Author: Alerts CC

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced Tuesday that they’ve reduced their backlog of unfulfilled claims by 44%. In order to be considered part of the backlog, a claim has to be stuck in the processing stage of Veterans Affairs’ systems for more than 125 days. Backlogged cases are now down to around 344,000, a significant shift from the 611,000 ignored cases at the same time in 2013.

The Reduced Backlog Comes Too Late for Many Americans

Unfortunately, while the news from Veterans Affairs is undoubtedly welcome, for over 900,000 Americans, the news comes too late. As New York Daily News reported in February 2013, that’s the number of American veterans who had died up until that point while waiting for their guaranteed benefits to come through the incompetent government entity. At that time, it was estimated that unless the VA made significant changes to their methods, 53 Americans would continue dying per day, thanks almost entirely to the failings of Washington’s bureaucratic failures.

It would be unfair to characterize the body as completely useless. As the backlog reduction shows, the department has started pushing veterans’ claims through the pipes faster. In December 2013, the VA began expanding benefits to more American soldiers with a greater range of battlefield injuries, particularly those suffering from traumatic brain injury. While the Department of Veterans Affairs can be said to be moving in the right direction, some of Washington’s most influential players have run out of patience.

Out of the Frying Pan…

After Army Spc. Ivan Lopez murdered three people and wounded 16 more in a shooting in Fort Hood, Texas yesterday, John Boehner (R-OH), House Speaker, said of the issue, “We need to continue to look at [how] to find a way to keep weapons out of the hands of people who should not have them.” The first step, ostensibly, is to take a hard look at the speed of benefit delivery and the type of benefits being offered to help improve the health of America’s returning men and women in uniform.

Currently, a $1.1 billion package aimed at addressing mental health issues in the armed forces and general public is awaiting President Obama’s signature. Now, the Department of Veteran Affairs Management Accountability Act of 2014 is being brought to Capitol Hill. If passed, the bill would improve VA transparency, strip it of much of its autonomy, and make it vulnerable to oversight of hiring and firing practices from outside regulatory forces. While debate continues over the best way to bring the department in line with its duties to the American people, there is little debate that change is a necessity.

Adecco, based in Switzerland, is the largest staffing agency in the world. Globally, it provides both temporary and full-time staffing services to businesses in more than 60 countries and employs more than 31,000 individuals. Last year, it generated about $27 billion and more than $5 billion came from the United States. But that does not mean they are not willing to change, and announced a plan to move its U.S. headquarters to Jacksonville earlier this month.

By moving 185 employees from Melville, NY to Jacksonville, Adecco will save about $2 million. That comes out to roughly $10,000 per employee, according to documents associated with the move and government officials.

“This is not just a new headquarters,” said Jacksonville City Council President Bill Gulliford.

“More important, it is a big deal because of the magnitude of their international presence… A global national headquarters suggests you get more points than just a movement of a domestic corporate headquarters,” he said.

Adecco has not chosen Jacksonville from a hat, so to speak, as the company already has 354 employees there. The 185 new workers from NY have average salaries of $64,000 and include both corporate and professional jobs.

Interestingly enough, Gulliford also expressed a bit of sympathy for Melville, which never seemed to get a chance to keep Adecco there.

“I felt a little sorry for a brief moment reading the comments of the people at the chamber on Long Island, ‘they didn’t ever give us a chance,’ which makes it very intriguing because that says, ‘we were going to leave regardless,'” Gulliford said.

Currently, the city and state are working on formal legislation for incentives that should help make the move easier for Adecco. David DeCamp, spokesperson for Mayor Alvin Brown, said that the incentives depend on the creation of 185 new full-time jobs in corporate leadership, professional, and support. The company is also expected to make a $3.4 million capital investment in the city.

Though Adecco is moving 185 employees, more than 200 will be “impacted.” They did not respond to email queries about what would happen to the jobs that weren’t relocated. However, about 250 jobs will remain in Long Island.

The staffing agency might be hesitant to move more than 200 people south because of the difficult logistics of doing so. Most companies provide benefits and assistance with the moving process including reimbursement for hiring moving trucks (70% of businesses) and reimbursement for packing items (72%). It is hard to predict exactly, but the costs and challenges associated with helping workers move might have influenced Adecco to cap the number at 185.

Adecco Group North America CEO Robert “Bob” Crouch has his home and an office in Jacksonville, which might have prompted the move. Early indicators are that both he and the city are excited about the company’s future there.

Dental care is often prohibitively expensive, especially for people living at or near the poverty line. San Francisco’s free health clinic that ran this weekend sought to help connect 300 people from around the city with basic dental care and cavity prevention help.

The free health fair was operated by the Adventist Medical Evangelism Network, a 10-year-old organization that managed to bring together over two dozen dentists, doctors, dental hygienists, nurses and dental students to take care of the walk-in patients. Danny Kwon, executive director for the network’s local branch, explains that after doing several mission trips abroad, the group realized that “there was just as big a need in America” for the type of free services they’re keen to provide.

Although the event did have a prayer table available for discussion, prayer or information, the event was open to individuals of all religious denominations. The Seventh-day Adventists see healthcare as an essential part of their core mission. “We believe we’re accountable for what we put in our bodies, because it has a profound effect on how we think, feel and treat other people,” explains Dr. Steve Mulder, an anesthesiologist from San Luis Obispo.

