Man denied life-saving surgery over 26-cent insurance dispute

Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News 12 hours agoThe Sideshow

Sergio Blanco nearly lost access to life-saving medical treatment over a 26-cent dispute (GoFundMe)

A man seeking treatment for a life-threatening illness had his health further jeopardized when his employer and health insurance company tried to cancel his coverage over a 26-cent dispute.

The New Jersey Star-Ledger reports that in January, 33-year-old Sergio Branco was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. Left untreated, the illness can be fatal.

When the truck driver took time off work to seek treatment under the Family and Medical Leave Act, he was told that treatment for the leukemia required a bone-marrow transplant that would cost about $500,000, even with insurance.

To make matters worse, when Branco returned to work after his federally guaranteed leave time, he was promptly laid off.

Branco and his family weren’t worried, because they knew he was eligible for extended coverage under the government’s COBRA program.

The family also launched a fundraising site for Branco’s leukemia treatments.

The monthly fee for Branco’s COBRA insurance is $518.26. When his wife sent in the first payment, she erroneously made out the check for $518, forgetting to add the 26 cents.

Thus began an extended feud among the family, Branco's former employer Russell Reid, the insurance company handling his COBRA and even the Department of Labor.

Paychex, the company handling the COBRA payments, cashed the check but did not notify the Branco family of the payment error. In the middle of Branco’s treatment, he was informed by the hospital that he didn’t have insurance.

"They’re playing with my husband’s life," Mara Branco told the Star-Ledger.

Technically, the payment was still not due. So the Brancos offered to make up the difference, but they were told that his former employer had instructed Paychex to not accept any further payments — meaning that his COBRA insurance would be canceled.

"The whole time he said Paychex is giving me false information," Mara Branco told the Star-Ledger after she contacted Branco’s former employer. "I told him if he’d just make a phone call everything would be all right. He said he’d see what he could do."

Branco’s wife even enlisted the help of the Department of Labor, whose representatives made four calls to her husband’s former employer.

Eventually, the family hired a lawyer and Branco’s physician got involved, sending a letter pleading for Branco to be added back onto his COBRA plan. Branco “will most certainly die in the very near future if he does not proceed to transplant; therefore I am writing to request that every effort be made to reinstate his health care insurance coverage," the doctor wrote.

"They know he’s literally in a life and death situation and for 26 cents, they’re denying him the right to get the health insurance coverage he needs," attorney Jeffrey Resnick told the Star-Ledger.

It took several months, but on Aug. 9, the parties involved finally agreed to put Blanco back on the COBRA coverage. Blanco’s surgery is now scheduled to take place on Friday.

"The Department of Labor said the company will reinstate him from May 'til now," Mara Branco told the paper. "They said the company did it wrong. I am super happy. It’s like a weight has lifted off my shoulder. It’s better than winning the lottery."

If you'd like to donate to the Blanco's medical fund, you can find more information here.

1 or 2 hostages shot at La. bank dies

HOLBROOK MOHR 8 hours agoSocietyLouisiana State Police

Egyptian troops move against pro-Morsi sit-ins

In this image made from video by AP video, Egyptian security forces throw tear gas towards supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi at a sit-in in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2013. Egyptian security forces, backed by armored cars and bulldozers, moved on Wednesday to clear two sit-in camps by supporters of the country's ousted President Mohammed Morsi, showering protesters with tear gas as the sound of gunfire rang out at both sites. (AP video)

HAMZA HENDAWI and MAGGIE MICHAEL 8 hours agoPolitics & GovernmentTear gasMuslim BrotherhoodCairo

CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian security forces, backed by armored cars and bulldozers, moved on Wednesday to clear two sit-in camps of supporters of the country's ousted President Mohammed Morsi, showering protesters with tear gas as the sound of gunfire rang out at both sites, state television and security officials said.

At least two members of the security forces were confirmed to have died in the morning's crackdown in Cairo while a group representing the protesters said as many as 25 protesters were killed in one of the camps. A senior Health Ministry official, Ahmed el-Ansari, said four people were killed and 50 injured in all at the two sites.

The smaller of the two camps was cleared of protesters by late morning, with most of them taking refuge in the nearby Orman botanical gardens and inside the sprawling campus of Cairo University.

However, security forces remained on the fringes of the other camp in the eastern Nasr City district after it showered the encampment with tear gas. Television footage from there showed thousands of protesters congregating at the heart of the site, with many wearing gas masks or covering their faces to fend off the tear gas.

