slighter softer consumption growth in Q4 of 1.8% compared with our baseline forecast of 2.0%. We are still tracking about 5% for Q4 GDP growth. While today’s report only has a modest effect on Q4 GDP because the weakness in December was partly offset by stronger November data, it does mean a more feeble Q1 kick off. As such, we believe there are downside risks to our forecast for Q1 GDP to increase 5%. – Michelle Meyer, Barclays Capital Research
• We would advise against looking at either the November or the December results for retail sales in isolation. The combination of an increased emphasis on “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” sales in November and lousy weather in late December likely played havoc with spending patterns relative to past norms and thus made the seasonal adjustment task a more vague exercise than usual. Still, with fundamentals facing the consumer still terrible…reality is probably closer to the December outcome than November’s result. –Joshua Shapiro, MFR, Inc.
• Overall, despite the surprisingly weak headline print in December, the performance of retail sales in the last quarter of 2009 suggests some significant positive momentum on consumer spending and may augur well for Q4 GDP. Notwithstanding this, with the U.S. labour market remaining quite weak and consumer credit continuing to decline, we expected consumer spending growth in the coming months to be relatively soft. –Millan L. B. Mulraine, TD Securities

Laura Harnish is the California Regional Director.

We here at EDF are saddened by the catastrophe that has struck Haiti and the stark realization that things will continue to get worse as the shortage of freshwater begins to claim even more lives. Read Peter Gleick’s blog about how the need for freshwater is critical in Haiti.

Although we are consumed in our daily lives with California's "water crisis" this is an excruciating reminder that many other areas of the world are much more vulnerable to water shortages, especially in a disaster.

Give what you can to support Haiti in this time of crisis. Two good organizations to donate to are: the Red Cross  or Doctors Without Borders.

And don’t forget to have an emergency preparedness kit to deal with an earthquake or other natural disaster in California. For more information go to 72 Hours.