Boehner makes counteroffer on 'fiscal cliff'

WASHINGTON — Rejecting President Obama’s call to raise tax rates for the wealthy, House Republicans unveiled a counteroffer that would cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other federal programs while raising new revenue by overhauling the tax code.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and his GOP leadership team sent the White House the three-page offer Monday afternoon as the administration turned up the volume on their complaints that Republicans have been unwilling to put a serious proposal on the table.

“With the fiscal cliff nearing, our priority remains finding a reasonable solution that can pass both the House and Senate, and be signed into law in the next couple of weeks,” Boehner and the other leaders wrote in the letter to the president, describing a plan that draws from an earlier deficit-reduction proposal from Erskine Bowles, the Democratic former co-chairman of the president’s fiscal commission.

Noticeably missing from the counteroffer, which was also signed by Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) who had been Republican Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential running mate, was Ryan’s House-passed budget proposals for turning Medicare into a voucher-like program for the next generation of seniors.

QUIZ: How much do you know about the fiscal cliff?

“We recognize it would be counterproductive to publicly or privately propose entitlement reforms that you and the leaders of your party appear unwilling to support inn the near-term,” the letter said.

The Republican offer comes as talks to avert the year-end budget crisis that economists warn could derail the economy had hit a stalemate. Existing tax rates will increase Jan. 1, rising about $2,200 on average Americans in the new year, if nothing is done. Enormous budget cuts are scheduled days later, a one-two punch of economic contraction.

Obama has been fighting to preserve the lower tax rates for all but the wealthiest households, those earning more than $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for singles. The president has said the nation can no longer afford tax breaks for the wealthy that would cost about $900 billion over the decade. But Republicans are fighting to keep the tax breaks for all.

Monday, Republicans proposed capturing nearly the same amount of revenue by closing loopholes and limiting itemized deductions on the wealthiest households, while also launching a broader tax-reform process that would lower all tax rates.

Boehner and his team also proposed $1.4 trillion in savings from spending cuts — including healthcare reforms that could include raising the Medicare retirement age and asking wealthier seniors to pay higher Medicare premiums. They also proposed limiting the cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security recipients and others.

Cuts to the entitlement programs have long been discussed as part of a broad deficit-reduction deal, but they are politically unpleasant. By refusing to consider such changes, Democrats forced Republicans to put them on the table.

The Republican proposal is silent on issues Obama had proposed in his offer last week, including a continuation of the payroll tax break and long-term unemployment benefits.

Details of the proposal remain to be worked out, but Republicans suggested a two-part framework, with some of the tax-and-spending changes happening this year and the rest being made in 2013.

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Twitter: @LisaMascaroinDC

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Curiosity Rover Finds Simple Organics, But Long Path Remains to Determine Life

SAN FRANCISCO — In its first analysis of Martian soil, NASA’s Curiosity rover detected perchlorate salts and simple organic compounds but the probe’s science team can not yet determine if the carbon in these materials is indigenous to Mars.

“When we look in the soil we see a bunch of chemicals in there,” said geologist John Grotzinger of Caltech, project scientist for the mission, during a NASA press conference here at the American Geophysical Union conference on Dec 3.

The rover’s instruments found water, sulfur, and chlorine-containing compounds, including chlorinated methane gas — a molecule that contains carbon. Curiosity detected these chemicals by scooping a small sample of Martian dust and heating it up slowly in a small-internal oven and then analyzing the resulting gases that get released. This was one of the first tests of the rover’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, a microwave-sized machine that allows scientists to conduct experiments on Mars similar to ones they could if they had a sample of Mars soil in a laboratory on Earth. In addition to looking at gases, SAM used a laser spectrometer to determine the isotopes of different atoms in the sample, which could help understand the complicated history of water and other elements on Mars. Curiosity’s science team thinks that heating the soil sample caused the perchlorates to release chlorine, which readily bonds to other gases such as carbon dioxide, and could have produced the chlorinated methane. We know from previous missions such as Viking and the Phoenix lander that Martian soil contains perchlorate salts, harsh compounds that tend to destroy any organic molecules when heated. Mars’ atmosphere contains carbon dioxide but the team also said that the carbon may simply have been carried from Earth in small amounts since they weren’t able to scrub out every last trace of contamination beforehand.