Wednesday's attacks on the two pro-Morsi camps are the latest chapter in the turmoil that has roiled Egypt since the 2011 ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak and are likely to deepen the nation's division between the camp of Islamists led by the Muslim Brotherhood on one side, and secularists, liberals, moderate Muslims and minority Christians on the other.

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In this image made from video by AP video, Egyptian security forces throw tear gas towards supporter …

A security official said a total of 200 protesters were arrested from both sites on Wednesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The Anti-Coup Alliance, an umbrella of pro-Morsi supporters, said in a statement that 25 people were killed and dozens injured in the attack on the Nasr City camp, claiming that security forces used live ammunition. The Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the police, said it only used tear gas and that its forces came under fire from the camp. Two policemen were killed and five were injured by gunfire, it said.

"The world cannot sit back and watch while innocent men, women and children are being indiscriminately slaughtered. The world must stand up to the military junta's crime before it is too late," said a statement by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which Morsi hails.

A ministry statement also warned that forces would deal firmly with protesters who were acting "irresponsibly," suggesting that it would respond in kind if its men are fired upon. It said it would guarantee safe passage to all who want to leave the Nasr City site but would arrest those wanted for questioning by prosecutors.

The security official said train services between the north and south of the country have been suspended in a bid to prevent supporters of the ousted Morsi from travelling to Cairo to reinforce fellow Islamists.

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In this image made from video by AP video, Egyptian security forces move towards supporters of ouste …

An Associated Press video journalist at the scene in Nasr City said he could hear the screams of women as a cloud of white smoke hung over the protest encampment. He said a bulldozer was removing mounds of sand bags and brick walls built earlier by the protesters as a defense line in their camp.

Army troops did not take part in the two operations, but provided security at the locations. Police and army helicopters hovered over both sites as plumes of smoke rose over the city skyline. The simultaneous actions by the Egyptian forces began shortly after 7 a.m. (0500 GMT).

Regional television networks were showing images of collapsed tents and burning tires at both sites, with ambulances on standby. They were also showing protesters being arrested and led away by black-clad policemen.

At one point, state television showed footage of some dozen protesters, mostly bearded, cuffed and sitting on a sidewalk under guard outside the Cairo University campus. The private ONTV network showed firearms and rounds of ammunition seized from protesters there.

At least 250 people have died in clashes in Egypt following Morsi's ouster in a military coup on July 3 that followed days of mass protests by millions of Egyptians calling for his removal.

Supporters of the Islamist president want him reinstated and are boycotting the military-sponsored political process which includes amending the Islamist-backed constitution adopted last year and holding parliamentary and presidential elections early next year.

Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president, had just completed one year in office when he was toppled. He has been held at an undisclosed location since July 3, but was visited by the European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and a team of African statesmen. Ashton reported that he was well and had access to television and newspapers.

Several bids by the United States, the EU and Gulf Arab states to reconcile the two sides in Egypt in an inclusive political process have failed, with the Brotherhood insisting that Morsi must first be freed along with several of the group's leaders who have been detained in connection with incitement of violence.

The trial of the Brotherhood's leader, Mohammed Badie, and his powerful deputy Khairat el-Shater on charges of conspiring to kill protesters is due to start later this month. Badie is on the run, but el-Shater is in detention. Four others are standing trial with them on the same charges.

Egyptian troops move against protesters

Security forces in Cairo fire tear gas in an attempt to disperse camps established by supporters of Mohammed Morsi.
Two camps targeted

Insight: Iraq Kurds reach out to Baghdad to fight surging al Qaeda

Kurdish Peshmerga troops and tanks are deployed on the outskirts of Kirkuk, some 250km (155 miles) north of Baghdad December 3, 2012. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed

By Suadad al-Salhy

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - When hundreds of al Qaeda fighters in armored trucks attacked the northern Iraqi town of Shirqat with machine guns last week, the local army unit called for backup and set off in pursuit.

But after a two-hour chase through searing desert heat, most militants vanished into a cluster of Kurdish villages where the Iraqi army cannot enter without a nod from regional authorities.

It was just one example of how distrust between the security forces of Iraq's central government and of its autonomous Kurdish zone helps the local wing of al Qaeda, the once-defeated Sunni Islamist insurgents who are again rapidly gaining ground, a year and a half after U.S. troops pulled out.

"We had to wait more than two hours to get the required permission to go after them," an Iraqi military officer who took part in the operation 300 km (190 miles) north of Baghdad said. "While were we waiting, they simply disappeared."

