H1N1 Preparedness Guide for Small Businesses

The U. S. Department of Homeland Security, with the cooperation of the U. S. Small Business Administration, the U. S. Department of Health & Human Services, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, has issued a Guide for Small Businesses to prepare for the spread of H1N1 influenza. It is a short booklet, and it is applicable to far more situations a small business faces than just the H1N1 flu. It also has a section containing tips for the individual. Small business owners and their attorneys should review this booklet and take appropriate action. Copies can also be printed out and distributed to employees.

Industry groups weigh in on Obama's speech

Healthcare industry groups generally agreed with President Barack Obama that the status quo on the current healthcare system was not sustainable, but offered differing views on how the system should be fixed.

Insurance regulation was a chief focus of the president's speech on Wednesday night. Obama said that a government-run public option would be a way to get insurers to lower costs. In a written statement, Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, reiterated the organization's longtime position that a public plan was not the solution to improving coverage. “New health insurance reforms and consumer protections will solve the problem without creating a new government-run plan that will disrupt the quality coverage that millions of Americans rely on today,” she said.

“America's hospitals stand ready to do our part to extend coverage to more Americans and to continually strive towards providing high-quality care for patients that is more efficient and affordable,” said Richard Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, in a written statement. The AHA continues to have concerns on how a public plan would be constructed, but is “glad to see that President Obama is open to exploring other ideas that would help us achieve our shared goal of universal coverage.” -- Jennifer Lubell

From ModernHealthcare.com

Posted: September 10, 2009 - 1:00 pm EDT

Paul’s Comment: Why has the insurance industry not already put into effect those “insurance reforms and consumer protections” that Ms. Ignagni finds acceptable? Since it takes an earthquake-sized shift in electoral politics to move Congress to enact fundamental reforms, if Congress doesn't enact some type of public option now, will there ever come another time when Congress will adopt a public option before it is too late?

College Tax Credit Changes Could Help Students with Disabilities

Section 1004 of The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ("ARRA") made several changes affecting college expenses and tax credits for the 2009 and 2010 tax years. Tax-free distributions from 529 plans are expanded, and the Hope Credit for college expenses are significantly broadened.

While contributions to 529 plans are not deductible for federal income purposes, distributions from 529 plans are tax-free, if they meet certain criteria. The ARRA adds computer technology and equipment or Internet access and related services to the list of expenses that qualify for tax-free treatment. The existing list of qualified expenses include tuition, required fees, books, supplies, equipment, special needs services, and, if the student is at least a half-time student, room and board.

The Hope Credit can now be used for a student's first four years of college, rather just the first two years. The ARRA also increases the maximum amount of the tax credit to $2,500; increases the income limitations to qualify to $80,000 of modified adjusted gross income for individuals and $160,000 for "married filing jointly" with a phaseout for taxpayers with higher incomes; adds books to the allowable expenses; and, in some cases, allows up to 40% of the credit to be refundable.

For more information, see the "Tax Benefits for Education: Information Center."

Note: For some families, generally at the higher end of the tax brackets, it might be more advantageous for the student to file his/her own tax return to get a tax refund because of this refundable credit. Check with your tax advisor about this issue.

The Time for Bi-Partisanship is Over

Like virtually every President in recent memory, President Barack Obama came to Washington with one of his stated goals being to emphasize bi-partisanship. In more colloquial terms, President Obama seemed to be a lover, not a fighter. But the time to fight, every President learns, is now. Except that some Presidents learn this lesson too late to be an effective President.

Everytime President Obama has talked about bi-partisanship, the Republican leadership has kicked him in the teeth. They have no interest in bi-partisanship. They want the stimulus package to fail. They want health care reform to come to naught. They are desperately looking for campaign issues for 2010 and 2012. They are interested in returning to power only for power's sake, not for the sake of the country.

It's time President Obama jettisons "bi-partisanship" and goes about the business of governing. He may need the votes of two or three Republican Senators to get health care reform passed, but that is not bi-partisanship. It is simply cobbling together a viable majority to get critical legislation passed. If the cost of getting health care reform legislation passed is watering down the proposal to get 70%, then do it.

Democrats never seem to get the message. There is no purity in politics. When Hubert Humphrey was not pure enough for many Democrats, we got Richard Nixon as President. When Jimmy Carter wasn't great enough, we got Ronald Reagan, then George W. Bush. It's time for progressives to lead the way, picking up support where possible; sacrificing perfection where necessary.

Lyndon Johnson understood the need to get important legislation passed. When he proposed his War on Poverty, a Commission studied the issue and suggested that it would take about $30 billion dollars to do it right. All President Johnson could get out of Congress was $5 billion. While this was a prescription for failure, he took what he could get, and we are better off for it. The "War" was lost in the first days, but we did get Head Start out of the ashes. What a wonderful gift to the country. We may not have gotten all of the community organizing we needed to make the War successful, but we got some very treasured programs and principles that have proved successful and long-lasting.

