As the winter storm season intensifies a massive and historic blizzard will bulldoze through the upper northwest beginning Tuesday with 18 inches of snow expected in many parts of Washington state.

Weather.com predicts that Tuesday night through Wednesday, a strong low-pressure system with copious amounts of moisture will approach the Northwest coast. This will set the stage for a potential major winter storm across the lower elevations and mountains of the Pacific Northwest. Travel could become dangerous or impossible in Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana over the next 36 hours.

Timely email blasts, tweets, and newsletters to your agency mailing lists on these threats and safety precautions can help prepare your clients and endear them to your services very, very effectively. Insureds need to be aware of means to protect against winter flood damage, ice dams, and poor driving conditions and you can be a proactive source of ready resources. See the linked aritlce above on planning during this storm season.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says proposed increases in health insurance premiums for customers in five states have been deemed "unreasonable" by the agency.

Federal officials said recently that they've determined that Trustmark Life Insurance Co. proposed unreasonable rate increases in five states _ Alabama, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wyoming.

Sebelius has stated that under the 2010 health care law, insurance firms are required to disclose rate increases over 10 percent and justify them.

Previously HHS released unreasonable rate hike rules in early 2011 that serve as the basis for this new HHS action.

U.S. healthcare spending barely rose in 2010 from record-low recession levels, as high unemployment and the loss of private health insurance forced many Americans to delay or forego medical treatment, government officials told the Associated Press.

Spending edged up 3.9 percent, bringing the total size of the U.S. healthcare system to $2.6 trillion, or $8,402 per person, according to a report released by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, and published in the journal Health Affairs.

Growth in 2010 was only a slim 0.1 percentage point higher than the 3.8 percent recorded in 2009, which was the lowest rate recorded in half a century. Per capita health spending in the United States is still the highest worldwide.

"It's absolutely clear what's going on," said William Galston of the Brookings Institution. "People's budgets have been hard-hit, and even if they have 20 percent co-pays from their insurance companies, that 20 percent may still be too much."

The data are likely to play prominently in the political debate over U.S. government spending as President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare reform law approaches challenges from the Supreme Court and he fights for reelection in November.

So health care spending is not declining due to the passage of the PPACA, it is to early to see any effect from the new health reform law or the medical loss ratio requirements. That won't stop some from arguing the point though.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is in full damage control after a blundering comment on firing people related to a health reform question he answered today in New Hampshire, according to CNN.

The final day of campaigning before the New Hampshire vote saw Romney under fire for a comment about health insurance that quickly became a firestorm of criticism from opponents and media alike.

Asked about the issue in Nashua, New Hampshire, Romney said he wanted a person to be able to own his or her own policy "and perhaps keep it the rest of their life." Okay, that's fine so far, but he continued with the following:

"That means the insurance company will have the incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don't like what they do, you can fire them," he said. Again, not bad, but wait... he then said....

"I like being able to fire people who provide services to me," Romney added. "If someone doesn't give me the good service I need, I want to say I am going to get somebody else to provide that service to me."

Rival candidate Jon Huntsman immediately seized on the comment as an indication of Romney's political nature.

"It has become abundantly clear over the last couple of days what differentiates Gov. Romney and me," Huntsman said in Concord. "I will always put my country first. It seems that Gov. Romney believes in putting politics first. Gov. Romney enjoys firing people. I enjoy creating jobs."

The Romney campaign responded with the following: "Our opponents are taking Gov. Romney's comments completely out of context," said a statement by Gail Gitcho, the campaign's communications director. "Gov. Romney was talking about firing insurance companies if you don't like their service. That is something that most Americans agree with."