The Shi'ite-led Iraqi government and Kurdish authorities are now looking at examples like the Shirqat attack and considering the once unthinkable - launching joint security operations and sharing intelligence - to combat the common enemy of al Qaeda.

Such cooperation has been extremely rare since U.S. troops left at the end of 2011, while the central government and the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region in the north have been locked in an increasingly hostile dispute over land and oil.

That the two sides are publicly contemplating working together underlines how worried they are about the insurgency and the threat of Iraq slipping back into all-out sectarian war.

"OPEN WAR"

The conflict in neighboring Syria and discontent among Iraq's minority Sunnis has dramatically escalated the threat posed by al Qaeda in the past year, leading to violence unseen in Iraq since the height of the U.S.-led war five years ago.

Al Qaeda fighters, who once held sway over most of Iraq's Sunni areas until they were beaten by U.S. and Iraqi troops and their local tribal allies during the "surge" campaign of 2006-2007, are again on the ascendant.

Last year they merged with a powerful Islamist rebel group in neighboring Syria, forming the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The combined group controls whole swathes of territory on both sides of the frontier and is fighting Kurds and Shi'ites alike in its goal of setting up a strict Sunni Islamist state across the heart of the Middle East.

In Iraq, al Qaeda fighters have been able to carry out ever more frequent and audacious attacks on government targets, culminating with a mass jailbreak last month when they attacked two prisons and sprung hundreds of militants in the biggest insurgent military operation in Iraq in at least five years.

Al Qaeda militants have also claimed responsibility for waves of coordinated bombings over the past four months in Shi'ite areas of Iraq, deliberately targeting civilians and killing many hundreds.

They justify the attacks, including a wave of car bombs in recent days that killed scores of people including children during a religious holiday, with sectarian appeals against a Shi'ite-led government of "heretics".

Each of the past four months has each been deadlier than any in the previous five years, dating back to a time when U.S. and government troops were still engaged in pitched battles with organized militiamen.

Iraq's Interior Ministry described the conflict last month as "open war", although officials have since tried to play the violence down and insist they remain in control of the country.

Throughout, the security forces of Iraq's Shi'ite-led government have been outmatched, unable to bring security to Baghdad or protect Shi'ite areas in the south, much less sweep fighters from northern Sunni areas under their grip.

AL QAEDA HOTBEDS

Al Qaeda's presence has become strongest in parts of northern Iraq, including areas that have often been disputed between government and Kurdish forces.

Fighters now control most of the villages and towns in an area known as the Hamrin Mountains basin, which links the northern provinces of Diyala, Salahuddin, Kirkuk and Mosul, say security officials, residents and local lawmakers.

As they did before they were beaten back in the George W. Bush-era "surge", they earn funds by extorting tribute from local businesses, giving them greater authority than the state.

Officials in Baghdad say territorial disputes with Kurdish forces are partly to blame for the inability of the government to exercise control.

"The disputed areas have become havens for al Qaeda militants and leaders. Al Qaeda's biggest hotbeds are located there," said a senior Shi'ite lawmaker and member of the Security and Defence parliamentary committee.

"The security forces have no real control over these areas, mainly because of the conflict between the central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government," said the lawmaker, requesting anonymity.

SYRIA DRAWS KURDS INTO CONFLICT

The highly-trained and capable Kurdish militia fighters, known as Peshmerga, would be a useful ally for Baghdad after years in which they were rivals.

While U.S. troops were active in Iraq, the Peshmerga mainly stayed out of the civil war between Sunni and Shi'ite Arabs, defending the three provinces that make up their autonomous Kurdish region in the north.

Iraq's Kurdish area has prospered while avoiding the violence that plagued the rest of the country, with the Peshmerga keeping a firm and unchallenged grip.

Kurdish territorial ambitions also extend beyond the autonomous region to Mosul, Diyala and oil-rich Kirkuk, where Peshmerga control turf and have frequently faced off with the central government's troops.

But the rise of al Qaeda in Syria and its resurgence in Iraq changes the equation and could now drag the Iraqi Kurds deeper into conflicts in both countries.

Syria has its own Kurdish minority, whose fighters have been battling against al Qaeda for control of territory there as the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad splintered.

A Kurdish group in Syria seized the town of Ras al-Ain near the Turkish border last month after days of battle with Syrian al Qaeda fighters. The Syrian Kurdish group has raised its flag, suggesting a goal of building an autonomous Kurdish region similar to the one Kurds maintain in Iraq.

