Increase in DME Prices under Obama Care !

jweeks wrote:

The Texan wrote:As long as I see able bodied folks, setting on their a$$ while employers beg for help, as it is in our area

Tex,

Can you tell me where these jobs are? I know several people who have been out of work for over 2 years that will drive down tomorrow to take these jobs. Just tell me where they are, and I will send people to take them.



-john-

All you have to do is look at my location. I interviewed on a Wed at 11am and was working at 4pm that same day. They are in desperate need of truck drivers and general labors at pay in the $17/hour and up range. If you're willing to go get the required certification to work on the rigs, they pay $60-$125/hr and work 12 hour shifts. Many here are working 7 days a week, because they are not able to hire enough to provide a relief. We go to town and see the lines at the food bank and see the monthly welfare report and have no pity for the bottom feeders, when the jobs are there.

By the way, i planned and saved based on what was the existing economy in 2003, not the great losses I and many others suffered in this economy. My losses were in the 6 figures, from which I have not recovered, thanks to someone.

Some more Obama Care BS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96Uu_tI0hTw

PST wrote: I didn't know anything about health flexible spending accounts (FSAs) until I read your post, sleepyb. I wish I had. My first question Monday morning is going to be why our firm doesn't have them. It seems like a useful benefit that costs the company nothing.

That is unfortunate. If you know you will have recurring medical expenses it is very worthwhile to participate. If you, or anyone else here, can get into one there are a few things you need to be aware of. This is based on my experience and I believe the FSA rules are uniform across all plans. First, once you sign up for the upcoming year you are committed, i.e., you cannot withdraw half way through the year unless you cease employment with your current employer. The money taken out are pre-tax dollars. In exchange for that benefit you are committed to contribute the entire year, AND any money not used by the end of the year, or the grace period after, is forfeited. That is the risk you take. But, the plan administrator has a risk also, namely the entire year's commitment is available to you immediately at the beginning of the year. If you commit to contributing $100/mo for a total of $1200, that entire $1200 is available for you to spend the first week of January. If you spend it in Jan and Feb, and then retire, or are fired or laid off in March, you do not have to repay the $900, or whatever, you haven't yet contributed. As you can see the benefits and risks cut both ways.

There may be some cost to the company, but I don't think so. It's my understanding the plan administrator earns their income largely from the forfeited FSA contributions.

kempo wrote:Some more Obama Care BS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96Uu_tI0hTw

That video explains better than words can express why I hate Fox News. It isn't that it has a strong point of view, it is the combination of shrillness, dishonesty, and lack of actual information.

I watched that video twice to try to find out what it was that some companies had been granted an exemption from. It didn't say. There were six people talking for two minutes, yet not one clue as to what the subject of the exemption was. Just opinion about how secretively it was done and how it proves that the PPACA is a failure. I think the intention was for viewers to believe that certain favored companies were somehow being given a pass from the law as a whole.

It turns out that this is old news on a subject that has been thoroughly covered in the press for several months. The PPACA prohibits restrictive annual limits on essential health benefits beginning in 2014. That ends the practice, already illegal in many states, of issuing policies under which those insured are on their own after some total annual amount, like $1 million, has been paid. The section also gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services authority to phase this in prior to 2014, but requires that the interim restrictions a minimal effect on availability and premiums. About 1.4 million people are covered by plans sometimes referred to as "mini-med" plans that are really inexpensive but have very low limits. Part-time fast-food workers are the biggest group, but there are others. The cost of most health plans is not expected to be greatly affected by the temporary rule applicable for 2011, but these mini-meds might be, because they are so cheap to begin with and the annual maximums are so low. The insurance exchanges that open in 2014 have mechanisms intended to solve this problem, but in the short run there is a legitimate argument that some coverage is better than nothing. So a process was created for applying for a one-year exemption. It isn't secretive. HHS has published the reasons it is doing this, the standards that will be applied in considering an application for exemption from the annual limit, and the names of those granted exemptions. See http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/11 ... lletin.pdf, http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/pa ... 03_508.pdf, and http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/ap ... aiver.html. That's not a backroom deal.

What the Fox folks claim, though, is that this was somehow done covertly because it takes six mouse clicks from the top page of the HHS web site to get to the list of companies. That's just silly. Web sites have a tree structure; that's just how the web works. As an experiment, I decided to buy some corduroy pants from Banana Republic. (1) click on the main Gap web site, (2) click on the Banana Republic Brand, (3) click on men's, (4) click on pants, (5) click on casual pants, (6) click on straight fit corduroy. And these folks WANT to sell me pants. Six clicks doesn't make it a conspiracy, Fox. We use searches and indexing to find specific things.

