Congress, FBI moving on VA health care

WASHINGTON — Congress is moving with what one senator called "lightning speed" to help thousands of military veterans enduring long wait times for VA medical care.

The Senate was poised to vote by Thursday on a measure making it easier for veterans who have encountered delays getting initial visits to receive VA-paid treatment from local doctors instead. The measure closely resembles a bill approved unanimously Tuesday in the House, prompting optimism among lawmakers from both parties that a compromise version could be on its way soon to President Barack Obama for his signature.

"Maybe we can show the United States of America that people can come together on a very, very important issue and do it in rapid fashion," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.

The legislative effort comes as a federal law enforcement official said the Justice Department has formally asked the FBI to review materials provided by the Veterans Affairs inspector general.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation on the record.

Richard Griffin, the VA's acting inspector general, issued a scathing report that confirmed allegations of excessive waiting time at VA hospitals and inappropriate scheduling practices. The report, which followed allegations that 40 patients died while awaiting care at a Phoenix hospital where employees kept a secret waiting list to cover up delays, found that 1,700 veterans seeking treatment at the Phoenix facility were at risk of being "forgotten or lost."

While the Justice Department has not undertaken a full-fledged investigation, the request for FBI involvement represents an escalation into concerns of possible criminal conduct by VA employees. FBI Director James Comey had previously said that the FBI had not been asked to participate in any investigation. But the law enforcement official said Wednesday the situation has now changed.

The VA, which serves almost 9 million veterans, has been reeling from mounting evidence that workers falsified reports on wait times for medical appointments in an effort to mask frequent, long delays. An internal audit released this week showed that more than 57,000 new applicants for care have had to wait at least three months for initial appointments and an additional 64,000 newly enrolled vets who requested appointments never got them.

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned May 30, but the situation remains a continuing embarrassment for Obama and a potential political liability for congressional Democrats seeking re-election in November.

"It's urgent that we get this done to resolve some of the outstanding issues within the VA," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid.

In a rare moment of agreement with Reid, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell also was upbeat about the prospects of the veterans bill.

"We have a bipartisan veterans bill negotiated the way we used to do business in the Senate, with members of both parties, ready to go," McConnell said Tuesday. He added that he hoped the Senate could take up the bill "very quickly, maybe even finish it this week."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a chief author of the Senate measure, said it shouldn't be hard for the two chambers to craft a compromise version. "I don't think there's a lot of major differences," he said.

Sanders, who co-wrote the Senate bill with McCain, said that by Senate standards, lawmakers were moving at "lightning speed."

The legislative effort comes close on the heels of a Veterans Affairs Department audit showing that more than 57,000 new applicants for care have had to wait at least three months for initial appointments and an additional 64,000 newly enrolled vets who requested appointments never got them.

"I cannot state it strongly enough: This is a national disgrace," said Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee and chief author of the House legislation.

Rep. Mike Michaud of Maine, top Democrat on the Veteran Affairs Committee, said veterans receive excellent care at VA facilities — if they can get into the system. "As we have recently learned, tens of thousands of veterans are not getting in."

The House and Senate bills each would spend hundreds of millions of dollars to hire more doctors and nurses, but that may be easier said than done, given a nationwide shortage of primary care physicians.

Primary care physicians are expected to become increasingly in demand as millions of people newly insured under the federal health care law start looking for regular doctors. The Association of American Medical Colleges has projected that by 2020, there will be 45,000 too few primary care physicians, as well as a shortage of 46,000 surgeons and specialists.

Shortages tend to be worse in both rural and inner-city areas.

The American Medical Association added its voice as the House was voting Tuesday. At its annual policy meeting in Chicago, the AMA approved a resolution urging Obama to take immediate action to enable veterans to get timely access to care from outside the VA system. The nation's largest doctors group also recommended that state medical societies create and make available registries of outside physicians willing to treat vets.

The Senate bill would authorize the VA to lease 26 new health facilities in 17 states and Puerto Rico and spend $500 million to hire more doctors and nurses. The House bill does not include a specific dollar amount, but Miller said the VA would save $400 million annually by eliminating bonuses, money the agency could use for expanded care.

The House and Senate bills would let veterans facing long delays for appointments or living more than 40 miles from a VA facility choose to get care from non-agency providers for the next two years. Some veterans already get outside care, but the process is cumbersome and riddled with delays, veterans and their advocates say.

The Senate bill would make easier to fire top VA officials, although with more employee safeguards than in an earlier, House-passed bill.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker, Alan Fram and Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Lindsey Tanner in Chicago contributed to this report.