Last week, Iraq's Kurdish region announced that it was prepared to defend Kurds living in Syria if al Qaeda fighters threaten them, the first hint of possible intervention across the border.

Iraqi Kurdish officials say they are also motivated to cooperate with Baghdad against al Qaeda because they believe their own survival depends on keeping Iraq from collapsing.

"The leaders of the Kurdistan region have come to the conclusion that the fall of Baghdad would mean the fall of the (Kurdish) region," a senior Kurdish official said, requesting anonymity while discussing the region's strategy.

Iraqi and Kurdish officials both say it was Kurdistan's regional government that took the initiative and approached Baghdad with an offer to cooperate on security.

"We have offered to cooperate, coordinate, run joint security operations and share information," said Jabar Yawer, a spokesman for the Peshmerga, headquartered in the regional capital Arbil. "Our forces are ready to fight side by side with the Iraqi security forces to combat terrorism and control the security of Iraq - anywhere, anytime."

That offer has been welcomed by Baghdad.

"We are now studying the details at a high level to see how to take advantage of this offer," said Ali al-Moussawi, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

In a country where political alliances shift like sand, any cooperation is still likely to be tentative. The Kurdish authorities are suspicious of Maliki who they feel has reneged on political promises in the past.

Baghdad will be wary of Iraqi Kurds growing closer to their Syrian kin. And Maliki's government is likely to be suspicious of Kurdish forces extending the boundaries of the territory under their control, especially in areas where underground oil reserves are disputed.

WASHINGTON POWERLESS

One country which appears to have little leverage is the United States. The sudden surge in violence has drawn attention to Washington's swift exit, a decade after its invasion to overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein unleashed sectarian bloodshed in which some 100,000 Iraqis were killed.

U.S. President Barack Obama took office in 2009 after Iraq's violence had abated. He fulfilled a campaign pledge to withdraw troops almost as quickly as they could pack up and leave, pulling the last out at the end of 2011.

The Obama administration had hoped to keep a smaller force in Iraq for counter-terrorism to fight the remnants of al Qaeda, but failed to negotiate terms with Maliki's government, which refused to grant U.S. soldiers immunity from Iraqi law.

Today, Washington operates its largest embassy in a massive fortress-like compound built during the war, which dominates central Baghdad on the banks of the Tigris.

But its ability to influence events is largely limited to pressing the Iraqi government to act more effectively, said Aaron Zelin, who researches jihadist groups for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"We have to understand that the U.S. ability to shape events is not as great as people like to think sometimes, especially since I'm pretty sure most Iraqis don't want the U.S. to go back in there," he said.

After the latest wave of bombings over the Muslim Eid holiday celebration in Iraq killed scores of people on Saturday, Washington reiterated a $10 million reward for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, head of the combined Iraq and Syria al Qaeda branch.

"We have seen an uptick in recent months in al Qaeda in Iraq and in terrorist attacks in Iraq, so we will continue working with the security forces and on counter-terrorism," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Mari Harf said. "We will look for new ways to cooperate on counter-terrorism."

(Additional reporting by Sylvia Westall in Baghdad, Lesley Wroughton and Susan Cornwell in Washington; Writing by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Peter Graff)

Egypt imposes state of emergency after 95 people killed

Yasmine Saleh and Tom Finn 1 hour agoPolitics

View Gallery

By Yasmine Saleh and Tom Finn

CAIRO (Reuters) - At least 95 Egyptians were killed on Wednesday after security forces moved in on protesters demanding the reinstatement of President Mohamed Mursi, and the government imposed a state of emergency as violence swept the most populous Arab nation.

Troops opened fire on Islamist demonstrators in clashes that brought chaos to the capital and other cities and looked certain to further polarize Egypt's 84 million people between those who backed Mursi and the millions who opposed his brief rule.

In the streets around the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in northeast Cairo, where thousands of Mursi supporters have staged a sit-in for the last six weeks, riot police wearing gas masks crouched behind armored vehicles, tear gas hung in the air and burning tires sent plumes of black smoke into the sky.

Several television stations ran footage of what appeared to be pro-Mursi protesters firing automatic rifles at soldiers from behind sandbag barricades.

At a hospital morgue nearby, a Reuters reporter counted 29 bodies, including that of a 12-year-old boy. Most had died of gunshot wounds to the head.

Violence spread beyond Cairo, with Mursi supporters and security forces clashing in the cities of Alexandria, Minya, Assiut, Fayoum and Suez and in Buhayra and Beni Suef provinces.

