Our Benefits Blog

I originally recieved this from a very good friend.  So I'm passing it along during a time when it's easy to forget the true meaning of our holidays.

RED MARBLES

I was at the corner grocery store buying some early potatoes.

I noticed a small boy, delicate of bone and feature, ragged but clean, hungrily apprizing a basket of freshly picked green peas.

I paid for my potatoes, but was also drawn to the display of fresh green peas.  I am a pushover for creamed peas and new potatoes.  Pondering the peas, I couldn't help overhearing the conversation between Mr. Miller (the store owner) and the ragged boy next to me.

'Hello Barry, how are you today?'

'H'lo, Mr. Miller. Fine, thank ya. Jus' admirin' them peas.  They sure look good.'

'They are good, Barry. How's your Ma?'

'Fine. Gittin' stronger alla' time.'

'Good. Anything I can help you with?'

'No, Sir. Jus' admirin' them peas.'

'Would you like take some home?' asked Mr. Miller.

'No, Sir. Got nuthin' to pay for 'em with.'

'Well, what have you to trade me for some of those peas?'

'All I got's my prize marble here.'

'Is that right? Let me see it' said Miller.

'Here 'tis. She's a dandy.'

'I can see that. Hmmmmm, only thing is this one is blue and I sort of go for red. Do you have a red one like this at home?' the store owner asked.

'Not zackley but almost.'

'Tell you what Take this sack of peas home with you and next trip this way let me look at that red marble', Mr. Miller told the boy.

'Sure will. Thanks Mr. Miller.'

Mrs. Miller, who had been standing nearby, came over to help me.

With a smile said, 'There are two other boys like him in our community, all three are in very poor circumstances.  Jim just loves to bargain with them for peas, apples, tomatoes, or whatever.

When they come back with their red marbles, and they always do, he decides he doesn't like red after all and he sends them home with a bag of produce for a green marble or an orange one, when they come on their next trip to the store.'

I left the store smiling to myself, impressed with this man.

A short time later I moved to Colorado , but I never forgot the story of this man, the boys, and their bartering for marbles.

Several years went by, each more rapid than the previous one.

Just recently I had occasion to visit some old friends in that Idaho community and while I was there learned that Mr. Miller had died.

They were having his visitation that evening and knowing my friends wanted to go, I agreed to accompany them.

Upon arrival at the mortuary we fell into line to meet the relatives of the deceased and to offer whatever words of comfort we could.

Ahead of us in line were three young men.

One was in an army uniform and the other two wore nice haircuts, dark suits and white shirts...all very professional looking.

They approached Mrs. Miller, standing composed and smiling by her husband's casket.

Each of the young men hugged her, kissed her on the cheek, spoke briefly with her and moved on to the casket.

Her misty light blue eyes followed them as, one by one, each young man stopped briefly and placed his own warm hand over the cold pale hand in the casket.

Each left the mortuary awkwardly, wiping his eyes.

Our turn came to meet Mrs. Miller.  I told her who I was and reminded her of the story from those many years ago and what she had told me about her husband's bartering for marbles.

With her eyes glistening, she took my hand and led me to the casket.

'Those three young men who just left were the boys I told you about.  They just told me how they appreciated the things Jim 'traded' them.

Now, at last, when Jim could not change his mind about color or size....they came to pay their debt.'

'We've never had a great deal of the wealth of this world,' she confided, 'but right now, Jim would consider himself the richest man in Idaho '.

With loving gentleness she lifted the lifeless fingers of her deceased husband. Resting underneath were three exquisitely shined red marbles.

The Moral : We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds.  Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath.

Today I wish you a day of ordinary miracles ~ A fresh pot of coffee you didn't make yourself.

An unexpected phone call from an old friend.

Green stoplights on your way to work.

The fastest line at the grocery store.

A good sing-along song on the radio.

Your keys found right where you left them.

It's not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived!

I hope the Holiday season brings you joy and happiness!

I want to thank Dr's Mark and Jean Link of Link Dental for their generous contribution of over 300 toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste to help kids in Honduras. 

