Your Body, YourTemple (written by Benjamin Ka-han McAvoy).
This miraculous body, given to us at birth, requires proper rest, nutritious food, good hygiene, and adequate exercise not only to support our physical health, but also to regulate our vital energies. This sets the best possible bodily stage for spiritual practice. Bodily vigor can translate to an active, energetic approach to the inner life. Furthermore, responsible treatment of our own body forms a crucial part of a responsible attitude toward life as a whole. Responsibility stands as one of the highest spiritual qualities and begins with our own body. To help maximize our spiritual possibilities, we can work to maximize our physical vitality.
Like everything else in human life, care of the body can suffer many aberrations. Hypochondria, fastidiousness, squeamishness, timidity, vanity, lust, gluttony and laziness suggest the wide range of excessive or obsessive attitudes we can have toward our body. These and others arise from self-centered, egoistic views of life. Given its remarkable resilience, we need not fear using our body, making demands of it. Given the fact of our body, we need to accept it as is, adapting to rather than dwelling on its inevitable shortcomings. The fact of our body also argues against taking the false credit of vanity, or being overly concerned about adorning it. A slovenly appearance, though, shows lack of respect for oneself and others.
Illness presents an opportunity to reassess our situation, our goals, our choices. Any illness can serve as a small reminder of our inevitable death, and as such, can stimulate consideration of the legacy we are creating, of the kind of person we are, of the life we are living, of appropriate use of our talents and disposition. Illness can also teach us acceptance and patience. Sometimes in illness, the depletion of our energies weakens our egoism and allows our more essential nature to shine through. An acquaintance, in the process of dying from brain cancer, gradually underwent a remarkable transformation and became a source of love for all around. Even lesser, non-fatal illnesses, can open our being and our heart.
As our body ages, slowly, slowly, its powers wane. New aches, pains, limitations and challenges enter our life, tempting us to dwell on the decline rather than on continued living in the wisdom, dignity, and warmth of heart that aging can bring.
The body offers a fertile arena for inner work. At all ages, instinctive intuition of what our body really needs challenges our perceptions and fixed opinions. Awareness of physical sensations, posture, gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, movement, breathing, eating, and all our myriad physical activities grounds us in the present moment, reveals truths about ourselves, and provides a necessary platform for deeper spirituality. A proper object for our love and respect, a cared-for body repays us with well-being, energy, and a home for building our soul.
Hope this helps, please share as much information as you can.
With Love Light and Blessings to you all
Benjamin
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
In honor of mother's day.
I'm so invisible.
It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously not. No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I am only conjured up when someone wants or needs something.
I'm so invisible.
Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands - I'm not even a human being, just a vapor. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel or Cartoon Network? I'm a car to order, take me here or pick me up, 'Right around 5:30, please.'
I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated - but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter and jelly, never to be seen again.
She's going ... she's going .... she's gone!
One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend who had been away. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a banana clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.'
It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'With admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.' Wow! That was just so nice. In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:
* No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.
* These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.
* They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.
* The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.
A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'
I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you. I see the sacrifices you make everyday, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.'
At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for the Holidays, 'My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'You're gonna love it there.'
As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We can not see if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women. Happy mothers day! You are appreciated!
author unknown (REPOST - originally posted 5/9/09 - 12:28PM)
Dimensions of Balance in Spiritual Practice.
Dimensions of Balance in Spiritual Practice was sent to me by my friend and fellow lightworker/healer, Benjamin Ka-han McAvoy. Enjoy.
The many facets of our humanity call for balance. In growing up, we need a balanced education and a balance of discipline and love. For physical health we need a balanced diet as well as a balance between activity and repose. For mental health we need a balance between work, leisure, and family. So too, we need a holistic approach toward our inner work for spiritual development.
As complex beings with complex demands placed upon us, for most of us no single method of spiritual practice will prove adequate. An understanding of the variety of methods and their place in the spiritual path serves us well in discovering and filling the gaps in our inner work. Through actual practice we grow familiar with the relationships among the methods and their effect on our being. We acquire a taste for how to balance our inner life. Toward this, we now examine four dimensions of balance in spiritual practice: context, mode, vehicle, and style. Though handed down from ancient times, these were powerfully posed by G.I. Gurdjieff in the twentieth century. An understanding of these dimensions helps guide our steps in the unknown territory of the spirit.
Context
The first dimension of balance concerns the three possible contexts of practice: ourselves, our family and society, and the Ultimate. If we direct our spiritual life only toward ourselves, we risk growing self-absorbed and losing sight of the greater purpose. If our practice centers solely on serving others, we risk losing ourselves, losing the energy and peace of mind we need to serve well. If our practice focuses exclusively on the Divine, we risk losing our footing on this wonderful Earth, losing our ability to relate well. All three together, however, forge a remarkably potent combination. In our spiritual droughts, when we lose contact with one, another will provide a way to reinvigorate the first. Working in all three contexts, we discover a sense of completeness and integrity.
Mode
The second dimension of balance addresses the active, open, and harmonic modes of practice. The great traditions inform us that reality has a threefold nature. The ancient Indian Vedas, for example, instruct us about the three basic elements, the three gunas: rajas, tamas, and sattva. Christianity offers the image of the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Kabbalistic Tree of Life arranges its ten sephirot in three columns and with triadic connections. All these reflect the fact that threefoldness enters the whole of reality, including our inner work, through will.
The active mode of will displays an affirming, directed, outward flowing, effortful quality. The open mode embraces an allowing, accepting, receiving, inward flowing, non-directed, surrendering quality. This second mode can also manifest as passivity, inertia, laziness, and resistance. The harmonic mode brings a creative freedom, a catalyst enabling the other two modes to cooperate in a quite natural, balanced, unforced way. We see this harmonic mode in sports when an athlete is “in the zone,” in effortlessly perfect action. In the spiritual path, we seek to be open to the higher while active toward the more external, in a harmonious, wise, loving, and productive way of life, with will flowing through us from the higher to the lower.
Balance is essential among these three modes, especially as they characterize our spiritual practices. If we always pursue an active practice, we shall have little peace and stillness, and our activity will be confined to the lower rungs of Jacob’s ladder. If openness constitutes our sole choice in modes of practice, we will not gain the strength required to create a viable vessel for our soul. If we only seek harmony, we will fail because that bird cannot fly without the two wings of active and open practices. Working with all three modes, their interaction enlivens us, inspiring and enabling us to reach new and unexpected depths in our spiritual life.
Vehicle
The third dimension of balance operates among the four vehicles of our body, heart, mind, and spirit or I. Here, vehicle means the mechanism through which will acts in us. Our body has the ability to move, to act, and to maintain itself in the material world. In our heart vehicle we have the full range of emotions, which broker our contact with worlds outside and in. In our mind, we have the ability to think, visualize, plan, imagine, daydream, remember, and understand. Most of us tend toward unbalance in terms of these three vehicles. We might live primarily in our thoughts, or in our feelings, or in our physical abilities and appetites. Balanced spiritual work includes developing our neglected vehicles.
Our spirit typically remains hidden. Thus, our practice aims, in part, at reconnecting our daily life with our true spirit, our own “I am,” which alone has the power to unify our body, heart, and mind.
