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Playing God

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*The Rebirth of Family Capitalism or How the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Sam Walton, Bill Gates, and Other Billionaires Are Undermining America *

George Baer was a railroad and coal mining magnate at the turn of the twentieth century.  Amid a violent and protracted strike that shut down much of the country’s anthracite coal industry, Baer defied President Teddy Roosevelt’s appeal to arbitrate the issues at stake, saying, “The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for... not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men of property to whom God has given control of the property rights of the country.”  To the Anthracite Coal Commission investigating the uproar, Baer insisted, “These men don’t suffer. Why hell, half of them don’t even speak English.”

We might call that adopting the imperial position.  Titans of industry and finance back then often assumed that they had the right to supersede the law and tutor the rest of America on how best to order its affairs.  They liked to play God.  It’s a habit that’s returned with a vengeance in our own time.The Koch brothers are only the most conspicuous among a whole tribe of “self-made” billionaires who imagine themselves architects or master builders of a revamped, rehabilitated America. The resurgence of what might be called dynastic or family capitalism, as opposed to the more impersonal managerial capitalism many of us grew up with, is changing the nation’s political chemistry. 

Our own masters of the universe, like the “robber barons” of old, are inordinately impressed with their ascendancy to the summit of economic power.  Add their personal triumphs to American culture’s perennial love affair with business -- President Calvin Coolidge, for instance, is remembered today only for proclaiming that “the business of America is business” -- and you have a formula for megalomania.

Take Jeff Greene, otherwise known as the “Meltdown Mogul.”  Back in 2010, he had the chutzpah to campaign in the Democratic primary for a Florida senate seat in a Miami neighborhood ravaged by the subprime mortgage debacle -- precisely the arena in which he had grown fabulously rich.  In the process, he rallied locals against Washington insiders and regaled them with stories of his life as a busboy at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach.  Protected from the Florida sun by his Prada shades, he alluded to his wealth as evidence that, as a maestro of collateralized debt obligations, no one knew better than he how to run the economy he had helped to pulverize.  He put an exclamation point on his campaign by flying off in his private jet only after securely strapping himself in with his gold-plated seat buckles.

Olympian entrepreneurs like Greene regularly end up seeing themselves as tycoons-cum-savants.  When they run for office, they do so as if they were trying to get elected to the board of directors of America, Inc.  Some will brook no interference with their will.  Property, lots of it, in a society given over to its worship, becomes a blank check: everything is permitted to those who have it.

*Dream and Nightmare*

This, then, is the indigenous romance of American capitalism.  The man from nowhere becomes a Napoleon of business and so a hero because he confirms a cherished legend: namely, that it’s the primordial birthright of those lucky enough to live in the New World to rise out of obscurity to unimaginable heights.  All of this, so the legend tells us, comes through the application of disciplined effort, commercial cunning and foresight, a take-no-prisoners competitive instinct, and a gambler’s sang froid in the face of the unforgiving riskiness of the marketplace.  Master all of that and you deserve to be a master of our universe.  (Conversely, this is the dark fairy tale that nineteenth century Gilded Age anti-capitalist rebels knew as “the Property Beast.”)  

What makes the creation of the titan particularly confounding is that it seems as if it shouldn’t be so.  Inside the colorless warrens of the counting house and factory workshop, a pedestrian preoccupation with profit and loss might be expected to smother all those instincts we associate with the warrior, the statesman, and the visionary, not to mention the tyrant.  As Joseph Schumpeter, the mid-twentieth century political economist, once observed, “There is surely no trace of any mystic glamour” about the sober-minded bourgeois.  He is not likely to “say boo to a goose.”

Yet the titan of capitalism overcomes that propensity.  As Schumpeter put it, he transforms himself into the sort of man who can “bend a nation to his will,” use his “extraordinary physical and nervous energy” to become “a leading man.”   Something happens through the experience of commercial conquest so intoxicating that it breeds a willful arrogance and a lust for absolute power of the sort for which George Baer hankered.  Call it the absolutism of self-righteous money.   

Sheldon Adelson, Charles and David Koch, Sam Walton, Rupert Murdoch, Linda McMahon, or hedge fund honchos like John Paulson and Steven Cohen all conform in one way or another to this historic profile.  Powers to be reckoned with, they presume to know best what we should teach our kids and how we should do it; how to defend the country’s borders against alien invasion, revitalize international trade, cure what ails the health-care delivery system, create jobs where there are none, rejigger the tax code, balance the national budget, put truculent labor unions in their place, and keep the country on the moral and racial straight and narrow. 

All this purported wisdom and self-assurance is home bred.  That is to say, these people are first of all family or dynastic capitalists, not the faceless men in suits who shimmy their way up the greased pole that configures the managerial hierarchies of corporate America.  Functionaries at the highest levels of the modern corporation may be just as wealthy, but they are a fungible bunch, whose loyalty to any particular outfit may expire whenever a more attractive stock option from another firm comes their way.

In addition, in our age of mega-mergers and acquisitions, corporations go in and out of existence with remarkable frequency, morphing into a shifting array of abstract acronyms.  They are carriers of great power, but without an organic attachment to distinct individuals or family lineages.

Instead dynasts of yesteryear and today have created family businesses or, as in the case of the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch, taken over ones launched by their fathers to which they are fiercely devoted. They guard their business sanctuaries by keeping them private, wary of becoming dependent on outside capital resources that might interfere with their freedom to do what they please with what they’ve amassed.

And they think of what they’ve built up not so much as a pile of cash, but as a patrimony to which they are bound by ties of blood, religion, region, and race.  These attachments turn ordinary business into something more transcendent.  They represent the tissues of a way of life, even a philosophy of life.  Its moral precepts about work, individual freedom, family relations, sexual correctness, meritocracy, equality, and social responsibility are formed out of the same process of self-invention that gave birth to the family business.  Habits of methodical self-discipline and the nurturing and prudential stewardship that occasionally turns a modest competency into a propertied goliath encourage the instinct to instruct and command.

There is no Tycoon Party in the U.S. imposing ideological uniformity on a group of billionaires who, by their very nature as übermensch, march to their own drummers and differ on many matters.  Some are philanthropically minded, others parsimonious; some are pietistic, others indifferent.  Wall Street hedge fund creators may donate to Obama and be card-carrying social liberals on matters of love and marriage, while heartland types like the Koch brothers obviously take another tack politically.  But all of them subscribe to one thing: a belief in their own omniscience and irresistible will.

*There at the Creation*

Business dynasts have enacted this imperial drama since the dawn of American capitalism -- indeed, especially then, before the publicly traded corporation and managerial capitalism began supplanting their family capitalist predecessors at the turn of the twentieth century.  John Jacob Astor, America’s first millionaire, whose offices were once located on Manhattan Island where Zucotti Park now stands, was the most literal sort of empire builder.  In league with Thomas Jefferson, he attempted to extend that president’s “empire for liberty” all the way to the western edge of the continent and push out the British.  There, on the Oregon coast, he established the fur-trading colony of Astoria to consolidate his global control of the luxury fur trade. 

