Simply Junior

The legislator of California were not be able to reach the mark of $15.2 billion dollars to close the deficit. But due to the tightness of the cash flow an executive order was used to cut 22,000 jobs and reducing about 200,000 workers pay to a minimum wage salary. Some other states like New York city also had to face a wicked budget deficit, but the short fall of this is that the states which do not have a cap will just pass the problem right down to the homeowners.

This method is one of the easy routes to get rid of their imminent tax problem, the major problem for most people is that when they open their disclosure notices and see their levy reassessment bill. In a system without the property tax cap then the valuations of property and also tax just keeps on increasing. If you were to run a vote in all the various states then the result you will get is one that supports the property tax cap. The various representatives in the government should have implemented the homeowner legislation years ago.

Most people believe that the tax revolt of the late seventies was the reason for Ronald Regan getting the seat of Presidency in 1980. The lawmakers from time to time want to change the law but it would not go well with the political motives of others. The whole idea of the tax cap is that older homeowners don’t lose their homes because of the increases in the levy.

Well, for better or worse, the healthcare bill has been signed into law. There is no immediate benefit in being angry. There are a number of legal actions started by various Attorneys General alleging that the reforms are unconstitutional. Even if some of these cases succeed on the issue of mandatory insurance for private individuals, this will not necessarily strike down the whole bill. The likelihood is we will be left with all the provisions dealing with small businesses. Keeping it real, we have to start planning for the future on the law as it is. The good news is that the main raft of provisions will not become active until 2014. This gives the lawmakers plenty of time to have second thoughts. Just as important, there are sets of regulations to be written clarifying the detail of how some of the new features are to work at state level. However, this is an outline of what we can expect.

The states are to establish SHOP exchanges where small businesses can group together and buy insurance. For these purposes, until 2016, a business is considered small when it has no more than 50 employees, with states having the option of increasing the limit to 100 employees. To calculate numbers, you pro-rate the full- and part-time employees. Independent analysts predict group premiums will drop no more than 4%, while the value of the cover will rise by up to 3%. To bridge until the exchanges are operating, a tax credit system will come into force. If your business has less than ten employees with an average annual pay of less than $25,000, the credit is 35% of the health plan cost. There are partial credits where the number of employees is less than 25 and their average annual pay is less than $50,000. When the exchanges start, the credit increases to 50% for the first two years.

With immediate effect, there are a ban on terms designed to cap the value of claims, and limits on the right of insurers to cancel policies except in cases where actual fraud can be proved. As from 2014, the insurers must accept all employees without regard to pre-existing conditions. Their calculation of premium rates can only be based on location, age and whether an individual smokes. As from 2014, small businesses with more than 50 employees will be required to provide a health plan or pay an annual penalty of $750 for every full-time employee denied cover. This can rise to $2,000 if coverage is still denied.

So, tomorrow, you will be going out into the same market as before the reform bill became law. Finding cost-effective small business insurance will continue to be a struggle. Indeed, many insurers may increase premiums now so that, when the SHOP exchanges do come into force, they have a margin to play with to deal with the competition. However, when you buy, check that the new terms on the total value claimable and restrictions on the right to cancel have been introduced. If you buy your small business insurance through an agent, ask direct questions. It saves time fighting over whether wording is unlawful later on.

Let’s leave the politics of healthcare reform to one side and focus on a proposal to change the law to allow free market competition between insurers in different states. A policy consistently mentioned by the Republican party is to break the state monopolies in the insurance market. Since the 1800′s, the individual states have claimed the sole right to regulate the sale of insurance within their own borders. Each state has asserted the right to license insurance companies and to set the terms on which they can conduct business. This has led to a patchwork of different sets of regulations with each state creating unique laws. In turn, this forces an insurance company to set up separate subsidiaries to trade in each state. No licensed company can sell a policy to someone who has a residence in another state. There was a brief moment in 1944 when a decision of the Supreme Court allowed the possibility of federal supervision. But the lawmakers in Washington immediately changed the law to retain state control. Why is this a bad thing? The national insurance companies have divided up the states between them and choose not to compete against each other. This keeps the number of insurance companies in each state artificially low and, because there is no real competition, premium rates are higher than they should be for weak policy terms.

