Health Care Reform in 2010 has corrected a few things that, I’m guessing, most Americans did not know existed. Let’s take a look at one item put into law in 2003. At that time, the Bush administration and Republican-led Congress prepared to expand Medicare to include prescription drug coverage.

Nevermind the fact that the legislation did not provide for competitive pricing. A few large corporations that provided prescription drug benefits for their retirees threatened to cut off that benefit since those retirees could take advantage of the proposed Medicare benefit.

So, Congress said, "We’ll give you a subsidy to help you pay for that benefit. Not only will we give you the money, but we’ll allow you to use it as a deduction and get a tax benefit as well."

Think about that. The federal government was giving money to the corporations. When those same corporations spent the money, they could then claim it as a deduction on their taxes just like they had spent their own money.

The recently passed Health Care Reform legislation eliminates that deduction. Corporations will now be paying more taxes since they can no longer "double dip" the subsidy money. Recents announcements about write-downs provide a little insight into how much this ill-advised program was hurting government revenue.

A T & T announced they would be taking a $1 BILLION write off. Caterpillar, the world’s largest maker of bulldozers and excavators, expects to record a charge of about $100 million in the first quarter of 2010, due to new tax liabilities. John Deere is also expecting to write off $85 – $90 million. Verizon is taking a look at how they’ll be affected but hasn’t released any figures yet.

The fact is that the government will receive more tax revenue because of this one correction.

I’m quite sure unemployed workers wish unemployment benefits had worked like that. Yes, they were receiving a subsidy from the government from unemployment insurance that their employers had paid for. But, quite a bit of that income had to be paid for COBRA coverage to continue their health insurance. However, not only did the unemployed have to pay taxes on the amount of their unemployment checks, they could NOT DEDUCT the cost of COBRA coverage unless it exceeded 7.5% of their adjusted gross income and they were able to file itemized deductions on the tax return.

Let me put it this way. I know one person who received an unemployment benefit of $400 per week after losing a $1,000 per week job. (continued below)

Out of that $400 per week, that person had to pay $750 each month for COBRA continuation of health insurance benefits. That didn’t leave very much income for paying bills, eating and things that are a part of everyday life.

Now, that was back in 2008 before President Obama led Congress in providing better relief for unemployed workers. America seems to be taking from the corporations and giving to the people. Is that a bad thing?

Uncle Brice Supporters

Say Hey to the Good Folks that make this blog possible:

Online Little Rock.com is where Uncle Brice got his start. There’s a ton of information on this site about Arkansas, Little Rock, dining, dancing, shopping (and shopping online). It’s also a high-trafficked Civil War information site. You can even find out stuff about all the colleges and universities of Arkansas.

Home Business Opportunities is a site that has never been more in demand. You can find legitimate ways to earn money from home as well as a lot of information about Internet marketing, writing, building traffic for your website, and more.

The owners of Online Little Rock have a mission in life to teach everyone about brain injury. They have two websites that have hundreds of pages of information, including visitor-submitted Brain Injury Stories. The sites are Brain Injury Online and Brain Injury Guide.

Beth’s Brain Injury Blog is a favorite in the brain injury community. She writes about the good, the bad and the ugly of brain injury and how you must maintain a sense of humor to live successfully whether you are the victim or a caregiver.

October 28, 2009: Yahoo shows its most popular searches which, of course, provides a clue about what is of interest to the millions of people visiting the site and peforming Internet searches. Of particular interest is that entertainment comes in ahead of politics and that, of course, should be no surprise. People are fed up with lying, backbiting, one-for-all-and-all-for-me politicians.

Gas prices ranked high on the list. I don’t know about your neighborhood but in mine it’s almost laughable to see how the prices are changing several times a day, it seems. Being an information collector, I fired up Quicken and searched for my gas expenditures.

• January 17 – $1.739
• February 20 – $1.639
• March 5 – $1.689
• April 11 – $1.899
• May 15 $2.089
• June 1 – $2.399
• July 6 – $2.409
• August 8 – $2.399
• September 14 – $2.219
• October 15 – $2.299

Forget all the fluctuations. Let’s look at where we were in January ($1.739) and where we were on October 15 ($2.299). Ol’ Jethro ciphered that out to $0.56 cents more for each gallon. Based on the January figure of $1.739, that’s an increase of over 32%. (continued below)

Jobs, Jobs, Where are the Jobs?

Is it any wonder that unemployment benefits rank high on Internet searches? If you’re fortunate enough to still have a job, you have an interest in what the future might hold for you. Trust me on this: it ain’t much. Last year, an acquaintance of mine was nearing her 25th anniversary with her company when she was laid off. Her unemployment benefit was less than half of her salary. It took about 50% of her unemployment benefit to pay for COBRA insurance continuation. The bottom line is that she was trying to live on less than 25% of her previous salary. Could you do that?

And then there are millions of unemployed workers trying to see when their benefits will run out.

The pundits are telling us that jobs are a trailing indicator and that we’re still 12 to 18 months away from seeing job growth. Well, what about the millions of Americans that are waiting for those jobs. Can they hold out 12 to 18 months? Could you?