Determining which of these scenarios is more likely will be the next step. Even if the carbon came from Mars, there will still be a long road to figuring out how it came to be in the soil. The most likely explanation is that it rained to the surface on meteorites and comets, which commonly contain many complex organic compounds. Even if the carbon molecules were created on Mars, it will take time to determine if they are traces of past life.

“Curiosity’s middle name is patience,” said Grotzinger. “And we all have to have a healthy dose of that.”

Prospects are that later results will provide more interesting results about life — the rover is roving around an ancient Martian riverbed, after all — and the scientists are quite pleased with their analysis. They now have good data on the chemistry of Martian dust presently found all over the planet. The fact that it contained no definitive organic compounds was not particularly surprising.

“This is very exposed material,” said Paul Mahaffy, the principal investigator on the SAM instrument during the conference. “There are many processes that could destroy even the organic material that falls in from space: cosmic radiation, hydrogen peroxide, or ultra-high-dose radiation.” The team hopes to later use their analysis as a baseline to compare with other samples, taken from protected places deep underground or in billion-year-old rocks.

Referring to the rumors and excitement that preceded this announcement, Grotzinger said that he had been enthusiastic to see the rover’s instrument was working and beaming back great data. “We’re doing science at the speed of science,” he said, adding that a single experiment is unlikely to produce a “hallelujah moment” now or in the future.

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A bachelorette no more: Ashley Herbert weds beau

NEW YORK (AP) — Ashley Hebert (AY’-behr) is no longer a “Bachelorette.”

The 28-year-old Maine native got hitched over the weekend in Pasadena, Calif., to 35-year-old J.P. Rosenbaum of Long Island, who proposed to her on the seventh season of the ABC dating reality show “The Bachelorette.” Hebert tweeted that “12/1/12 goes down in history as the best day of my life!!”

Natalia Desrosiers, spokeswoman for Warner Bros. Television, which produces the show, said the wedding will be aired on Dec. 16 on ABC.

Hebert, who also competed on the 15th season of “The Bachelor,” grew up in Madawaska, Maine, and is a dentist. The couple now resides in the New York City area.

Only one other couple that met on the TV show has married. Bachelorette Trista Rehn married Vail, Colo., firefighter Ryan Sutter in 2003.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Software Programs Help Doctors Diagnose, but Can’t Replace Them

SAN FRANCISCO — The man on stage had his audience of 600 mesmerized. Over the course of 45 minutes, the tension grew. Finally, the moment of truth arrived, and the room was silent with anticipation.

At last he spoke. “Lymphoma with secondary hemophagocytic syndrome,” he said. The crowd erupted in applause.

Professionals in every field revere their superstars, and in medicine the best diagnosticians are held in particularly high esteem. Dr. Gurpreet Dhaliwal, 39, a self-effacing associate professor clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, is considered one of the most skillful clinical diagnosticians in practice.

The case Dr. Dhaliwal was presented, at a medical  conference last year, began with information that could have described hundreds of diseases: the patient had intermittent fevers, joint pain, and weight and appetite loss.

To observe him at work is like watching Steven Spielberg tackle a script or Rory McIlroy a golf course. He was given new information bit by bit — lab, imaging and biopsy results. Over the course of the session, he drew on an encyclopedic familiarity with thousands of syndromes. He deftly dismissed red herrings while picking up on clues that others might ignore, gradually homing in on the accurate diagnosis.

Just how special is Dr. Dhaliwal’s talent? More to the point, what can he do that a computer cannot? Will a computer ever successfully stand in for a skill that is based not simply on a vast fund of knowledge but also on more intangible factors like intuition?

