HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014

Let us all Welcome 2014

With a Bright Smile and Happiness

Share Good deeds to everyone

Happy New Year to all of you!

US Government Extends insurance Enrollment deadline by 24 hours

The deadline for registration for health insurance coverage on healthcare.gov has been extended by the Obama Government by 1 day. The deadline used be 11:59 p.m. last Monday.

Times said that on Monday there's a huge traffic on Healthcare.gov and the Whitehouse wants to be sure that people who wants coverage can have one.

Monday, December 23 had been the deadline for selecting a plan, it will take effect on the 1st day of the new year 2014.

Penalty: Under the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, you will have to pay $95 penalty or 1% of income in 2014 if you don't have health insurance coverage. It is set to rise to $695 or 2% of income by 2016.

To avoid the penalty, you will need to enroll in a plan by February 15 or qualify for an exemption from the penalty.

Merry Christmas To All!

Christmas season is the time for Peace and love
I wish you a peaceful Christmas
Filled with love and joy
Merry Christmas To you

"Honda" Front Ranks the Insurance Industry 2014 Safety List

Honda Motor Company got the first place on the yearly insurance industry ranking of the safest new vehicles. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) released the ranking on Thursday December 19, 2013, they award 39 vehicles top safety ratings for 2014. It went down by 70%, last year they have 130 vehicles on the list.

This year the vehicles needed to top the crash test scores and to have a high level front crash prevention system like automatic braking for it to be able to receive the highest classification. It's rank either "Top Safety Pick" or "op Safety Pick +".

Of the 39 vehicles, 22 go the top classification while the 12 receive the classification just below it. 

Honda Motor Co got 8 vehicles on the list making them the automaker with the most vehicle on the list. 6 of their vehicles go the "Top Safety Pick +":

1. Honda Accord 2-door
2. Honda Accord 4-door
3. Honda Civic 4-door *hybrid version
4. Acura RL
5. Acura MDX
6. Honda Odyssey
7. Honda Civic 2-door
8. Acura TL

This is the list used by car shoppers who buy vehicles with high safety ratings. It is also use for advertising by the automakers.

The institute indicate that the "Top Safety Pick +" are those with optional front crash prevention systems, if they didn't get that rank they still met the Top Safety Pick criteria.

Here is the Full List:

2014 2014 IIHS TOP SAFETY PICK+

1. Honda Civic 4-door *hybrid version
2. Mazda 3 - built after October 2013
3. Toyota Prius - built after November 2013
4. Ford Fusion
5. Honda Accord 2-door
6. Honda Accord 4-door
7. Mazda 6
8. Subaru Legacy
9. Subaru Outback
10. Infiniti Q50
11. Lincoln MKZ
12. Volvo S60
13. Acura RL
14. Volvo S80
15. Mazda CX-5 - built after October 2013
16. Mitsubishi Outlander
17. Subaru Forester
18. Toyota Highlander
19. Acura MDX
20. Mercedes-Benz M-Class - built after August 2013
21. Volvo XC60
22. Honda Odyssey

2014 IIHS TOP SAFETY PICK

1. Chevrolet Spark
2. Dodge Dart
3. Ford Focus
4. Honda Civic 2-door
5. Hyundai Elantra
6. Scion tC
7. Subaru Impreza
8. Subaru XV Crosstrek
9. Chrysler 200 4-door
10. Dodge Avenger
11. Kia Optima
12. Nissan Altima
13. Toyota Camry - built after November 2013
14. Volkswagen Passat
15. Acura TL
16. Mitsubushi Outlander Sport
17. Volvo XC90

*Front crash prevention isn't available on nonhybrid versions of the Civic.

Obamacare Enrollment Stats

Obamacare enrollment statistics released last Wednesday showed that 364,682 people in the US have already signed up for private coverage as of November 30, 2013. It is still less than 1/3 of the 1.2 million people officials had originally projected would enroll nationwide by the end of November.

The Obama government also projected that 7 million consumers would sign up for coverage during the first year. The government and insurers targeting desperately healthy, young adults to convince them to enroll to pay for the costs of paying for older, sicker consumers. Obamacare is designed to get money from people who value their health. 

Critics says that "The president's health care law (Obamacare) has driven up costs, reduced choices and resulted in the cancellation of over 5 million health care plans that the president promised the American people they could keep," Rep. Congressman Jim Renacci said. "Though we know that problems with the president's health care law run far deeper than a broken website, it also is our responsibility to ensure that we reduce the negative effects of the law. It is time for the administration to update Congress and the American people on its efforts to correct serious back-end issues within its government-run health care system that could potentially be disastrous for insurers and Americans everywhere."

Small Businesses cancelling Health Insurance plans for Employees

The US government promised that HealthCare.gov will be ready and run without glitch by the end of this week. However, CBS News reports that employees form small businesses are losing their insurance coverage. 