In this joint venture, president and tycoon both failed.  Astor, however, was perfectly ready to defy the highest authority in the land and deal with the British when it mattered most.  So when Jefferson embargoed trade with that country in the run-up to the War of 1812, the founder of one of the country’s most luminous dynasties simply ran the blockade.  An unapologetic elitist, Astor admired Napoleon, assumed the masses were not to be left to their own devices, and believed deeply that property ought to be the prerequisite for both social position and political power.

Traits like Astor’s willfulness and self-sufficiency cropped up frequently in the founding generation of America’s “captains of industry.” Often they were accompanied by a chest-thumping braggadocio and thumb-in-your eye irreverence.  Cornelius Vanderbilt, called by his latest biographer “the first tycoon,” was known in his day as “the Commodore.”  Supposedly, he warned someone foolish enough to challenge his supremacy in the steamboat business that “I won’t sue you, I’ll ruin you.” 

Or take “Jubilee” Jim Fisk. He fancied himself an admiral but wasn’t one, and after the Civil War, when caught plundering the Erie Railroad, boasted that he was “born to be bad.”   Later on, when a plot he hatched to corner the nation’s supply of gold left him running from the law, Jim classically summed up the scandal this way: “Nothing lost save honor.”

More than a century before Mitt Romney and Bain Capital came along, Jay Gould, a champion railroad speculator and buccaneering capitalist, scoured the country for companies to buy, loot, and sell.  Known by his many detractors as “the Mephistopheles of Wall Street,” he once remarked, when faced with a strike against one of his railroads, that he could “hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.”

George Pullman, nicknamed “the Duke” in America’s world of self-made royalty, wasn’t shy about dealing roughly with the rowdy “mob” either.  As a rising industrialist in Chicago in the 1870s, he -- along with other young men from the city’s new manufacturing elite -- actually took up arms to put down a labor insurgency and financed the building of urban armories, stocked with the latest artillery, including a new machine gun marketed as the “Tramp Terror.” (This was but one instance among many of terrorism from above by the forces of “law and order.”)

However, Pullman was better known for displaying his overlordship in quite a different fashion.  Cultivating his sense of dynastic noblesse oblige, he erected a model town, which he aptly named Pullman, just outside Chicago. There residents not only labored to manufacture sleeping cars for the nation’s trains, but were also tutored in how to live respectable lives -- no drinking, no gambling, proper dress and deportment -- while living in company-owned houses, shopping at company-owned stores, worshipping at company churches, playing in company parks, reading company-approved books in the company library, and learning the “three Rs” from company schoolmarms.  Think of it as a Potemkin working class village, a commercialized idyll of feudal harmony -- until it wasn’t.  The dream morphed into a nightmare when “the Duke” suddenly began to slash wages and evict his “subjects” amid the worst depression of the nineteenth century.  This, in turn, provoked a nationwide strike and boycott, eventually crushed by federal troops.

The business autocrats of the Gilded Age could be rude and crude like Gould, Vanderbilt, and Fisk or adopt the veneer of civilization like Pullman.  Some of these “geniuses” of big business belonged to what Americans used to call the “shoddy aristocracy.”  Fisk had, after all, started out as a confidence man in circuses and Gould accumulated his “start-up capital” by bilking a business partner.  “Uncle” Daniel Drew, top dog on Wall Street around the time of the Civil War (and a pious one at that, who founded Drew Theological Seminary), had once been a cattle drover. Before bringing his cows to the New York market, he would feed them salt licks to make sure they were thirsty and then fill them with water so they would make it to the auction block weighing far more than their mere flesh and bones could account for.  He bequeathed America the practice of “watered stock.”

Not all the founding fathers of our original tycoonery, however, were social invisibles or refugees from the commercial badlands.  They could also hail from the highest precincts of the social register.  The Morgans were a distinguished banking and insurance clan going all the way back to colonial days.  J.P. Morgan was therefore to the manor born.  At the turn of the twentieth century, he functioned as the country’s unofficial central banker, meaning he had the power to allocate much of the capital that American society depended on.  Nonetheless, when asked about bearing such a heavy social responsibility, he bluntly responded, “I owe the public nothing.”  

This sort of unabashed indifference to the general welfare was typical and didn’t end in the new century.  During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the managements of some major publicly owned corporations felt compelled by a newly militant labor movement and the shift in the political atmosphere that accompanied President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal to recognize and bargain with the unions formed by their employees.  Not so long before, some of these corporations, in particular United States Steel, had left a trail of blood on the streets of the steel towns of Pennsylvania and Ohio when they crushed the Great Steel Strike of 1919.  But times had changed. 

Not so, however, for the adamantine patriarchs who still owned and ran the nation’s “little steel” companies (which were hardly little).  Men like Tom Girdler of Republic Steel resented any interference with their right to rule over what happened on their premises and hated the New Deal, as well as its allies in the labor movement, because they challenged that absolutism.  So it was that, on Memorial Day 1937, 10 strikers were shot in the back and killed while picketing Girdler’s Chicago factory.

*The Great U-Turn*

By and large, however, the middle decades of the twentieth century were dominated by modern concerns like U.S. Steel, General Motors, and General Electric, whose corporate CEOs were more sensitive to the pressures of their multiple constituencies.  These included not only workers, but legions of shareholders, customers, suppliers, and local and regional public officials. 

Publicly held corporations are, for the most part, owned not by a family, dynasty, or even a handful of business partners, but by a vast sea of shareholders. Those “owners” have little if anything to do with running “their” complex companies.  This is left to a managerial cadre captained by lavishly rewarded chief executives.  Their concerns are inherently political, but not necessarily ideological.  They worry about their brand’s reputation, have multiple dealings with a broad array of government agencies, look to curry favor with politicians from both parties, and are generally reasonably vigilant about being politically correct when it comes to matters of race, gender, and other socially sensitive issues.  Behaving in this way is, after all, a marketing strategy that shows up where it matters most -- on the bottom line.

Over the last several decades, however, history has done a U-turn.  Old-style private enterprises of enormous size have made a remarkable comeback.  Partly, this is a consequence of the way the federal government has encouraged private enterprise through the tax code, land-use policy, and subsidized finance.  It is also the outcome of a new system of decentralized, flexible capitalism in which large, complex corporations have downloaded functions once performed internally onto an array of outside, independent firms.   

Family capitalism has experienced a renaissance.  Even giant firms are now often controlled by their owners the way Andrew Carnegie once captained his steel works or Henry Ford his car company.  Some of these new family firms were previously publicly traded corporations that went private.  A buy-out craze initiated by private equity firms hungry for quick turn-around profits, like Mitt Romney’s infamous Bain Capital, lent the process a major hand. This might be thought of as entrepreneurial capitalism for the short-term, a strictly finance-driven strategy.