The history of computer-assisted diagnostics is long and rich. In the 1970s, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh developed software to diagnose complex problems in general internal medicine; the project eventually resulted in a commercial program called Quick Medical Reference. Since the 1980s, Massachusetts General Hospital has been developing and refining DXplain, a program that provides a ranked list of clinical diagnoses from a set of symptoms and laboratory data.

And I.B.M., on the heels of its triumph last year with Watson, the Jeopardy-playing computer, is working on Watson for Healthcare.

In some ways, Dr. Dhaliwal’s diagnostic method is similar to that of another I.B.M. project: the Deep Blue chess program, which in 1996 trounced Garry Kasparov, the world’s best player at the time, to claim an unambiguous victory in the computer’s relentless march into the human domain.

Although lacking consciousness and a human’s intuition, Deep Blue had millions of moves memorized and could analyze as many each second. Dr. Dhaliwal does the diagnostic equivalent, though at human speed.

Since medical school, he has been an insatiable reader of case reports in medical journals, and case conferences from other hospitals. At work he occasionally uses a diagnostic checklist program called Isabel, just to make certain he hasn’t forgotten something. But the program has yet to offer a diagnosis that Dr. Dhaliwal missed.

Dr. Dhaliwal regularly receives cases from physicians who are stumped by a set of symptoms. At medical conferences, he is presented with one vexingly difficult case and is given 45 minutes to solve it. It is a medical high-wire act; doctors in the audience squirm as the set of facts gets more obscure and all the diagnoses they were considering are ruled out. After absorbing and processing scores of details, Dr. Dhaliwal must commit to a diagnosis. More often than not, he is right.

When working on a difficult case in front of an audience, Dr. Dhaliwal puts his entire thought process on display, with the goal of “elevating the stature of thinking,” he said. He believes this is becoming more important because physicians are being assessed on whether they gave the right medicine to a patient, or remembered to order a certain test.

Without such emphasis, physicians and training programs might forget the importance of having smart, thoughtful doctors. “Because in medicine,” Dr. Dhaliwal said, “thinking is our most important procedure.”

He added: “Getting better at diagnosis isn’t about figuring out if someone has one rare disease versus another. Getting better at diagnosis is as important to patient quality and safety as reducing medication errors, or eliminating wrong site surgery.”

Clinical Precision

Dr. Dhaliwal does half his clinical work on the wards of the San Francisco V. A. Medical Center, and the other half in its emergency department, where he often puzzles through multiple mysteries at a time.

One recent afternoon in the E.R., he was treating a 66-year-old man who was mentally unstable and uncooperative. He complained of hip pain, but routine lab work revealed that his kidneys weren’t working and his potassium was rising to a dangerous level, putting him in danger of an arrhythmia that could kill him — perhaps within hours. An ultrasound showed that his bladder was blocked.

There was work to be done: drain the bladder, correct the potassium level. It would have been easy to dismiss the hip pain as a distraction; it didn’t easily fit the picture. But Dr. Dhaliwal’s instinct is to hew to the ancient rule that physicians should try to come to a unifying diagnosis. In the end, everything — including the hip pain — was traced to metastatic prostate cancer.

“Things can shift very quickly in the emergency room,” Dr. Dhaliwal said. “One challenge of this, whether you use a computer or your brain, is deciding what’s signal and what’s noise.” Much of the time, it is his intuition that helps figure out which is which.

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DealBook: UBS Described as Near Deal With U.S. and Britain on Rate Rigging

UBS, the Swiss banking giant, is close to reaching settlements with American and British authorities over the manipulation of interest rates, the latest case in a multiyear investigation that has rattled the financial industry and spurred a public outcry for broad reform.

UBS is expected to pay more than $450 million to settle claims that some employees reported false rates to increase the bank’s profit, according to officials briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks were private.

