Category: Affordable Care Act
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Taxation of health insurance
This article was originally published in 2003 and has been revised multiple times; most recently to reflect changes triggered by the American Cures Act of 2016. At the time of this latest revision, it appears possible that we may see still more last-minute tweaks in health insurance tax law for 2018. Until recently, the tax-favored…
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Health insurance remains deductible
Human Resource Executive Online published an article celebrating the success of the business lobby in overcoming a legislative proposal passed by the US House of Representatives that wold have limited the tax deductibility of employer provided health insurance. Business groups were so loud in their opposition that Senate legislative proposals did not even attempt to…
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Summary: where do we stand with 2018 health plans?
UPDATE 8/17/2017: Yesterday the Trump administration announced that it would not follow through with the president’s political threat to cancel insurance company subsidy payments. That appears to add stability to the markets and allows small businesses and self-employed individuals to be more confident in health care planning for 2018. With all the recent political posturing, it…
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A short term fix for Obamacare
Today’s Wall Street Journal carried an editorial on a simple solution to ease the paid of high health care expenses for some people: ease the restrictions on non-qualifying health insurance like the type sold at Freedom Benefits. Popular plans like short-term medical insurance and limited benefit or mini-med insurance do not meet the requirements of…
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Expansion of mini-med insurance
For some years my business Freedom Benefits has predicted the expansion of a type of minimalist medical insurance that does not meet the federal standards established by the Affordable Care Act. Some call these plans “mini-med insurance”. For many years the most popular type was Core Health Insurance. It is still a popular and attractive…
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Aetna locked in legal battle over ACA pullout
An interesting lawsuit was filed in Pennsylvania last week against Aetna Inc., a Connecticut-based insurance company that has been one of the nation’s largest alternate insurance choices for decades. Aetna pulled out of the individual health insurance markets in 11 states claiming that this was a business decision to prevent the company from losing money.…
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Health plans for New Jersey Farmers
This is a pre-publication draft of an article intended for print media. New Jersey’s farmers have it tough when it comes to negotiating a path through health care reform. New Jersey insurance markets have been expensive, compared to other states, since the 1990s. Health plans for self-employed people provide in-network care only and this can…
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How to cope with threatened sabotage of health care financing
Three strategies for small business health plans On Friday July 28 and Saturday July 29 president Trump and his press spokesperson made a series of statements indicating that he planned to sabotage a financial pillar health care system by revoking government funding for the insurance premiums working class people. The president’s actions are admittedly motivated by politics.…
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Five health care strategies for small businesses in 2017
Only hours past the point where we thought that Republican leaders in Washington DC had reached an agreement on minimalist proposal to begin “repeal and replace” of Obamacare, the measure known as “skinny repeal” (covered in my last blog post) has been defeated. Many of us went to bed last night thinking that the healthcare…
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“Skinny Repeal” explained
The lowest common denominator Obamacare repeal and replacement plan is said to get rid of the "O" and keep the "bamacare". It is specifically designed as the most likely health care bill that could gain the support of the required 5o Republican senators. It is called "skinny repeal" because it would only repeal the requirement…