But family-based firms in it for the long haul have also proliferated and flourished in this era of economic turbulence.  These are no longer stodgy, technologically antiquated outfits, narrowly dedicated to churning out a single, time-tested product.  They are often remarkably adept at responding to shifts in the market, often highly diversified in what they make and sell, and -- thanks to the expansion of capital markets -- they now enjoy a degree of financial independence not unlike that of their dynastic forebears of the nineteenth century, who relied on internally generated resources to keep free of the banks.  They have been cropping up in newer growth sectors of the economy, including retail, entertainment, energy, finance, and high tech.  Nor are they necessarily small-fry mom-and-pop operations.  One-third of the Fortune 500 now fall into the category of family-controlled. 

Feet firmly anchored in their business fiefdoms, family patriarchs loom over the twenty-first-century landscape, lending it a back-to-the-future air.  They exercise enormous political influence.  They talk loudly and carry big sticks.  Their money elects officials, finances their own campaigns for public office, and is reconfiguring our political culture by fertilizing a rain forest of think tanks, journals, and political action committees.  A nation which, a generation ago, largely abandoned its historic resistance to organized wealth and power has allowed this newest version of the “robber baron” to dominate the public arena to a degree that might have astonished even John Jacob Astor and Cornelius Vanderbilt.

*The Political Imperative*

That ancestral generation, living in an era when the state was weak and kept on short rations, didn’t need to be as immersed in political affairs.  Contacting a kept senator or federal judge when needed was enough.  The modern regulatory and bureaucratic welfare state has extended its reach so far and wide that it needs to be steered, if not dismantled.

Some of our new tycoons try doing one or the other from off-stage through a bevy of front organizations and hand-selected candidates for public office.  Others dive right into the electoral arena themselves.  Linda McMahon, who with her husband created the World Wrestling Entertainment empire, is a two-time loser in senate races in Connecticut.  Rick Scott, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur, did better, becoming Florida’s governor.  Such figures, and other triumphalist types like them, claim their rise to business supremacy as their chief credential, often their only credential, when running for office or simply telling those holding office what to do.

Our entrepreneurial maestros come in a remarkable range of sizes and shapes.  On style points, “the Donald” looms largest.  Like so many nineteenth century dynasts, his family origins are modest.  A German grandfather arriving here in 1885 was a wine maker, a barber, and a saloonkeeper in California; father Fred became the Henry Ford of homebuilding, helped along by New Deal low-cost housing subsidies.  His son went after splashier, flashier enterprises like casinos, luxury resorts, high-end hotels, and domiciles for the 1%.  In all of this, the family name, splashed on towers of every sort and “the Donald’s” image -- laminated hair-do and all -- became his company’s chief assets.

Famous for nothing other than being very rich, Trump feels free to hold forth on every conceivable subject of public import from same-sex marriage to the geopolitics of the Middle East.  Periodically, he tosses his hat into the electoral arena.  But he comports himself like a clown.  He even has a game named after himself: “Trump -- The Game,” whose play currency bears Donald’s face and whose lowest denomination is $10 million.  No wonder no one takes his right-wing bluster too seriously.  A modern day “Jubilee Jim Fisk,” craving attention so much he’s willing to make himself ridiculous, the Donald is his own reality TV show.

Rupert Murdoch, on the other hand, looks and dresses like an accountant and lives mainly in the shadows.  Like Trump, he inherited a family business.  Unlike Trump, his family pedigree was auspicious.  His father was Sir Keith, a media magnate from Melbourne, Australia, and Rupert went to Oxford.  Now, the family’s media influence straddles continents, as Rupert attempts -- sometimes with great success -- to make or break political careers and steer whole political parties to the right.

The News Corporation is a dynastic institution of the modern kind in which Murdoch uses relatively little capital and a complex company structure to maintain and vigorously exercise the family’s control.  When the Ford Motor Company finally went public in 1956, it did something similar to retain the Ford family’s dominant position.  So, too, did Google, whose “dual-class share structure” allowed its founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to continue calling the shots.  Murdoch’s empire may, on first glance, seem to conform to American-style managerial corporate capitalism, apparently rootless, cosmopolitan, fixed on the bottom line. In fact, it is tightly tethered to Murdoch’s personality and conservative political inclinations and to the rocky dynamics of the Murdoch succession.  That is invariably the case with our new breed of dynastic capitalists.   

Sheldon Adelson, the CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and sugar daddy to right-wing political wannabes from city hall to the White House, lacks Murdoch’s finesse but shares his convictions and his outsized ambition to command the political arena.  He’s the eighth richest man in the world, but grew up poor as a Ukrainian Jew living in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston.  His father was a cab driver and his mother ran a knitting shop.  He went to trade school to become a court reporter and was a college drop-out.  He started several small businesses that failed, winning and losing fortunes.  Then he gambled and hit the jackpot, establishing lavish hotels and casinos around the world.  When he again lost big time during the global financial implosion of 2007-2008, he responded the way any nineteenth century sea dog capitalist might have: “So I lost twenty-five billion dollars.  I started out with zero... [there is] no such thing as fear, not to any entrepreneur.  Concern, yes.  Fear, no.”  

A committed Zionist, Adelson was once a Democrat.  But he jumped ship over Israel and because he believed the party’s economic policies were ruining the country.  (He’s described Obama’s goal as “a socialist-style economy.”)  He established the Freedom Watch's dark-money group as a counterweight to George Soros’s Open Society and to MoveOn.org.  According to one account, Adelson “seeks to dominate politics and public policy through the raw power of money.”  That has, for instance, meant backing Newt Gingrich in the Republican presidential primaries of 2012 against Mitt Romney, whom he denounced as a “predatory capitalist” (talk about the pot calling the kettle black!), and not long after, funneling cash to candidate Romney.

*Free Markets and the Almighty
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Charles and David Koch are perfect specimens of this new breed of family capitalists on steroids.  Koch Industries is a gigantic conglomerate headquartered in the heartland city of Wichita, Kansas.  Charles, who really runs the company, lives there.  David, the social and philanthropic half of this fraternal duopoly, resides in New York City.  Not unlike George “the Duke” Pullman, Charles has converted Wichita into something like a company city, where criticism of Koch Industries is muted at best. 

The firm’s annual revenue is in the neighborhood of $10 billion, generated by oil refineries, thousands of miles of pipelines, paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia Pacific lumber, Lycra, and Stainmaster Carpet, among other businesses.  It is the second largest privately owned company in the United States.  (Cargill, the international food conglomerate, comes first.)  The brothers are inordinately wealthy, even for our “new tycoonery.”  Only Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are richer. 

While the average businessman or corporate executive is likely to be pretty non-ideological, the Koch brothers are dedicated libertarians.  Their free market orthodoxy makes them adamant opponents of all forms of government regulation.  Since their companies are among the top 10 air polluters in the United States, that also comports well with their material interests -- and the Kochs come by their beliefs naturally, so to speak. 

Their father, Fred, was the son of a Dutch printer who settled in Texas and started a newspaper.  He later became a chemical engineer and invented a better method for converting oil into gasoline.  In one of history’s little jokes, he was driven out of the industry by the oil giants who saw him as a threat.  Today, Koch Industries is sometimes labeled “the Standard Oil of our time,” an irony it’s not clear the family would appreciate.  After a sojourn in Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union (of all places), helping train oil engineers, Fred returned stateside to set up his own oil refinery business in Wichita.  There, he joined the John Birch Society and ranted about the imminent Communist takeover of the government.  In that connection he was particularly worried that “the colored man looms large in the Communist plan to take over America.”