If the bank agrees to the deals with various authorities, the collective penalties would yield the largest total fines to date related to the rate-rigging inquiry and would increase the likelihood that other financial institutions would face stiff penalties. Authorities dealt their first blow in the rate-rigging case in June when the British bank Barclays agreed to a $450 million settlement.

A spokeswoman for UBS declined to comment. The agencies leading the UBS investigation, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Justice Department and Britain’s Financial Services Authority, also declined to comment.

The UBS case will provide a window into systemic problems in the rate-setting process, which affects how consumers and companies borrow money around the world. After reviewing thousands of internal bank e-mails and interviewing dozens of employees, the authorities have uncovered patterns of abuse at the major banks that help set benchmark interest rates.

Libor Explained

The sprawling investigation is focused on benchmarks like the London interbank offered rate, or Libor. The rate, a measure of how much banks charge each other for loans, is used to determine the costs of trillions of dollars of mortgages, credit card charges and student loans.

The authorities claim that UBS traders colluded with rival banks to influence rates in an effort to bolster their profits, according to officials briefed on the matter. Some traders at UBS were suspended this year over the matter.

Given the scope of the case, the UBS settlement is expected to heighten calls for a reform of the Libor system. Lawmakers are pushing to change the way banks report rates, providing more transparency to consumers, companies and investors that rely on the benchmark.

The reform movement gained momentum after global authorities secured the settlement with Barclays. Regulators had accused Barclays of reporting false rates, a scandal that prompted the resignation of the chief executive and other top officials at the bank.

Global authorities are now moving forward with civil and criminal cases, setting up the potential for major fines and regulatory sanctions. Some banks are in advanced settlement talks, including UBS and the Royal Bank of Scotland. The Royal Bank said it expected to disclose penalties before the firm’s next earnings release in February. Deutsche Bank said last month that it had set aside money to cover potential fines, although it was too early to predict the size.

American authorities are hoping to complete a deal with UBS by the middle of the month, according to officials briefed on the matter. The officials noted that the discussions could spill into next year. The talks could also break down, in which case the authorities would file a lawsuit against the bank.

It is unclear whether global authorities will act in tandem on the UBS case. The bank and the regulators would prefer to strike a deal together, but the agencies are proceeding at different speeds.

Investigators say the broader Libor case could go on for years.

Canadian, Swiss and Asian authorities as well as the Justice Department, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Britain’s Financial Services Authority are investigating the actions of more than a dozen banks. Along with UBS, the futures commission is focused on potential wrongdoing at two American banks, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, the officials said. HSBC is also under scrutiny.

In addition to the regulatory cases, the Justice Department has identified potential criminal wrongdoing by traders at Barclays and other banks. The banks also face private lawsuits from large investors like local governments, which claim to have suffered losses as a result of interest rate manipulation. The New York attorney general has subpoenaed 16 banks over their role in the scandal, an action that could foreshadow civil lawsuits. Analysts predict the financial industry could face penalties of up to $20 billion.

“The evidence that comes out of any future settlement is likely to be enormously helpful for our claims,” said David E. Kovel, a partner at the law firm Kirby McInerney who is representing clients in a potential class-action suit related to Libor.

For UBS, the Libor case comes at a difficult time.

It has faced a series of legal problems since the financial crisis. In 2009, the bank agreed to pay $780 million to settle accusations by American authorities that it helped wealthy clients avoid taxes.

In 2011, it announced a $2.3 billion loss prompted by a rogue trader, Kweku M. Adoboli, who received a seven-year jail sentence for fraud last month. The firm agreed to pay a $47.5 million penalty to the British authorities in connection with the trading loss.

In the Libor case, UBS has been eager to cooperate. It has already reached a conditional immunity deal with the antitrust arm of the Justice Department, which could protect the bank from criminal prosecution under certain conditions. It is also cooperating with Canadian antitrust authorities by handing over e-mails and other documents implicating other banks.