Style
When we think of spiritual practice, we usually think of a formal style of practice: meditation, ritual or communal prayer, chanting, and the like. Such formal practices, repeated at regular intervals, constitute the foundation of the spiritual path. These practices collect and transform energies, exercise our will, and let us delve deeper than would be possible in more ordinary circumstances.
But a completely different genre of spiritual practices stands equal in importance to the formal style: continuous practice sustained throughout our ordinary day. Instead of getting up from meditation or prayer and leaving our spiritual work behind until the next day, we continue to practice awareness of bodily sensation, presence or prayer as much as possible all day long, even as we go about our normal daily activities. The practice that we continue while engaged in our day may not be as deep or as strong as formal practice, but it does enjoy the distinct advantage of having more time available for it. The cumulative effect of continuous practice can be even greater than that of formal practice. If you sustain and renew your inner work at frequent intervals, by the end of the day you may find yourself in a deeply centered and spiritually refined state. Furthermore, change of being means change of our usual state. The more continuously we practice, the more we raise our usual state, and the closer we come to permanent change of being.
Formal and continuous practice support and complement each other. Meditation and prayer can provide the surplus, high quality energy we need to practice more continuously. Work at presence throughout the day strengthens and purifies our will, consolidates our gains from formal practice, and deepens our meditation and prayer.
But formal and continuous do not exhaust the categories of practice. If we look at the continuum from inner to outer, we see that formal practice belongs primarily to the inner whereas continuous practice falls between inner and outer. In the fully outer realm of external manifestations of spirituality we enter the way of right action in the world, the way of responsibility and kindness, creativity and service. These constitute a third major form of spirituality, of equal standing to formal and continuous practice, supporting and complementing both. Our ability to be kind, responsible, or creative grows as our being and will transform. Formal and continuous practice together lead to that transformation. The potential of our own right action in the world, however, gives us a strong reason to pursue formal and continuous spiritual practice. If we wish to serve well, we need to develop our being and purify our will. The way of right action puts the results of our inner work to good use.
Between the styles of formal, continuous and manifested practice, we seek an appropriate balance, attuned to our own propensities and possibilities. Love and light to all.
The many facets of our humanity call for balance. In growing up, we need a balanced education and a balance of discipline and love. For physical health we need a balanced diet as well as a balance between activity and repose. For mental health we need a balance between work, leisure, and family. So too, we need a holistic approach toward our inner work for spiritual development.
As complex beings with complex demands placed upon us, for most of us no single method of spiritual practice will prove adequate. An understanding of the variety of methods and their place in the spiritual path serves us well in discovering and filling the gaps in our inner work. Through actual practice we grow familiar with the relationships among the methods and their effect on our being. We acquire a taste for how to balance our inner life. Toward this, we now examine four dimensions of balance in spiritual practice: context, mode, vehicle, and style. Though handed down from ancient times, these were powerfully posed by G.I. Gurdjieff in the twentieth century. An understanding of these dimensions helps guide our steps in the unknown territory of the spirit.
Context
The first dimension of balance concerns the three possible contexts of practice: ourselves, our family and society, and the Ultimate. If we direct our spiritual life only toward ourselves, we risk growing self-absorbed and losing sight of the greater purpose. If our practice centers solely on serving others, we risk losing ourselves, losing the energy and peace of mind we need to serve well. If our practice focuses exclusively on the Divine, we risk losing our footing on this wonderful Earth, losing our ability to relate well. All three together, however, forge a remarkably potent combination. In our spiritual droughts, when we lose contact with one, another will provide a way to reinvigorate the first. Working in all three contexts, we discover a sense of completeness and integrity.
Mode
The second dimension of balance addresses the active, open, and harmonic modes of practice. The great traditions inform us that reality has a threefold nature. The ancient Indian Vedas, for example, instruct us about the three basic elements, the three gunas: rajas, tamas, and sattva. Christianity offers the image of the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The Kabbalistic Tree of Life arranges its ten sephirot in three columns and with triadic connections. All these reflect the fact that threefoldness enters the whole of reality, including our inner work, through will.
The active mode of will displays an affirming, directed, outward flowing, effortful quality. The open mode embraces an allowing, accepting, receiving, inward flowing, non-directed, surrendering quality. This second mode can also manifest as passivity, inertia, laziness, and resistance. The harmonic mode brings a creative freedom, a catalyst enabling the other two modes to cooperate in a quite natural, balanced, unforced way. We see this harmonic mode in sports when an athlete is “in the zone,” in effortlessly perfect action. In the spiritual path, we seek to be open to the higher while active toward the more external, in a harmonious, wise, loving, and productive way of life, with will flowing through us from the higher to the lower.
Balance is essential among these three modes, especially as they characterize our spiritual practices. If we always pursue an active practice, we shall have little peace and stillness, and our activity will be confined to the lower rungs of Jacob’s ladder. If openness constitutes our sole choice in modes of practice, we will not gain the strength required to create a viable vessel for our soul. If we only seek harmony, we will fail because that bird cannot fly without the two wings of active and open practices. Working with all three modes, their interaction enlivens us, inspiring and enabling us to reach new and unexpected depths in our spiritual life.
Vehicle
The third dimension of balance operates among the four vehicles of our body, heart, mind, and spirit or I. Here, vehicle means the mechanism through which will acts in us. Our body has the ability to move, to act, and to maintain itself in the material world. In our heart vehicle we have the full range of emotions, which broker our contact with worlds outside and in. In our mind, we have the ability to think, visualize, plan, imagine, daydream, remember, and understand. Most of us tend toward unbalance in terms of these three vehicles. We might live primarily in our thoughts, or in our feelings, or in our physical abilities and appetites. Balanced spiritual work includes developing our neglected vehicles.
Our spirit typically remains hidden. Thus, our practice aims, in part, at reconnecting our daily life with our true spirit, our own “I am,” which alone has the power to unify our body, heart, and mind.
Style
When we think of spiritual practice, we usually think of a formal style of practice: meditation, ritual or communal prayer, chanting, and the like. Such formal practices, repeated at regular intervals, constitute the foundation of the spiritual path. These practices collect and transform energies, exercise our will, and let us delve deeper than would be possible in more ordinary circumstances.
But a completely different genre of spiritual practices stands equal in importance to the formal style: continuous practice sustained throughout our ordinary day. Instead of getting up from meditation or prayer and leaving our spiritual work behind until the next day, we continue to practice awareness of bodily sensation, presence or prayer as much as possible all day long, even as we go about our normal daily activities. The practice that we continue while engaged in our day may not be as deep or as strong as formal practice, but it does enjoy the distinct advantage of having more time available for it. The cumulative effect of continuous practice can be even greater than that of formal practice. If you sustain and renew your inner work at frequent intervals, by the end of the day you may find yourself in a deeply centered and spiritually refined state. Furthermore, change of being means change of our usual state. The more continuously we practice, the more we raise our usual state, and the closer we come to permanent change of being.
Formal and continuous practice support and complement each other. Meditation and prayer can provide the surplus, high quality energy we need to practice more continuously. Work at presence throughout the day strengthens and purifies our will, consolidates our gains from formal practice, and deepens our meditation and prayer.