Father Fred raised his sons in the stern regimen of the work ethic and instructed the boys in the libertarian catechism. This left them lifelong foes of the New Deal and every social and economic reform since.  That included not only predictable measures like government health insurance, social security, and corporate taxes, but anything connected to the leviathan state.  Even the CIA and the FBI are on the Koch chopping block. 

Dynastic conservatism of this sort has sometimes taken a generation to mature.  Sam Walton, like many of his nineteenth-century analogs, was not a political animal.  He just wanted to be left alone to do his thing and deploy his power over the marketplace.  So he stayed clear of electoral and party politics, although he implicitly relied on the racial, gender, and political order of the old South, which kept wages low and unions out, to build his business in the Ozarks.  After his death in 1992, however, Sam’s heirs entered the political arena in a big way.

In other respects Sam Walton conformed to type.  He was impressed with himself, noting that “capital isn’t scarce; vision is” (although his “one stop shopping” concept was already part of the retail industry before he started Walmart).  His origins were humble.  He was born on a farm in Kingfisher, Oklahoma.  His father left farming for a while to become a mortgage broker, which in the Great Depression meant he was a farm re-possessor for Metropolitan Life Insurance.  Sam did farm chores, then worked his way through college, and started his retail career with a small operation partly funded by his father-in-law.

At every juncture, the firm’s expansion depended on a network of family relations.  Soon enough, his stores blanketed rural and small-town America.  Through all the glory years, Sam’s day began before dawn as he woke up in the same house he’d lived in for more than 30 years.  Then, dressed in clothes from one of his discount stores, off he went to work in his red Ford pick-up truck.

Some dynasts are pietistic and some infuse their business with religion.  Sam Walton did a bit of both.  In his studiously modest “life style,” there was a kind of outward piety.  Living without pretension, nose to the grindstone, and methodically building up the family patrimony has for centuries carried a sacerdotal significance, leaving aside any specific Protestant profession of religious faith.  But there was professing as well.  Though not a fundamentalist, he was a loyal member of the First Presbyterian Church in Bentonville, Arkansas, where he was a “ruling elder” and occasionally taught Sunday school (something he had also done in college as president of the Burall Bible Class Club).

Christianity would play a formative role in his labor relations strategy at Walmart.  His employees -- "associates," he dubbed them -- were drawn from an Ozark world of Christian fraternity which Walmart management cultivated.  “Servant leadership” was a concept designed to encourage workers to undertake their duties serving the company’s customers in the same spirit as Jesus, who saw himself as a “servant leader.” 

This helped discourage animosities in the work force, as well as blunting the -- to Walton -- dangerous desire to do something about them through unionizing or responding in any other way to the company’s decidedly subpar working conditions and wages.  An aura of Christian spiritualism plus company-scripted songs and cheers focused on instilling company loyalty, profit-sharing schemes, and performance bonuses constituted a twentieth century version of Pullman’s town idyll.

All of this remained in place after Sam’s passing.  What changed was the decision of his fabulously wealthy relatives to enter the political arena.  Walton lobbying operations now cover a broad range of issues, including lowering corporate taxes and getting rid of the estate tax entirely, as his heirs subsidize mainly Republican candidates and causes.  Most prominent of all have been the Walton efforts to privatize education through vouchers or by other means, often enough turning public institutions into religiously affiliated schools.

Wall Street has never been known for its piety.  But the tycoons who founded the Street’s most lucrative hedge funds -- men like John Paulson, Paul Tudor James II, and Steve Cohen, among others -- are also determined to up-end the public school system.  They are among the country’s most powerful proponents of charter schools.  Like J.P. Morgan of old, these men grew up in privilege, went to prep schools and the Ivy League, and have zero experience with public education or the minorities who tend to make up a large proportion of charter school student bodies.

No matter.  After all, some of these people make several million dollars a day.  What an elixir!  They are joined in this educational crusade by fellow business conquistadors of less imposing social backgrounds like Mark Zuckerberg, who has ensured that Facebook will remain a family domain even while “going public.”  Another example would be Bill Gates, the most celebrated of a brace of techno-frontiersmen who -- legend would have it -- did their pioneering in homely garages, even though the wonders they invented would have been inconceivable without decades of government investment in military-related science and technology.  What can’t these people do, what don’t they know?  They are empire builders and liberal with their advice and money when it comes to managing the educational affairs of the nation.  They also benefit handsomely from a provision in the tax code passed during the Clinton years that rewards them for investing in “businesses” like charter schools.

Our imperial tycoons are a mixed lot.  They range from hip technologists like Zuckerberg to heroic nerds like Bill Gates, and include yesteryear traditionalists like Sam Walton and the Koch brothers.  What they share with each other and their robber baron ancestors is a god-like desire to create the world in their image. 

Watching someone play god may amuse us, as “the Donald” can do in an appalling sort of way.  It is, however, a dangerous game with potentially deadly consequences for a democratic way of life already on life support.

Steve Fraser is the author of Wall Street: America’s Dream Palace, among other works, and a TomDispatch regular. His next book, The Age of Acquiescence: The Life and Death of American Resistance to Organized Wealth and Power, will be published by Little Brown in February. He is a writer, historian, and co-founder of the American Empire Project. Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Rebecca Solnit's Men Explain Things to Me. Reported by Huffington Post 1 day ago.

State and CMS Reach Agreement on Health Pennsylvania Initiative

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A team from Sellers Dorsey and Leavitt Partners Assist State

Harrisburg, PA (PRWEB) September 11, 2014

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania recently reached an agreement with the federal government over the Healthy Pennsylvania plan, a state initiative seeking to reform the Medicaid program and provide private insurance to uninsured Pennsylvanians. The Healthy Pennsylvania plan focuses on personal responsibility and healthy behaviors; aligning benefits to health care needs; promoting financial independence; and increasing access to private, commercial coverage through a Private Coverage Option.

A team from Sellers Dorsey and Leavitt Partners assisted the State in drafting the 1115 Demonstration waiver request to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to ensure compliance with state and federal regulations and the Governor’s Healthy Pennsylvania framework to promote personal responsibility, healthy behaviors and improved health outcomes.

“Our team was proud to work with the Commonwealth in their efforts to reform Medicaid and increase access to health insurance,” said Harvey Hurdle, the CEO of Sellers Dorsey.

Earlier this year, Leavitt Partners and Sellers Dorsey announced a strategic alliance to assist states in the design and implementation of innovative reforms that will improve the sustainability and flexibility of their Medicaid programs. The two firms are independent and jointly market and deliver services to states and stakeholders seeking reform and modernization of state Medicaid programs.

Members of the Sellers Dorsey and Leavitt Partners team have participated in the development of many other state reform plans for both Democratic and Republican administrations, including Washington, Wisconsin, Texas, Utah, Michigan, Colorado, and Massachusetts. For more information about the waiver services the joint team provides click here.