But it did acknowledge publicly that such deals would not shield the bank from potential penalties from other regulators. The Justice Department’s criminal unit, for instance, could still take action against the bank.

UBS disclosed last year that it was the subject of investigations related to Libor, saying it had received subpoenas from American and Japanese authorities. Swiss and British regulators have joined the UBS investigation, which involves a number of currencies in the Libor system.

The timing of the Libor cases against UBS depends in large part on cooperation among regulators.

The Financial Services Authority in Britain has worked closely with its American counterparts. In total, the British regulator has about 160 people working on its various cases against banks, which are at different stages of development.

As the top watchdog of London’s financial services industry, the British regulator has positioned itself as a conduit for document requests from international regulators regarding Libor, which is set daily by banks in London. The agency also organizes interviews for its American counterparts with London-based bankers involved in the inquiries, according to an official with direct knowledge of the matter.

British regulators had been ready to move against UBS a month after officials announced a settlement with Barclays, the person added. The settlement has been delayed, however, as global authorities have tried to pursue a joint agreement with the bank.

“We’ve been going at the pace of the slowest regulator,” the official said.

A version of this article appeared in print on 12/03/2012, on page A1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Ubs Is Reported To Be Near Deal On Rate Rigging.

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Northridge residents stunned by multiple slayings

Shane Grady woke up "from a dead sleep" early Sunday when he heard gunshots.

He dropped to the floor and looked out his window, but the traffic on Devonshire Street blocked his view.

"If there was yelling or screaming, I couldn't hear it," he said.

Police arrived minutes later and began canvassing the neighborhood, a helicopter flying low overhead. By mid-morning, detectives were still at the house across from Grady's, where four people were found shot dead.

Investigators are still working to determine a motive and found no weapon at the scene, LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith said. No suspects are in custody.

L.A. Councilman Mitchell Englander, whose district includes parts of the San Fernando Valley, said the incident appeared to be isolated. He said the home was believed to be an unlicensed boarding home with multiple tenants.

Neighbors said rooms at the home were rented out and the residents appeared to be single men who primarily kept to themselves. At least four people live in an upstairs area, they said, but they did not know how many boarders in all reside there.

The neighbors also said there was nothing unusual about the home, except for some occasional loud music.

One woman who lives around the block from the residence said she heard loud music and yelling from the house about 1:30 a.m. She fell asleep about an hour later but said the music was still playing.

"I just figured it was a party that was out of control," she said.

Others described the street as quiet, the kind where neighbors know one another and people walk to the Jewish temple just houses away from where the shooting occurred. There have been a few incidents — a car chase last summer, a murder 10 years back — they said, but nothing like this.

"It's usually sleepy-time America," said Richard Rutherford, 58.

Rutherford heard the shots as well. The helicopter that came next, he said, was so low it "was shaking the rooftop."

Jeff Kaye, 62, said the helicopters weren't unusual — the Devonshire police station is just a few blocks away. But the shootings were unusual, he said.

"It concerns you," he said. "You want to know what's going on."

Englander said he was "shocked" by the shootings.

"Typically, you don't have these kinds of incidents in this type of community," he said.

Grady said the same thing.

"How often in this neighborhood do you hear about four dead bodies?" Grady said.

Crime for last six months in Northridge:
Violent crimes (89)
   
Property crimes (895)
   
The violent crime rate for Northridge falls in the middle of all Los Angeles city neighborhoods, but homicide is rare in the community, according to LAPD data analyzed in The Times Crime L.A. database. In the previous six months, Northridge had one homicide among the 89 violent crimes reported. The location of the homicides discovered Sunday is on the border with Granada Hills, which typically has a much lower violent-crime rate than Northridge.