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Follow Matthew Daly on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC

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Insurers propose changes to Obama health law

WASHINGTON — Insurers want to change President Barack Obama's health care law to provide financial assistance for people buying bare-bones coverage. That would entice the healthy and the young, the industry says, holding down premiums.

So-called catastrophic plans are currently not eligible for the law's subsidies, and only 2 percent of the 8 million consumers who signed up this year picked one. Subsidies bring down the cost of monthly premiums.

The proposed change is part of a package of recommendations that America's Health Insurance Plans, the main industry trade group released Wednesday. Others address how to smooth transitions for consumers who switch insurance companies, as well as making it easier for patients to find out which hospitals and doctors are in particular plans and whether their medications are covered.

"What is crucial for public policy leaders is to balance access and affordability," said Karen Ignagni, head of the trade group. "Unless people feel that coverage is affordable, they won't participate in the system."

Adults ages 18-34, the health care law's most coveted demographic, are under-represented among those enrolled for subsidized private insurance this year. Insurers are currently filing their proposed premiums for 2015, and increases of 10 percent or more are anticipated. Nonetheless, the new state insurance exchanges are poised to grow, with more carriers entering the market to compete for business.

Given the polarized politics of health care in Washington it's unclear how the industry's latest proposal might advance. It might get a chance if Republicans in Congress abandon their crusade to repeal Obama's law and start focusing on making changes to individual components.

The proposal could also encounter opposition from consumer groups, which take a dim view of catastrophic plans. Some consumer organizations have instead called for reducing out-of-pocket costs borne by consumers who buy a midlevel silver plan, the pick of 65 percent of those signed up this year.

Catastrophic plans offer low monthly premiums but require consumers to foot a hefty share of their annual medical costs. They are designed to protect healthier people from financial ruin due to an accident or an unexpected diagnosis of serious illness, although they also cover basic preventive care at no cost to the consumer.

Catastrophic plans currently available through the new insurance exchanges are only open to people under 30, as well those who have received a hardship exemption from the health law's individual requirement to carry a policy.

The industry proposal would create a new catastrophic plan open to people of any age and eligible for tax credits provided by the law. It would have an annual limit on out-of-pocket costs and preventive care would be covered at no charge to the patient.

Other elements of the insurers' plan can be voluntarily adopted by the companies or codified by government regulation.

They include a 30-day transition period for certain patients who switch insurance companies or whose doctors no longer participate in the plan. During the transition, patients would be able to remain under the care of their current physician while paying lower in-network rates. Similar transition policies would apply to medically necessary prescriptions.

The health insurance industry has a complicated relationship with the health care law.

Insurers spent tens of millions of dollars to defeat the legislation as it was being debated in Congress and still seek to roll back taxes and Medicare cuts that affect the plans.

But the industry has also become one of the administration's main allies in carrying out the law, enduring the cascade of rollout problems last fall and working behind the scenes to make sure consumers whose old plans got canceled were able to maintain coverage.

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NASA postpones Mars 'flying saucer' test on Earth

LOS ANGELES — NASA has postponed its plan to send a "flying saucer" into Earth's atmosphere to test technology that could be used to land on Mars.

Spokeswoman Shannon Ridinger says weather conditions caused Wednesday's launch of the saucer-shaped vehicle to be scrubbed. The next potential launch date is June 14.

For decades, NASA has depended on the same parachute design to slow spacecraft after they enter the Martian atmosphere. But it needs a larger and stronger parachute if it wants to land heavier objects and astronauts.

After being launched via balloon from Hawaii, the new vehicle will ignite its rocket engine and climb to 34 miles. It will slow itself down from supersonic speeds and unfurl a parachute for a water landing.

Engineers will analyze the data to determine if the test was successful.

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Lew says economy still facing major challenges

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Wednesday that the economy should grow at much stronger rates the rest of this year as the country overcomes the impact of a harsh winter. But Lew said millions of Americans continue to struggle as unemployment remains too high and economic growth is too slow.

"Evidence continues to mount that our economy is gaining traction," Lew said in a speech to the Economic Club of New York. "Nevertheless, we cannot escape the fact that millions of Americans continue to struggle and their pain reminds us that our work is not finished. ... For too many families this hardly feels like a recovery."

In his remarks, which were distributed in Washington, Lew called for actions by the government and the private sector to boost hiring of the long-term unemployed and increase investment in productivity-enhancing equipment and critical infrastructure projects such as roads, railways and ports.

Lew said the country also needed a stronger commitment to education in the areas of science, math and engineering to make sure students have the skills they need to compete in the new economy.

