Americans who do not possess health insurance will be spending $30 billion from their own resources and an additional cost of their medical care will amount to $56 billion, says a new report.

A study undertaken by the George Mason University and Urban Institute reports that in 2008 an extra $56 billion will be spent in providing healthcare to uninsured Americans, of which 75 percent or $42 billion will be footed by the government. While the rest will be covered by hospitals, community groups and private physicians, uninsured patients will have to spend $30 billion from their own pockets.

The report which was published in Health Affairs, a journal detailing health policies, further points out that problems of high health care costs and absence of medical insurance will only get worse with time. The chief author of the report, Jack Hadley predicted that the number of Americans without health insurance is set to touch 49 million and estimated that around 16 percent of the population is without coverage.

The authors of the reports have estimated that if the uninsured Americans are brought under health coverage through private or public insurance, it will add another 5 percent to national spending on health costs. However a wider medical coverage will not only mean good health for a majority of the population but also raise productivity levels and bring in more tax revenue for the government.

Economic experts in the US are hopeful that the housing market may be showing signs of recovery after going through a severe crisis. Two reports released on Monday claimed that sale of pre-owned houses in the western states rose by 1 percent in July 2008 compared to one year back.

The National Association of Realtors reported that around 1.1 million existing homes and condomiums were sold last month in the western region which comprises of thirteen states. The rise in sales figures has been attributed to the large-scale foreclosures in states like California, Nevada and Las Vegas which has led buyers to take advantage of the steady fall in home prices. According to estimates handed out by the Association, median home prices in the western states have fallen to $273220, which is a drop of 22 percent from a year ago.

The Associated Press-Re/Max Monthly Housing Report marked Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Phoenix and Las Vegas as the five metropolitan areas among top ten markets in the country where median home prices had suffered the greatest decline. In the Las Vegas metropolitan area, median home prices have tumbled by 25 percent compared to last year but resale of homes have almost doubled, recording a rise of 16 percent in June this year.

UK-based consultancy firm Axon Group Plc has signed a deal with Infosys according to which it will be bought by the Indian software giant for $753.1 million.

The deal which is slated to be completed by November this year, is expected to benefit both parties. According to its terms, Axon’s stockholders would get 600 pence a share which is 19 percent more than the August 22 closing price of 502.5 pence per share. The prospective owners have also indicated that after the acquisition, Axon’s current employees will be retained.

Axon Group is one of the leading consultancy services providers in the United Kingdoms. Last fiscal year ending December 2007, it reported an after-taxation profit of 20.2 million sterling pounds on revenues of 204.5 million sterling pounds. The company has an overall strength of 2000 employees.

Axon Group started out as an implementation consultancy but over time evolved into a full services provider catering to the business consulting, solutions implementation and applications management requirements of large organizations. Since its founding in 1994, Axon has been a pioneer in several areas of the SAP market space in the UK.

Infosys is the second largest software services exporter of India and its acquisition of Axon will pave the way for making inroads into the European market.

AMD is set to sell its digital TV business to Broadcom Corp for $192.8 million in cash. The deal is expected to provide Broadcom the resources to expand in both US and other emerging markets.

The agreement comes in the wake of directives issued by Federal Communications Commission in February this year, ordering all broadcast stations in the US to change transmission from analog to digital signals. This has opened up newer markets for companies like Broadcom which are eager to expand their digital television offerings. Broadcom officials revealed that they also expected emerging markets to provide a boost to their business since if US goes the digital way, other markets will be forced to follow suit.

The acquisition is expected to benefit Advance Micro Devices as well since the chipmaker had been struggling with its digital TV business for quite some time. The DTV business did not constitute AMD’s core sector and thus the company had been unable to monopolize on it. Last quarter AMD announced that it had discontinued operations on its DTV business and was looking to sell it. Things have not been going well for AMD as it continues to post successive losses in its struggle to remain in the microprocessor market, dominated by the chip-making giant Intel.

Haitian authorities warned its people of possible evacuations as another tropical storm Gustav developed in the Caribbeans and threatened to blow up into a full fledged hurricane before moving to Cuba, the Bahamas and then Florida.

On Monday evening, the eye of Gustav was centered 180 miles southeast of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince and looked ready to develop into a hurricane on its northwesterly course. The US National Hurricane Center at Miami said that wind speeds had already reached 60 mph and would pass over Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Tuesday.

Tourism is the main industry of many Caribbean economies and in expectation of the approaching tropical storm, several cruise lines have put their operations on alert. Carnival Cruise, one of the biggest lines of the region, diverted one of its ships from Montego Bay, Jamaica to a Mexican port in order to avoid the storm. Maritime activities in Haiti have been suspended and the agricultural ministry asked farmers to remove their livestock to safe locations.

The possibility of tropical storm Gustav developing into a hurricane brings further bad news for US coastal states like Florida which bore the brunt of tropical storm Fay last week and where residents are still mopping up flood waters