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Archive for December, 2010

The Immortality Research Center
Natural Health and extreme longevity. How the syncronization of spirit, energy body, and physical body creates stable health and immortalizes the body. Videos from experts which cover concepts, exercises, and natural health information and tips
The Immortality Research Center

Provide employee health insurance, or pay a penalty? Small business owners worry about having to face that choice. That possibility moved a step closer to reality in mid-July, as three of five Congressional committees approved new legislation to remake American health care – legislation that could expand health insurance coverage to 46 million uninsured Americans, with potentially harsh consequences for business owners.1,2

Two variations of pay-or-play. TheHouse version of the bill would levy a fine on employers that don’t offer health coverage – a fine as large as 8% of a company’s annual payroll. However, some businesses could qualify for tax credits and some very small firms wouldn’t have to pay such penalties.2

The Senate alternative would spare small companies (25 workers or less) from annual penalties. It would require a business with 25 or more employees to fork over 5-750 per worker annually if that business refused to offer health coverage or paid less than 60% of employees’ monthly health plan premiums.2,3

Could businesses handle this? After all, some companies have considered dropping health plans altogether. Health insurance premiums paid by businesses have increased more than 200% in the last ten years, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report; in 2008, single coverage averaged ,704 and family coverage ,680. The report found that less than half of businesses with three to nine employees offered health plans at all last year.2

The House version of the bill would require a small business with a payroll of 0,000 or more to provide coverage or be penalized. The penalty would actually be a sliding-scale payroll tax: it would be 2% of payroll at 0,000 and climb to 8% of payroll for companies with 0,000 payroll or greater.3

What if you’re self-employed? No break for you. In the Senate version of the bill, any self-employed individual would have to buy health insurance or pay a 0 penalty annually. However, insurers could not use past claims history or pre-existing medical conditions to deny you coverage. Individuals whose income is within four times the poverty level (i.e., ,000 or lower for a family of four) could qualify for subsidies.3

As for the House version, it asks self-employed individuals to buy coverage or pay a tax equivalent to 2.5% of the difference between their adjusted gross income and the tax filing threshold (which was about ,000 in 2008). Sliding-scale subsidies would be offered to self-employed Americans so that they would not have to spend more than 11% of their income on health coverage. As in the Senate bill, insurers could not wiggle out of providing coverage by citing pre-existing medical conditions.3

What would the long-term impact be? In the bleakest scenario, businesses would be hard pressed to offer workers decent wages or decent health coverage. Nationally, fewer and fewer companies are offering health benefits in the first place. A 2008 National Small Business Association poll found that just 38% of small companies could afford health plans at all, compared to 67% of small businesses in 1995.4

A sunnier outlook comes from the Small Business Majority, a nonprofit advocacy group founded by small business executives. Its report examined three scenarios using different levels of employer tax credits and employer payments. It concluded that the proposed health care reforms could save small businesses as much as 5 billion, and preserve as many as 128,000 jobs that would have been lost because of runaway health insurance costs.4

Stay tuned. Will Congress give business owners more of a break? Could penalties be reduced, or requirements eased? Will fewer businesses offer health plans, assuming that their employees could qualify for federal subsidies toward individual health insurance? At this point, there are more questions than answers – but with the median health insurance cost for U.S. businesses already at about 11% of payroll, any increase would be unkind.2

http://www.theretirementgroup.com

This material was prepared by Peter Montoya Inc, and does not necessarily represent the views of John Jastremski, Jeremy Keating, Erik J Larsen, Frank Esposito, Patrick Ray, Robert Welsch, Michael Reese, Philip Catalan, Brent Wolf, Andy Starostecki and The Retirement Group or QA3 Financial Corp. This information should not be construed as investment advice. Neither the named Representatives nor Broker/Dealer gives tax or legal advice. All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, we make no representation as to its completeness or accuracy. The publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional services. If other expert assistance is needed, the reader is advised to engage the services of a competent professional. Please consult your Financial Advisor for further information or call 800-900-5867.  The Retirement Group is not affiliated with nor endorsed by fidelity.com, netbenefits.fidelity.com,  hewitt.com, resources.hewitt.com,  access.att.com, AT&T, Qwest, Chevron, Hughes, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, ExxonMobil, Glaxosmithkline, Merck, Pfizer, Verizon or by your employer. We are an independent financial advisory group that specializes in transition planning and lump sum distribution. Please call our office at 800-900-5867 if you have additional questions or need help in the retirement planning process.

