Cost-Containment

The ugly figures will reflect the government's partial shutdown, which coincided with 16 days in October. The trends for the job market will likely reverse themselves in coming months.

As it turns out, policy cancellations will affect less than 4 percent of Americans those who buy individual health insurance directly, rather than the 80 percent who get it from their jobs or government programs, or the 15 percent who have no health insurance at all.

The move to unionize at campuses from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., to Tufts University near Boston follows a shift in hiring practices at colleges that rely more than ever on adjunct faculty to teach classes.

Paying for employee health insurance, and managing the effects on their business of the act, rank as the top two concerns in an ADP study of more than 1,000 businesses with between 50 and 999 employees.

Turning conventional thinking on its head, Booz & Co. researchers say their survey clearly shows consumers are drawn as much by the narrowness of their choices as by the low cost.

The plan would scrap whats known as the Sustainable Growth Rate formula, which has been in place since 1997, and payments to doctors would be frozen through 2023.