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| Obamacare website faces crucial weekend after technology overhaul Saturday, Nov 30, 2013 07:38 AM PST  By Roberta Rampton and Sharon Begley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans are getting their first look on Saturday at whether a five-week, round-the-clock technology overhaul has made it easier to use the troubled website that is the backbone of President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare overhaul. The White House had pledged that HealthCare.gov, which has been plagued by errors, outages, and slow speeds since its disastrous October 1 launch - would be working for most people this weekend. Fixing the crisis, one of the biggest of Obama's presidency, has enormous political stakes for the administration and its Democratic allies who are heading into congressional elections next year. The administration said on Saturday that 90 percent of website users can now create an account on the system, which is meant to help millions of people sign up for new health insurance plans. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. healthcare website down overnight for extended upgrade Friday, Nov 29, 2013 04:52 PM PST By Roberta Rampton and Sharon Begley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government said it would take down the website at the center of President Barack Obama's healthcare reforms for an extended 11-hour period overnight on Friday as technology experts push to complete upgrades by a November 30 deadline. The website, HealthCare.gov, was supposed to make it easy to shop for health insurance required by the Obamacare law when it launched on October 1, but quickly turned into a political disaster after errors and timelags prevented most people who visited the site from signing up. They had worked on software and hardware upgrades through the U.S. Thanksgiving week to double its capacity so as many as 50,000 people could shop at the same time on the site. Just ahead of that self-imposed Saturday deadline, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said the website would be down for an unusually long period, from 9 p.m. EST on Friday until 8 a.m. EST on Saturday. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. healthcare website down for overnight maintenance Friday, Nov 29, 2013 03:45 PM PST  By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The website at the center of President Barack Obama's healthcare reforms will be down for an extended period overnight on Friday as the government pushes to complete upgrades by a November 30 deadline, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said. The website, HealthCare.gov, will be down from 9 p.m. EST on Friday until 8 a.m. EST on Saturday, CMS said. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Sandra Maler) Full Story | Top |
| Obama says 'nowhere to go but up' after HealthCare.gov debacle Friday, Nov 29, 2013 02:08 PM PST By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's popularity has taken a beating over the botched October 1 launch of Obamacare, but in a television interview set to air on Friday, Obama said he believes Americans eventually will appreciate his signature healthcare reform. Reflecting on his poll numbers in an interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, Obama said: "I've gone up and down pretty much consistently throughout. "But the good thing about when you're down is that usually you got nowhere to go but up," Obama added, according to excerpts released by ABC. The interview was taped last week as the Obama administration scrambled to meet a self-imposed November 30 deadline to overhaul HealthCare.gov, the website used in 36 states to shop for insurance under the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare. Full Story | Top |
| Music-based program may boost seniors' brain function, mood Friday, Nov 29, 2013 01:53 PM PST By C. E. Huggins NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A music-based training program that challenges both the body and the mind may improve brain function and mood among seniors, suggests a new study from Switzerland. "The take-home message is that 6-months of music-based multitask training (i.e., Jaques-Dalcroze eurhythmics) - a specific training regimen which was previously shown to be effective in improving gait and reducing falls - has beneficial effects on cognition and mood in older adults," Dr. Mélany Hars, of Geneva University Hospitals, told Reuters Health in an email. Jacques-Dalcroze eurhythmics was developed in the early part of the 20th century by the Swiss composer Emile Jaques-Dalcroze as a way to better understand music through movement. A typical Jacques-Dalcroze session involves participants adapting their movements to the rhythmic changes of improvised piano music. Full Story | Top |
| Risk factors may point to less-safe senior drivers Friday, Nov 29, 2013 01:09 PM PST By Allison Bond NEW YORK (Reuters) - Tests of physical abilities, such as balance and strength, may reveal how well an elderly driver will perform on the road, according to a new study. Trouble with balance, weak lower limbs and poor neck flexibility were among the attributes Australian researchers linked to a higher risk of less-safe driving in The Journals of Gerontology: Series A. "Although there has been a lot of research on the cognitive and visual predictors of driving performance and safety, very little work has so far looked at physical function and its relation to driving," said Philippe Lacherez, a post-doctoral fellow at Queensland University of Technology who led the study. About 17 percent of the participants made critical errors while driving in a test that was scored by a professional driving instructor and involved a range of traffic densities and complex or simple intersections. In the physical abilities tests, the unsafe drivers tended to have a decreased ability to move the neck, slower reaction times, poor perception of vibration and lack of strength in the legs and feet. Full Story | Top |
| Saatchi says has no proof ex-wife Nigella Lawson took drugs Friday, Nov 29, 2013 12:37 PM PST  By Alexander Winning LONDON (Reuters) - Millionaire art dealer Charles Saatchi told a British court on Friday he had no proof that his celebrity ex-wife, TV chef Nigella Lawson, ever took drugs. Earlier this week, two of Lawson's former personal assistants alleged that she was a regular user of cocaine and other drugs as part of their defense in an ongoing fraud trial. Lawson, often nicknamed the "Domestic Goddess" after the title of one of her best-selling recipe books, is a cookery author who is popular in Britain and the United States. Saatchi and Lawson ended their 10-year marriage in July, and he accepted a police caution after newspapers published pictures of him with his hands around his ex-wife's neck at a London restaurant a month earlier. Full Story | Top |
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