The U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services is giving a sneak peek today on how the new Health Insurance Benefits and Coverage forms are going to look.

As part of the new healthcare ruling, all paperwork pertaining to insurance plans were re-designed with a new format. According to the new law, “private insurers are now required to provide you with a Summary of Benefits and Coverage — a simple explanation of what a policy covers, written in plain language.”

Here’s the link to a pre-filled out form of the Summary and Benefits Coverage that everyone will be seeing fairly soon, regardless of what insurance company you are with. [NOTE : PDF download link]

If you’re in the healthcare field, there’s even a blank template available for you to preview to roll into your company’s forms database. [NOTE : PDF download link]

A standard form is going to go a loooong way in comparing insurance policy benefits on a direct paper-next-to-paper basis. After looking at the 6-8 page form, why something like this “nutrition label” format wasn’t mandated earlier is beyond me.

Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* Did you hear a giant collective “AAAAAAAAAAA!” from the Haaaaaarvard crowd this last week? It might have been because of a front page story in Bloomberg that said Haaaaaarvard graduates are now “earning less than those from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology”! The starting pay for a graduate of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology is $56,700, but the starting graduation-job pay for Haaaaaarvard graduates was $54,100. Considering Haaaaaarvard is four times more expensive than the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, I think this is a pretty big win (and a great sign) for blue collar workers! Story at [BLOOMBERG]

* Crack open the AH-DERRRR file. Those itty bitty economy cars, despite their super dooper cuteness, don’t take a hit too well! A recent insurance industry study shows that itty bitty cars cause serious “personal injury” to their occupants “28.5 times for every 1,000”. That’s one serious personal injury for every 35 accidents! To add insult to injury, the safest car to drive (out of all cars) is a Porche 911, with just “4.5 injury claims for every 1,000“. Somebody better switch those dancing hamsters for crash test dummies! Story at the [DAILY MAIL]

* Did anybody else notice that one of the Muslim protesters who took over a US foreign embassy last week was wearing a “Let It Be” t-shirt? (Dude with the yellow shirt on the left in the photo below.) Let it be? Seriously?! The Beatles “Let It Be”? After torching a foreign embassy, burning the flag, and taking over the roof to fly your own flag? I’m not sure if that t-shirt is intended as biting sarcasm or if it’s just 24-karat solid gold irony in progress. Photo below…

Let it be, you say?

* Billa, a major european supermarket chain with stores “in nine European countries”, are now selling pre-peeled bananas in plastic trays covered in plastic wrap. Apparently, they’re trying to get Captain Planet to just flat out have a heart attack, because I really can’t think of another reason for this. Did someone in Europe complain to Billa upper management that bananas were just too hard to peel? I mean, once you know which end of the banana is “up”, the rest is pretty straightforward, right? Story at [HUFFINGTON POST]

* This next story has my spider sense going all sorts of bonkers. The CDC issued a press release about “Rabies Immune Globulin”, saying “Sanofi Pasteur is currently directing requests for human rabies immune globulin to Grifols/Talecris Biotherapeutics, supplier of HyperRAB” and that “Sanofi Pasteur will be able to fulfill orders for Imogam (human rabies immune globulin) when additional lots are expected to be released by late November”. Sooooo the “usual” provider of human anti-rabies med is OUT of their flagship product and they’re referring everyone to their competition until November until they can catch up and “additional lots” are made available. Right. Soooo my question is WHAT HAPPENED THAT THEY RAN OUT OF HUMAN ANTI-RABIES MEDS?  WHY IS THE CDC MAKING THIS PRESS RELEASE IF IT’S NO BIG DEAL? WHERE IS MY CAPS LOCK… ah, there it is. Maybe it’s nothing, but I got a baaaaad feeling about this. Story at [CDC]

* Since Bill Gates, the former head of Microsoft, has been devoting his time and stupid-amounts of money to charity, not a single citizen in India has contracted polio. Gates also dropped a $750 million dollar bomb of a donation to “fight Aids, malaria and TB” in Africa, and he’s stated that his goal in life is “to see unnecessary deaths drop to zero”. This dude has done more for charity and humanity than anyone else has in this century, but what does this article headline with? How Bill Gates wrote a letter to Steve Jobs. Can I get a “sad trombone” sound, here? Wah-wah-waaaahhhhhh. Story at [TELEGRAPH.CO.UK]

* While everybody is all paranoid out about a computerized military killer like SKYNET coming online, a new “immortal chemist” computer network called “Chematica” has been created, and it is already online and thinking of how to synthesize “drug molecules and other important compounds, combine long (and expensive) syntheses of compounds into shorter and more economical routes and identify suspicious chemical recipes that could lead to chemical weapons” and ways to prevent a “potential terrorist” from making “a nerve gas, an explosive or another toxic agent”. All that, plus its’ main objective to tie all this knowledge into providing “building blocks for nanotechnology”. SKYNET? Pfffft! Five bucks says Chematica takes SKYNET down by the 2nd round. Story at [FORESIGHT]

* Finally, a brilliant video that uses mixing paint colors to explain how computer cryptography works. Highly educational and entertaining at the same time!

That’s all I got this week. Off to find a cigar to light up!