Friday, September 20, 2013
What is a cost variance?
#Obamacare Clark Howard did a great job answering questions about the new #health care laws
Understanding #Obamacare: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum
It's less than two weeks before the state online marketplaces open for business as part of the Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare. Have you decided which level of health insurance you're going to buy? Your choices are bronze, silver, gold and platinum.
As the names suggest, bronze has the cheapest premiums and, as a result, the highest out-of-pocket costs among the four plans. On the other end, platinum has the highest premiums and the lowest out-of-pocket costs for health care.
How do you decide? Money Talks News founder Stacy Johnson explains more about your choices in the following video. Check it, then read on for more details about the plans.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
What is an expense?
What HHS Didn’t Tell You about Obamacare’s “Coverage”
Newscom
This week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a report claiming that health coverage may cost less than $100 per month for many of the uninsured. However, the HHS study left out a few key details.
First, more than half of those who will pay less than $100 per month according to HHS will do so because they will be placed into the Medicaid program.
Medicaid provides "coverage" only in the loosest sense of the term. Low reimbursements discourage many doctors from participating, and it's difficult for many beneficiaries to find someone who will accept their "coverage"—leading some to call a Medicaid card a "hunting license…a chance to go try and find a doctor." Even participants in the program have said Medicaid is not "real insurance," precisely because they can't find physicians to treat them.
Second, even those who do receive coverage on Obamacare's exchanges will receive "coverage" very similar to Medicaid—in other words, plans that offer few choices when it comes to picking a doctor. Recent reports have highlighted that insurance companies are restricting patient choices for many exchange plans, raising concerns about whether some exchange plans will have enough in-network doctors to cover their patients. Some health insurers have admitted that their exchange plans will "look a lot like the Medicaid plans that we are currently administering"—a statement that should not be reassuring to potential insurance shoppers.
There are other methodological problems with the HHS study. For instance, the report extrapolated premium numbers based on early estimates to date; it's possible that these premium rates could be unrepresentative of the country as a whole. More importantly, when it comes to HHS's definition of "coverage," and whether that health plan will provide quality care, it's caveat emptor: Buyer beware.
The post What HHS Didn't Tell You about Obamacare's "Coverage" appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from
Obamacare’s “Cadillac Tax” – A Poor Patch for a Hole in the Income Tax
The "Cadillac Tax" provision of the Affordable Care Act, which levies a 40 percent marginal tax rate on expensive employer-provided insurance, is unpopular in some circles. The Cadillac Tax is not ideal, but Cadillac plans – and other health care plans, too, for that matter – should be part of the tax base.
Health benefits are known as "in-kind" compensation. Firms give health benefits to workers in exchange for labor, just like a salary. In-kind compensation should, in general, be taxed at the same marginal rate as salary. Otherwise, firms can change your tax liability by shuffling your compensation between salary and benefits, which is silly and wasteful. The tax code's purpose is to raise revenue, not to direct the means by which people are paid for their work.
Employer-provided health insurance has historically been untaxed – a poor policy likely to encourage overspending on health insurance. While the effects of tax policy are often hard to measure empirically, there is certainly a broad consensus that Americans pay too much for their health care.
The Cadillac Tax helps equalize the treatment of health benefits and other sorts of compensation, but it is still a poor substitute for simply including health insurance in the tax base and lowering rates. As it is designed now, there is a massive spike from a zero marginal tax rate on family plans below $27,500 to 40 percent for plans above that amount.
It's as if the Obama administration is absolutely certain that the optimal amount of employer-provided health insurance for everyone - no matter what the rest of their budget looks like - is exactly $27,499. I, personally, am not so sure; some epistemological modesty from the architects of the ACA would have been welcome.
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Michigan ~ Personal Income Tax: Same-Sex Couples Required to File as Single
Same-sex couples who file a joint federal income tax return must continue to file Michigan personal income tax returns using the single filing status. State law limits a joint return to a married couple who are a husband and wife. The state constitution defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Under state law, the phrase "husband and wife" means a man and woman who are married to each other.
Each individual who has income attributable to Michigan and who filed a joint return for federal income tax purposes as a same-sex couple must separately report adjusted gross income for Michigan as a single filer. Each individual must recalculate the federal adjusted gross income as if that person had filed a single tax return for federal income tax purposes. The Department of Treasury will provide a worksheet for the calculation.
Notice to Taxpayers: Same-Sex Couples Filing Joint Federal Income Tax Returns Must File Michigan Income Tax Returns As Single Filers, Michigan Department of Treasury, September 2013