Since 2007 -- prior to Sunday's quadruple homicide -- Northridge had 11 homicides, all but one south of Nordhoff Street, according to L.A. County coroner's data compiled in The Times Homicide Report. The most recent took place Sept. 25, when Louis Villegas, 25, was fatally shot near Balboa Boulevard and Parthenia Street. Villegas was riding in a Lexus that had pulled over to the side of the road when a man approached and began shooting.

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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Dec. 2

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle posted here.

SPOILER WARNING:
We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool, which will automatically filter out published answers, to give you a spoiler-free experience.

And now, without further ado, we give you…

TODAY’S PUZZLE:

Note: Ad-blocking software may prevent display of the puzzle widget.

Ken is a husband and father from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works as a civil engineer. He also wrote the NYT bestselling book "Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects for Dads and Kids to Share."

Read more by Ken Denmead

Follow @fitzwillie and @wiredgeekdad on Twitter.

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“Twilight” shines in third box office win over Bond

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The “Twilight” teen movie vampires sucked more money out of theaters over the weekend, leading James Bond, Brad Pitt and the rest of box office pack with $ 17.4 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales and scoring its third weekly win.

Pitt’s new movie, the small-budget gangster film “Killing Them Softly,” bombed with filmgoers who panned it with a rare “F” grade on average in polling by audience survey firm CinemaScore. The movie landed in seventh place with $ 7 million in ticket sales at domestic theaters.

The results were much brighter for “Breaking Dawn – Part 2,” the fifth and final film in the “Twilight” vampire and werewolf saga, which has earned $ 254.6 million at North American (U.S. and Canadian) theaters since its smash debut on November 16.

The top rankings were similar to last week’s Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Bond movie “Skyfall” starring Daniel Craig as superspy 007 grabbed $ 17 million and held on to second place, according to studio estimates compiled by Reuters. Steven Spielberg‘s historical drama “Lincoln,” featuring a critically acclaimed performance by Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th U.S. president, kept the No. 3 slot with $ 13.5 million.

A week ago, “Breaking Dawn – Part 2″ and “Skyfall” helped push the five-day Thanksgiving weekend to a box office record. The success of the two films, plus upcoming releases such as fantasy prequel “The Hobbit” and musical “Les Miserables,” are likely to power 2012 ticket sales to an all-time high, according to industry forecasts.

As of Sunday, year-to-date sales were running 5.9 percent ahead of the same point in 2011 at $ 9.9 billion, box office tracker Hollywood.com said.

Critics were kinder than audiences to Pitt’s “Killing Them Softly.” Seventy-nine percent of reviews collected on the Rotten Tomatoes website applauded the film, which blends a violent but comic gangster story with criticism of politicians’ failure to address the economic crisis.

In the movie, Pitt plays a hitman brought in by mafia bosses to eliminate a group of thieves who raid a high-stakes poker game. The film is set in an unspecified U.S. city marked by abandoned houses, closed shops and petty criminals and mobsters trying to get by.

The Weinstein Company distributed the movie, which was produced for less than $ 20 million by Annapurna Pictures, Inferno Entertainment, and Pitt’s production company, Plan B Entertainment.

In the No. 4 slot, family movie “Rise of the Guardians” captured $ 13.5 million. The Dreamworks Animation film has taken in $ 48.9 million since its Thanksgiving weekend debut, one of the slowest starts for a movie from the studio behind “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda.”

“Guardians” features the voices of Chris Pine and Alec Baldwin as the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and other childhood favorites who save the world.

Rounding out the top five, survival story “Life of Pi” earned $ 12 million and fifth place. The critically praised film from director Ang Lee is based on a book about a boy stranded on a boat with an adult Bengal tiger. Its two-week domestic total reached $ 48.4 million.

The other nationwide release, horror thriller “The Collection,” took in $ 3.4 million and finished in tenth place. The movie, a sequel to 2009 movie “The Collector,” tells the story of a serial killer who kidnaps women.

“Breaking Dawn – Part 2″ was released by Summit Entertainment, a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment. Sony Corp’s movie studio distributed “Skyfall.”

