What Does Health Reform Mean to Your Business?

Now that Health Care Reform has passed, what does it mean for your business?

How will the small business tax credits work?

When will the insurance reforms take effect?

When do the individual premium subsidies take effect?

 Will there be improved access to health insurance carriers?

Can we expect lower health insurance costs and/or lower healthcare costs?

What are the new taxes on health plans, employers, or individuals?

Will there be new taxes on health plans, employers, or individuals?

Find out the answers to these questions during our Free Health Care Reform Webinar on Tuesday, March 30th at 12pm ET.

We will also discuss how to lower your health care costs with Consumer-Driven Health Plans.

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Deadline will be missed......again.

The White house has hinted that there will not be an up or down vote by their deadline of March 18th.  What a shocker!  The amount of deadlines that have come and gone for reform has to be in the teens by now, so I don't think anyone is truly surprised by this.

One surprising note however, is that democratic leadership will not be changing the language in the bill to disallow the use of public funds to pay for abortions.  Rep. Stupak is said to have anywhere from 8 to 12 pro-life democrats that will not vote for the bill unless the abortion language is changed.  This is a very interesting change of events. Most believed they would have to change the language to have any shot in passing this bill, even though most thought it would be very hard if not impossible to do so in reconciliation.

Perhaps, Pelosi believes these pro-life democrats will sign on last minute because they see health reform slipping away.  Perhaps she believes she can pick up votes somewhere else? However, these would have to be representatives that voted "no" originally.  There would have to be some pretty heavy bargaining and promising going on in order for that to seem plausible. I believe it will come down to one thing; do democrats believe something is better than nothing?

One thing is for sure, you can never count Nancy Pelosi out, should be an interesting next couple of weeks.

Join us for an informational webinar

Personal Care Accounts:  HRA as compared to HSA

-Plus, an Update on National Health Care Reform.  Here we go again?

Sponsor: BGNE (formerly Benefit Group of New England)

Date:  Wednesday, March 17^th

Time:  Noon-12:45pm

Space is limited.

REGISTER HERE

HRA’s or HSA’s?  Or both?.  

Perhaps you have already implemented a high deductible health plan. Perhaps, you are considering implementing a high deductible health plan.

Should you provide a personal care account?  Should that account be an HRA or an HSA, or both?  How much should you provide in the account?

We will review the types of personal care accounts, and our data concerning the costs and benefits of HRA’s and HSA’s.

PLUS – An Update on National Health Care Reform:

• How likely is health care reform in 2010?
• When would the reforms take effect?
• Will there be tax credits for small business?
• Will there be premium subsidies for individuals? 
• Will there be improved access to health insurance carriers?
• Can we expect lower health insurance costs, or lower healthcare costs?
• Will there be new taxes on health plans, employers, or individuals?

Date:  Wednesday, March 17^th

Time:  Noon-12:45pm

Space is limited.

REGISTER HERE

Are Emotions Getting in the Way?

The President has been on the campaign trail as of late trying to convince Americans to come on board with his health care reform agenda. During each of his latest speeches he is telling America he does not know how it will play politically, but he knows it's the right thing to do.  This seems to be his final pitch, "pass the bill because it's the right thing."

While we all want more Americans to have affordable health insurance our endgame for passing a bill cannot be based on emotions.  It's true, legislation usually begins with emotional force. Politicians want to fix something that is broken or to "do what is right" for Americans. However, once they are in the stages of forming and passing legislation, politicians need to check their emotions at the door.

First and foremost legislation has to be functional and affordable.

Nancy Pelosi said just the other day, "we have to pass the health care bill so that you can find out what is in it."  Now, that seems to be all backwards.  Shouldn't we know what is in the bill before we pass it? Of course we should.  However, emotions have become front and center in this debate.  I'm afraid we will never get a bill that will curb costs and help those without insurance unless politicians stop being emotional and look at legislation objectively.

Begin legislation with emotions, end with reason.

The Health Care Reform Battle is in the House

The President has given Congress a March 18th deadline to push health care reform through.  He has all but said the word "reconciliation."  It is very clear at this point that the Senate is going to use this procedure to appease the House.

For those who do not quite understand what reconciliation is, here is a very quick and simple explanation:

Reconciliation is a legislative process in the Senate that allows a bill to forgo the need to get 60 votes needed to end a filibuster.  Therefore, only a simply majority is needed in the Senate.  If there is a tie, the Vice President casts the deciding vote.  So 50 votes will suffice for health care reform, as we know the Vice President is on board. This reconciliation process will be used to fix parts of the Senate bill that the House members do not like.

However, to get to the point where the Senate can pass a reconciliation bill the House and Senate have to pass the exact same bills.  As the Senate bill passed by the narrowest of margins and will stand to lose votes if they try and change the bill, this has become the bill that will need to be reconciled.

Seeing whereas there are many members of the House that have serious reservations about the Senate bill they would have to vote "yes" to the current Senate bill and then trust that the Senate will actually use reconciliation to "fix" the bill.

Some members of the House have asked the Senate to first pass their reconciliation bill and then the House will pass the Senate bill.  However, this is unclear if that option is even viable.  Technically, the Senate would be passing a bill to fix a bill that has not even been passed yet. 

Before reconciliation can even be used, the house has to make sure it actually has the votes to pass a bill.  Remember, the House passed their version of health care reform by a mere 3 votes.  Since then, Rep. Murtha has passed away, the lone republican representative Cao from Louisiana has now expressed opposition and countless others that originally voted "yes" are now on the fence.  There are the House members that are worried about abortion coverage, most notably Rep. Stupak.  There are members who are up for re-election and have seen what happened in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia and are now worried about their own political well being.  There are also those in the House that simply think the Senate bill does not go far enough and state they do not think they can vote for it. 

Nancy Pelosi has a tough road ahead of her.  There are three groups she has to appease to, therefore she needs to relay three different messages.

1. Abortions will not be funded with government money.
• Pelosi will have to convince members that the Senate will fix the abortion language in the bill during reconciliation.  Trust is a very big issue here
2.  Political well-being
•  Pelosi can choose one of two ways to go about this.  She either has to convince members to do the unpopular thing and pass the bill without worrying about their upcoming elections or she has to convince them this well help their political well being because America actually wants this done.
3.  Something is better than Nothing
• Pelosi will have to convince members who think the Senate bill is too tame that if they do not pass the Senate bill they will never be able to pass a health reform bill.

Convincing members of these messages may not be as easy as it seems.  Stay tuned to see how this all plays out over the next 10 days.