Lew said that from 1948 to 2007, the economy grew at average annual rates of 3.4 percent per year. But he said the Congressional Budget Office is now projecting that after the economy returns to full employment, economic growth will only average about 2.1 percent per year — just two-thirds of the average right after World War II.

"The choices we make over the years to come can alter this projection," Lew said, suggesting increased investments would boost economic growth and productivity.

Lew's suggestions reflected many proposals that the Obama administration has put forward but which Congress has yet to enact. Among the areas Lew stressed:

__Worker training. Lew said the country needs to do a better job of helping workers laid off during the Great Recession to re-enter the workforce through improved worker training, career counseling and job training. Lew called on businesses to make a good-faith effort to hire from the ranks of the long-term unemployed.

__Investment. Lew said American businesses were sitting on historically high levels of cash and what is needed is for those businesses to come off the sidelines and make investments. Lew said the administration is seeking to reform the tax system to lower business tax rates to boost investment.

__Innovation and Productivity. Lew said the country must commit to improving education in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math as well as providing support to cutting edge research and development to maintain America's position as a leading global innovator.

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Stocks open lower after World Bank cuts outlook

U.S. stocks are opening lower in early trading on Wednesday after the World Bank cut its outlook for global growth.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down seven points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,943. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 62 points, or 0.4 percent, to 16,883. The Nasdaq fell 15 points, or 0.4 percent, to 4,321.

The World Bank said in a report late Tuesday that it expects global growth of 2.8 percent this year, compared with a January estimate of 3.2 percent.

The stock market still remains close to all-time highs after a slow and steady climb since April.

Synaptics jumped 28 percent to $85.06 after the maker of touch-screen technology said it would buy smartphone and tablet chipmaker Renesas SP Drivers for $475 million.

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Stocks slip as World Bank cuts growth outlook

NEW YORK — U.S. stocks slipped after the World Bank downgraded its forecast for the global economy this year, citing a bitter American winter and the political crisis in Ukraine.

KEEPING SCORE: The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell eight points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,942 as of 10:51 a.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 97 points, or 0.6 percent, to 16,848. The Nasdaq composite slipped nine points, or 0.2 percent, to 4,328.

GLOBAL GROWTH: The World Bank said late Tuesday that it expects the world economy to grow faster, 2.8 percent this year versus 2.4 percent in 2013. Its new estimate is weaker than the 3.2 percent expansion it had predicted in January.

TAKING PAUSE: Despite declines Tuesday and early Wednesday, the S&P 500 has been on a slow and steady rise since April and is now up 5.1 percent for the year. In recent weeks, encouraging economic reports have pushed the index to a string of all-time highs, with its latest record of 1,951.27 occurring Monday.

TAX BOOST: H&R Block jumped 80 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $31.53 on Wednesday morning after the tax preparation company reported earnings that beat analysts' expectations. The company's fourth-quarter net income surged as more people used its services and its prepaid card.

TOUCH-SCREEN TECH: Synaptics jumped $14.95, or 22 percent, to $81.49 after the maker of touch-screen technology said it would buy smartphone and tablet chipmaker Renesas SP Drivers for $475 million. Because of the deal, Synaptics also raised its fourth-quarter revenue outlook.

BONDS AND COMMODITIES: As stocks fell, government bonds rallied. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which falls when Treasury prices rise, dropped to 2.62 percent from 2.65 percent on Tuesday. The price of oil climbed 26 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $104.61 a barrel.

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Stock futures slip as World Bank cuts outlook

U.S. stock futures slipped after the World Bank downgraded its forecast for the global economy this year, citing a bitter American winter and the political crisis in Ukraine.

KEEPING SCORE: Less than an hour before the start of regular trading, Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 66 points, or 0.4 percent, to 16,876. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures dropped eight points to 1,941 and Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 16 points to 3,783.

GLOBAL GROWTH: In an outlook released late Tuesday, the World Bank said it said it expects the world economy to grow faster — 2.8 percent this year versus 2.4 percent in 2013. But its new estimate is weaker than the 3.2 percent expansion it had predicted in January.

TAKING PAUSE: The stock market took a breather on Tuesday, logging a small loss, after a string of record closes. After slumping earlier this year, the stock market has been on a slow and steady climb since April. In recent weeks, a number of encouraging economic reports have helped push the S&P 500 up 5.5 percent this year.

TOUCH SCREEN TECH: Synaptics jumped $12.70, or 19 percent, to $79.22 in premarket trading Wednesday after the maker of touch-screen technology said it would buy smartphone and tablet chipmaker Renesas SP Drivers for $475 million. Because of the deal, Synaptics also raised its fourth-quarter revenue outlook.