About a month ago a friend of mine Vern Bass announced that he was visiting his daughter who is in Honduras with the Peace Corps.  He wanted to do something that made a difference so he started collecting Toothbrushes and toothpaste to take to Honduras.  He just returned from his trip and here is what Vern had to say about the trip...

Just back from Honduras and visiting my daughter Ashley with the Peace Corps
in the small town of Namasique in the State of Choluteca [actually they call
them 'Departments'] Honduras. It was an incredible trip and certainly an
eye-opener into the 'Wilds of Honduras'. HOT & HUMID, no running water,
certainly no hot water - showers are with a 'bowl', no flush toilets - you
flush w/ a bucket and not the TP, water comes in 5 gallon containers &
plastic bags, power goes out regularly and very few places have
air-conditioning [government buildings & fast food restaurants]. The
primary mode of transportation is the yellow school bus & they definitely
don't have air-conditioning. And.... the people are incredible happy - it's
not really poverty, just a much simpler life. Everyone - adults [young &
old] & children seem to always be happy and smiling and they like Americans.

Thank you all for making our Toothbrushes & Toothpaste for Honduran Children
Project an incredible success. When Ashley & I first came up with this idea
I thought - 'where am I possibly going to get 1,000 toothbrushes'? Well,
thanks to the incredible generosity of you and your dentists I arrived with
1,660 toothbrushes and 1,145 tubes of toothpaste. I traveled with 2
suitcases I bought at Goodwill for $9 each & a North Face Expedition Bag -
each weighed the max 50 lbs. In my backpack [which was my carry-on] I
carried my clothes and 300 toothbrushes. Regretfully I had to leave behind
45 lbs. of toothpaste - they will go to Honduras when Ashley comes home for
Christmas.

The teachers, parents, children and the 1 dentist were all incredible
thankful and all send their thanks. I have several hundred 'thank you
notes' that I plan to scan & sent to you as soon as I can get them scanned.

Once Vern gets the thank you notes posted I will post them.

To learn more about the services Dr's Mark and Jean Link provide or contact them visit their website at Link Dental.

The Denver Post (8/25, Booth) reports United Healthcare of Colorado is granting $1.1 million to help hospitals cut expensive and unhealthy readmissions.

The grants will attack an area highlighted by recent Medicare studies and the Affordable Care Act.  Avoidable readmissions of patients who left a hospital less than 30 days before.

Under the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) insurance companies are required to use 80-85 cents from each premium dollar collected to pay for medical care.  Reducing or eliminating avoidable readmissions that cost billions of dollars per year nationwide would reduce insurance premiums by a larger amount.

Click Here to read the full article.

Small employers who provide health insurance coverage to their employees may not realize they can claim a federal income tax credit on their 2010 filing, due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Unfortunately, a very low percentage of qualified business owners are taking advantage of this credit according to recent government reports. Even if companies have completed their 2010 filing, they can still submit an amended filing to request this tax credit.

Eligibility Rules
Small group employers must meet the following guidelines to be eligible for this federal income tax credit1. The requirements are a combination of three factors related to the business - size of their company, percentage of health care coverage they provide, and total wages paid.

Firm size. First, there are restrictions on the number of employees that an employer may have. A qualifying employer must have less than the equivalent of 25 full-time workers when totaling all individuals’ hours of employment. When all part-time and full-time hours of employment are combined and divided by a full time 40 hour week, and if the number of employees needed to cover the total hours is less than 25 employees, the employer will qualify for the credit.
Provide health care coverage. Secondly, the employer must confirm that they cover at least 50 percent of the cost of health care coverage for their employees. To determine this, the firm size equivalent number determined above must be used. Next, the employer must know the cost they pay to cover a single full time employee’s insurance premium. The employer must then make the following calculation:
Equivalent firm size multiplied by (X) the cost paid for an individual premium and divided by (/) two.
The above calculation is the percentage of health care coverage that the employer must cover in order to qualify for the credit. Therefore, they do not have to pay full coverage for each employee. They could reach the required premium with some full coverage and some partial coverage of employees.
Total Wages Paid. Finally, there are wage restrictions on the qualifications. Employers with 10 or fewer Full Time Equivalent (FTE) employees, paying annual average wages of $25,000 or less will receive the maximum credit of 35 percent.
Employers with greater than 10 and fewer than 25 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) employees, paying annual average wages of less than $50,000 will also receive the minimum credit of 35 percent of premiums paid.
All tax-exempt organizations that meet either of the above criteria can only claim the minimum credit of 25 percent of premiums paid.
As the IRS states: “The credit is completely phased out for employers that have 25 or more FTEs or that pay average wages of $50,000 or more per year. Because the eligibility rules are based in part on the number of FTEs, not the number of employees, employers that use part-time workers may qualify even if they employ more than 25 individuals.2”