“Lincoln” was produced by Dreamworks and distributed by Walt Disney Co. Viacom Inc’s Paramount studio distributed “Rise of the Guardians.” News Corp’s 20th Century Fox studio released “Life of Pi,” and LD Entertainment distributed “The Collection.”

(Reporting By Lisa Richwine and Christine Kearney; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Opinion: A Health Insurance Detective Story

I’VE had a long career as a business journalist, beginning at Forbes and including eight years as the editor of Money, a personal finance magazine. But I’ve never faced a more confounding reporting challenge than the one I’m engaged in now: What will I pay next year for the pill that controls my blood cancer?

After making more than 70 phone calls to 16 organizations over the past few weeks, I’m still not totally sure what I will owe for my Revlimid, a derivative of thalidomide that is keeping my multiple myeloma in check. The drug is extremely expensive — about $11,000 retail for a four-week supply, $132,000 a year, $524 a pill. Time Warner, my former employer, has covered me for years under its Supplementary Medicare Program, a plan for retirees that included a special Writers Guild benefit capping my out-of-pocket prescription costs at $1,000 a year. That out-of-pocket limit is scheduled to expire on Jan. 1. So what will my Revlimid cost me next year?

The answers I got ranged from $20 a month to $17,000 a year. One of the first people I phoned said that no matter what I heard, I wouldn’t know the cost until I filed a claim in January. Seventy phone calls later, that may still be the most reliable thing anyone has told me.

Like around 47 million other Medicare beneficiaries, I have until this Friday, Dec. 7, when open enrollment ends, to choose my 2013 Medicare coverage, either through traditional Medicare or a private insurer, as well as my drug coverage — or I will risk all sorts of complications and potential late penalties.

But if a seasoned personal-finance journalist can’t get a straight answer to a simple question, what chance do most people have of picking the right health insurance option?

A study published in the journal Health Affairs in October estimated that a mere 5.2 percent of Medicare Part D beneficiaries chose the cheapest coverage that met their needs. All in all, consumers appear to be wasting roughly $11 billion a year on their Part D coverage, partly, I think, because they don’t get reliable answers to straightforward questions.

Here’s a snapshot of my surreal experience:

NOV. 7 A packet from Time Warner informs me that the company’s new 2013 Retiree Health Care Plan has “no out-of-pocket limit on your expenses.” But Erin, the person who answers at the company’s Benefits Service Center, tells me that the new plan will have “no practical effect” on me. What about the $1,000-a-year cap on drug costs? Is that really being eliminated? “Yes,” she says, “there’s no limit on out-of-pocket expenses in 2013.” I tell her I think that could have a major effect on me.

Next I talk to David at CVS/Caremark, Time Warner’s new drug insurance provider. He thinks my out-of-pocket cost for Revlimid next year will be $6,900. He says, “I know I’m scaring you.”

I call back Erin at Time Warner. She mentions something about $10,000 and says she’ll get an estimate for me in two business days.

NOV. 8 I phone Medicare. Jay says that if I switch to Medicare’s Part D prescription coverage, with a new provider, Revlimid’s cost will drive me into Medicare’s “catastrophic coverage.” I’d pay $2,819 the first month, and 5 percent of the cost of the drug thereafter — $563 a month or maybe $561. Anyway, roughly $9,000 for the year. Jay says AARP’s Part D plan may be a good option.

NOV. 9 Erin at Time Warner tells me that the company’s policy bundles United Healthcare medical coverage with CVS/Caremark’s drug coverage. I can’t accept the medical plan and cherry-pick prescription coverage elsewhere. It’s take it or leave it. Then she puts CVS’s Michele on the line to get me a Revlimid quote. Michele says Time Warner hasn’t transferred my insurance information. She can’t give me a quote without it. Erin says she will not call me with an update. I’ll have to call her.