The health ministry put the overall death toll at 95 people, including both police and civilians, with other sources saying at least 17 were killed in Fayoum province and five in Suez.

Mursi supporters besieged and set fire to government buildings and several churches were attacked, state media said.

Egypt's Brotherhood says 30 dead in protest crackd …Play video."

Mohamed El-Beltagi, a leader of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood movement that has led the protests, said his 17-year-old daughter had been killed in the clashes.

He warned of wider conflict, and singled out the head of the armed forces who deposed Mursi on July 3 following mass protests calling for his resignation.

"I swear by God that if you stay in your homes, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will embroil this country so that it becomes Syria. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will push this nation to a civil war so that he escapes the gallows."

By 10 a.m. ET, only a few hundred protesters remained at the Rabaa site. A second, smaller camp near Cairo University was swiftly cleared in the early morning.

STATE OF EMERGENCY

The presidency announced a month-long state of emergency across Egypt and ordered the armed forces to help police enforce security. Rights activists said the move would give legal cover for the army to make arrests.

The interim cabinet, installed by the military to guide Egypt to fresh elections in around six months, also announced a curfew from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. in several provinces as well as Cairo and Alexandria.

Hosni Mubarak, the U.S.-backed autocratic ruler toppled in a 2011 uprising, imposed a state of emergency after Islamists assassinated Anwar Sadat in 1981 and used it over the next 30 years to stifle dissent and crack down on the Brotherhood.

Lifting the state of emergency had been a key demand of the protesters who ousted Mubarak, and the military eventually did so last year.

Egypt police break-up Brotherhood sit-insPlay video."

The West, notably the United States which gives the Egyptian military $1.3 billion each year, has been alarmed by the recent violence in the strategic Arab ally that has a peace treaty with Israel and controls the vital Suez Canal waterway.

Wednesday's assault prompted widespread condemnation. Turkey urged the U.N. Security Council and Arab League to act quickly to stop a "massacre" in Egypt, and Iran warned of the risk of civil war.

Nine hours after the start of Wednesday's operation, crowds of protesters were still blocking roads, chanting and waving flags as security forces sought to prevent them from regrouping.

"At 7 a.m. they came. Helicopters from the top and bulldozers from below. They smashed through our walls. Police and soldiers, they fired tear gas at children," said teacher Saleh Abdulaziz, 39, clutching a bleeding wound on his head.

"They continued to fire at protesters even when we begged them to stop."

The move to break up the camps appeared to dash any remaining hopes of bringing the Brotherhood back into the political mainstream, and underlined the impression many Egyptians share that the military is tightening its grip.

The operation also suggested the army had lost patience with persistent protests that were crippling parts of the capital and slowing the political process.

It was the third time since Mursi's ouster six weeks ago that security forces had opened fire on protesters in Cairo, killing dozens of people on each occasion.

The crackdown began just after dawn with helicopters hovering over the camps. Gunfire rang out as protesters, among them women and children, fled Rabaa. Armored vehicles moved in beside bulldozers which began clearing tents.

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A local resident (rear L, facing camera) throws stones towards supporters of ousted President Mohame …

MARKETS NERVOUS

The government issued a statement saying security forces had showed the "utmost degree of self-restraint", reflected in low casualties compared to the number of people "and the volume of weapons and violence directed against the security forces".

It added that it would press ahead with implementing an army-backed political transition plan in "a way that strives not to exclude any party from participation".

Mursi became Egypt's first freely elected leader in June 2012, but failed to tackle deep economic malaise and worried many Egyptians with apparent efforts to tighten Islamist rule.

Liberals and young Egyptians staged huge rallies demanding that he resign, and the army said it removed him in response to the will of the people.

Since he was deposed, Gulf Arab states pledged $12 billion in aid to Egypt, buying the interim government valuable time to try to put the country's finances back in order.

Egyptian stocks have rallied 23 percent since his ouster, but fell 1.7 percent on Wednesday. While the drop was relatively muted, market participants are becoming more nervous.

Emad Mostaque, emerging markets strategist at Noah Capital Markets, switched to a "sell" position from neutral on Egyptian equities.

"The organized nature of the Muslim Brotherhood and their chunky presence in society (let's say 10 percent), means they can be far more disruptive than the 2011 revolutionaries," he said in a client note.

(additional reporting by Michael Georgy, Tom Perry, Shadia Nasralla, Omar Fahmy and Ashraf Fahim in Cairo, Adrian Croft in Brussels and Carolyn Cohn in London; Writing by Mike Collett-White)