You are reading this article on the internet. When online, you can buy more or less any product or service across state or national boundaries. Although there are some restrictions, e.g. some states limit your right to import drugs from foreign countries, there is an almost free market where you can search for the cheapest price and buy whatever you need. There is no possible economic justification for retaining this historical privilege for insurance companies. All it does is preserve their ability to maximize their profits at your expense. For example, in Minnesota three insurance companies dominate 80% of the market for health plans. There is no doubt that, if more companies entered the market, the premium rates would fall. During his run for President, Senator John McCain was in favor of free markets for health plans. President Obama supports it and the proposal is in both versions of the healthcare reform bills currently stalled in Washington. But because the Republican party’s only policy is to oppose everything the Democrats propose, it seems even this simple change in the law may be lost. What will the result be? The anticompetitive behavior of the insurance industry will continue and you, the consumer, will suffer.

Could the law change tomorrow and allow everyone access to cheap health insurance wherever it can be found? The problem is that the states have different sets of regulations and compliance leads to different costs. The playing fields are not level. So, premiums are significantly lower in those states which have the fewest consumer protections. It would not be fair competition if people living in Minnesota, which has strong consumer protections, could all get health insurance quotes from states with little or no consumer protections. The only way in which there could be a free market is to have a single set of federal regulations for the sale of health insurance plans. Sadly, the political parties do not want to talk about this even though we would all benefit. In the US, the political elite’s interests do not match the needs of the ordinary citizens.

The lawmakers in Colorado are debating a change in the law to correct the gender discrimination currently requiring women to pay more than men to insure their health. The facts are uncompromising. In some 90% of all private health plans, women have premium rates 60% higher than men. This is so even though the statistics show women enjoy better health than men and make fewer claims. This is so even though the men used for comparative purposes are significantly older. And, if you feel you need any more confirmation of the basic unfairness, even men who smoke pay less than female non-smokers. As one of the women promoting the bill commented: insurers often refuse coverage because the applicant has a pre-existing condition. The way the premiums are loaded, it seems being a woman is a pre-existing condition.

The people who are paid to speak on behalf of the insurance industry usually fall back on the tried and trusted defense that women have medical needs specific to their gender. The most often quoted example is maternity and prenatal care. Ignoring the fact that men also have problems specific to their gender, such as erectile dysfunction, women are still quoted premiums 60% higher on policies excluding reproductive health needs. In other words, the discrimination persists even though the scope of the medical coverage is identical. So what’s going on? The answer, in this instance, is slightly complicated. If we start with auto insurance, it’s common knowledge that young men are statistically more likely than any other group of drivers to crash into another vehicle or some stationary object. Thus, where the policy discriminates between different groups of drivers, young men pay significantly more than women who tend to drive more safely. Not all auto policies do discriminate. By spreading the risk among a big group of drivers, the good subsidize the bad. But, most auto insurers do set different premium rates for different groups of drivers distinguished by gender and age. In medicine, it’s a fact that men fall ill and die, whereas women tend to recover from illnesses. This is one of the reasons why women have a longer life expectancy than men. But it also explains why women cost more. They survive for longer with chronic problems requiring continuing treatment. Thus, if the premium is a reflection of the likely costs of treatment over a person’s lifetime, it may appear slightly more reasonable to charge women higher premiums. Except this ignores the general rule that private health insurance stops at 65 as Medicare kicks in. The major long-term costs tend to occur after 65.

Colorado looks as though it may join the one or two other states with equality provisions. There’s no evidence from these other states that men now have to pay significantly more. For now, insurers simply make less profit. As a woman, it’s particularly important to research exactly what the different companies offer. Because of this, searching for cheap health insurance is a greater challenge. Always refer to the websites of the companies making the best quotes to see if there are additional discounts available or special policies for women. If there seems to be no cheap health insurance available, talk directly with the insurers to see whether the difference between the male and female premium rates can be reduced. Not everyone is lucky enough to live in a state committed to equality. It is for you to protect yourself as best as possible.