What If My Employer Decides Not to Offer Insurance?

Q.

Our school superintendent says he plans to pay the fines rather than pay for insurance for every school employee. If employers choose to pay the fines, then how do the employees receive health insurance? — Annie Brown
A.
If your employer doesn’t offer coverage, you’d be able buy insurance on the health insurance exchanges that will start up in 2014. You’d also be eligible for premium subsidies if your income is less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level.

But some policy experts question whether, when push comes to shove, employers will actually drop health insurance coverage. For one thing, at a school that employs teachers who are under union contract, the superintendent can’t just make a unilateral decision to discontinue health coverage, said Jennifer Tolbert, an associate director at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

But even without a union contract, there are other factors that come into play. Under the new law, employers aren’t required to offer health insurance. But if they don’t and even one of their employees turns to the health insurance exchange for coverage, the employer would be subject to a $2,000 per employee penalty. Depending on the value of the health plan, paying the penalty might be cheaper than offering health insurance,  Ms. Tolbert said. But even if that were the case, “They’ll lose the tax deduction for providing insurance, and at the end of the day employees will leave outright or demand a higher salary because they’re losing a major benefit,” she said.

Have a question about the new health care law? Send it to health_feedback@nytimes.com.

Activists organize to demand universal health care

Health care activists from the Private Health Insurance Must Go! Coalition, in collaboration with Healthcare-NOW!, Physicians for a National Health Program (N.Y. Metro chapter) and Single Payer New York, gathered at St. Luke’s Hospital on April 24 to discuss moving forward in the fight for universal health care in the U.S.

Conference organizer and PHIMG Chair Ajamu Sankofa opened up the third annual teach-in and summit, asserting that “health care activists must develop an effective narrative showing that the current law cannot and will not work.” He raised the need to assess the current period, recognizing the pernicious impact of neoliberalism and privatization on society and the need to end the movement’s deferential treatment of the Democratic Party. “We need a movement like the civil rights movement,” he said, “to show that Medicare for all is not only fiscally responsible, but a moral imperative that saves lives and prevents pain and suffering.”

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Get More Money Without a Second Job

When thoughts turn to getting more cash every month, many people assume that they’ll have to take a second job.
That may be true. If your financial situation is dire or if you have your heart set on some big ticket item, a second job may be the only way to get to the necessary level of income. However, it is possible to bring in large sums of money without getting a second job, just by changing the way you currently live.

You can do this three ways (singly or in combination): Sell your stuff, cut your fixed expenses, and find ways to earn money that are not a “job” (online surveys, entering contests, a little freelance work, etc.). The easiest and quickest way is to cut your fixed expenses. I hear you now, “But a fixed expense is just that. Fixed. It can’t be changed so we’re stuck with it.” That’s just not true. Nothing is “fixed” in stone. Yes, getting the expense reduced may mean some time, inconvenience, or sacrifice on your part, but it is possible to reduce or eliminate every expense that you think is fixed.

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Resources for Corporate Insurance Plans

CBG Group Looking To Buy Corporate Insurance Brokers

LONDON (Dow Jones)--U.K. insurance broker CBG Group PLC (CB.LN) Tuesday said it is hoping to carry on its buy-and-build strategy in 2010 by acquiring corporate insurance brokers as potential vendors become more realistic on pricing.

Speaking to Dow Jones Newswires, Group Managing Director Mike Askew said the Manchester-based firm will continue to focus on buying businesses in the northwest of England, adding that there are "tremendous opportunities" to buy small corporate insurance brokers.

Askew said there are no plans to raise money from investors at the moment as it has enough headroom in its banking facilities, adding that any acquisitions would likely have a share incentive included too.

Company Web site: www.cbg-group.co.uk
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Premiums Aren't Going Down Under Obamacare

"When it becomes law, families will save on their premiums," President Obama declared in his weekly radio address before Christmas, pitching his health care reform.

If you've got health insurance, get ready for higher premiums.

If only that were so. Nobody who tracks health insurance sees any sign of softening premium prices for people who already have insurance, Obamacare or not. Premiums for 2010 were up 10% and are predicted to keep growing at the same rate in coming years.

Health insurance is beginning to resemble air travel--where deep-pocketed business passengers subsidize penny-pinching vacationers. Insurance companies, under the measures in Congress, would be forced to take all comers, young and old, healthy and sick. Over ten years they would confront $871 billion in spending on uninsured and newly subsidized customers, costs that would be passed along to the young and healthy. The federal government isn't going to pick up all of that tab. So those now insured through a private plan at work or one bought individually will have to chip in.

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Know your alternatives > Corporate Insurance Plans

4 Reality Checks For Your Finances

A few simple calculations can tell you whether you're doing fine or staring at debt disaster. And be sure to see how your peers are handling their burdens as well.

"It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept." -- cartoonist Bill Watterson

People in debt often fool themselves about how bad things really are. They think they can afford their obligations if they're able to swing the minimum payments. Or they assume their credit card bills are about average, when in fact they owe way more than the norm.

Many carry these illusions to the brink of disaster, realizing only too late how deep a hole they've dug for themselves.

Even if the truth won't set you free immediately, it should give you the motivation to stop digging and start paying off your debt -- or to get help if you're really in over your head.

* Compare your credit

To that end, here are four money ratios you should figure out so you really know where you stand.
Leverage ratio
Leverage ratios, which measure total debt against total assets, are used in investing to evaluate relative riskiness. The higher a company's leverage ratio, the riskier that company is as an investment.

The same holds true for household finances.
Learn How To Calculate Your Leverage Ratio.

Obama Reads Letter To Insurance Executives To Shame Them

President Obama walked in today on a closed-door meeting between Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and top insurance industry executives, and read the executives a letter from an Ohio woman whose case he thought demonstrated why the industry needs more regulation in the form of a comprehensive bill.

The letter Gibbs described from Natoma Canfield, 50, talked about how she'd been cancer-free for 11 years but nonetheless had last year paid $6,075 in premiums and about $4,000 more for medical care, co-pays and prescriptions, and her insurance had paid out only about $935. Then she was informed her 2010 premiums would go up 40%.

Sebelius is asking insurers to provide actuarial data justifying large rate increases.

Expect to hear the president to talk a lot more about that letter in the coming weeks as he travels the country to whip up support for Democrats to pass a health care overhaul on a bare-majority vote.

Here's the text:

Dear President Obama:

I am 50 years old. I was diagnosed with carcinoma in-situ 16 years ago and following my divorce 12 years ago I became self-employed. After my Cobra ran out I was able to find costly, but affordable health insurance. As a responsible individual, I have struggled to maintain my individual coverage and have increased my deductible and out of pocket-limits in an attempt to control my cost and keep my health insurance.

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