Category: Health Insurance
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Why I oppose the Republican health care plan
(Hint: It’s pretty much the same reason as I opposed ACA but with a new additional objection that it gives unwarranted tax breaks to the wealthy). “Anybody with $250,000 a year of adjusted gross income and a lot of investment income is going to have a huge tax cut.” – Warren Buffett, 5/5/2017 on the Republican…
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Worst threat ever to your personal financial security
It’s now been more than 30 years since I finished my formal business education in health care administration and more than 20 years since wrapping up tax law handling of health and welfare benefits. I’ve applied this training in an unusual manner to address consumer financial planning issues as an independent adviser rather than actually working within the health…
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Forming an action plan before setting a goal = FAIL
Tonight the nation prepares for the next imminent failure of Congress in its efforts to reform the nation’s health care policy. By the end of the week we will likely read headlines that the efforts of our nation’s leadership landed in the scrap heap again. Why? There is a simple but important lesson here for all…
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Health insurance help for illegal immigrants
My free online advisory service launched in the 1990s provides bits of financial advice to people; mostly on issues related to small business operation. The topical subjects of these questions have shifted over time and now quite often come from people who have trouble finding affordable health insurance or covering uninsured health care expenses. I presume this means that…
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Estimating the cost of COBRA coverage
Yesterday I took a telephone call from a woman who planned to leave her job soon to start a business. She needs to estimate the cost of COBRA health coverage to compare to her other options. This is a simple but important step in planning to launch a business. We presume that most people know…
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Did the Republicans really win the health care reform battle?
A strong case can be made that the Republicans have already essentially accomplished much their agenda with regard to health care reform. If we look at what is really happening on ‘Main Street’ and not in DC and ignoring how the law is supposed to work we see: No enforcement against businesses for ACA requirements…
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Trump signals new willingness to work with Obamacare
A new development in the health care reform issue that came out around midnight. In my mind, this news is the most significant news about health care reform in the past several years. We already knew that Americans hate the health care reform bill before Congress for a vote today. One poll by Quinnepiac University…
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Analyzing the impact of Trumpcare
The current proposal plan to replace the Affordable Care Act would transfer $337 billion in costs from the government to the citizens over the next 10 years and leave 14 million more people without insurance next year compared with current law, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released today. The…
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The effect of age-based health insurance
Years ago, in the 1990s and before, health insurance pricing was based on location, health history, sex and age. Young people paid, on average, 1/5 the amount paid by older people. Women generally paid more than men. Fewer choices were available to people with pre-existing medical conditions. Obamacare changed that in 2010. Since then, everyone in…
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Winners and losers under Trumpcare
Who gains and who loses under the “World’s Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017“? This is my checklist so far: Winners Upper income people under age 50 who will benefit more from the new tax credit Healthy people who do not believe that they should be required to buy insurance because the high premium cost pays for care…