About Sellers Dorsey

Sellers Dorsey is a national healthcare consulting firm composed of an industry-leading team of consultants and thought leaders from the worlds of policy, government, business, and industry, allowing the firm to provide a fully integrated suite of services to clients. Sellers Dorsey has a deep understanding of Medicaid, having consulted in over 30 states on a range of financing, policy and operational projects, and Medicare financing and policy. Its reputation is one of creativity, collaboration, and accomplishment. More at sellersdorsey.com.

About Leavitt Partners

Leavitt Partners is a health care intelligence business founded by former Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt. The firm delivers collaborative, high-value intelligence that helps clients transition to new models of care. Through its member-based collaboration called Health Intelligence PartnersTM and direct services to clients, the consulting firm provides the best available window to the future of American health care. For more information visit LeavittPartners.com.

Contact:
Christopher R. Labonte, Principal and Director of External Affairs
Sellers Dorsey
clabonte(at)sellersdorsey(dot)com
T: 215.279.9746 C: 215.514.4377

Jordana Choucair, Senior Director of Communications
Leavitt Partners
jordana.choucair(at)leavittpartners(dot)com
T: 801.326.3553 C: 801.633.4900

### Reported by PRWeb 1 day ago.

Our Emergency Fund? It's Already Topped By Our Medical Debt

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Our Emergency Fund? It's Already Topped By Our Medical Debt Filed under: Health Care, Economic Recovery, Barack Obama, Health Insurance, Saving

*Shutterstock*

Our health and our wealth are more closely tied than many of us realize. For example, you're more likely to make necessary lifestyle changes to improve your health if you're also saving for retirement. But a recent Bankrate.com study suggests that a big reason many American don't save, even for emergencies, is because they have far too much health care debt.

It's not exactly news that many Americans aren't financially ready for an emergency, let alone for retirement. But a quarter of people completing the Bankrate survey reported that their medical debt was higher than their emergency savings fund. By comparison, 51 percent said they had more in emergency savings, and 24 percent either didn't know or refused to answer. What that actually means is that 25 percent is, in fact, the lowest possible percentage among those surveyed with more medical debt than emergency savings -- the true percentage is likely higher.

Depending on demographics, it gets worse. Among people who make less than $30,000, the percentage was 41 percent, and more than a third of parents with children under 18 had medical debt that outweighed savings.

*More Financial Stress*

"One of the messages we're always emphasizing is the need to have some cash in case of emergency," said Bankrate.com insurance analyst Doug Whiteman in an interview. "That's difficult for a quarter of Americans who have more medical debt than they have emergency savings. This is another cause of financial stress for a lot of people, like stagnant wages and school loans [also are]."

And 55 percent said that they were either somewhat or very worried that they might not have affordable health insurance in the future. Half of men were worried, compared to 60 percent of women. Only 22 percent of all respondents weren't worried at all.

Even the problem of medical debt doesn't affect you personally, it still does indirectly. "I think this is an important issue that affects consumer confidence and the broader economy," Whiteman said. "[People's worries] about their health insurance or medical cost[s] ... are additional reasons why they might hold back on their spending, which is something the economy needs to keep powering forward."

*What About the Affordable Care Act?*

You might wonder why so many people still live in fear of medical debt -- the potential future variety, not debt they've already taken on -- given that Obamacare is designed to relieve some of the pressure and subsidize health care for lower income families and individuals. But there are a number of reasons why the Affordable Care Act isn't making more of a dent in their pessimism.

· The ACA only came into full force this year. The most recent Health Reform Monitoring Survey from the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center said that the uninsured rate among non-elderly adults is 13.9 percent. But there's a great deal of existing debt that was incurred before the law took affect.
· Despite a nationwide campaign to get the word out, some people's fears are likely due to a "lack of awareness of the Affordable Care Act," according to Whiteman, who also said that "maybe people aren't buying the promises being made by the law."
· And then, 59.4 percent of uninsured adults said that they can't afford coverage. That is likely due in part to the fact that in 20 states, Republican governors, legislatures, or both, have refused to expand Medicaid coverage, a move that has had a deep impact on the level of care available to the poor. (Currently, 27 states have expanded Medicaid; three more are considering doing so, or are floating alternative plans.)
· Many people opting for subsidized plans are choosing cheaper bronze plans that can have out-of-pocket deductibles as high as $6,350 for an individual or $12,700 for a family. Those options can easily lead to hard to manage debts after a significant accident or hospitalization -- though far less than if the patient was uninsured.

Although critics have complained that the ACA and its attempts to remake the U.S. health care system would put the brakes on the economy, the numbers make it clear that it's the converse that is true. Those millions of Americans who are still unable to get quality health care that they can afford are an anchor, dragging on economic growth. With their households in perpetual jeopardy of financial collapse, they can't participate fully in the consumer economy -- and consumer spending is the largest driver of GDP growth in America. Even those who firmly believe in the sink-or-swim school of economics should recognize that strapping lead weights to people runs counter to the twin goals of promoting personal responsibility and national economic recovery.

 

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments Reported by DailyFinance 23 hours ago.

Understanding accountable care: How new programs, models and networks are improving access to high-quality healthcare.

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A quick reference guide for employers. Accountable care models. Clinically-integrated networks. Patient-centered medical homes. Even if you’re familiar with the world of healthcare and health benefits, these new concepts can be difficult to grasp. However, it’s important to understand them, as they can dramatically enhance your ability to give employees access to quality care and affordable health insurance. The following overview will explain how many of these programs, services and care models… Reported by bizjournals 20 hours ago.

Employee health insurance costs up only slightly this year, but outpace wage growth

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Workers and the companies they work for saw only slight increases in health insurance premiums this year, with the cost for family health coverage rising 3 percent to $16,834, according to a survey of employee benefits by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust. That modest growth, following a 4 percent increase the year before, still rose faster than workers' wages, which bumped up 2.3 percent, as well as inflation, which was at 2 percent. Also, premium increases… Reported by bizjournals 19 hours ago.

Health Insurance Gets Reasonable-As Long as You Don't Get Sick

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Health Insurance Gets Reasonable-As Long as You Don't Get Sick Reported by ajc.com 17 hours ago.

Too many startups skimp on these benefits

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Startups and small businesses can win and retain talent by offering paid sick leave, a 401(k) match and health insurance, wri -More-  Reported by SmartBrief 18 hours ago.

Consumer Watchdog To Regulator: Health Insurance Companies Cannot Illegally Hide From Voters In No On 45 Ads Bankrolled with Their $37 Million

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SANTA MONICA, Calif., Sept. 11, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The largest health insurance companies in California have contributed $37 million to defeat Proposition 45, but are hiding from voters in deceptive new campaign advertising that violates disclosure laws and should be pulled... Reported by PR Newswire 18 hours ago.

PPI Benefit Solutions and HealthyCT Agreement Creates New Health Insurance Option for Large Groups

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PPI Benefit Solutions (PPI), a leading provider of benefits administration technology and services, has signed an agreement with HealthyCT, Connecticut’s physician-sponsored, non-profit health insurance company, to provide Connecticut employers and brokers with a new health plan option.