But formal and continuous do not exhaust the categories of practice. If we look at the continuum from inner to outer, we see that formal practice belongs primarily to the inner whereas continuous practice falls between inner and outer. In the fully outer realm of external manifestations of spirituality we enter the way of right action in the world, the way of responsibility and kindness, creativity and service. These constitute a third major form of spirituality, of equal standing to formal and continuous practice, supporting and complementing both. Our ability to be kind, responsible, or creative grows as our being and will transform. Formal and continuous practice together lead to that transformation. The potential of our own right action in the world, however, gives us a strong reason to pursue formal and continuous spiritual practice. If we wish to serve well, we need to develop our being and purify our will. The way of right action puts the results of our inner work to good use.
Between the styles of formal, continuous and manifested practice, we seek an appropriate balance, attuned to our own propensities and possibilities. Love and light to all.
To moms, grandmoms and aunts....Cheers to you
Subject: Occupation..mom (author unknown)
A woman named Emily renewing her driver's license at the County Clerk's office was asked by the woman recorder to state her occupation. She hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself.
"What I mean is," explained the recorder, "do you have a job, or are you just a ?
"Of course I have a job," snapped Emily. "I'm a Mom."
"We don't list 'Mom' as an occupation... 'housewife' covers it," said the recorder emphatically.
I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same situation, this time at our own Town Hall. The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient, and possessed of a high sounding title like, "Official Interrogator" or "Town Registrar."
"What is your occupation?" she probed. What made me say it, I do not know. The words simply popped out.
"I'm a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations." The clerk paused, ball-point pen frozen in midair, and looked up as though she had not heard right. I repeated the title slowly,
emphasizing the most significant words. Then I stared with wonder as my pronouncement was written in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire.
"Might I ask," said the clerk with new interest, "just what you do in your field?"
Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply, "I have a continuing program of research, (what mother doesn't), in the laboratory and in the field, (normally I would have said indoors and out). I'm working for my Masters, (the whole darned family), and already have four credits, (all daughters). Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities, (any mother care to disagree?) and I
often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more like it). But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are more of a satisfaction rather than just money." There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk's voice as she completed the form, stood up, and personally ushered me to the door.
As I drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous new career, I was greeted by my lab assistants -- ages 13, 7, and 3. Upstairs I could hear our new experimental model, (a 6 month old baby), in the child-development program, testing out a new vocal pattern. I felt I had scored a beat on bureaucracy! And I had gone on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than "just another Mom." Motherhood.....What a glorious career! Especially when there's a title on the door.
Does this make grandmothers "Senior Research Associates in the field of Child Development and Human Relations" and great-grandmothers "Executive Senior Research Associates"? I think so!!! I also think it
makes Aunts "Associate Research Assistants".
(REPOST - originally posted 3/17/09 -3:41 AM)
A woman named Emily renewing her driver's license at the County Clerk's office was asked by the woman recorder to state her occupation. She hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself.
"What I mean is," explained the recorder, "do you have a job, or are you just a ?
"Of course I have a job," snapped Emily. "I'm a Mom."
"We don't list 'Mom' as an occupation... 'housewife' covers it," said the recorder emphatically.
I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same situation, this time at our own Town Hall. The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient, and possessed of a high sounding title like, "Official Interrogator" or "Town Registrar."
"What is your occupation?" she probed. What made me say it, I do not know. The words simply popped out.
"I'm a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations." The clerk paused, ball-point pen frozen in midair, and looked up as though she had not heard right. I repeated the title slowly,
emphasizing the most significant words. Then I stared with wonder as my pronouncement was written in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire.
"Might I ask," said the clerk with new interest, "just what you do in your field?"
Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply, "I have a continuing program of research, (what mother doesn't), in the laboratory and in the field, (normally I would have said indoors and out). I'm working for my Masters, (the whole darned family), and already have four credits, (all daughters). Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities, (any mother care to disagree?) and I
often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more like it). But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are more of a satisfaction rather than just money." There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk's voice as she completed the form, stood up, and personally ushered me to the door.
As I drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous new career, I was greeted by my lab assistants -- ages 13, 7, and 3. Upstairs I could hear our new experimental model, (a 6 month old baby), in the child-development program, testing out a new vocal pattern. I felt I had scored a beat on bureaucracy! And I had gone on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than "just another Mom." Motherhood.....What a glorious career! Especially when there's a title on the door.
Does this make grandmothers "Senior Research Associates in the field of Child Development and Human Relations" and great-grandmothers "Executive Senior Research Associates"? I think so!!! I also think it
makes Aunts "Associate Research Assistants".
(REPOST - originally posted 3/17/09 -3:41 AM)
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Some suggestions to stay SAFE especially if you travel or go on vacations.
Useful Info about GPS systems.
A couple of weeks ago someone shared with me that someone she knew had their car broken into while they were at a football game. Their car was parked adjacent to the football stadium. Things stolen from the car included a garage door remote control, some money and a GPS which had been prominently mounted on the dashboard. When the victims got home, they found that their house had been ransacked and just about everything worth anything had been stolen.
The thieves had used the GPS to guide them to the house. They then used the garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry to the house. The thieves knew the owners were at the football game, they knew what time the game was scheduled to finish and so they knew how much time they had to clean out the house. It would appear that they had brought a truck to empty the house of its contents.
Something to consider if you have a GPS - don't put your home address in it. Put a nearby address (like a store or gas station) so you can still find your way home if you need to, but no one else would know where you live if your GPS were stolen.
MOBILE PHONE SAFETY
This lady has now changed her habit of how she lists her names on her mobile phone after her handbag was stolen. Her handbag, which contained her cell phone, credit card, wallet.etc...was stolen. Twenty minutes later when she called her hubby, from a pay phone telling him what had happened, hubby says 'I received your text asking about our Pin number and I've replied a little while ago.' When they rushed down to the bank, the bank staff told them all the money was already withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to text 'hubby' in the contact list and got hold of the pin number. Within 20 minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account.
Moral of the lesson:
Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list.
Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Dad, Mom, etc....
And very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked through texts, CONFIRM by calling back.
Also, when you're being text by friends or family to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them. If you don't reach them, be very careful about going places to meet 'family and friends' who text you.
Brightest blessings and stay SAFE. You can not be replaced.
A couple of weeks ago someone shared with me that someone she knew had their car broken into while they were at a football game. Their car was parked adjacent to the football stadium. Things stolen from the car included a garage door remote control, some money and a GPS which had been prominently mounted on the dashboard. When the victims got home, they found that their house had been ransacked and just about everything worth anything had been stolen.
The thieves had used the GPS to guide them to the house. They then used the garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry to the house. The thieves knew the owners were at the football game, they knew what time the game was scheduled to finish and so they knew how much time they had to clean out the house. It would appear that they had brought a truck to empty the house of its contents.
Something to consider if you have a GPS - don't put your home address in it. Put a nearby address (like a store or gas station) so you can still find your way home if you need to, but no one else would know where you live if your GPS were stolen.