Citations.

1 nytimes.com/2009/07/18/health/policy/18health.html?hp [7/17/09]

2 dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-localhealth_16bus.ART.State.Edition2.4bde27c.html [7/16/09]

3 businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2009/sb20090716_683119.htm [7/16/09]

4 cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/16/politics/main5092451.shtml     [6/16/09]

http://www.theretirementgroup.com/new/retiregroup2/content.asp?contentid=2016566134

 

Obtenga Ingresos de las Redes Sociales
Aprenda hoy como puede obtener ingresos de las redes sociales, como twitter, facebook, etc. Diviertase twitteando pero tambien obteniendo ganancias y trabajando desde su hogar, aprenda como se hace el social media marketing.
Obtenga Ingresos de las Redes Sociales

Employee Survey Researcher’s Toolkit
Comprehensive guide to conducting an employee survey in house, with all the guidance and resources you need to create a questionnaire, run the survey, analyse and benchmark the results and take action to improve employee satisfaction and profit.
Employee Survey Researcher’s Toolkit

70% of people currently over age 65 will require some long term care someday. That is the estimate of the U.S. Administration on Aging, a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.1Will Medicare or private health insurance pay for it? The short answer is “no”.

In the decades ahead, baby boomers will reach their seventies, eighties and nineties. With aging parents of their own, some are learning how much long term care really costs. Some are still unaware.

How many of us are financially prepared for the possibility? Here are a couple of “averages” to consider from MetLife’s 2009 survey of LTC costs. The average annual cost of nursing home care is now ,935 or 9 per day. That’s up 3.3% from 2008. The average nursing home stay is about 2.5 years, which means you would need roughly 0,000 to pay those bills.2

Can you imagine paying it out of pocket? Taking out a reverse mortgage to do it? Using Medicaid because you have nothing left? No one wants these financial circumstances. The clear answer is long term care insurance coverage.

How expensive is LTC coverage? Annually, it typically costs about as much as a cheap used car. MarketWatch cited an example from the MetLife survey: in 2009, a 52-year-old federal employee could pay ,524 annually for an LTC policy with a 0-per-day benefit for three years and a maximum lifetime benefit of about 0,000.2

Does ,500 or ,800 or ,100 annually (just to throw out a few numbers) sound expensive? These premiums are certainly inexpensive compared to the staggering bills you may face if the need for LTC enters your life. Yes, there is a chance that you may never need LTC coverage. However, with advances in medicine and healthcare, we may live much longer than we anticipate before we leave this world. Factor in diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and other gradually disabling disorders, consider the population wave of baby boomers maturing, and you see why this coverage makes so much sense for so many.

Partnerships to make paying for it easier. Many states have created partnership programs to encourage people to buy LTC coverage. Essentially, these plans provide dollar-for-dollar asset protection when you buy an LTC policy. So for every dollar the policy pays out in benefits, you get an equal dollar amount in asset protection under a state’s Medicaid spend-down regulations.

For example, let’s look at Ohio. Let’s presume a couple have a 0,000 LTC policy. If they use up the whole 0,000 to pay for LTC, they would have to spend down their assets to ,250 to qualify for state Medicaid benefits. But … if they exhaust a 0,000 partnership policy, they can potentially qualify for Medicaid coverage and still retain 1,500 of their assets.3 State governments are increasingly offering to partner with LTC policyholders with inflation-adjusted policies.