Wallingford, CT (PRWEB) September 11, 2014

HealthyCT is a Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP) where any profits are invested back into products, programs, services and future premium stabilization or reduction. It has a statewide network of more than 15,000 providers, and it provides health insurance coverage to individuals, small and large groups.

Through PPI, HealthyCT can offer groups with 51 or more employees a benefits administration platform that consolidates online enrollment, a powerful HR portal, integrated COBRA administration, consolidated billing, and claims advocacy for a broad range of benefits and carrier products all in one place. The addition of PPI’s services will add tremendous new value for employers and brokers.

“HealthyCT has designed a compelling model of health care delivery and management, and we are very excited to add HealthyCT as a preferred carrier to our portfolio of health insurance plans,” said Luis Nunes, President & CEO of PPI Benefit Solutions. “PPI has an established track record of delivering new business to our carrier partners while helping brokers deliver a more comprehensive offering to employers and their employees.”

“By leveraging the proven technology and services of PPI, HealthyCT will now deliver greater performance and value to our large group clients,” said Ken Lalime, CEO of HealthyCT. “The PPI platform helps our clients’ busy Human Resources professionals streamline the administration of their HealthyCT plan along with many of their other benefit offerings at the same time. It is a tremendous value-add and timesaver for them.”

About PPI Benefit Solutions
PPI Benefit Solutions helps employers relieve the day-to-day challenges of managing an employee benefits program. With over 40 years of benefits administration experience, PPI leverages strategic relationships with a broad array of nationally recognized insurance carriers and powerful, web-based technology to provide a single solution for multiple carrier enrollments and eligibility processing, true premium billing, COBRA Administration, and member advocacy services, all at little or no cost to the employer. Working exclusively through brokers, PPI serves over 1,300 clients and nearly 100,000 employees. PPI can be found at http://www.ppibenefits.com; on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ @PPIBenefits and at 10 Research Parkway in Wallingford, CT; or call toll-free, 1-888-674-0046.

About HealthyCT
Founded by physicians, HealthyCT’s mission is to provide Connecticut residents with comprehensive health insurance and easy access to quality healthcare. It is committed to developing an innovative, progressive health plan that ensures the delivery of patient-centered care for individuals, families and businesses of all sizes. Unlike traditional for-profit insurance companies, any profits generated by HealthyCT are to be used to stabilize or reduce premiums to consumers and businesses, and/or to enhance plan benefits and services. HealthyCT can be found at http://www.healthyct.org; across social media @HealthyCTPlan and at 35 Thorpe Avenue in Wallingford. HealthyCT’s toll-free phone number is 1-855-HLTHYCT (458-4928). Reported by PRWeb 18 hours ago.

UnitedHealthcare enters Wisconsin's health insurance exchange

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UnitedHealthcare will enter Wisconsin's online health insurance marketplace for individuals and small businesses starting in 2015, according to information released Sept. 9 by the Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Insurance. The entry of Minnetonka-based UnitedHealthcare to the Wisconsin exchange is significant because the company holds the largest market share of any health insurer in Wisconsin. Because of its large customer base, UnitedHealthcare possesses greater leverage than smaller insurers… Reported by bizjournals 16 hours ago.

Board pushes back establishing state-run exchange

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LITTLE ROCK (AP) — A nonprofit created by the Arkansas legislature has decided to delay establishing a state-run health insurance exchange until 2016 to avoid a rush to build the technology system for Reported by Harrison Daily 16 hours ago.

Coloradans affected by suspension of California health insurance plan

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The Colorado Division of Insurance has suspended the license of California-based SeeChange Health Insurance, which has 4,000 members under small group plans in the state. Reported by Denver Post 14 hours ago.

Zane Benefits Announces New Whiteboard Session on IRS Code Compliance

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New Whiteboard Session on IRS Compliance for Premium Reimbursement Plans

(PRWEB) September 11, 2014

Today, Zane Benefits, the #1 Online Health Benefits Solution, published new information on account-based health plans.

According to Zane Benefits, with a compliant premium reimbursement plan, employers can reimburse their employees tax-free for individual health insurance premiums.

The IRS requires that a formal premium reimbursement plan (with IRS-compliant plan documents) be established in order for an employer to reimburse employees for their individual health insurance premiums tax-free.

In this new Zane Benefits Whiteboard Session, JD Cleary outlines how employers can reimburse employees tax-free for individual health insurance, while keeping the business and employees in compliance.

Click Here to Read More

--

About Zane Benefits
Zane Benefits, the #1 Online Health Benefits Solution, was founded in 2006 to revolutionize the way employers provide employee health benefits in America. We empower employees to take control over their own healthcare, while helping employers recruit and retain the best talent. Our online solutions allow small and medium-sized businesses to successfully transition to a health benefits program that creates happier employees, reduces costs and frees up more time to serve their customers. For more information about ZaneHealth, visit http://www.zanebenefits.com. Reported by PRWeb 13 hours ago.

How Obamacare Will Fuel Economic Inequality In The U.S.

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The best available evidence suggests that most of the lag in earnings growth for low income workers relative to high income workers can be attributed to the rapid increase in the cost of health insurance benefits provided to workers by employers. More importantly, because of its flawed design, Obamacare will aggravate this problem even further among large firm workers and create unnecessary distortions in the labor markets for low-wage workers. Reported by Forbes.com 12 hours ago.

September 11 Responders Diagnosed With Rare Cancer Denied Health Insurance

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September 11 Responders Diagnosed With Rare Cancer Denied Health Insurance September 11 Responders Diagnosed With Rare Cancer Denied Health Insurance
World Trade Center Responders Denied Benefits After Being Diagnosed With Rare Cancer Too Soon After 9/11
Emergency Workers, First Responders Denied Health Insurance Coverage After Being Diagnosed With Rare Cancer Too Soon
September 11 Responders Diagnosed With Rare Cancer Denied Health Insurance
Headlines
Health
Nation
Has Been Optimized

Thousands of firefighters, police officers, contractors and civilians continue to be diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer 13 years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but some are being denied health insurance because their cancers were diagnosed too soon.

That’s what happened to John Meyers, a former New York police officer and first responder who provided security to the World Trade Center on September 11. He was diagnosed with IV oropharyngeal cancer three years and 10 months after tending to ground zero, CNN reports.

The minimum latency period for oropharyngeal cancers, meaning the minimum time period needed to prove a connection between exposure to toxins at ground zero and a diagnosis of that type of cancer, is four years.

Meyers was about eight weeks shy of eligibility for cancer coverage or compensation.

“We got screwed,” he told the television station. “They don’t know what the latency period should be; four years may be right, or it may be wrong.”

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which runs the World Trade Center Health Program, determined the latency periods for 58 cancers, including breast, colon, lung, skin, ovarian, esophagus and stomach cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.

A chief medical officer of the ACS says that oropharyngeal cancer in this population, absent risk factos like drinking, smoking or a human papillomavirus infection, is unusual.

Determining an accurate latent window is a complex process.

