Express Scripts cuts custom-Rx coverage
WASHINGTON -- The nation's largest pharmacy-benefit manager, Express Scripts, is dramatically scaling back its coverage of compounded medications, saying most of the custom-mixed formulas are ineffective or overpriced.
The company, which manages prescriptions for 90 million Americans, plans to drop coverage of 1,000 drug ingredients commonly found in compounded medications.
Express Scripts said the move will cut wasteful spending and lower its customers' compounded-drug costs by 95 percent.
But the coverage change has prompted a swift push-back from compounding pharmacists, who argue that the cuts will deprive patients of crucial medications that are not available as traditional manufactured drugs. A spokesman for the pharmacists said similar efforts to curb coverage are in the works from several other pharmacy-benefit providers and health insurers.
-- The Associated Press
30-year mortgage rate dips this week
WASHINGTON -- Average U.S. mortgage rates are near historically low levels.
Mortgage company Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., said Thursday that the nationwide average rate for a 30-year loan dipped to 4.12 percent, down from 4.14 last week.
The average for the 15-year mortgage, which had taken a big dip the previous week, was unchanged this week at 3.22 percent. Rates on one-year adjustable mortgages averaged 2.38 percent this week, down from 2.40 percent last week.
Mortgage rates are slightly lower than they were at the same time last year, having fallen recently after climbing last summer when the Federal Reserve began talking about trimming back the monthly bond purchases it has been using to keep long-term rates low.
-- The Associated Press
Libya reopening oil ports ceded by rebels
Libya is ready to reopen two oil ports in the country's east and will resume exports as fast as possible after taking back control from rebels who blocked crude shipments for the past year.
Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, which have combined capacity of 560,000 barrels a day, will open after an agreement was reached with rebels, said Ahmed al-Amin, a government spokesman. The nation's biggest and third-largest export facilities were handed over in a gesture of support for the newly elected parliament, a spokesman of the rebel group that calls itself the Executive Office for Barqa said Wednesday.
"Exports will resume at full capacity, as much as we can," Mohamed Elharari, spokesman for the state-run National Oil Corp., said by phone from Tripoli. "Loading will resume as soon as possible; we will be speaking with the international companies" about crude sales, he said.
Libya has become the smallest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in the past year because of unrest in the country. It is pumping at a rate of 320,000 barrels a day, Elharari said. That's less than a third of the level in June 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
-- Bloomberg News
Germany's first national wage floor OK'd
BERLIN -- German lawmakers on Thursday approved the introduction of the country's first national minimum wage, a victory for its main center-left party that a long-skeptical Chancellor Angela Merkel described as a "painful" political compromise.
Most workers in Europe's biggest economy will be guaranteed at least $11.60 per hour under the legislation, which takes effect Jan. 1. Some employers will have two years to phase in the minimum wage; those under 18 will be exempted, as will the long-term unemployed for six months after they return to work.
Merkel's government took the step at the insistence since December of her coalition partners, the center-left Social Democrats. They joined the government after Merkel's conservatives won elections last year but fell short of a parliamentary majority.
Labor Minister Andrea Nahles, a Social Democrat, said 3.7 million people would benefit directly from the minimum wage, which she said "brings a bit more fairness to business and society and makes Germany stronger."
-- The Associated Press
Higher airfares, full jets seen lingering
Air travelers are paying more to fly this summer on crowded planes as carriers including American Airlines Group Inc. keep capacity tight -- conditions passengers will have to get used to beyond the vacation period.
Carriers are offering fewer flights, have dropped routes to certain cities and in some cases are flying smaller planes on trips in the U.S. amid strong demand, helping to increase summer fares 4.5 percent from a year ago.
An average domestic round-trip fare has climbed to about $399.48, based on data from Travelocity.com. An international ticket is about 2.3 percent more than a year ago, at $991.82.
This is the busiest season for U.S. carriers, with passenger traffic at its heaviest in July, followed by August, then June, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Airlines for America, an industry trade group, forecast that travel on U.S. carriers this summer will be the highest in six years. But don't expect seats to open up or fares to fall much once summer ends.
-- Bloomberg News
Cuba criticizes U.S. fine for French bank
HAVANA -- Havana on Thursday protested U.S. penalties levied against France's largest bank over allegations it processed financial transactions for Cuba and other blacklisted states in violation of U.S. trade sanctions.
In a statement published by Cuban official media, the Foreign Ministry said the penalties "violate the rules of international law and qualify as an extraterritorial and illegal application of American legislation against a foreign entity."
The U.S. Justice Department announced Monday that BNP Paribas had agreed to pay nearly $9 billion to settle the case. Under the deal, the Paris-based bank entered a guilty plea in a New York court and acknowledged processing billions of dollars in transactions for clients in Cuba, Sudan and Iran.
U.S. prosecutors said the transactions were handled by BNP's New York branch office from at least 2004 through 2012.
"Sanctions are a key tool in protecting U.S. national security interests, but they only work if they are strictly enforced," Attorney General Eric Holder said earlier this week. "If sanctions are to have teeth, violations must be strictly punished."
-- The Associated Press
Business on 07/04/2014