Testing It Up

A post on HR3590.com shared that the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) has joined a lawsuit against the health care reform law spearheaded by several states, with Florida leading the way. NFIB small business legal center Karen Harned revealed that small businesses view the new health care law as unconstitutional and “bad for business”.

Days after news about the NFIB’s involvement in the lawsuit, the Treasury Department issued a new guidance that small businesses are eligible for state and federal tax credits. This was revealed by Treasury assistant secretary for tax policy Michael Mundaca. Federal officials are essentially saying that small businesses are actually eligible for more than what they thought under the new law in terms of tax credit provisions.

Mundaca explained the guidance during a teleconference, where he clarified that small businesses can receive the credit for traditional health insurance as well as for add-on dental, vision and other limited-scope health insurance coverage. There are an estimated 4 million small businesses that may be eligible for tax credits starting this year; the credit, though, will not be received until after businesses have been able to file their taxes in 2011.

The guidance was released days after NFIB joined the lawsuit against health care, and Small Business Administration administrator Karen Mills said that most small businesses “are excited about this tax credit.”

“Small-business owners everywhere are rightfully concerned that the unconstitutional new mandates, countless rules and new taxes in the healthcare law will devastate their business and their ability to create jobs,” Dan Danner, President and CEO of NFIB, shared.

Florida Health Screening

After all the debates, the health care reform bill that the Democrats have been lobbying for more than a year has been signed by the President into a law. While at the outset is promises more health care coverage for Americans, there are still those who will inevitably fall through the cracks. And by 2019, according to an article on the Christian Science Monitor, 23 million Americans will still be uninsured, based on an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.

First on the list are undocumented immigrants – although technically they cannot be considered as Americans yet, the fact that they live on American soil will mean that they are among those who might be needing health care at some point. They are, however, not eligible for Medicaid.

There are also those who, while eligible, choose to not enroll in Medicaid. Even the institution of fines by virtue of the fact that health care insurance will be mandatory may not exactly be a deterrent. There may be some who would rather pay the fines – which are cheaper than actually getting insurance coverage. The article mentioned that this group may be composed of the younger and single set.

Still, there are those who, despite the subsidies that have been set up for them, will find that health insurance is simply out of reach from a financial point of view. For this group of people, there will even be no need to pay penalties; households where the cost of insurance coverage will exceed 8% of income will not be penalized for deciding to forego it.

This is not exactly about health and the treatment and prevention of diseases, but it just might as well be. After all, to prevent disease, undergo testing to arrive at a diagnosis, or to treat an ailment, one needs to have funds set aside for health purposes, especially in one’s golden years. With the recession, though, it looks like that is going to be in jeopardy.

There are more than a thousand stories circulating about the state of the funds for Medicare and Social Security in the United States, and Reuters UK reports that the Medicare Hospital trust fund may become insolvent by 2017, two years earlier than originally estimated, and that Social Security funds may be all but gone by 2037, four years earlier than anticipated. This is being attributed to the impact that the recession is having on tax revenues, the source of the funds.

In addition, Medicare is in even bigger trouble as aside from the fact that its source of funds is dwindling, the cost of health care is constantly increasing, which means that it will need to spend more once the claims start coming in.

Reuters quotes Treasury Secretary Timothy Geither, who said that the report is indicative of the urgent need to “overhaul the two programs to help contain rising costs as the baby boom generation begins to retire and draw on benefits”. This generation has an estimated population of 77 million people. It has to be done soon, Geither adds, so that even if the changes are going to undoubtedly be difficult, these will still be achievable.

While President Obama has pledged to pay attention to the finances of both Social Security and Medicare, it seems like Social Security is taking a backseat to an effort to reform the US health care system in order to manage rising costs of health care.

The best approach, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius who, along with Geither, is among the trustees of the two programs, is to slow down overall health care spending “through comprehensive and carefully crafted legislation”.