BONDS AND COMMODITIES: As stocks fell, government bonds rallied. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which falls when prices rise, dropped to 2.63 percent from 2.65 percent on Tuesday. The price of oil was little changed from Tuesday at $104.34.

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Vitaminwater fans upset over new sweetener

NEW YORK — Fans of Vitaminwater are demanding that parent company Coca-Cola drop a new formula that uses stevia, a low-calorie sweetener known for its metallic aftertaste.

Coca-Cola Co. changed the formula for its full-calorie Vitaminwater in May, and the new bottles have been hitting shelves nationwide ever since.

Previously, the drinks were sweetened with a mix of crystalline fructose and sugar. Now they are sweetened with a mix of sugar and stevia, a natural sweetener companies use to reduce the sugar content in drinks. The new Vitaminwater still has the same 120 calories per bottle, however.

The change has prompted fans of the drink to inundate Vitaminwater's Facebook page with complaints about the taste, and demands that the company bring back the old formula.

A spokeswoman for Coca-Cola, Danielle Dubois, said the company loves hearing from its consumers and has been listening to the feedback via social media and its call line.

"We really like our new formulation and hope consumers do too. That said, we always have our ear to the ground and genuinely appreciate all feedback," she said.

When asked why Coca-Cola made the change, Dubois said the company is "always innovating and evolving our products and packaging."

The company, based in Atlanta, already used stevia in Vitaminwater Zero, a diet version of the drink that has no calories.

Last year, Vitaminwater's sales volume in the U.S. was down 18 percent, according to the industry tracker Beverage Digest. The decline seems to be in part because the enthusiasm for enhanced water from a few years ago has cooled, said John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest.

Sicher noted that Coca-Cola may have been trying to innovate with Vitaminwater to return it to stronger performance.

Coca-Cola bought Glaceau, the parent company of Vitaminwater and Smartwater, for $4.1 billion in 2007.

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Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi

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Hashtag hounds rack up followers with wacky antics

LOS ANGELES — Tuna, the hound so homely he's irresistible, peeks out from beneath his blanket, baring his row of buck teeth in a slapstick smile for the camera.

Courtney Dasher of Los Angeles rescued the Chihuahua-dachshund mix with the bug eyes, big nose and infamous overbite in 2010. Four years later, the dog dubbed a "Chiweenie" in hashtags has 837,138 followers as of Tuesday night, when he ranked as the most-popular dog on Instagram.

Pet owners are unleashing their pooches on the photo-sharing service, setting up accounts to show Manny the French bulldog sporting spectacles or Tuna poking his schnoz out of a suitcase.

Funny pet photos continue to be a trend on social media. They get plenty of play on Facebook and Twitter, including "muttbombs," where people Photoshop dogs into snapshots of themselves or celebrities. Muttbombs and animal Instagram accounts are so popular that shelters and others use them to promote adoptions or rescue campaigns. These famous pooches also have been featured in shelter public service announcements and swarmed by fans in public.

That's because animal lovers eat up the snapshots of dogs doing the darndest things, giving Manny and Tuna insta-fame on Instagram.

Dasher, who says Tuna resembles Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons," started @tunameltsmyheart in 2011.

"You would never hear me call Tuna ugly," Instagram spokeswoman Liz Shepherd said. "He has unconventional beauty. Some people say Tuna is the best part of their day."

Handsome is the word Dasher uses. "He's so unique, and I love that and everything about him," she said.

For Manny, the dog once rejected by a breeder is now the world's most followed French bulldog on Instagram, with 502,594 people subscribing to @manny_the_frenchie as of Tuesday night. Amber Chavez of Chicago says her dog looks like a cross between a bunny and a piggy, and he is the fourth-most-followed pooch on the social network.

"He was like a first-born child, we couldn't stop photographing him," Chavez said, who set up the account with a friend in 2012. "We wanted to share pictures with family and friends and saw other animals had their own Instagram pages, so we created his very own."

Manny's owners are among the many who use their dog's account to aid animal charities.

Loni Edwards of New York City follows Manny, who has been posed to look like he's sipping a soda and dressed up to resemble hip-hop artist Pharrell. She said silly or cute canine antics put her in a good mood, and there's plenty of that from Manny, who spins on his back legs to a rap song in one short Instagram video.

"I have a thing for Frenchies," Edwards said, explaining why she got Chloe, who has her own page, @chloe_theminifrenchie.

Chavez and Dasher say motivation for their posts comes from their dogs or the fans.

"Every time we turn around, he's doing something cute or funny," Chavez said. Plus, Manny "gets excited when he sees a hoodie or outfit coming his way."

For Dasher, the relationship she has had with Tuna's fans over the years keeps her going.