This was, in some sense, a perfectly representative Fox story. An interim exemption is openly granted to companies that apply under published rules as provided by statute involving an interim regulation for one small aspect of the law, and Fox dishes up a story not explaining the actual subject and making it sound like a secret deal has been hatched to exempt all these companies from the PPACA. If you get all your news from Fox and its friends, it might sound like the truth. I would call it more Fox BS.

The Texan wrote:All you have to do is look at my location. I interviewed on a Wed at 11am and was working at 4pm that same day. They are in desperate need of truck drivers and general labors at pay in the $17/hour and up range. If you're willing to go get the required certification to work on the rigs, they pay $60-$125/hr and work 12 hour shifts. Many here are working 7 days a week, because they are not able to hire enough to provide a relief. We go to town and see the lines at the food bank and see the monthly welfare report and have no pity for the bottom feeders, when the jobs are there.

Your picture is a lot more rosey than what I find on the Texas Employment Commission website. https://wit.twc.state.tx.us/WORKINTEXAS ... ST_BY_TEXT Very few low skilled jobs. 20 listings total. Put Cuero in the search box. One welder job listed at $8.00/hr. No rig jobs listed that I see.

The Texan wrote:By the way, i planned and saved based on what was the existing economy in 2003, not the great losses I and many others suffered in this economy. My losses were in the 6 figures, from which I have not recovered, thanks to someone.

At least that someone is not Obama. The policies and practices and lack of regulatory oversight that allowed greed and corruption to grow uncontrolled largely occurred from 2000 to 2008. Let's see now, who was it who was in control of the Executive Branch at that time, the branch of gov't that enforces laws and regulations? Oh yeah, it was W!

Yes the FSA plans have always had stupid restrictions like you have to use all the money that year. Actually the company I work for gives a 3 month grace period of the next year if you don't use it all. I have had a FSA for years and only one year did we come close to not using up all the money. I wish they would just allow a savings account that could grow year after year and would be used for basic healthcare stuff but unfortunately the country went in a different direction.

Thank you idamtnboy for the FSA information. We've got a whole lot of old men around this place. I wonder at all the Lipitor, beta blockers, Flomax, insulin, etc. etc. we must consume in a year.

Edit: By "this place," I meant my place of employment, not this forum. On the other hand ...

sleepyb wrote:Yes the FSA plans have always had stupid restrictions like you have to use all the money that year. Actually the company I work for gives a 3 month grace period of the next year if you don't use it all. I have had a FSA for years and only one year did we come close to not using up all the money. I wish they would just allow a savings account that could grow year after year and would be used for basic healthcare stuff but unfortunately the country went in a different direction.

Just went from a FSA to one of them savings accounts, sounds too good to be true. We are told it will build-up if un-used and can be passed on to children in your will/trust estate. They got us on a higher deductable. Your FSA can be used on anything medical, band-aids, aspirin, cold meds.... spend it or loose it....argh. We never lost any money on our FSA, but wouldn't want to either. Hope to not need much of the savings acct. either. john

If we can be knowledgeable about our OSA then we can be informed about the Affordable Care Act signed September 23, 2010. To understand the healthcare reform in it's entirety, I recommend that anyone interested go to: http://www.healthcare.gov

We did not get a perfect solution so that every American would have access to affordable care. But it is the first major step to help protect consumers. The most critical issue facing every American is why are we allowing huge commercial conglomerates (health insurance insurers) to dictate to both consumer and physician as to what constitutes "good care".

The other problem that I see is a tremendous amount of complacency and disregard for people who are not as fortunate to have access to "good health insurance". The attitude that is prevalent is that "as long as I have decent health insurance, that is all that matters".

Obama had to make considerable changes in his original plan in order to get the "fat cats" in Washington to pass the bill. Before spouting off on this so-called Obama Care, I would ask that you would read the actual legislation and then speak to the matter that concerns you.

sleepyb wrote:Yes the FSA plans have always had stupid restrictions like you have to use all the money that year.

Under our current tax system, FSA balances carried across years would be considered deferred compensation when it was used. That creates a tax liability for the employee that the employer isn't allowed to handle through payroll and falls on the employee to document and pay. The whining about it would be deafening, and that's why employers don't do carry-overs in FSAs.