Brawley adds that four years is probably a fair timeline for developing oropharyngeal cancer, even considering the unique circumstances surrounding 9/11.

"I think (the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) made a terrible mistake," argued Michael Banahan, a first responder diagnosed with stage III oropharyngeal cancer at age 44, three years and five months after 9/11.

He was also denied coverage because he was diagnosed too soon.

"I'm going to die knowing I got my cancer from 9/11. I don't care what NIOSH says,” said Banahan.

Advocates for responders say they will petition the institute to amend its rules regarding coverage for oropharyngeal cancer.

Sources: CNN via CBS46, American Cancer Society

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Personal Accident and Health Insurance in Colombia, Key Trends and Opportunities to 2018 Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends And Forecast Research Report

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ResearchMoz.us include new market research report"Personal Accident and Health Insurance in Colombia, Key Trends and Opportunities to 2018 " to its huge collection of research reports.

Albany, NewYork (PRWEB) September 12, 2014

Synopsis

The report provides in depth market analysis, information and insights into the Colombian personal accident and health insurance segment, including:· The Colombian personal accident and health insurance segment’s growth prospects by insurance category.
· Key trends and drivers for the personal accident and health insurance segment.
· The various distribution channels in the Colombian personal accident and health insurance segment.
· The detailed competitive landscape in the personal accident and health insurance segment in Colombia.
· Detailed regulatory policies of the Colombian insurance industry.
· A description of the personal accident and health reinsurance segment in Colombia.
· Porter's Five Forces analysis of the personal accident and health insurance segment.
· A benchmarking section on the Colombian personal accident and health insurance segment in comparison with other countries in the Central and Latin American region.

Complete Report With TOC @ http://www.researchmoz.us/personal-accident-and-health-insurance-in-colombia-key-trends-and-opportunities-to-2018-report.html

Executive summary

The Colombian personal accident and health insurance segment posted a review-period (2009−2013),compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.7% in 2013. During the review period, factors such as regulatory changes, a rise in the number of fatal road traffic accidents and sustainable economic development had a favorable impact on the growth of the personal accident and health segment. A rise in the number of outbound travelers and increasing medical expenses also contributed to the segment’s growth.

Scope

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the personal accident and health insurance segment in Colombia:· It provides historical values for the Colombian personal accident and health insurance segment for the report’s 2009–2013 review period and projected figures for the 2013–2018 forecast period.
· It offers a detailed analysis of the key sub-segments in Colombian personal accident and health insurance segment, along with market forecasts until 2018.
· It covers an exhaustive list of parameters, including written premium, incurred loss, loss ratio, commissions and expenses, combined ratio, frauds and crimes, total assets, total investment income and retentions.
· It analyses the various distribution channels for personal accident and health insurance products in Colombia.
· Using Porter’s industry-standard “Five Forces” analysis, it details the competitive landscape in Colombia for the personal accident and health insurance segment.
· It provides a detailed analysis of the reinsurance segment in Colombia and its growth prospects.
· It profiles the top personal accident and health insurance companies in Colombia and outlines the key regulations affecting them.

All Latest Market Research Report @ http://www.researchmoz.us/latest-report.html

Reasons to buy

· Make strategic business decisions using in depth historic and forecast market data related to the Colombian personal accident and health insurance segment and each category within it.
· Understand the demand-side dynamics, key market trends and growth opportunities within the Colombian personal accident and health insurance segment.
· Assess the competitive dynamics in the personal accident and health insurance segment, along with the reinsurance segment.
· Identify the growth opportunities and market dynamics within key product categories.
· Gain insights into key regulations governing the Colombian insurance segment and its impact on companies and the market's future.

Key highlights

· The Colombian personal accident and health insurance segment posted a review-period (2009−2013),compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of13.7%.
· Rising numbers of outbound travelers, sustainable economic development, and regulatory changes had a positive impact on the overall growth of the Colombian personal accident and health insurance segment during the review period.
· The health insurance category accounted for 58.6% of the personal accident and health segment’s gross written premium, followed by the personal accident category with 39.1% and the travel insurance category with 2.3%.
· The country’s personal accident and health insurance penetration stood at 0.23% in 2013, and is expected to reach 0.28%in 2018.
· The segment is highly concentrated, with the 10 leading companies accounting for 90.4% of the segment in 2013. There were 29 companies actively operating in the Colombian personal accident and health insurance segment in 2013.

About Us
ResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis.We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports.We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets.Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.

Contact
M/s Sheela
90 Sate Street, Suite 700
Albany, NY 12207
Tel: +1-518-618-1030
http://www.researchmoz.us/
Blog: http://industryresearchnews.blogspot.com Reported by PRWeb 3 hours ago.

Report: 'Staggering Numbers' of Virginians Will Lose Plans, Pay More Due to ObamaCare

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Report: 'Staggering Numbers' of Virginians Will Lose Plans, Pay More Due to ObamaCare According to a report that aired on Richmond, VA NBC affiliate WWBT 12 on Thursday, at least 250,000 Virginians will be forced to get new health insurance coverage plans by year's end because their current plans don't meet the requirements of ObamaCare.

"What's happened is that the law has changed," Doug Gray, executive director of the Virginia Association of Health Plans told WWBT 12. "We're not allowed to offer those plans anymore. So what we're saying to people is you need a plan that's compliant with the law."

(h/t RNC Research)

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor Reported by Breitbart 1 day ago.

Allsup Promotes Disability Literacy at National Home and Community Based Services Conference

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The “Power of Disability Literacy” workshop is scheduled Wednesday, Sept. 17, in Arlington, Virginia

Belleville, Ill (PRWEB) September 12, 2014

Allsup, a nationwide provider of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) representation, will present a workshop on the “Power of Disability Literacy” at the 2014 National Home and Community Based Services Conference (HCBSC), Sept. 16-18, in Arlington, Virginia.

Disability literacy is the ability to obtain and understand information regarding health, finances and resources to adapt to, anticipate and overcome challenges resulting from a chronic illness or disability.

“Many of us are familiar with the terms health literacy and financial literacy,” said Allsup manager of Strategic Alliances, Tai Venuti. “Disability literacy is another important concept that helps individuals better manage their health and finances.”

According to the Social Security Administration, today’s 20-year-old has a 1 in 4 chance of becoming disabled before reaching retirement age.

“Nearly everyone has a family member or knows someone who had to limit or stop working due to a mental or physical condition,” said Venuti. “But, less than a third of American workers have private sector long-term disability insurance.

“Understanding programs like SSDI, which most American workers pay into through their FICA taxes, empowers them to make informed decisions and take action to protect their health and finances when they can no longer work.”

An Allsup survey of people with disabilities who had been denied SSDI benefits at the initial level revealed they experienced financial crises, extreme stress and declining health. Click here to see the survey. Nearly 90 percent said they faced negative affects while going through the SSDI appeals process. These included:·     Stress on family - 63 percent
·     Worsening illness - 53 percent
·     Draining of retirement/savings - 35 percent
·     Lost health insurance - 24 percent
·     Missed mortgage payments - 14 percent
·     Foreclosure - 6 percent
·     Bankruptcy - 5 percent

“Many of these negative outcomes can be avoided if people connect with the right resources at the right time,” said Venuti. “That’s where disability literacy comes in to play―knowing what kind of help is available, and when and how to access that help.”