A new option (and a nice tax break). There are now whole life insurance policies and annuities structured to provide either a long-term care benefit or a death benefit – and thanks to the Pension Protection Act, starting on 1/1/10 the interest deducted to pay premiums and benefits from tax-qualified LTC coverage will no longer be taxed. (This applies to combination whole life/LTC policy plans and combination annuity/LTC policy plans; premiums for traditional LTC insurance policies will still be paid with after-tax dollars. So with these new combination whole life/LTC and annuity/LTC policies, you will now have tax-free premiums and tax-free benefits.)4

59% of Americans are wrong when it comes to long term care. AARP conducted a survey in 2006 and found that 59% of respondents believed Medicare would pay for extended nursing home care. Another 52% incorrectly thought that Medicare would cover assisted living costs. In 2009, AARP found that 44% of Americans were “not very prepared” or “not at all prepared” to bear sudden long term care expenses.

I urge you to join the ranks of the prepared. November is Long Term Care Awareness Month – a good time to look at ways to plan for long term care needs. Now is the time to confer with an insurance advisor or financial advisor to learn more about your options.

This material was prepared by Peter Montoya Inc, and does not necessarily represent the views of John Jastremski, Jeremy Keating, Erik J Larsen, Frank Esposito, Patrick Ray, Robert Welsch, Michael Reese, Philip Catalan, Brent Wolf, Andy Starostecki and The Retirement Group or QA3 Financial Corp. This information should not be construed as investment advice. Neither the named Representatives nor Broker/Dealer gives tax or legal advice. All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, we make no representation as to its completeness or accuracy. The publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting or other professional services. If other expert assistance is needed, the reader is advised to engage the services of a competent professional. Please consult your Financial Advisor for further information or call 800-900-5867.

The Retirement Group is not affiliated with nor endorsed by fidelity.com, netbenefits.fidelity.com,  hewitt.com, resources.hewitt.com,  access.att.com, AT&T, Qwest, Chevron, Hughes, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, ExxonMobil, Glaxosmithkline, Merck, Pfizer, Verizon or by your employer. We are an independent financial advisory group that specializes in transition planning and lump sum distribution. Please call our office at 800-900-5867 if you have additional questions or need help in the retirement planning process.

Citations.

1 naifa.org/newsevents/releases/200810212_LTCMonth.cfm [10/21/09]

2 blogs.marketwatch.com/retirement/2009/10/27/long-term-care-insurance-is-it-worth-the-bet/ [10/21/09]

3 ltc4me.ohio.gov/faq.aspx [8/08]

4 seniormarketadvisor.com/r/smaMag/d/contentFocus/?adcID=c52394c846a85ab7538a370dfea5a92f [10/16/08]

5 aarp.org/research/ppi/ltc/Other/articles/the_costs_of_long-term_care__public_perceptions_versus_reality_in_2006_–_aarp_fact_sheet.html [12/13/06]

6 assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/il/bulletin_ltc_09.pdf [4/09]

Social Media Coaching Center
Social media is hot, but it can be confusing and time consuming to learn all this stuff. The Social Media Coaching Center walks you through with step-by-step tutorials, reviews and strategy tips to make your social media strategy successful.
Social Media Coaching Center

New York, USA, (PRWEB) April 10, 2006

Chevron Corporation, which acquired Unocal few months back, has expressed its desire to sell its assets in Bangladesh to Reliance Industries, a private energy company of India which will export gas from Bangladesh to India in liquefied form, according to an Indian newspaper.

‘…in the dialogue that the two companies had few weeks ago Chevron has expressed its desire to sell its Bangladeshi assets to Reliance,’ the daily Pioneer reported on April 6.

‘The proposal under discussion includes Reliance acquiring former Unocal’s [now a part of Chevron] 16.1tcf reserves in Bangladesh. Chevron, it is understood, is reviewing the assets that Unocal had acquired because it makes very little economic sense for the company to own these assets,’ it said.

Chevron officials in Bangladesh said the report was completely ‘baseless’ and the company was not in talks with any company to sell its assets in Bangladesh.

‘It is completely baseless. We are not in talks with any company to sell our Bangladeshi assets,’ a Chevron official told reporters on Friday.