MOBILE PHONE SAFETY
This lady has now changed her habit of how she lists her names on her mobile phone after her handbag was stolen. Her handbag, which contained her cell phone, credit card, wallet.etc...was stolen. Twenty minutes later when she called her hubby, from a pay phone telling him what had happened, hubby says 'I received your text asking about our Pin number and I've replied a little while ago.' When they rushed down to the bank, the bank staff told them all the money was already withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to text 'hubby' in the contact list and got hold of the pin number. Within 20 minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account.
Moral of the lesson:
Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list.
Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart, Dad, Mom, etc....
And very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked through texts, CONFIRM by calling back.
Also, when you're being text by friends or family to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from them. If you don't reach them, be very careful about going places to meet 'family and friends' who text you.
Brightest blessings and stay SAFE. You can not be replaced.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
What the health care reform means to you.
by Pat Regnier, assistant managing editor
provided by Money on CNN Money.com
Barack Obama has signed into law the most sweeping social program since L.B.J.'s Great Society initiatives, and now ... um, what happens exactly? After months of debate that has played out across every conceivable form of media, more than half of Americans say they still don't understand how they'll be affected by this nearly $1 trillion blob of insurance regulations, tax credits, and new programs, according to a recent CBS News poll. No wonder. Until now the discussion -- more like the shouting -- has been about things like death panels and the public option, neither of which, by the way, is in the law.
Now come the more practical questions. Where will you get insurance? Will you pay more or less for it? What will reform do to your tax bill? Most important, is the new system likely to leave you with better or worse access to quality care? The answers aren't obvious, because the new law doesn't make a single, big, revolutionary change to achieve its goal of insuring nearly all Americans. It doesn't turn doctors into government employees, as in Britain, or create a government-run universal plan like Canada's (or, for that matter, our Medicare system).
Instead, it weaves a loose safety net designed to catch people who don't get insurance at work and can't afford to buy their own, who lose their jobs, who have pre-existing conditions, or who want to create businesses and insure themselves and their workers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that under the law eventually 94% of legal residents will have health coverage, up from 83% today. For most of us, not a lot will seem to change at first. In 2019, the CBO estimates, 160 million Americans will still be getting their insurance from their employers, paying about the same rates as they would have without reform. Millions more will continue to buy private insurance.
That the changes may not be obvious, however, does not subtract from their magnitude. The reform is, to politely paraphrase Vice President Joe Biden, a really big deal. "It's the first step in the direction of saying that in America, too, the government has this responsibility," says Arnold Relman, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. To ensure access to coverage, the law takes money out of some pockets and puts it into others. If you're affluent, you could pay higher taxes; if you're not, you might get tax credits to help you buy insurance. It also shifts some of the cost of insurance away from the sick and toward the healthy. To understand how reform will affect you, consider the answers to these key questions.
How could reform help me? Some benefits come online right away, including limited relief for many Medicare recipients with high prescription drug bills and an assurance that people with costly illnesses can still get coverage. But the centerpiece of the bill, a transformation of the individual insurance market, won't fully take hold until 2014. The law sets up state-based insurance "exchanges" that will offer consumers and small businesses a choice of standardized and heavily regulated health plans.
For the most part, this marketplace will serve people who aren't offered insurance by a large employer. But even for those who are, it will be an important backup in an economy where jobs seem less secure and firms lean more on freelancers for professional work. The reforms offer three main benefits.
1. Insurers Will Have to Offer You Coverage
Once the law phases in, in 2014, insurers will no longer be able to turn anyone down because of a pre-existing condition; from pregnancy to heart disease, they'll all be covered. That's on top of earlier changes that will restrict or block annual and lifetime limits on what insurers, including in employer plans, will pay.
The law also restricts the practice of "rescission" -- finding a reason to revoke coverage after someone gets sick. Rates won't be tied to your health, although smokers may have to pay up to 50% more. The oldest people in a plan will pay no more than three times the rate paid by the youngest. In short, policies you buy yourself will be a lot more like the group plans you get at work. "For people ages 50 to 64, rates will come down a bit," says James O'Connor, a consulting actuary with Milliman.
The rules most help people who have health problems. An analysis by the Lewin Group, a consultancy owned by insurer UnitedHealth Group, finds that for families who currently spend more than $10,000 a year on health care, the new law will reduce costs by about $2,400. Even if you're well insured and in robust health now, this is a valuable backstop. One of the harshest aspects of our current system, which depends so much on employers for coverage, is that a long, expensive illness can break just about anybody. "In that sense, we're all uninsured," says Lewin's John Sheils.
2. You May Get Subsidies
The insurance on the exchanges won't be free -- a family of four could well face annual premiums of $13,000 or more, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In fact, because plans on the exchanges will provide more benefits than many individual policies do today, coverage may cost 10% to 13% more than the average individual policy now. But a bit over half of those using the exchanges will receive large tax credits to help them buy. Those subsidies reach deep into the middle class: For families earning up to four times the poverty line -- $88,200 today for a couple with two kids -- the tax credits will be set so that they pay no more than 9.5% of their income for a fairly basic health plan in 2014.
That cap is designed to rise gradually should premiums grow faster than incomes. (People with lower incomes will pay even smaller percentages; the law also allows millions of the near poor to join Medicaid.) Credits will also be available to offset out-of-pocket spending. All of these credits will cost about $450 billion over 10 years. The tax credits will be refundable, meaning you'd get them no matter how much you actually pay in taxes, and you won't have to wait until after April 15 to see the benefit. The money will probably be sent to your insurer, which will then lower your monthly bill accordingly, says Jennifer Tolbert, an associate director at the Kaiser Family Foundation. (Check out its subsidy calculator at kff.org.)
3. Health Plans Will be Simpler to Shop for
To get the insurance, you'll tap into an exchange set up by your state or a group of states -- say, a northern New England exchange -- by going online to a website that may look a lot like Travelocity or Expedia, says Alissa Fox of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, an insurers' trade group.
All the plans must provide at least a standard menu of essential benefits, so you'll have to spend less time scouring contracts for surprising loopholes. And they will come in just four basic types: bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. Although plans can compete by mixing different premiums, deductibles, and co-pays, you'll know the average level of out-of-pocket costs you can expect in each type. For example, the silver plans will ask you to pay about 30% of your costs out of pocket; premiums on that plan for a family of four could easily run more than $10,000 a year. (The subsidies are calculated based on the price of the silver plan.) The more expensive platinum plans, which would be most similar to a large employer's coverage, would have out-of-pocket costs of just 10%.
What's the New Law Going to Cost Me?
The new regulations and credits are expected to bring 32 million Americans into the insurance system. The money to do that has to come from somewhere. The needed cash will be raised through a combination of measures: by payroll tax hikes on high-income earners, by forcing healthier people to pay more for insurance in certain circumstances, by squeezing the income of health care providers at times, and, most controversially, by punishing some people who opt out of coverage. Here are the items that could most affect you.
1. You'll be Fined if You Don't Join Up
The fines start in 2014. By 2016 you'll be dunned $695 a year or 2.5% of your income, whichever is higher, if you don't have health insurance. (There's an exemption if premiums top 8% of your income.) Why the heavy hand? Insurers fought for it. Even with subsidies, some people may decide that coverage is too expensive. They'll tend to be healthier than average -- that's why they'd be willing to take the risk. But that poses a problem in a system where insurers have to take all comers. If healthy people drop out, the pool of people paying in will typically be sicker and more expensive to treat. That causes premiums to rise, which causes more healthy people to drop out, which means higher premiums, and so on. To prevent this "death spiral," the law pushes people to buy.
