The state insurance department sets tougher rules for those who sell annuities in Missouri. The agency is using new powers given it by the legislature to put new protections for consumers who buy annuities. The new rules say, basically, that sales people cannot sell annuities that are inappropriate for the buyer’s specific investment and insurance needs.
Insurance Department Moves Against Shady Annuity Sales
Planned Parenthood Fears Restrictions on Access to Abortion
Planned Parenthood is circling the wagons against what it sees as an assault on abortion rights. It’s calling on Governor Matt Blunt (R-MO) to disband his Task Force on the Impact of Abortion on Women, calling the 14-member panel a sham organization whose true objective is to ban abortion in Missouri.
Michelle Trupiano, who represents Planned Parenthood Affiliates in Missouri, says the Task Force, coupled with a new proposal to severely restrict access to abortion through a ballot initiative, must be seen as an attack.
Trupiano says Planned Parenthood does not believe a task force is needed. She says time, energy, and money could be better spent on preventing unintended pregnancies through access to family planning services and comprehensive sex education.
No Charges in MySpace Suicide Case
St. Charles County Prosecutor Jack Banas has announced there will be no criminal charges filed in what has become known as the MySpace suicide case.
13-year-old Megan Meier of Dardenne Prairie hanged herself, last year, over an Internet hoax. The teenager’s parents say the suicide resulted from what they call harassment from neighbors who created a teenage boy who pretended to be interested in Megan before he turned on her.
Tina Meier, the mother of young Megan, understands the prosecutor’s decision not to file criminal charges. She realizes statutes regarding this particular aspect of the Internet did not exist at the time her daughter died. Two St. Louis area communities – Dardenne Prairie and Florissant – recently passed ordinances making Internet harassment a crime.
Download/Listen: Tina Meier, Mother of Megan Meier (:17 MP3) Thanks to KTRS
Three Missouri Nursing Homes on Poorest Performing List
Three Missouri nursing homes show up on a list of the nation’s poorest performing nursing homes.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid says the Senior Estates in Kansas City, the St. Elizabeth Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Florissant, and West Village Manor in Columbia are among the 52 nursing homes that consistently provide poor quality care. The agency says all three of the homes have been considered as Special Focus Facilities for 19 months.
The designation starts a progressive system of enforcement that could, in time, take Medicaid and Medicare certification away from the home and clear the way for state action.
Washington and Florida are the only other states with three nursing homes on the list.
Missouri Parks Association Slams Taum Sauk Deal
The Missouri Parks Association says the state’s $180-Million settlement with AmerenUE on the Taum Sauk reservoir collapse is not good enough. The Association says the deal does not properly protect a natural area near the reservoir and leaves a proposed KATY trail link between Windsor and Pleasant Hill uncertain.
The Association plans to file comments during the 30-day comment period now open before the settlement becomes permanent.
State parks officials think the trail link plan is okay.