Amount of credit and years available.
As stated by the IRS: “Small businesses can claim the credit for 2010 though 2013 and for any two years after that. For tax years 2010 to 2013, the maximum credit is 35 percent of premiums paid by eligible small businesses and 25 percent of premiums paid by eligible tax-exempt organizations. Beginning in 2014, the maximum tax credit will increase to 50 percent of premiums paid by eligible small business employers and 35 percent of premiums paid by eligible tax-exempt organizations.2”

More information. Please visit the FAQ section on the IRS website as there are several examples listed and helpful questions and answers pertaining to different circumstances.

Claiming the Credit

Small employers, whether businesses or tax-exempt organizations, will use the new Form 8941, Credit for Small Employer Health Insurance Premiums, to calculate the small business health care tax credit.
For-profit small businesses will include the amount of the credit as part of the general business credit on their income tax returns.
Tax-exempt organizations will include the amount of the credit on Line 44f of revised Form 990-T, Exempt Organization Business Income Tax Return. Form 990-T has been revised for the 2011 filing season to enable eligible tax-exempt organizations, even those that owe no tax on unrelated business income, to claim the small business health care tax credit.
For your interest: In an Analysis of the Small Business Health Insurance Tax Credit and Effects on Coverage conducted by the Committee on Small Business Democrats U.S. House of Representatives, a document was created showing the Impact of Health Care Tax Credit, by State. Please take a look at this document, as it pertains to the small group market in each individual state.

For further details , please visit the IRS website. Here the IRS provides form 8941 filing instructions, an informational video as well as a useful FAQ. Also, for further assistance with specific questions which cannot be answered in the information or links provided above, please click here for a state-by-state IRS Taxpayer Assistance guide.

IRS Small Business Health Care Tax Credit for Small Employers http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=223666,00.html
IRS Helps Small Employers Claim New Health Care Tax Credit; Forms and Additional Guidance Now Available on Small Business Health Care Tax Credit http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=231928,00.html

Survey: Many Doctors Still Concerned About Health-Care Reform
Americans Weigh In on Health-Care Reform
Health-Care Reform: What It Means to You

According to past surveys, 36 percent of Americans have tried to purchase health insurance but have either been denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions or were not able to afford the rate of health insurance quoted to them. Insurance companies can also limit insurance benefits based on a customer’s pre-existing condition.

Because of the PPACA, some measures have already been taken to improve health care. For instance, insurers can no longer limit an applicant’s lifetime coverage to a fixed dollar amount or take away coverage because of a mistake on an application. Also, young adults up to age 26 can stay on their parents’ insurance plan if they lack access to job-based insurance of their own. Insurers cannot deny coverage to children because they have a pre-existing condition.

A program called the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP) is also helping out Americans until 2014 when the PPACA is scheduled to go into effect. The PCIP is a program that provides private insurance to those who suffer from pre-existing conditions and lack health care coverage.

There are also programs such as the Foundation for Health Coverage Education which can help people determine public or private insurance eligibility.

According to Phil Lebherz, founding director for the Foundation for Health Coverage Education, if the PPACA is repealed, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of repealing the act Wednesday, there is still hope out there for those who are uninsured.

“All hospitals take care of all emergency cases whether patients can pay or not,” explains Lebherz. “All people have access to care through emergency rooms.” The uninsured still use the emergency room for their main source of health care, he adds.