2. You'll Pay More Tax if You Earn Over $250,000
Starting in 2013, couples will pay additional taxes on earnings above $250,000 ($200,000, if you're single) -- 0.9% on earned income and 3.8% on investment income. For a household earning $300,000 in salary, that adds up to about $450 more a year.
3. You Could Get Less Generous Coverage at Work
By 2018, a so-called Cadillac-plan tax slaps employer insurance plans that cost more than $27,500 a year for family coverage. For every dollar above that limit, the insurer has to pay a 40% tax; since the plan would no doubt pass that cost on to enrollees, it's basically a tax on people with very generous health benefits ($27,500 is more than twice the average for employer plans).
Here's the thing: Many people with these pricey plans won't pay the tax. "Employers will work hard to keep their plans under that limit," says Mercer health care consultant Tracy Watts. They'll shift to plans with lower premiums and pay out more of their compensation in cash. What this tax really does is peel back a costly subsidy in the current system, one most economists think is counterproductive anyway. Right now, every dollar your employer spends on your health plan is un-taxed, which means that companies have a big incentive to offer a lot of pay in the form of insurance benefits rather than wages. People with really generous health insurance have less incentive to think about the cost of a pill or procedure, which contributes to the sky-high inflation in health costs.
4. If You are Young and Healthy, Your Premium Could Go Up
Today insurers that sell policies to individuals generally set their price based on risk, the same way an auto insurer does. That can mean unaffordably high prices for people who are sicker, but the flip side is that healthy people pay less. By leveling out the premiums -- as well as mandating benefits that a healthy person might choose to forgo -- the new law could result in higher prices in the individual market for those who rarely go to the doctor.
Young men, for example, could see their premiums rise more than 15% in many states, according to Milliman's O'Connor. For many, this price hike will be offset by subsidies and the ability to join a parent's plan. The law also allows people under 30 to buy a cheaper plan that covers only catastrophic costs. But Lewin's analysis finds that for people who now spend less than $1,000 a year on health care, costs go up about $800. That's a big spike.
5. You Might Have to Find a New Medicare Advantage Plan
About a quarter of Medicare recipients get their benefits through privately run Advantage plans, which are typically managed-care programs that may limit doctor choice but add in other benefits like dental plans or better drug coverage. These for-profit plans cost taxpayers 14% more than regular Medicare, and in 2011 the new law scales back that subsidy. Some Advantage plans will probably leave the market, forcing seniors to switch. However, "the plans that have been around for a long time are going to be fine," says Vicki Gottlich, a senior policy attorney with the Center for Medicare Advocacy.
The new law makes other big cuts in the Medicare system that will save an estimated $400 billion over 10 years. (That's out of $7 trillion in total spending.) For example, it slows the rate of growth in fees to hospitals, on the assumption they can become more productive along with the rest of the economy.
These cuts won't have an impact on your benefits -- in fact, seniors get some new ones (see page 80). But critics of Obamacare think providers will fight hard to stop these cuts. "You've just said, 'Take care of 30 million more Americans -- now go change your business model too,' " says former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was a top adviser to John McCain's campaign.
Where Could it Go Wrong?
Instead of creating a whole new health care system, the law tries to build on the current one. That means it pulls on a lot of different strings -- and should it tug too hard, parts of the system could unravel if a future Congress can't agree on a fix.
1. The Mandates Might Not be Tough Enough
The mandate to buy health insurance is one of the least popular parts of reform. (It's the basis for a claim by 18 state attorneys general that the law is unconstitutional.) But some health policy analysts worry the real problem is that the imperative isn't strong enough. If too many healthy people decide not to buy insurance, premiums will climb even faster than projections. That will make coverage on the exchanges increasingly unaffordable for people who make too much money to qualify for the credits.
How big is the risk? It's hard to say because nothing on this scale has been tried before. An annual open enrollment period for the exchange -- like what you have at work -- will make it harder to game the system by waiting until you are sick to buy coverage. But Cori Uccello of the American Academy of Actuaries hopes regulators will toughen the rules further. Example: They could prevent people from upgrading from, say, a bronze to a gold plan during the year.
Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist who helped design the similar Massachusetts plan and has consulted for the Obama administration, is optimistic that the existing nudge will be enough. The young people who would be most tempted to opt out often have low health care costs. Add in the fine, and they just wouldn't be saving much by taking the risk of being uninsured, he says.
2. Employers Could Bail Too Quickly
Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute points to a basic economic tension in the plan: The government wants to help most families keep their health costs to around 10% of income, but Congress decided it couldn't afford to directly subsidize everyone enough to accomplish that. So the plan counts on most employers to continue to offer coverage. That's why all but the smallest companies will usually be fined if they do not provide a health plan for their employees. But the penalty that companies will pay for failing to offer coverage is lower than the cost of the insurance.
President Obama said many times in campaigning for reform that if you like your coverage, you can keep it. That's basically true, but only if your employer doesn't decide to get out of the insurance game altogether. And some surely will.
For many lower- and middle-income workers, the subsidies on the exchanges are worth thousands of dollars. That will make it easy for firms with low-paid workforces to drop coverage and still attract good staff -- in many cases the workers will actually have better coverage via the exchanges.
The CBO estimates that about 9 million will lose their workplace plan, offset by another 7 million who gain it because the mandate motivates more people to get jobs with health benefits. So the actual change will most likely be modest. But those numbers are just estimates. "A Wal-Mart or two could shift it," says Steuerle. If employers move away from insurance too fast, the transition could be bumpy for a lot of people. And Obamacare's subsidies may cost more.
What if No One Can Tell that It's Working?
Finally, the new law faces major political problems.
Social Security and Medicare became hugely popular -- indeed, almost untouchable -- once Americans started seeing the benefits. But this law will directly subsidize only a fraction of the population. Health care premiums and out-of-pocket costs are growing fast, and this bill would, at best, merely slow that growth.
"In 2012 premiums will be higher than they are today -- no question," says Gruber. The pain for many people might be less than it would have been without the law, he says, but it will still be pain, and that will make it easy to criticize the law as the cause of the problem. ("Could be worse" is a lousy comeback.)
The Republicans will have a tough time gaining enough seats to repeal reform. But a law that Congress is still arguing about will be tougher to fix. Even reform's supporters admit a lot will need to be done.
What Does Reform Fail to Fix?
In the four years until the exchanges launch, the feds, 50 states, and a whole bunch of private insurance companies will have to do a lot of heavy administrative lifting. "The technical challenges are formidable," says economist Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution. For example, the IRS and the state exchanges will have to figure out how to keep track of income data to pay the tax credits. It's one thing to work out the details in blue states, where the plan is popular, but what about in a state whose attorney general campaigned with "Don't Tread on Me" flags?
There's an even bigger challenge ahead that the new law only begins to tackle: figuring out how to get a grip on exploding health care costs. This law can't work in the long run otherwise. "When you expand coverage in a meaningful way, cost control inevitably ends up on the agenda," says Jonathan Oberlander, who teaches health policy at the University of North Carolina. Rising private insurance premiums, for example, could steadily erode the impact of the subsidies, forcing Congress to spend more. But it's not just the law that's at stake. It's the American economy.