"Tuna is bringing joy to a global audience, and I enjoy being a catalyst to change someone's day," she said.

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Brazil, other markets are no longer 'Fragile Five'

NEW YORK — Soccer fans will focus on Brazil and the start of the World Cup Thursday, but investors have been entranced by that nation's stock market for months.

Brazil has company. From Sao Paulo to Mumbai, investors are regaining their faith in emerging markets this year.

It's a big shift from 2013, when investment in those markets dried up because of worries about their slowing economic growth. It got so tough that five big developing markets — Brazil, South Africa, India, Indonesia and Turkey — were dubbed the "Fragile Five" by analysts at Morgan Stanley.

Now those countries are much more appealing to investors. Some have taken actions to strengthen their economies. Others have gone through political changes that have bolstered investor confidence. At the same time, slower growth in the U.S. has made investing overseas more alluring.

"These countries have done some homework to reduce their fragilities," says Jorge Mariscal, chief investment officer for emerging markets at UBS Wealth Management. "They have helped themselves a bit."

The "Fragile Five" raised interest rates to draw investors' cash back into their countries. India, for example, lifted its rate from 7.25 percent in September to 8 percent in March; Brazil hiked rates from 7.5 percent in May of last year to their current level of 11 percent.

Higher interest rates are appealing to investors in the U.S., where the Federal Reserve has held its benchmark lending rate at close to zero for more than five years, and where bond yields remain low.

In India, the government has also raised duties on gold. The metal is India's second-biggest import behind oil, and purchases have soared in recent years as incomes have risen there. The increased buying has sped up the flow of money out of the country, and weakened its currency.

Politics are also playing a role.

Last month, Narendra Modi and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party notched the most decisive Indian election victory in three decades. Modi marketed himself as a leader capable of shaking the nation from its economic slumber, and his clear win should allow him to reform the economy.

In Brazil, stocks have rallied after polls were released that showed opponents of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff gaining enough ground to have a chance of forcing a runoff in elections scheduled for October. Her opponents, Aecio Neves and Eduardo Campos, are believed to favor less government involvement in the economy.

Developing economies should also benefit as global growth, led by an improving U.S. economy, begins to pick up later in the year, says Mauro Ratto, head of emerging markets at Pioneer Investments, a fund manager.

The shifts are reflected in the financial markets. Gains in the U.S. stock market over the last month months are smaller than those in emerging markets.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index has climbed 12 percent since closing at its year low on Feb. 3. The MSCI India, a broad index of Indian stocks, has surged 30 percent over the same period. Turkish stocks have jumped 44 percent and Brazilian stocks are up 26 percent.

Emerging markets have benefited from the Fed's easy-money policies. Those policies, with their low interest rates, have prompted investors to hunt for higher rates of return overseas.

Last year, however, when the Fed started to outline its plan for reducing stimulus and raising rates, investors began pulling their money out of emerging markets. That caused their currencies, as well as their stock and bond markets, to plummet.

The MSCI Emerging Markets index, which measures 800 securities across 21 markets, fell almost 10 percent from the start of May to the end of June, and ended the year down almost 5 percent. The Turkish lira dropped almost 11 percent in five months from the start of September to the end of January 2014.

This year, growth in the U.S. has disappointed. Treasury yields have fallen instead of rising as most analysts predicted. As a result, emerging economies with higher growth are more attractive. Low interest rates also make it more lucrative for investors to borrow in the U.S. and invest in overseas economies that offer higher returns.

"Clearly, the most important driver year-to-date has been the global financial conditions," says Gerardo Rodriguez, a senior investment strategist for BlackRock's emerging markets group.

The Brazilian stock market may also get a boost if its team, the favorite to win the World Cup, lifts the trophy at the end of the tournament. Analysts at Goldman Sachs calculate that, on average, a victorious country's stock market outperforms the global market by 3.5 percent in the first month after the win.

Others are more skeptical of this year's gains in emerging stock markets.

Andres Garcia-Amaya, a global market strategist for J.P. Morgan Funds, says the comeback in emerging markets is driven by market-specific factors, not improvements in the outlook for economies, and is unlikely to last long. The markets are bouncing back because investors had become too negative, too quickly. Now, they are scrambling to get back in.

The spotlight on Brazil has also highlighted potentially damaging rifts in the country. Subway workers have been on strike demanding higher pay and improved benefits. Teachers remain on strike in Rio de Janeiro and routinely block streets with rallies. Police in several cities have also gone on strike, but are back at work.

Going forward, investors should be more selective when investing in emerging markets, says Garcia-Amaya.

"The message for investors is, don't treat (emerging markets) as one," he says. "It is very important to do your homework at the country level."

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