Most Americans still think overhaul needed, poll says

WASHINGTON — Americans' fears about health-care overhaul's effect on them eased in January, according to a poll released as the president tries to revive sweeping Democratic legislation.

The monthly poll from the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation also found that three-fourths of Americans still think it's important that Obama include health-care overhaul in addressing the nation's economic crisis — even if many have misgivings.

"The poll found that the proportion of Americans who said they feared their access to doctors and hospitals would get worse under the Democratic plans dropped to 29 percent, from 33 percent who had expressed such concerns in December. In the January poll fewer than 12 percent said that they thought their access would improve.

Obama wants to cut exemption

WASHINGTON — President Obama urged Congress on Tuesday to strip health insurers of their decades-old exemption from federal antitrust laws — hardening his stand against the industry as he tries to revive his stalled health-care overhaul.

The White House announced Obama's support for a House bill that would repeal the industry's antitrust exemption, saying that would foster a more competitive marketplace that benefits consumers. The announcement follows Obama's call for new federal rate-setting powers that would give the Health and Human Services department the power to deny excessive increases in premiums.

The House could vote later this week on the measure, which has strong Democratic support. However, prospects in the Senate are unclear. Industry analysts say losing the exemption would not have a major effect on the way health-insurance companies do business.

Lawmakers upset over rate hikes

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California lawmakers grilled Anthem Blue Cross executives Tuesday about their plan to boost individual insurance premiums by as much as 39 percent, only to hear them blame the economy and a broken health-care system.

The Assembly Health Committee opened the hearing at the state Capitol to examine the premium proposal by California's largest for-profit health insurer amid a heated national debate over health care overhaul.

The hearing was held one day before a congressional committee is scheduled to question Anthem's parent company, WellPoint.

California lawmakers said they were astonished by Anthem's attempt to boost individual insurance premiums at a time when policyholders are struggling to afford health coverage.

The increase is to take effect May 1 and would affect roughly 700,000 individual policyholders in the state.

Democratic Assemblyman Dave Jones of Sacramento, who chairs the committee, didn't buy the excuses.

"Have you no shame?" he asked Anthem President Leslie Margolin at a special hearing.

Committee members asked what the insurer had done internally to cut costs and how much its top 10 executives received in compensation last year. Anthem executives said they could not provide specific figures.

Laurel Kaufer, a single, working mother from Woodland Hills, said she heard from Anthem last month that her premium could go up by about 34 percent, from $823 a month to $1,102 a month. Over the past 10 years, she said, her premium has risen 550 percent.

Study: Doctors work fewer hours

CHICAGO — Doctors have steadily cut their work hours over the past decade, a new study finds, something that experts say may only worsen the health-care situation.

Average hours dropped from about 55 to 51 per week from 1996 to 2008, according to the analysis, appearing in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

That's the equivalent of losing 36,000 doctors in a decade, according to the researchers. The decline in hours "occurred among all groups of physicians — young, old, men, women, residents and nonresidents — and it didn't occur in other occupations," said lead author Douglas Staiger of Dartmouth College.

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