Since reform passed, there's been much debate over whether it will really reduce the deficit over time, as the CBO says it will. But here's the big-picture fact you can't lose sight of: Before this law and after it, medical costs have America headed toward a fiscal catastrophe.
In 2050 the deficit is projected to be about 9% of GDP. In that time, Medicare and Medicaid spending together go from 5% of the economy today to more than 12%. "It's more than all of the problem," says Aaron of Brookings. And that growth is only partly owing to demographic changes like the aging of the baby boomers; it's largely because of the huge increase in per-person spending on doctors, hospitals, and pills. Put simply, if you're worried about the deficit, you have to worry about how to cut the growth of health spending.
There are three basic schools of thought about how to do that. The first is to have Americans pay for less of their care via insurance and more out of their own pocket, so that they'll be more sensitive to prices. That's the idea behind the Cadillac tax, although Gail Wilensky, a former top Medicare official, says the current version is far too limited. "It's dubbed a Maserati tax," she says.
Pushing Americans into less generous insurance is the preferred Republican approach. Rep. Paul Ryan, the GOP's big brain on health care policy, has proposed that future Medicare benefits for people now under 55 be turned into an $11,000 voucher to buy private insurance. Since the value of your benefit would have a hard cap, you'd be acutely aware of medical pricing.
Another school looks at doctors, hospitals, and drugmakers as the big drivers of cost. Evidence from researchers at Dartmouth, for example, shows that in some areas of the country, doctors provide vastly more treatment for the same illness without getting better results. The new law sets up a number of smart programs to evaluate how care is provided and try to change the economic incentives in the current system, which pays doctors for each procedure, not for providing the best care.
But this approach could mean more of something patients and doctors say they hate: managed care. Or something even bigger. Former New England Journal of Medicine editor Relman thinks the only way for this to work is to have more doctors working on salary for large, nonprofit medical groups -- hard to do in a system in which payment is still fragmented among many private insurers.
The third approach is to look less at how much care people get and more at how much providers charge. Tackling that could mean government price regulations or creating a big public insurance plan with bargaining power -- yes, a lot like the hotly debated public option.
Over time, we'll probably do some combination of all of the above, and we'll fight like crazy along the way. After months of watching Tea Parties, town hall debates, filibuster threats, and reconciliation drama, you're probably sick of hearing about health care. This bill doesn't come close to curing all that ails our system. Treatment is just getting started. Michelle Andrews and Amanda Gengler contributed to this article.
Aricles link: http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/109375/the-truth-about-health-care-reform?mod=family-home
provided by Money on CNN Money.com
Barack Obama has signed into law the most sweeping social program since L.B.J.'s Great Society initiatives, and now ... um, what happens exactly? After months of debate that has played out across every conceivable form of media, more than half of Americans say they still don't understand how they'll be affected by this nearly $1 trillion blob of insurance regulations, tax credits, and new programs, according to a recent CBS News poll. No wonder. Until now the discussion -- more like the shouting -- has been about things like death panels and the public option, neither of which, by the way, is in the law.
Now come the more practical questions. Where will you get insurance? Will you pay more or less for it? What will reform do to your tax bill? Most important, is the new system likely to leave you with better or worse access to quality care? The answers aren't obvious, because the new law doesn't make a single, big, revolutionary change to achieve its goal of insuring nearly all Americans. It doesn't turn doctors into government employees, as in Britain, or create a government-run universal plan like Canada's (or, for that matter, our Medicare system).
Instead, it weaves a loose safety net designed to catch people who don't get insurance at work and can't afford to buy their own, who lose their jobs, who have pre-existing conditions, or who want to create businesses and insure themselves and their workers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that under the law eventually 94% of legal residents will have health coverage, up from 83% today. For most of us, not a lot will seem to change at first. In 2019, the CBO estimates, 160 million Americans will still be getting their insurance from their employers, paying about the same rates as they would have without reform. Millions more will continue to buy private insurance.
That the changes may not be obvious, however, does not subtract from their magnitude. The reform is, to politely paraphrase Vice President Joe Biden, a really big deal. "It's the first step in the direction of saying that in America, too, the government has this responsibility," says Arnold Relman, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. To ensure access to coverage, the law takes money out of some pockets and puts it into others. If you're affluent, you could pay higher taxes; if you're not, you might get tax credits to help you buy insurance. It also shifts some of the cost of insurance away from the sick and toward the healthy. To understand how reform will affect you, consider the answers to these key questions.
How could reform help me? Some benefits come online right away, including limited relief for many Medicare recipients with high prescription drug bills and an assurance that people with costly illnesses can still get coverage. But the centerpiece of the bill, a transformation of the individual insurance market, won't fully take hold until 2014. The law sets up state-based insurance "exchanges" that will offer consumers and small businesses a choice of standardized and heavily regulated health plans.
For the most part, this marketplace will serve people who aren't offered insurance by a large employer. But even for those who are, it will be an important backup in an economy where jobs seem less secure and firms lean more on freelancers for professional work. The reforms offer three main benefits.
1. Insurers Will Have to Offer You Coverage
Once the law phases in, in 2014, insurers will no longer be able to turn anyone down because of a pre-existing condition; from pregnancy to heart disease, they'll all be covered. That's on top of earlier changes that will restrict or block annual and lifetime limits on what insurers, including in employer plans, will pay.
The law also restricts the practice of "rescission" -- finding a reason to revoke coverage after someone gets sick. Rates won't be tied to your health, although smokers may have to pay up to 50% more. The oldest people in a plan will pay no more than three times the rate paid by the youngest. In short, policies you buy yourself will be a lot more like the group plans you get at work. "For people ages 50 to 64, rates will come down a bit," says James O'Connor, a consulting actuary with Milliman.
The rules most help people who have health problems. An analysis by the Lewin Group, a consultancy owned by insurer UnitedHealth Group, finds that for families who currently spend more than $10,000 a year on health care, the new law will reduce costs by about $2,400. Even if you're well insured and in robust health now, this is a valuable backstop. One of the harshest aspects of our current system, which depends so much on employers for coverage, is that a long, expensive illness can break just about anybody. "In that sense, we're all uninsured," says Lewin's John Sheils.
2. You May Get Subsidies
The insurance on the exchanges won't be free -- a family of four could well face annual premiums of $13,000 or more, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In fact, because plans on the exchanges will provide more benefits than many individual policies do today, coverage may cost 10% to 13% more than the average individual policy now. But a bit over half of those using the exchanges will receive large tax credits to help them buy. Those subsidies reach deep into the middle class: For families earning up to four times the poverty line -- $88,200 today for a couple with two kids -- the tax credits will be set so that they pay no more than 9.5% of their income for a fairly basic health plan in 2014.
That cap is designed to rise gradually should premiums grow faster than incomes. (People with lower incomes will pay even smaller percentages; the law also allows millions of the near poor to join Medicaid.) Credits will also be available to offset out-of-pocket spending. All of these credits will cost about $450 billion over 10 years. The tax credits will be refundable, meaning you'd get them no matter how much you actually pay in taxes, and you won't have to wait until after April 15 to see the benefit. The money will probably be sent to your insurer, which will then lower your monthly bill accordingly, says Jennifer Tolbert, an associate director at the Kaiser Family Foundation. (Check out its subsidy calculator at kff.org.)