The Pioneer report said ‘at present, Chevron owns Jalalabad gas field which produces 100 million cubic feet a day, supplying about 10 per cent of Bangladesh’s consumption. Besides this, there are two other fields – Bibiyana, which is estimated to hold about 6 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, and Moulvibazar, which is now being assessed for reserves’.

It claimed that there was ‘no’ domestic market for the gas as the demand from households and industry was low.

Petrobangla currently supplies around 1480 million cubic feet of gas per day against the demand of around 1,650mmcfd.

‘For Reliance the same asset makes very good business sense as it is already developing the eastern pipeline grid for transporting the gas from Krishna-Godavari Basin. The company, if it acquires the asset, will set up a pipeline from Bangladesh to evacuate the gas, which could join the eastern grid that it is already developing,’ the newspaper said.

It claimed that ‘besides its (Reliance) own gas fields development will change the fortunes of the country and partner company Petrobangla can export gas alongside other foreign companies operating in the region’.

Unocal wanted to export gas in 2002-2003 to India but the government had to backtrack in the face of strong protest from various quarters.

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Asken Research – Access Specialists.
Microsoft Access Specialist Database Developers. We sell a range of inexpensive basic databases to more comprehensive databases.
Asken Research – Access Specialists.

LinkedIn Marketing – 8 Best Tactics to Build Book and Business Sales
Like it or not, social media marketing is here to stay. Now, you can grow your book or product sales as well as grow your clients using Linkedin correctly.
LinkedIn Marketing – 8 Best Tactics to Build Book and Business Sales

Bethlehem, PA (Vocus) May 16, 2007

Two College of Education researchers at Lehigh University have developed what they believe is the first comprehensive, K-12 curriculum designed to address sexual abuse and prevention education.

Sexual education continues to be a controversial subject matter. Recent reports indicate that nearly 20 percent of all girls and upwards to 10 percent of school-aged boys experience some sort of sexual abuse; many more cases go unreported. One-half of all victims are under the age of seven.

It’s against that backdrop that public officials in Colorado, Kansas and Maryland, among other states, continue to argue whether the public classroom is the appropriate forum to provide sexual education.

The ongoing debate prompted members of the College of Education to learn what resources are available to educators, parents, and school administrators. Nick Ladany, chair of the education and human services department with Lehigh’s College of Education, and Roger Douglas, associate director of Lehigh’s Office of International Programs, devised the innovative curriculum after failing to find a long-term educational approach to tackling the issue.

Their curriculum features specific content created for each grade level, along with corresponding tools and resources for counselors, teachers, parents and administrators. Typically, sexual abuse prevention resources are readily available, but more often that not, they are targeted at a specific age group with little continuity between grades.

That means that students are getting a fragmented introduction to sexual abuse prevention–if they’re getting any introduction at all.

Ladany and Douglas answered the challenge by creating a curriculum that evolves along with a child’s age and physical and emotional development. It’s written for the long-term and is designed to progress with students throughout their formative years.

“To put it simply, if 20 percent of all kids had a cold, we’d be all over it,” said Ladany. “When the issue is sexual abuse, though, we tend to think of it as a private matter–which, to a large extent, it is–but we fail to explore what’s at the heart of the matter. The lack of information about how to approach the issue is astounding.”

In the curriculum, children in kindergarten are introduced to “safe touches,” while 2nd graders are taught the “ask first” rule. Cyber safety is introduced to 4th graders, while 6th graders learn how to safely talk in a virtual environment.

“This curriculum is a step-by-step approach that evolves along with the child and builds upon itself,” explained Ladany. “Our philosophy is to create as safe an environment for children by strengthening the lines of communications between children and those they can trust.”

For nearly 140 years, Lehigh University has combined outstanding academic and learning opportunities with leadership in fostering innovative research. The institution is among the nation’s most selective, highly ranked private research universities. Lehigh’s four colleges – College of Arts and Sciences, College of Business and Economics, College of Education and the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science – provide opportunities to 6,500 students to discover and grow in a learning community that promotes interdisciplinary programs with real-world experience. Lehigh’s campus is located in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley – in Bethlehem, PA (50 miles north of Philadelphia and 75 miles southwest of New York City).

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