My company takes the FSA concept two steps further. None of us gets any benefits whatsoever. What we do get is an account into which the company deposits "x" percent of your salary over and above what you make. (So if your salary is $100K and the percentage is 20, you make a total of $120K, $20K of which is put into your account pre-tax.) If you want benefits, the cost comes from that account. Your pay on days off are deducted, as are your insurance premiums if you join our health plan. Any valid, un-covered medical expense including doctor and prescription co-pays, insurance deductibles, eye care, etc. can be reimbursed from the account, all before taxes. If you'd like to convert some or all of your account balance to cash, you can do that and it gets added to your next paycheck and treated just like regular income. If you get your health insurance from your spouse's company, there's no deduction for health insurance premiums, leaving more money in the account for other benefits like more time off.

Sounds like a great system, doesn't it? It is. It was a little better up until a couple of years ago, because we could carry a very generous amount over from year to year. Thanks to the knuckleheads at Enron who abused deferred compensation so they could take more cash out of the company before it went bankrupt, we now have section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code. 409A broadens the definition of deferred compensation so much that my company's lawyers don't think the carry-over in our benefits program would survive a challenge by the IRS. As a result, the amount we can carry over from year to year is now zero and any leftover cash gets disbursed as regular income. Still not a bad deal, but if I take New Year's Day off or take a week to visit a warmer place in February, I start the year in the hole. The company doesn't mind; you just have to square up any negative balance at the end of the year.

Anyway, sorry for the diatribe, but I guess what I'm getting at here is that a lot of these "stupid restrictions" are in place because people seem incapable of doing the right thing in the face of an opportunity to abuse the system for their own benefit. This is the same reason health care has become so expensive: DMEs know they can get away with charging the insurance companies $150 for a $20 hose because the insurance companies will smile and pass the expense on to policyholders in the form of higher premiums. Someone will find a (legal) way to do this no matter what reforms are put into place, so expect this kind of thing to continue.

--Mark

idamtnboy wrote:

The Texan wrote:By the way, i planned and saved based on what was the existing economy in 2003, not the great losses I and many others suffered in this economy. My losses were in the 6 figures, from which I have not recovered, thanks to someone.

At least that someone is not Obama. The policies and practices and lack of regulatory oversight that allowed greed and corruption to grow uncontrolled largely occurred from 2000 to 2008. Let's see now, who was it who was in control of the Executive Branch at that time, the branch of gov't that enforces laws and regulations? Oh yeah, it was W!

Didn't say it was Obama, but now that you bring the subject up, I'll say he has done absolutely nothing to cure the existing problem. Yes, it started on GW's watch, but has continued unabated on Obama's watch, with no end in sight. You can't spend money you don't have and expect the problem to go away, or I would have been spending as fast as I could myself.......

idamtnboy wrote:

The Texan wrote:All you have to do is look at my location. I interviewed on a Wed at 11am and was working at 4pm that same day. They are in desperate need of truck drivers and general labors at pay in the $17/hour and up range. If you're willing to go get the required certification to work on the rigs, they pay $60-$125/hr and work 12 hour shifts. Many here are working 7 days a week, because they are not able to hire enough to provide a relief. We go to town and see the lines at the food bank and see the monthly welfare report and have no pity for the bottom feeders, when the jobs are there.

Your picture is a lot more rosey than what I find on the Texas Employment Commission website. https://wit.twc.state.tx.us/WORKINTEXAS ... ST_BY_TEXT Very few low skilled jobs. 20 listings total. Put Cuero in the search box. One welder job listed at $8.00/hr. No rig jobs listed that I see.

My home is in Valley County Idaho and believe me, I know what unemployment is. I am here working in the oil patch and see what is here, not depending on the computer 1000's of miles away. My employer is located in Corpus Christi, not Cuero, but has employees all over the oil patch, in 4 states. The company that owns the site we are working, is Geo Southern and they are looking for help. The drilling rig is owned and operated by Big E and they are desperate for employees. Believe me when I say anyone that is willing to work, will find a job here in the oil patch, but it is not a pencil pushing job.

And Americans want cushy, pencil-pushing jobs. Not jobs requiring PHYSICAL work!! They wanna work in the financial world where they can concoct innovative ways to con other people out of a good share of their money w/o any great physical effort on their own part. Employers want a drastically over-priced college degree, they don't even care in what, could be a degree in under-water basket weaving, as long as it is a college degree. We now have university presidents making more than $1 million a year.

One question for those supporters of Obamacare. If it so awesome, why is the Obama administration handing out "opt out" forms to all their supporters like the unions and many of the giants in the health field??? Here is a look at the 100+ unions and health care providers that have been exempted from joining the rest of us poo folks that are required by law to join. It has been reported the list is now in excess of 200.

http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/ap ... aiver.html