3. Health Plans Will be Simpler to Shop for
To get the insurance, you'll tap into an exchange set up by your state or a group of states -- say, a northern New England exchange -- by going online to a website that may look a lot like Travelocity or Expedia, says Alissa Fox of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, an insurers' trade group.
All the plans must provide at least a standard menu of essential benefits, so you'll have to spend less time scouring contracts for surprising loopholes. And they will come in just four basic types: bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. Although plans can compete by mixing different premiums, deductibles, and co-pays, you'll know the average level of out-of-pocket costs you can expect in each type. For example, the silver plans will ask you to pay about 30% of your costs out of pocket; premiums on that plan for a family of four could easily run more than $10,000 a year. (The subsidies are calculated based on the price of the silver plan.) The more expensive platinum plans, which would be most similar to a large employer's coverage, would have out-of-pocket costs of just 10%.
What's the New Law Going to Cost Me?
The new regulations and credits are expected to bring 32 million Americans into the insurance system. The money to do that has to come from somewhere. The needed cash will be raised through a combination of measures: by payroll tax hikes on high-income earners, by forcing healthier people to pay more for insurance in certain circumstances, by squeezing the income of health care providers at times, and, most controversially, by punishing some people who opt out of coverage. Here are the items that could most affect you.
1. You'll be Fined if You Don't Join Up
The fines start in 2014. By 2016 you'll be dunned $695 a year or 2.5% of your income, whichever is higher, if you don't have health insurance. (There's an exemption if premiums top 8% of your income.) Why the heavy hand? Insurers fought for it. Even with subsidies, some people may decide that coverage is too expensive. They'll tend to be healthier than average -- that's why they'd be willing to take the risk. But that poses a problem in a system where insurers have to take all comers. If healthy people drop out, the pool of people paying in will typically be sicker and more expensive to treat. That causes premiums to rise, which causes more healthy people to drop out, which means higher premiums, and so on. To prevent this "death spiral," the law pushes people to buy.
2. You'll Pay More Tax if You Earn Over $250,000
Starting in 2013, couples will pay additional taxes on earnings above $250,000 ($200,000, if you're single) -- 0.9% on earned income and 3.8% on investment income. For a household earning $300,000 in salary, that adds up to about $450 more a year.
3. You Could Get Less Generous Coverage at Work
By 2018, a so-called Cadillac-plan tax slaps employer insurance plans that cost more than $27,500 a year for family coverage. For every dollar above that limit, the insurer has to pay a 40% tax; since the plan would no doubt pass that cost on to enrollees, it's basically a tax on people with very generous health benefits ($27,500 is more than twice the average for employer plans).
Here's the thing: Many people with these pricey plans won't pay the tax. "Employers will work hard to keep their plans under that limit," says Mercer health care consultant Tracy Watts. They'll shift to plans with lower premiums and pay out more of their compensation in cash. What this tax really does is peel back a costly subsidy in the current system, one most economists think is counterproductive anyway. Right now, every dollar your employer spends on your health plan is un-taxed, which means that companies have a big incentive to offer a lot of pay in the form of insurance benefits rather than wages. People with really generous health insurance have less incentive to think about the cost of a pill or procedure, which contributes to the sky-high inflation in health costs.
4. If You are Young and Healthy, Your Premium Could Go Up
Today insurers that sell policies to individuals generally set their price based on risk, the same way an auto insurer does. That can mean unaffordably high prices for people who are sicker, but the flip side is that healthy people pay less. By leveling out the premiums -- as well as mandating benefits that a healthy person might choose to forgo -- the new law could result in higher prices in the individual market for those who rarely go to the doctor.
Young men, for example, could see their premiums rise more than 15% in many states, according to Milliman's O'Connor. For many, this price hike will be offset by subsidies and the ability to join a parent's plan. The law also allows people under 30 to buy a cheaper plan that covers only catastrophic costs. But Lewin's analysis finds that for people who now spend less than $1,000 a year on health care, costs go up about $800. That's a big spike.
5. You Might Have to Find a New Medicare Advantage Plan
About a quarter of Medicare recipients get their benefits through privately run Advantage plans, which are typically managed-care programs that may limit doctor choice but add in other benefits like dental plans or better drug coverage. These for-profit plans cost taxpayers 14% more than regular Medicare, and in 2011 the new law scales back that subsidy. Some Advantage plans will probably leave the market, forcing seniors to switch. However, "the plans that have been around for a long time are going to be fine," says Vicki Gottlich, a senior policy attorney with the Center for Medicare Advocacy.
The new law makes other big cuts in the Medicare system that will save an estimated $400 billion over 10 years. (That's out of $7 trillion in total spending.) For example, it slows the rate of growth in fees to hospitals, on the assumption they can become more productive along with the rest of the economy.
These cuts won't have an impact on your benefits -- in fact, seniors get some new ones (see page 80). But critics of Obamacare think providers will fight hard to stop these cuts. "You've just said, 'Take care of 30 million more Americans -- now go change your business model too,' " says former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was a top adviser to John McCain's campaign.
Where Could it Go Wrong?
Instead of creating a whole new health care system, the law tries to build on the current one. That means it pulls on a lot of different strings -- and should it tug too hard, parts of the system could unravel if a future Congress can't agree on a fix.
1. The Mandates Might Not be Tough Enough
The mandate to buy health insurance is one of the least popular parts of reform. (It's the basis for a claim by 18 state attorneys general that the law is unconstitutional.) But some health policy analysts worry the real problem is that the imperative isn't strong enough. If too many healthy people decide not to buy insurance, premiums will climb even faster than projections. That will make coverage on the exchanges increasingly unaffordable for people who make too much money to qualify for the credits.
How big is the risk? It's hard to say because nothing on this scale has been tried before. An annual open enrollment period for the exchange -- like what you have at work -- will make it harder to game the system by waiting until you are sick to buy coverage. But Cori Uccello of the American Academy of Actuaries hopes regulators will toughen the rules further. Example: They could prevent people from upgrading from, say, a bronze to a gold plan during the year.
Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economist who helped design the similar Massachusetts plan and has consulted for the Obama administration, is optimistic that the existing nudge will be enough. The young people who would be most tempted to opt out often have low health care costs. Add in the fine, and they just wouldn't be saving much by taking the risk of being uninsured, he says.
2. Employers Could Bail Too Quickly
Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute points to a basic economic tension in the plan: The government wants to help most families keep their health costs to around 10% of income, but Congress decided it couldn't afford to directly subsidize everyone enough to accomplish that. So the plan counts on most employers to continue to offer coverage. That's why all but the smallest companies will usually be fined if they do not provide a health plan for their employees. But the penalty that companies will pay for failing to offer coverage is lower than the cost of the insurance.
President Obama said many times in campaigning for reform that if you like your coverage, you can keep it. That's basically true, but only if your employer doesn't decide to get out of the insurance game altogether. And some surely will.
For many lower- and middle-income workers, the subsidies on the exchanges are worth thousands of dollars. That will make it easy for firms with low-paid workforces to drop coverage and still attract good staff -- in many cases the workers will actually have better coverage via the exchanges.