Lebherz believes that one problem lies with the method in which physicians are reimbursed for their services through government-funded programs such as Medicaid. “These reimbursements are for a small amount of the actual costs,” he says, with some medical establishments only getting reimbursed for 9 percent of their actual costs per patient visit.

Victims of Health Care Reform
By Dr. John C. Goodman
President and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis
Filed in Health Alerts on January 24, 2011
Who will be hurt the most by the health reform legislation Congress passed last year?

Answer: The most vulnerable segments of society: the poor, the elderly and the disabled. That’s right. Virtually everyone in Congress who is left-of-center voted for a law that will significantly decrease access to care for the people they claim to care most about.

Why isn’t anyone writing about this?

Answer: Because almost all the people who write about health care know almost nothing about economics.

Basically, there are two ways to reform health care. One way is top down. The other is bottom up. The latter is based on the economic way of thinking. The former rejects that way of thinking. The latter gets the economic incentives right for all the individual actors, leaving the social result largely unpredictable. The former starts with a social goal and tries to impose it from above, leaving individuals with perverse incentives to undermine it. The latter depends for its success on people acting in their self-interest. The former depends for its success on preventing people from acting in their self-interest.

I think I can probably count on the fingers of two hands the number of people in health policy who accept the economic way of thinking. All the rest — 99.9% of the total, including a lot of people with “Ph.D., economist” after their names — reject it in spades.

Almost everybody in health policy thinks you can have a plan designed by people at the top that will work, even though every doctor, every nurse, every hospital administrator and 310 million patients all have an economic self-interest in defeating the plan.

They are so convinced of the collectivist vision of health care they do not even think it’s necessary to discuss the incentives of individuals. For example, Harvard health economist David Cutler (who admits to having a hand in the health reform bill) wrote an article the other day entitled, “The Simple Economics of Health Reform,” in which he mentioned the word “patient” not even once. For perspective, this would be like an economist writing about the market for gasoline without even mentioning the people who drive cars, trucks and vans. It would be like an economic analysis of the housing market that completely ignores the role of homebuyers.

Here are some points I’ve made before that completely escape Cutler, but should be included in any economic analysis of health reform:

Thirty-two million otherwise uninsured people will try to double their consumption of medical care.
Almost everyone with private insurance and all Medicare enrollees will try to increase their consumption of preventive services — promised without deductible or copayment.
With no increase in supply, doctors and patients will face a huge rationing problem.
There will be up to 900,000 additional emergency room visits and the time price of care (rationing by waiting) will jump substantially at every emergency room, every primary care facility and for most specialty services as well.
If everyone in America succeeds in getting all the recommended preventive care, for example, primary care physicians will have to spend more than 7 hours of every working day delivering services to basically healthy people.
Patients whose plan pays below-market rates will be pushed to the rear of the waiting lines; this includes our most vulnerable populations — the elderly, the disabled and poor families on Medicaid.
In the meantime, a large flourishing market for concierge services is likely to emerge — draining resources from the third-party payer system and making the rationing problem worse for all who are left behind.

In general, the left is obsessed with distributional issues. That’s why it’s so surprising that they passed a law that is going to force middle- and upper-middle-income families to have more insurance than they really want. Once they have it and act on it, they will in the process make access more difficult for the poorest and most vulnerable segments of society.

It’s amazing how much you can learn if you really do take advantage of some “simple economics.”

By Deborah Huso

For Americans with pre-existing health conditions, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, epilepsy and cancer, finding affordable health coverage (or health coverage at all) can be a nightmare, but the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) may be able to change that … if it isn’t repealed before official implementation in 2014.

Under the PPACA, Americans living with pre-existing conditions are free from discrimination and cannot be refused health care coverage.

The U.S. House of Representatives planned to vote Wednesday on whether to repeal the health-care reform act.

“The Affordable Care Act is stopping insurance companies from discriminating against Americans with pre-existing conditions and is giving us all more freedom and control over our health-care decisions,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a press release. “And Americans living with pre-existing conditions are being freed from discrimination in order to get the health coverage they need.”

A new report from the Department of Health and Human Services reveals that up to 129 million non-elderly Americans could be denied health-care coverage without the new health reform law.