Dental patients who attended the clinic had their x-rays taken and were given advice as to how to relieve their mouth pain. Many of the patients, noted Kwon, were long overdue for care, needing everything from cleaning to root canals. In order to treat the greatest number of patients, the dentists treated only the dental problem most in need of care, even if multiple fillings or treatments were needed. There were so many patients visiting the clinic that, in spite of being open from 7:30am to 5pm each day, anyone arriving after 10am had to be turned away in order to ensure that everyone who had checked in would definitely receive treatment.

One patient at the clinic included 34-year-old Leticia Brown, who had put dental and medical care for her kids first, and is now paying the price with her own teeth — for several weeks, she had only been able to eat soft food because the nerve pain in one of her molars was so intense. “I went to a dentist two months ago and had two molars removed, but I think they cracked a third, and it needs to come out,” she said. Many patients were also children, who can suffer long term effects when dental care is delayed. Braces are often prescribed to young children because misaligned teeth can contribute to worn-down enamel, poor nutrition, and issues with speech development.

Volunteers included Dr. Jeri Shepherd, who is a dentist at the San Luis Obispo state prison. Dr. Shepherd said the patients weren’t the only ones getting something out of the experience. “If I can put a smile on their face and get them out of pain, that’s wonderful,” he said.

Bull market: a stock market with rising costs, investor confidence and expectations of strong continued returns.

You’ve likely heard the term before, and chances are you’re probably already familiar with its definition. And according to Schaeffer’s Investment Research, the United States has been enjoying one since 2009. That’s when the Dow Jones Industrial Average initially bottomed out, beginning the market anew on a quest back to the top that’s yielded what Schaeffer’s calls an “impressive” 18% growth every single year since then.

But has the bull market continued on into 2014? The latest numbers from S&P 500 would suggest so.

According to the new data, released earlier this week, we’re more or less exactly where we’ve been the past five years at this time. However, Forbes reports that the trajectory of the market itself is a little bit different than what we’re used to seeing for the first 50 days of a new year.

Typically, the market started out enjoying great gains before dipping down in the middle of March, only to return to higher peaks throughout the rest of the year. Since January 1 of this year, it’s been a bit of the opposite. The market began quite poorly but is now seeing some impressive returns given the time of year, all of which hint at the possibility of the market experiencing even more gains as the last eight months of the year play out.

Some market watchers contend that though stocks seemed up for much of 2014, ultimately, they’re down 5% from where they’ve been in the past. But it’s hard to get the most accurate picture of the market’s trends only looking at the numbers from month to month. In order to really gauge the landscape, you have to look at a few individual stocks.

For 2013, the top 20 stocks in the first 50 days of the year went on to gains of nearly 40% for the rest of the year — and a staggering 85% of those stocks remained positive for the remaining two-thirds of the year. That made them great indicators for how the stocks were bound to perform in general. If 2014 numbers are up over this time last year, does that mean the entire year is likely to experience the same gains? The short answer is not necessarily.

But then again, you never can truly predict what the stock market is capable of.

In the United States, lung cancer is the leading killer of both males and females. In 2012, according to the American Lung Association website, some 160,000 Americans were expected to die of the disease. While there is no completely effective cure available yet, researchers are getting closer.

A new option for a specific type of lung cancer is Xalkori, which is being developed by Pfizer. The drug was initially introduced in 2011 and proved to be a successful option for patients who had previously received chemotherapy. However, a recent study has found that it is also a good option as a first-line treatment that is actually more effective than chemo.

Mace Rothenberg, chief medical officer for Pfizer Oncology, said that the new studies are important because, “they demonstrate, for the first time, that Xalkori is superior to standard chemotherapy doublet regimens in prolonging survival without progression as first-line treatment.” The two trials “collectively establish Xalkori as a standard of care in both the first and second-line setting for patients with ALK-positive advanced NSCLC.”

Tony Mok, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong added that the new studies “highlight the importance of not only testing a tissue specimen for the presence of biomarkers at the time of diagnosis in all patients with advanced stage NSCLC, but actually having those results in hand before determining the most appropriate treatment option.” He continued, “It is clear that a multidisciplinary collaborative approach to molecular testing is required in order to deliver those results on time, which in fact is the foundation of personalized medicine in lung cancer.”

While the new drug should excel at keeping cancer patients healthy, it may also be vital for Pfizer, from a financial standpoint. The pharmaceutical industry, like others, is highly competitive, and manufacturers are always looking to improve their cash flow. While the company’s revenue last year was still a whopping $51 billion, that number was down $3 billion from the year before.

As Arlene Weintraub notes, “Turning Xalkori into a blockbuster will be vital for Pfizer, which has suffered lately from expiring patents on top sellers such as its cholesterol drug Lipitor.”

There are a number of different causes of lung cancer, and treating specific types is a must. Even asbestos can cause the disease, and there are, perhaps surprisingly, twice as many cases of asbestos-related cancer than mesothelioma. But regardless of the specific cause, powerful drugs, like Xalkori, are needed to help patients stay healthy.

Pfizer has made a point to emphasize the fact that the drug is meant to help patients and not — at least primarily — be developed only for profit. However, if early indications mean anything, it could accomplish both.