And good news on the health care reform front:
Brushing off a last-minute lobbying push by the insurance industry, state insurance officials on Thursday finalized new rules requiring insurance companies to dedicate more revenues directly to healthcare costs.
The new healthcare reform law requires large employer plans to dedicate at least 85 cents of each premium dollar to actual medical treatments or other activities that improve care. (The threshold for individual and small group plans is 80 percent.) Plans that don't meet those thresholds are required to give rebates to their customers, beginning in 2012.
