Friday, August 26, 2015 -- Part II; McDermott Receives Record Contract From Saudi Aramco; Massachusetts Health Policy Premiums To Double Rise In 2015; Triple Rise In 2014

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Rigzone is reporting that McDermott was awarded a record services contract by Saudi Aramco for work in various fields offshore Saudi Arabia. No other details were provided in that short note. The press release said not much more.

This site has blogged several times about Saudi's $35 billion, 5-yera program announced in 2012, to grow crude oil production. Saudi recently announced one or two new refineries with total capacity of 800,000 bopd, IIRC, and which I simply round to 1 million bopd of new crude oil requirements for Saudi's domestic use.

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The Apple Page

Macrumors is reporting that Apple Watch sales totaled 3.6 million units in 2Q15, putting it in second place following Fitbit. Fitbit sells their heart rate wrist monitors for $70. Apple's least expensive Apple Watch is around $400.

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Trainwreck

So much for all those Reuters, Bloomberg, and, AP stories telling us ObamaCare would control health care costs. The Boston Globe is reporting:

Health insurers in Massachusetts will boost rates more than 6 percent for small businesses and individuals in 2016, a troubling sign that costs are once again accelerating.

The increase, approved by the state Division of Insurance last week, is more than double the rise in premiums at the beginning of this year and triple the rise in 2014. 

In case you missed that: the rates approved for 2016 will double the rise in premiums in 2014 and will triple the rise in rates that occurred in 2014.

More from the linked article:

The new rates will affect about 300,000 people who buy health insurance on their own or work for small businesses with 50 or fewer employees and will renew plans in January.

The increases will hit only a small slice of the state’s overall commercial insurance market of about 4 million, analysts said, but they may be a precursor to premium increases in the broader market, representing a setback to efforts to contain the state’s already high health care costs.

They far exceed the state’s goal of keeping total health care spending growth below 3.6 percent a year. Next week, officials will report whether the state’s health care industry is meeting that target.

“This could be a problem,” said Barbara Anthony, the state’s former undersecretary of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation, now a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Pioneer Institute, a Boston think tank. “If the benchmark means anything, and if we’re trying to keep the growth of health care expenditures under control, a number like that presents challenges.”

This report is in line with earlier reports this year about the horrific rise in premiums across the United States.