Amazing what people at work will say about the ACA...

    From EastCoastProgressive1963 @ DailyKos

  I work in high tech for a prosperous New England instrumentation company. I am programmer. A late night working, pizza eating, cola swilling, occasional shaver who comes into the office one or twice a week (the rest of the time I'm telecommuting at home to my outsource colleagues in India and China).

I work on the ground floor - the actual and symbolic ground floor suitably removed from the decision makers on the second floor who power dress and fuel the company gossip.

Yesterday I made a rare trip to the second floor to hear a presentation on the new company health benefit for 2014. And I was exposed to the second-floor culture.

More below the orangy-squiggly thingy...

The presenter was a company employee and self confessed "non-expert" on the benefits package, and in her opening slide was entitled "Many Changes are Coming in 2014". As if we didn't know. She then said that health reform was having an impact on our benefits package. This, to the best of my recollection was how the conversation went next:

PA to the company VP: "what you mean Obamacare?"

Presenter: "well that is part of it not the whole story"

PA: "Is Obamacare part of the package 'cos we don't want that. That's a disaster, right".

Presenter: "No, we aren't going to Obamacare"

PA: "Well that's good 'cos it is such a mess and I don't want to be part of it".

I was going to say something, but got an attack of shyness and kept quiet. The presentation went on to make one thing very clear: that the company was passing more of the cost to us this year in the form of higher deductibles (up 50%), and higher premiums (up 6%). No surprises there, except for lower-than-expected premium hike.

Finally it got to the Q&A, and I held up last years plan and this years plan. And then I said:

Me: "Am I right in thinking there are some key differences in plan this year?"

Presenter: "In what way?"

Me: "Well I notice the lifetime caps have gone for one thing. And that I can bring my children on the plan when they are in college. And it's true that we've never had to worry about preconditions in this plan, but even those aren't allowed any more. Also, the max out of pocket has come down, so we aren't exposed to as much risk"

I then turned to the Obamacare-hating PA and said: "and all that is because of the Affordable Care Act. They can't do that to us any more".

The look on her face was priceless...

Technorati Tags: Affordable Care Act,Education,Health Care,Obamacare,Current Events,An American Gothic

Democrats to Target Tax 'Loopholes'—But Not for Fossil Fuel Industry

  By Andrea Germanos, staff writer

Monday, November 11, 2013 by Common Dreams

A document obtained by several news agencies last week shows Democrats preparing to target tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations as part of congressional negotiations to meet a Dec. 13 deadline for a budget deal.

The Hill reported that the list

contains 12 examples of the types of “tax loopholes” that [Democrats] would like to see closed in a year-end budget deal. Most have been proposed many times before.

Combined, the items on the list would raise $264 billion in revenue over 10 years, more than enough to switch off two years' worth of the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration.

Bloomberg reported that

In addition to closing what Democrats call the “John Edwards/Newt Gingrich loophole,” the party’s list of options includes carried-interest treatment that allows hedge fund managers and private equity advisers to pay a 20 percent tax rate on their income instead of the nation’s top income rate of 39.6 percent. Ending that break would save more than $17 billion over a decade, according to the Democrats’ estimates.

Another lets U.S. companies deduct their expenses when they send their plants overseas, which Democrats say encourages offshoring of American jobs. It would raise $200 million. Ending preferences for corporate jets and subsidies for yachts and vacation homes, combined, would bring in another $19 billion.

"The list makes clear that Democrats believe they can win public support by targeting tax breaks that they can portray as subsidies for the rich," according to Reuters.

Republicans have been demanding cuts in Social Security and Medicare in exchange for changes to sequestration spending cuts, and that has failed to be met by a widespread Democratic pushback.

Progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have called for an "End [to] tax breaks and subsidies for oil, gas and coal companies to reduce the deficit by more than $113 billion over the next 10 years"—a call echoed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus's "Back to Work Budget," which calls for an elimination of corporate tax subsidies for oil, gas, and coal companies.

But preserving tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry appears to have widspread bipartisan consensus.

The fact that fossil fuel companies are not on the list of targets may be a result of Democrats' "embrace" of fossil fuels, the Financial Times reported.

James Politi reported at the Financial Times that the omission may "point to an increasing willingness among Democrats to embrace America’s domestic energy boom as a source of economic strength."

The FT also quotes the American Petroleum Institute as saying there is "growing bipartisan opposition" to taxes that target oil and gas industries.

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Technorati Tags: Democrats,Tax Loopholes,Oil Subsidies,Republicans,Social Security,Tax Cuts,Politics,Current Events,An American Gothic,Common Dreams