By Bonnie Lee,
The deadline to enroll in health insurance under the Affordable Care Act is less than three weeks away, and the law could impact your future tax situation.
If you already have health insurance, you are in compliance with the mandate and don’t need to worry about the deadline. This includes health insurance coverage provided by your current or former employer, Medicare, Medicaid or other government-sponsored health insurance including programs for veterans.
By Elise Viebeck, March 13, 2014, 11:45 am
The White House is reversing course and protecting ObamaCare’s cost-sharing subsidies from cuts under the across-the-board budget sequester.
The move is the latest executive action by the Obama administration to avoid bad consequences for the healthcare law, and is sure to elicit criticism from Republicans.
FoxNews.com
In what might be the death knell for ObamaCare’s most controversial component — the individual mandate to buy insurance — the administration has added a mega-exemption that critics say would allow virtually anybody to skirt the rule.
“This is a huge public policy decision that could affect millions of Americans,” House Speaker John Boehner said, adding that the latest change, made ahead of the March 31 enrollment deadline, applies to “essentially everyone.”
By Elise Viebeck, March 12, 2014, 05:48 pm
President Obama is threatening to veto a Republican bill to reform Medicare’s flawed physician payment system while delaying ObamaCare’s individual mandate by five years.
In a Statement of Administration Policy, the White House praised the bill’s efforts on Medicare but slammed the GOP for seeking to pull back the policy linchpin of the Affordable Care Act.
The individual mandate “is essential to ensuring that the 129 million Americans with pre-existing conditions can get coverage without being charged more or losing coverage when they get sick,” the statement read. “This legislation would result in higher numbers of uninsured Americans, higher premiums for those who remain insured and fewer premium tax credits for middle-income families.”
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/medicare/200620-obama-threatens-to-veto-gop-healthcare-bill#ixzz2vx994zmc
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/medicare/200620-obama-threatens-to-veto-gop-healthcare-bill#ixzz2vx91dDBz
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
By WALECIA KONRAD
WHEN Don and Elizabeth Dersch, of Chester, Va., both 68, became eligible for Medicare a few years ago, they carefully weighed the costs of traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage, the coverage provided by private insurers. They chose Medicare Advantage.
Their plan from Anthem covered the doctor visits, treatment, testing and hospital coverage that traditional Medicare covers, and it offered low co-payments, Medicare D prescription drug coverage and a Y.M.C.A. membership.
By Hazel Bradford, Updated
Mr. Perez on Wednesday also named current member Neal Schelberg to serve as chairman and current member Paul Secunda as vice chairman for the 2014 council.
Mr. Schelberg, a senior partner at the law firm Proskauer Rose, has worked with more than 50 single- and multiemployer pension and welfare benefit plans. Mr. Secunda is a professor at Marquette University Law School and previously has practiced labor law.
Mr. Perez on Wednesday also named current member Neal Schelberg to serve as chairman and current member Paul Secunda as vice chairman for the 2014 council.
Mr. Schelberg, a senior partner at the law firm Proskauer Rose, has worked with more than 50 single- and multiemployer pension and welfare benefit plans. Mr. Secunda is a professor at Marquette University Law School and previously has practiced labor la
Sarah Reedy, Senior Editor, 3/12/2014
Wireless operators are turning cars into big mobile hotspots, but the question they are now grappling with is: Are their customers willing to pay for them as if they were mobile hotspots?
AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), for one, is counting on it. The carrier is lending its 4G LTE network to Audi’s new A3 sedans and is offering customers two ways to pay: a six-month plan for $99 and 5 GBytes of data or a 30-month plan for $499 and 30 GB of data, both after a six-month free trial. Come this summer, AT&T customers will be able to add their cars as another “device” on their Mobile Share data plans and keep tabs on how much data they’ve consumed each month. (See Audi Taps AT&T for In-Car LTE, AT&T Ups the Stakes in Connected Cars, and AT&T Beefs Up Connected Car Efforts .)
By Mark Miller, Tue Mar 11, 2014 2:08pm EDT
(Reuters) – A dwindling number of retirees get supplemental health insurance coverage from their former employers. But for those who do, big changes are afoot.
A growing number of companies are dropping single-employer group insurance plans in favor of privately run insurance exchanges, where a third party sets up a marketplace offering Medicare coverage offered by dozens of carriers, with costs subsidized by their former employers.
The trend was underscored by news this month that AT&T Inc will move its Medicare-eligible retirees in 2015 to an exchange operated by Aon Hewitt, the big employee benefits consulting firm.
Michelle Singletary, Published: March 11, 2014
You may not believe it, but there really are government forces trying to help you become better informed about your workplace retirement plan.
I wonder whether their efforts are in vain.
The Department of Labor is moving ahead with a proposal for transparency, opening a 90-day comment period for a proposed guide to help employers find fee information in disclosures they get from the investment companies that manage their 401(k)-type retirement plans.