The government estimated that millions of workers would be dropped from their work insurance under the Affordable Care Act, it's already happening now.

Nancy Clark owns a small business in New Hampshire, she was featured last year in a White House video blog, said that things are not right for her plan. She said that her insurer will increase her rates by 39: starting next year. Insurance that will cost her an additional $30,000.

Because of this she decided to terminate the insurance she's offered her 8 employees and turn to Obamacare, but there's been one problem after another.

“We’re experiencing technical difficulties. That's the nature of the beast,” said Clark.

Betsy Atkinson owns a business in Virginia Beach is also cancelling company insurance because her plan doesn't meet new Obamacare requirements and she can't afford to offer employees one that does.

“They’re going to have to go find their own insurance,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Chao: Health Insurance Marketplace is Still Incomplete

Henry Chao the deputy chief information officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that the federal health insurance marketplace is not yet complete. He said that they are still building the “back office systems." 

“we still have to build the financial management aspects of the system, which includes our accounting system and payment system and reconciliation system,” he said. "This part is still being developed and will be tested."

He admitted Tuesday that up to 40 percent of IT systems supporting the exchange still need to be built.

The Obama government completed the online system which allowed consumers to apply for insurance, compare health plans and enroll however, many parts of the system were still being repaired and were not performing as well as they had hoped.

“It’s not that it’s not working,” Chao told lawmakers at an Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations subcommittee hearing. “It’s still being developed and tested.”

Financial management tools are not yet done, he said, particularly the process that will deliver payments to insurers.

Goodbye Trans Fat?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said last Thursday it will phase out trans fats that
would eliminate artery-clogging from our diet. This will give manufacturers and restaurant some problems and may cause prices to shoot up but will be beneficial to our health.

Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, commissioner of FDA said that this move will prevent 20,000 heart attacks and 7,000 deaths each year. But critics say that this is just a political move since the real threat to our health is not trans fat but the increased use of pesticides on our food and genetically engineered foods. Trans fats are identified and labeled on our food but in the case for genetically engineered foods and pesticide laden food no information are given to consumers.

Chris Shanahan of Frost & Sullivan market research firm said that if FDA bans trans fat "in the long term, prices of certain foods will increase and different foods will be discontinued."


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Will You Buy Twitter IPO shares?

New York Stock Exchange welcomes Twitter on Thursday November 7, 2013. They will have the symbol TWTR and their share is priced at $26 each to raise around $2.1 billion.

Twitter is part of our everyday life for most of us and it has a lot of media attention which is why there is a great demand for its shares. However, be very cautious remember Facebook? a lot of people were burned by it. The best thing to do is wait. There's no guarantee the stock will trade higher, and if you would look at several recent social media IPOs, the stocks actually dropped like facebook.

Happy Halloween 2013

 

Happy Halloween to all you guys! Stay Safe and Party Hard!

Infographics on Why Others Can't Keep Their Old Insurance Plans

Check out the Infographics done by NYTimes, which explains why some people can't keep their insurance plans. It is very detailed and easy to comprehend. President Barrack Obama promised that people can keep their old insurance plan under the Obamacare, however the truth is most need to buy a new plan.

Obamacare website Utter Failure

Obamacare website has been a total disappointment from start. When healthcare.gov was opened to public on October 1, 2013 it crashed and the government blamed the overwhelming visitors of the site. It's now fixed, but there are new unresolved problems particularly in name registration, eligibility questions and in the most important step of buying insurance. It led users to cryptic error messages or enduring long waits when trying to sign up.

The number of Obamacare website problems since the website opened has been deeply embarrassing for the White House. The drawbacks have called into question whether the Obama administration is capable of implementing the complex policy they seems to be unaware of the scope of the problems when the exchange sites opened.

Even Obama acknowledges problems:

“Nobody is madder than me about the fact that the website is not working as well as it should, which means it’s gonna get fixed,” Obama said.

He even turn to an ex-adviser Jeffrey Zients, he is the former acting director of the White House budget office.

A person close to the project said that "No way it was properly tested before it went live" since the website is full of bugs and junk computer codes.

Thousand of Users are Visiting Online insurance Exchanges

FRANKFORT, KY. - More than 160,000 users have visited the kynect.ky.gov to check and review information about health insurance coverage. The online visitors also have viewed more than 2.6 million web pages on kynect since Kentucky launched the health benefit exchange last Tuesday.

Gov. Steve Beshear's office said in a news release Monday that more than 6,080 individuals and/or families are now enrolled in new affordable health care coverage that will go into effect on Jan. 1.

As of 4pm Monday, 142,242 people had completed the pre-screening process to determine if they qualify for subsidies and discounts for insurance policies or to determine if they qualify for Medicaid.

About 19,372 applications for health care coverage have been started and 12,955 are now completed.