It's time for President Obama to "break some eggs." He needs to get significant health care reform passed this year. It doesn't have to be perfect; it just has to be real reform. Mr. President: Your Presidency and the country hang in the balance. The time to act is now.

UBS Settlement -- We Can Help

If you are or know of someone about to be ensnared in the UBS settlement with the Justice Department, we can help. You are not necessarily destined to go to jail because of the settlement; but you need to act fast.

Call me at 513.563.1595 or e-mail me at info@paulnidich.com ASAP.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

August 12, 2009 (From NPR News Headlines)

The story has spread so fast even President Obama got asked about it at one of his town hall meetings. But no, the health care overhaul bill now working its way through Congress would not require seniors to learn how to die prematurely.

It's not, however, because people aren't saying it. The most notable spokeswoman for the cause is Elizabeth McCaughey, the former lieutenant governor of New York. McCaughey's last brush with major public prominence came during the debate over then-President Bill Clinton's health plan, when she wrote a highly controversial critique of the proposal published in The New Republic arguing the bill would have bound everyone inside the new system.

This time McCaughey has been making the talk radio rounds arguing that the latest version of a health overhaul has the government sponsoring suicide education.

"One of the most shocking things I found in this bill, and there were many, is on Page 425, where the Congress would make it mandatory — absolutely require — that every five years, people in Medicare have a required counseling session that will tell them how to end their life sooner, how to decline nutrition, how to decline being hydrated, how to go into hospice care," McCaughey said on former Sen. Fred Thompson's radio show July 16.

That claim won her a "pants on fire" rating for its lack of truth from the nonpartisan Politifact.com Web site run by the St. Petersburg Times. But it has nonetheless spread like wildfire, being repeated not just on blogs and radio shows but by Republican members of Congress as well. Said a joint statement from House Minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Republican Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI), "this provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law."

The claims have been highly upsetting to groups like the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, which strongly support what the bill really does — pay health care providers to talk to Medicare patients about creating so-called advance directives, or ways to express their health care desires in writing before they become incapacitated.

In fact, says Kathy Brandt, vice president of professional leadership, consumer and caregiver services, advance directives need not be about cutting off care at all. "If you want everything to be possibly done; all medical treatment to be done for you until your last breath, that's what advance directives can do for you," Brandt says. "I think most people who are healthy adults, not facing a terminal or life-limiting conditions, would want treatment, and nothing that's in any of the health care reform bills that I've heard or seen does anything that would prohibit that."

So why have the demonstrably false claims about death gotten so much life? Harvard public opinion expert Robert Blendon says it's because seniors are very sensitive about their health care. "Seniors worry more about their health care than any other group in American life," Blendon says. "They feel more vulnerable."

Blendon says it's no accident that opponents of the health overhaul chose to single out a provision aimed at seniors to make their case, because if seniors think they have something to lose from the current health care overhaul, "[they] are really going to be very active opponents of this, because that's not what they signed up for," he says.

And seniors, unlike many younger people, are very likely paying more attention to the health care debate.

"The seniors are really going to read and listen to everything and be concerned if they think as a result of the bill their current circumstances are going to deteriorate," Blendon says.

Senate Committee Hears Testimony on Autism

From the August 7, 2009, edition of Autism Speaks e-Speaks Newsletter:

"U.S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, chaired a hearing Wednesday, August 5 on the state of autism research, treatments and interventions. Senator Harkin was joined by Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS), ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA), member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The Senators heard testimony from Tom Insel, M.D., director of the National Institute of Mental Health; Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., chief science officer for Autism Speaks; and four parents of children with autism, Joshua Cobbs, chair of the Iowa Autism Council, Nicole Akins Boyd, vice chair of the Mississippi Autism Task Force, David Miller, board member of the Northern Virginia Community College, and Dana Halverson, co-founder of BEAT-Iowa. Click here to view the hearing on CSPAN.org."

Paul's Comment: I watched a repeat of the testimony on Tuesday night on C-SPAN. They all did a wonderful job presenting their positions on the needs of the autism community. At several points, there was some light friction between Dr. Insel and some of the others about NIMH's research agenda. It is well worth watching, but I would recommend having some tissues with you when you do.

However, while Chairperson Harkin and Ranking Republican Thad Cochran were very sympathetic and supportive, at one point they leaned towards each other and suggested that they might want to introduce a bill to end insurance discrimination against people on the autism spectrum. This was extremely disheartening, because they apparently didn't know (or remember) that the House Energy and Commerce Committee had adopted an amendment to this effect to President Obama's Health Care Reform effort last week and a similar effort in the Senate had already been effectively killed.

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House Energy and Commerce Committee passed an autism insurance reform amendment to “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” H.R. 3200, sponsored by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA), Chairman of the Congressional Autism Research and Education Caucus in the House. Link to article.