The CBO estimates that about 9 million will lose their workplace plan, offset by another 7 million who gain it because the mandate motivates more people to get jobs with health benefits. So the actual change will most likely be modest. But those numbers are just estimates. "A Wal-Mart or two could shift it," says Steuerle. If employers move away from insurance too fast, the transition could be bumpy for a lot of people. And Obamacare's subsidies may cost more.
What if No One Can Tell that It's Working?
Finally, the new law faces major political problems.
Social Security and Medicare became hugely popular -- indeed, almost untouchable -- once Americans started seeing the benefits. But this law will directly subsidize only a fraction of the population. Health care premiums and out-of-pocket costs are growing fast, and this bill would, at best, merely slow that growth.
"In 2012 premiums will be higher than they are today -- no question," says Gruber. The pain for many people might be less than it would have been without the law, he says, but it will still be pain, and that will make it easy to criticize the law as the cause of the problem. ("Could be worse" is a lousy comeback.)
The Republicans will have a tough time gaining enough seats to repeal reform. But a law that Congress is still arguing about will be tougher to fix. Even reform's supporters admit a lot will need to be done.
What Does Reform Fail to Fix?
In the four years until the exchanges launch, the feds, 50 states, and a whole bunch of private insurance companies will have to do a lot of heavy administrative lifting. "The technical challenges are formidable," says economist Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution. For example, the IRS and the state exchanges will have to figure out how to keep track of income data to pay the tax credits. It's one thing to work out the details in blue states, where the plan is popular, but what about in a state whose attorney general campaigned with "Don't Tread on Me" flags?
There's an even bigger challenge ahead that the new law only begins to tackle: figuring out how to get a grip on exploding health care costs. This law can't work in the long run otherwise. "When you expand coverage in a meaningful way, cost control inevitably ends up on the agenda," says Jonathan Oberlander, who teaches health policy at the University of North Carolina. Rising private insurance premiums, for example, could steadily erode the impact of the subsidies, forcing Congress to spend more. But it's not just the law that's at stake. It's the American economy.
Since reform passed, there's been much debate over whether it will really reduce the deficit over time, as the CBO says it will. But here's the big-picture fact you can't lose sight of: Before this law and after it, medical costs have America headed toward a fiscal catastrophe.
In 2050 the deficit is projected to be about 9% of GDP. In that time, Medicare and Medicaid spending together go from 5% of the economy today to more than 12%. "It's more than all of the problem," says Aaron of Brookings. And that growth is only partly owing to demographic changes like the aging of the baby boomers; it's largely because of the huge increase in per-person spending on doctors, hospitals, and pills. Put simply, if you're worried about the deficit, you have to worry about how to cut the growth of health spending.
There are three basic schools of thought about how to do that. The first is to have Americans pay for less of their care via insurance and more out of their own pocket, so that they'll be more sensitive to prices. That's the idea behind the Cadillac tax, although Gail Wilensky, a former top Medicare official, says the current version is far too limited. "It's dubbed a Maserati tax," she says.
Pushing Americans into less generous insurance is the preferred Republican approach. Rep. Paul Ryan, the GOP's big brain on health care policy, has proposed that future Medicare benefits for people now under 55 be turned into an $11,000 voucher to buy private insurance. Since the value of your benefit would have a hard cap, you'd be acutely aware of medical pricing.
Another school looks at doctors, hospitals, and drugmakers as the big drivers of cost. Evidence from researchers at Dartmouth, for example, shows that in some areas of the country, doctors provide vastly more treatment for the same illness without getting better results. The new law sets up a number of smart programs to evaluate how care is provided and try to change the economic incentives in the current system, which pays doctors for each procedure, not for providing the best care.
But this approach could mean more of something patients and doctors say they hate: managed care. Or something even bigger. Former New England Journal of Medicine editor Relman thinks the only way for this to work is to have more doctors working on salary for large, nonprofit medical groups -- hard to do in a system in which payment is still fragmented among many private insurers.
The third approach is to look less at how much care people get and more at how much providers charge. Tackling that could mean government price regulations or creating a big public insurance plan with bargaining power -- yes, a lot like the hotly debated public option.
Over time, we'll probably do some combination of all of the above, and we'll fight like crazy along the way. After months of watching Tea Parties, town hall debates, filibuster threats, and reconciliation drama, you're probably sick of hearing about health care. This bill doesn't come close to curing all that ails our system. Treatment is just getting started. Michelle Andrews and Amanda Gengler contributed to this article.
Aricles link: http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/109375/the-truth-about-health-care-reform?mod=family-home
Monday, May 3, 2010
Beware! The rise of RANSOMWARE.
For all of us who have a computer or can access the web, this is worth taking a look at. Keep yourself protected.
"Ransomware" attacks are the latest in cyber scams on the Web. Culprits use such tactics as installing embarrassing pornography on your screen that you can't remove or taking your data hostage until you wire over money. Here are steps to protect yourself from this new type of cyber extortion.
This article is written and posted from Cybercrime news - a division of Norton. Click below to read the article: http://cybercrimenews.norton.com/nortonpc/articles/rise_in_ransomware/index.html
"Ransomware" attacks are the latest in cyber scams on the Web. Culprits use such tactics as installing embarrassing pornography on your screen that you can't remove or taking your data hostage until you wire over money. Here are steps to protect yourself from this new type of cyber extortion.
This article is written and posted from Cybercrime news - a division of Norton. Click below to read the article: http://cybercrimenews.norton.com/nortonpc/articles/rise_in_ransomware/index.html
Cybercrime News: phishing
I'm always on the lookout to help protect people. Here is another article worth peeking at in order to keep you safe while on the net.
How often have you been tempted to click on a link in an email until you realized that it sounded like a scam? "Phishing" is a way cybercriminals try to trick you into revealing private data or account passwords through deceptive emails and websites. Here's how to avoid these scams.
Click below to read the article in it's entirety:
http://cybercrimenews.norton.com/nortonpc/articles/phishing_avoid_getting_hooked/index.html
How often have you been tempted to click on a link in an email until you realized that it sounded like a scam? "Phishing" is a way cybercriminals try to trick you into revealing private data or account passwords through deceptive emails and websites. Here's how to avoid these scams.
Click below to read the article in it's entirety:
http://cybercrimenews.norton.com/nortonpc/articles/phishing_avoid_getting_hooked/index.html
Are hackers using your webcam to watch you?
This article was published on - Your Security Resource by cybercrimenews.norton.com I highly recommend you take a look at this article. Read it for your own piece of mind and for your childrens.
Webcams are a great way to keep in touch with friends and family, whether they live in another country or just down the street. But hackers could be using that connection to watch what you do. Here’s what to know -- and how to stay safe.
Click on the link below to view the whole article: http://cybercrimenews.norton.com/nortonpc/articles/webcam_hacking/index.html
Webcams are a great way to keep in touch with friends and family, whether they live in another country or just down the street. But hackers could be using that connection to watch what you do. Here’s what to know -- and how to stay safe.
Click on the link below to view the whole article: http://cybercrimenews.norton.com/nortonpc/articles/webcam_hacking/index.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