The analysis revealed that there are 50 to 129 million Americans (19 to 50 percent of the U.S. population) under the age of 65 that have a pre-existing condition with older Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 at a higher risk. In addition, 15 to 30 percent of healthy people under age 65 will likely develop a pre-existing condition within the next eight years.

by NPR Staff and Wires

Ken Hoagland, chairman of Repeal It Now.org — a group supporting the repeal of national health care legislation — makes remarks at a news conference Tuesday on Capitol Hill.The House moved toward final debate Wednesay on the measure

The House is holding its final debate Wednesday on a measure to repeal President Obama’s health care overhaul, moving toward a late-day vote amid somewhat restrained language on the floor.

The measure, a hot-button political issue and the first bill considered under House Republican control in the new Congress, is officially titled the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act” — and before the recent shootings in Arizona critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and killed six people, the debate appeared likely to be stridently partisan. But, as was the case Tuesday when the bill came to the floor, the language remained restrained early Wednesday.

The measure has almost no chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and Obama has said he would veto it if it reaches his desk. But House Republicans say not to underestimate their determination or their willingness to use parliamentary maneuvers to deny the Obama administration funds needed to carry out the law.

“Repeal doesn’t mean we aren’t for health care reform, quite the contrary,” said Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN), an obstetrician-gynecologist who has promised to repeal the bill.

“This bill does increase the number of people who are insured. But it does nothing to decrease the costs,” he said.

That, he predicted, will make Obama’s expansion of coverage unsustainable.

Democrats were defiant. “We are not interested in taking down, repealing and destroying,” said Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA).

A key reason the House is voting on the repeal bill even though leaders know it’s unlikely to even get a vote in the Senate is that dozens of new Republican members got elected last November, nearly every one of them promising to fight to get rid of it.

Many say the law simply gives the federal government too much power, particularly the requirement that nearly every American either have health insurance or else pay a penalty.

“If this law is constitutional, if Congress has such broad power, our limited federal government will have become limitless,” said Michigan freshman Republican Rep. Justin Amash.

Democrats, meanwhile, let others do their most impassioned talking. They held an informal hearing Tuesday featuring actual people who are benefiting from some of the parts of the law that have already taken effect.

Republicans are “re-litigating, regurgitating and re-arguing” a debate that was settled last year, said Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ). Repeal is “the wrong bill at the wrong time,” he added.

After Wednesday’s vote, it’s unclear what will ultimately happen. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) dared Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to prove that he can keep Democrats united in support of the health care law by bringing repeal to the floor.

“He should bring it up for a vote if he’s so confident he’s got the votes,” Cantor told reporters.

Opponents of the law would probably need 60 Senate votes to overturn it, which is a big stretch given that Republicans have just 47 votes.

The House is scheduled to vote Thursday to instruct several major committees to draft health care legislation that reflects Republican priorities, including limits on medical malpractice awards and stricter language barring taxpayer funding for abortions. But an earlier GOP bill that offered a competing vision to the Democrats’ only covered a fraction of the people reached by Obama’s law.

No matter, Republicans say. A modest, step-by-step approach may turn out to be more sustainable in the long run than a major new government program whose costs and consequences are still unclear.

The fate of the repeal effort hinges on the quality of the replacement legislation and the care that Republicans put into drafting it, said Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY), a freshman. If it meets the needs and concerns of the public, Gibson said, he believes Democrats in the Senate may be persuaded to give it serious consideration.

Easier said than done, Democrats say. For example, Republicans say they also want to help people with pre-existing medical conditions find affordable coverage. But many experts say that won’t be possible unless there is some kind of requirement that healthy people get into the insurance pool as well, thereby helping to keep premiums down.

“They’re going to have to deal with that,” said Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat.

But while the legislative battle is likely to end in a draw, at least for now, the battle for public opinion rages on. A new CNN poll provides more ammunition for both sides. For Republicans, it finds that half of those polled think the law should be repealed. But Democrats will take heart in the fact that nearly 80 percent of Americans favor at least some aspect of the health law.

Contributing: Julie Rovner; The Associated Press