My oncologist’s assistant steers me to Celgene, Revlimid’s manufacturer. Jennifer in “patient support” says premium assistance grants can cut the cost of Revlimid to $20 or $30 a month. She says, “You’re going to be O.K.” If my income is low enough to qualify for assistance.

NOV. 12 I try CVS again. Christine says my insurance records still have not been transferred, but she thinks my Revlimid might cost $17,000 a year.

Adriana at Medicare warns me that AARP and other Part D providers will require “prior authorization” to cover my Revlimid, so it’s probably best to stick with Time Warner no matter what the cost.

But Brooke at AARP insists that I don’t need prior authorization for my Revlimid, and so does her supervisor Brian — until he spots a footnote. Then he assures me that it will be easy to get prior authorization. All I need is a doctor’s note. My out-of-pocket cost for 2013: roughly $7,000.

NOV. 13 Linda at CVS says her company still doesn’t have my file, but from what she can see about Time Warner’s insurance plans my cost will be $60 a month — $720 for the year.

CVS assigns my case to Rebecca. She says she’s “sure all will be fine.” Well, “pretty sure.” She’s excited. She’s been with the company only a few months. This will be her first quote.

NOV. 14 Giddens at Time Warner puts in an “emergency update request” to get my files transferred to CVS.

Frank Lalli is an editorial consultant on retirement issues and a former senior executive editor at Time Warner’s Time Inc.

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Airbus Parent Expected to Alter Base of Its Investors

PARIS — The board of European Aeronautic Defense & Space, the parent company of Airbus, was expected Monday to announce a significant restructuring of its core shareholder base that would give the German government a direct stake in the group equal to that of France.

The restructuring, which was the subject of a board meeting late Sunday, would dissolve a decade-old agreement that gave the two countries an effective veto over company strategy, a factor that contributed to the failure of a proposed merger between EADS and BAE Systems of Britain in October.

One person familiar with the details of the plans said the state-owned German bank KfW was expected to acquire a 7.5 percent stake currently held by a consortium of public- and private-sector German banks, as well as another 4.5 percent from the German automaker Daimler, which owns 15 percent of the company.

The French government, which already owns 15 percent of EADS directly, has agreed to relinquish 3 percent of its voting rights in the company, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the board had not yet voted on the change. The French would continue to hold the full dividend rights of its 15 percent stake, but ownership of the other 3 percent would be transferred to a foundation, registered in the Netherlands, that would have no voting rights.

Details of the accord were expected to be announced Monday, the person said.

The new arrangement would end a shareholder pact that dates to the creation of EADS in 2000, which was designed to balance the national interests of France and Germany by giving a core group of shareholders special veto rights and the right to appoint the members of the company’s 11-seat board.

The core shareholder group has until now included Daimler, as well as Lagardère the French magazines and missiles conglomerate, which owns a 7.5 percent stake in EADS and whose chairman, Arnaud Lagardère, is currently chairman of the EADS board.

Both Daimler and Lagardère have long made clear their desire to sell their stakes, which neither considers core to its operations. The dissolution of the shareholder agreement now frees the two companies to dispose of their holdings. Some of the shares could be sold on the open market, but European news media reports last week suggested that EADS was also considering a share buyback that could absorb a significant portion of the outstanding shares.

EADS was expected to call for an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting in the first quarter of next year to approve changes to the ownership structure as well as a new slate of board directors.

Mr. Lagardère was not expected to be renominated as chairman, although he was likely to be replaced by another Frenchman. According to EADS’s bylaws, the chairman and chief executive must be split between a French and a German. Thomas Enders, who took over as chief executive in June, is a German.

EADS has long sought a new shareholder arrangement that would preserve the politically sensitive balance of influence between France and Germany without subjecting key management decisions to the approval of politicians in Paris and Berlin.

The impact of such political interference was on prominent display in October, when the German government led by Chancellor Angela Merkel failed to approve the EADS-BAE combination, sinking a deal that would have created the world’s largest aerospace group.

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