On Monday, almost all postal rates will increase. For first-class letters, its just one cent, but most packages and foreign mail will jump a bit more. It's penny here, a penny there… but the pennies add up. And up.

It's not a huge rate hike for most consumers, but while the cost of food, gas and "you name it" is also rising, the extra penny is pinching. Especially for businesses.

This rate hike is the first under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, passed in 2006, that made rate hikes predictable. The Act permits the U.S. Postal Service to raise prices once a year, and at no more than the rate of inflation. So, this increase is just under 3% for most popular mailing services.

Another change making this slightly less painful, and easier to prepare for, was the introduction of the "Forever stamp program." These stamps – on sale for the next few days at 41 cents each – are good for whatever the current price is of a first-class mailing, and stay good no matter how much rates go up in the future.

(Go stock up, while there's still time!)

Fuel Prices Up, Speedometers Down!

With gas prices reaching gasping proportions, many drivers are taking drastic steps to cut consumption. Walking. Biking. And slowing down.

For years, experts have beseeched drivers to slow down, both for safety and for mileage consumption. Researchers say that today's cars are most fuel efficient at speeds around 30 to 60 mph. In fact, mileage drops sharply above 65 mpg, because engines have to work harder to overcome wind resistance that rises exponentially with speeds.

Based on recent trends, cutting back to 60 mph from 70 mph would likely reduce gasoline usage 2% to 3%. The U.S. Energy Department estimates that would translate into a 10% reduction in price. However, most drivers still drive at or above the posted speed limits because they feel their time is worth more than the gas they'd save by slowing down.

Sound familiar? Back in 1974, during the Middle East oil embargo, the government imposed a national speed limit of 55 mph. Then, prices at the pump quadrupled from about a quarter to more than a dollar in places – those were the days, and long gas lines were the norm. Gas was rationed to "every other" day. Once the crisis seemingly passed, states later were allowed to set 65 mph limits on rural interstates. Congress repealed the national speed limit law in 1995.

While many states have limits at 70 mph and above, at least two states — Alabama and Connecticut — have considered reducing speed limits, but there doesn't seem to be much movement towards a trend. And despite the proven benefits, we're not hearing any noise from Washington for a new national speed limit.

Could it be that the oil lobby will stifle such actions in order to keep prices and profits high?

Should Insurers Limit Their Contact With Elderly and Disabled ?

Under a new federal rule proposed this Thursday, agents selling private health insurance plans to the elderly and disabled would be barred from approaching them directly. The ban would include cold-calling, door-to-door solicitations or sales pitches outside hospital waiting rooms or pharmacies.

Essentially, the rule would restrict face-to-face solicitations to those initiated by the customer. 'We want to make sure that beneficiaries aren't pressured into sales,' explains Kerry Weems, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In those situations, "..a salesman can create a pressure environment or a threatening environment where a beneficiary will agree to anything just to get away.'

The regulation is designed to make it harder to pressure Medicare beneficiaries into signing up for insurance products they don't need or want. Since the new Medicare drug benefit began Jan. 1, 2006, participants and state insurance commissioners have received complaints that some agents use false information to enroll people into certain plans, particularly those offering comprehensive health insurance. In some cases, people were pressured into enrolling in plans even after they made it clear they didn't want the product.

Also, insurance agents commonly used their meetings about the drug benefit to pitch other types of products such as long-term care insurance or disability insurance. The regulation would prevent them from doing so -- unless the agent cleared it with the potential customer before the meeting.

Psychiatry Handbook Advisors Linked to Drug Industry

Tara Parker-Pope, writing for the New York Times, brings an interesting conflict of interest to light. Who funds the research for psychiatric diagnoses? By association, it’s the pharmaceutical industry.

At issue is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is the most-used guide and most important diagnostic handbook used by the American Psychiatric Association most for diagnosing mental disorders. The manual has undergone numerous revisions since it was first published, and the fifth version will be published in 2012.

However, more than half of the task force members who will oversee the next edition of the have ties to the drug industry, as reported by the Web site for Integrity in Science, a project of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Shockingly, this is not the first report of the conflict of interest. In 2006, Tufts University researchers reported that 95 out of 170 experts who worked on the 1994 edition of the manual had at least one monetary relationship with a drug maker in the years from 1989 to 2004. The percentage was higher — 100 percent in some cases — for experts who worked on sections of the manual devoted to severe mental illnesses, like schizophrenia, the study found.

The Integrity in Science group described the financial conflicts of interest by the task force members as ranging from “small to extensive,'’ including one member who over the past five years worked as a consultant for 13 drug companies, including Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Wyeth, Merck, AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

These task force members are responsible for creating the manual which defines mental disorders and the way in which insurance companies classify care. These writers are defining new conditions, or expanding the definitions of existing disorders, that are increasingly being treated by medications instead of "talk therapy" or other modalities.

The conflict being raised is: Are the disorder being classified according to symptoms for which, "coincidentally," there is a pharmaceutical treatment?

Apple to Resolve Adapter Lawsuits

Apple Inc. has agreed to pay refunds of $25 to $79 to as many as 2.3 million Mac computer customers to settle a complaints about faulty power adapters.

A class action lawsuit, filed in 2006, alleged Apple misrepresented problems with the power adapters. The power adapter "dangerously frays, sparks and prematurely fails to work," the plaintiffs said in court filings. In 2001, Apple recalled about 570,000 power adapters sold worldwide with Macintosh PowerBook G3 personal PCs after reports of overheating. Apple advised customers to stop using the adapters and offered free replacements.

Customers who bought certain replacement adapters for PowerBook and iBook computers are eligible for the settlement. Customers who bought a replacement adapter within a year after purchasing their PC and were denied warranty coverage by Apple are eligible to receive as much as $79. Those who replaced adapters within two years can get $40 and consumers who bought new adapters within three years can receive $20.

As many as 2.3 million customers bought the devices, according to the court documents.

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