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The Obama administration on Wednesday announced a $1 billion initiative to fund innovations in federal healthcare programs aimed at cutting costs while improving the health results. The Department of Health and Human Services said the money will be used to award and evaluate projects that test new payment and delivery models for federal programs including Medicare, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. The announcement marks the second round of innovation initiatives for the administration under President Barack Obama's 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.   The government is looking for models that can quickly cut costs in outpatient or post-acute settings, improve care for people with special needs, transform healthcare providers' financial and clinical models or improve health conditions by clinical category, geographic area or socioeconomic class. The application period runs from June 14 to August 15.

The Canadian Province of Quebec on Wednesday sold C$500 million ($490 million) of 10-year notes due Sept. 1, 2023 in a reopening of an existing issue, according to a term sheet seen by Reuters. _0"> The 3.00 percent notes were priced at 101.121 to yield 2.873 percent, or 95.5 basis points over the Canadian government benchmark, according to the term sheet.  

The grab on bank deposits that accompanied Cyprus's bailout could be repeated elsewhere in the euro zone , and the bloc's banking union may not be strong enough when it is introduced, Standard & Poor's said on Wednesday. "We believe that the events in Cyprus highlight the increased reluctance of financially stronger euro zone countries to make their taxpayers' funds available to recapitalise banks outside their home jurisdictions," the credit ratings agency said in a report. "For this reason, although the key features of the Cypriot banking system are not shared by other euro zone countries, we consider that the bail-in may indeed create a precedent." Speaking at the London School of Economics, Athanasios Orphanides, who headed Cyprus's central bank during much of the run up to the crisis, slammed the handling of the situation by both the island's government and euro zone leaders. "I read this (deposit grab) as another Deauvill

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King offered some rare good news for Britain's economy on Wednesday when he presented his final set of economic forecasts before stepping down after more than 20 years at the bank. For the first time in years, the central bank predicted that growth would be faster and inflation lower than it expected three months earlier, though King still warned the recovery could not be taken for granted. "Today's projections are for growth to be a little stronger and inflation a little weaker than we expected three months ago. That's the first time I've been able to say that since before the financial crisis," King told reporters. "But this is no time to be complacent. We must press on to ensure a recovery and to bring down unemployment." Sterling rose against the dollar after the forecasts. British government bond prices extended their losses. King has presented the BoE's Quarterly Inflation Report every three months sin

Farmland values in the U.S. Plains states rose 20 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, with acreage commanding record prices because of red-hot demand for cropland in the world's biggest food-exporting nation, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City said on Wednesday. The rise marked the third straight year of double-digit annual increases, setting a survey record, the bank said, but the rate of gains moderated from the fourth quarter, with slower growth in farm income. "There was a modest slowdown in farmland value growth in the first quarter," Nathan Kauffman, the bank's economist in charge of the survey, said in an interview. "At this point we haven't seen anything to suggest there is going to be a rapid decline. How this plays out going into 2014 is going to be the bigger question if farm incomes fall significantly from 2013 levels." The Kansas City Fed's quarterly survey of 223 regional bankers is a closely watched gauge of the

LATAM Airlines Group SA's capital increase is planned for the end of the third quarter, the company said during a conference call on Wednesday. _0"> Latin America's largest carrier will ask shareholders on June 11 to approve a $1.0 billion capital hike aimed at helping to finance its spending plans over the coming years and regain its investment grade.

Greek 10-year government bond yields tumbled to their lowest in nearly three years on Wednesday after Fitch upgraded the country's sovereign credit ratings, adding to the upbeat mood in euro zone debt.   The sharp fall in borrowing costs a day after Fitch Ratings raised Greece to B-minus from CCC on Tuesday suggested investors were pricing out that possibility, as well as the risk of another default, analysts said. The move also coincides with a broad fall in euro zone borrowing costs in April fueled by abundant central bank cash in the financial system. Thin liquidity in a debt market that was restructured in March 2012 also exaggerated the fall. "The euphoria that exists in the markets overall has slipped into Greece as well without necessarily (being) realistic because Greece has not resolved the major issues that we have," Athanasios Ladopoulos, chief investment officer at Swiss Investment Managers said. Ten-year Greek yields fell to 8.21 percent - their lowe