More than 1,000 national, federal, state and local leaders, advocates, and champions for children, older adults, and individuals with disabilities from across the nation are expected to attend the HCBSC. For more information on the conference, click here

For information on SSDI eligibility, visit Expert.Allsup.com or call Allsup’s Disability Evaluation Center at (888) 841-2126.

# # #

ABOUT ALLSUP
Allsup is a nationwide provider of Social Security disability, veterans disability appeal, Medicare and Medicare Secondary Payer compliance services for individuals, employers and insurance carriers. Allsup professionals deliver specialized services supporting people with disabilities and seniors so they may lead lives that are as financially secure and as healthy as possible. Founded in 1984, the company is based in Belleville, Illinois, near St. Louis. For more information, go to http://www.Allsup.com or visit Allsup on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Allsupinc. Reported by PRWeb 1 day ago.

Planned Parenthood Ad Hits GOP Candidates On OTC Birth Control

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In its first TV ad buy of the 2014 cycle, Planned Parenthood's political arm is warning voters in North Carolina and Colorado that Republican Senate candidates' support for over-the-counter birth control is not what it seems.

Two new ads target North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis (R) and Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), two of several GOP Senate candidates who have endorsed making birth control pills available without a prescription, rather than requiring employers to cover the full range of contraception in their health care plans.

"Just when insurance is finally covering the cost of prescription birth control, Thom Tillis says no -- women should pay the 600 dollars a year," the North Carolina ad says. "His plan lets insurance companies off the hook and costs North Carolina families more. Look closer and you'll see that Thom Tillis isn't being honest with us, and he's turning the pill into yet another bill."

Planned Parenthood Votes announced on Friday that it's investing $500,000 in TV ads for the Raleigh, North Carolina, media market and $400,000 for the Denver market. The first two ads are part of a broader campaign to highlight the differences between Republicans and Democrats on women's reproductive health issues.

Most Republican candidates, including Tillis and Gardner, oppose a provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires most employers to cover contraception in their health insurance plans. But in an effort to woo women voters, four Republican Senate candidates -- Tillis, Gardner, Ed Gillespie in Virginia and Mike McFadden in Minnesota -- have recently touted their support for over-the-counter birth control as an alternative to mandatory insurance coverage of the pill.

Gardner, who is challenging Democratic Sen. Mark Udall, began running an ad last week that claims his over-the-counter plan is "cheaper and easier" for women than the Democrats' plan.

"What’s the difference between me and Mark Udall on contraception?" Gardner says in the ad. "I believe the pill ought to be available over the counter, around the clock, without a prescription. Cheaper and easier for you. Mark Udall’s plan is different. He wants to keep government bureaucrats between you and your health care plan. That means more politics and more profits for drug companies. My plan means more rights, more freedom and more control for you."

PolitiFact rated the ad "mostly false," noting that Gardner's plan would drive up costs for more expensive forms of birth control, like the increasingly popular intrauterine device.

Tillis and Gardner have both come under fire from abortion-rights groups for their controversial positions on reproductive issues. Both candidates oppose legal abortion and have supported fetal personhood measures, which would grant personhood rights to zygotes from the moment of fertilization. Such measures would ban abortion entirely and could ban some forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization.

While Planned Parenthood and doctors' groups agree that birth control pills should be available without a prescription, they do not see the plan as a worthy substitute for insurance coverage of contraception.

"OTC availability of oral contraceptives will help more women get the contraceptives they need, which have long been proven safe enough to use without a prescription -- especially emergency contraception," said John C. Jennings, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

"We feel strongly, however, that OTC access to contraceptives should be part of a broader dialogue about improving women's health care, preventing unintended pregnancies, and increasing use of contraception, including long-acting reversible contraception (LARC)," he said. "Over-the-counter access should not be used as a political tool by candidates or by elected officials." Reported by Huffington Post 21 hours ago.

How to pick a health insurance plan

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*How to pick a health insurance plan*

Health care can be very expensive. Having a baby costs about $30,000, and so does the average three-day hospital stay. Health insurance is a way to reduce those costs to an amount that you can manage by sharing the risk with others. That works because most people are mostly healthy most of the time, so their premiums help pay for the expenses of the small number who are sick or injured.

Here are the three major questions you need to ask when picking a plan. 

Insurance sold to people and small businesseses must cover 10 “essential health benefits." Any plan you buy, whether through your state's Health Insurance Marketplace or not, will pay for these services.· Emergency services
· Hospitalization
· Laboratory tests
· Maternity and newborn care
· Mental health and substance-abuse treatment
· Outpatient care (doctors and other services you receive outside of a hospital)
· Pediatric services, including dental and vision care.
· Prescription drugs
· Preventive services (such as immunizations and mammograms) and management of chronic diseases such as diabetes
· Rehabilitation services

The rules for insurance provided by large employers are a little different but the vast majority them will cover the same set of benefits. To make sure, ask your employer for the Summary of Benefits and Coverage, a standard form that will state exactly what the plan covers and doesn't cover.

It's important to know, though that some older plans may not cover this whole list of services. These are plans sold to individuals or small business (with up to 100 employees) that started before the new health reform law took full effect in 2014. Under certain circumstances these plans can be renewed even though they don't have all the consumer protections available with newer plans. If you have such a plan your insurance company will send you a notice about it before the annual renewal date. Then you can consider whether to keep it or to switch to a new plan. 

Get health insurance rankings

Click on the image at right for rankings of health insurance plans nationwide. Use the tool to:

· Choose a plan category such as private HMO or PPO, or Medicare HMO or PPO.
· Choose a state.
· Customize your search to compare plans' scores and their performance in measures such as consumer satisfaction and providing preventive services.

*You pay for health insurance in two ways:*

· The monthly premium that you pay to purchase your plan.
· The share of costs you pay out of your own pocket when you receive medical care. Those are some combination of deductibles, coinsurance, and copays.

In general, if you pay a higher premium upfront, you will pay less when you receive medical care, and vice versa.

If you purchase coverage through your state's Health Insurance Marketplace, you may be eligible for income-based subsidies that lower the cost of your premium.-Premiums-

To make comparison easier, plans sold to individuals are grouped in standardized “metal tiers” with various combinations of premiums and cost sharing:

· *Bronze* plans cover 60 percent of the average member's total health care costs and thus have the lowest premiums but the highest out-of-pocket costs. Individual deductibles for Bronze plans in 2014 average $5,081, according to an analysis by HealthPocket, a private health insurance data-crunching firm.

· *Silver* plans cover 70 percent and have higher premiums and lower out-of-pocket costs than Bronze plans, with an average individual deductible of $2,907.

· *Gold* plans cover 80 percent and have higher premiums and lower out-of-pocket costs than Silver plans, with an average individual deductible of $1,277.

· *Platinum* plans will cover 90 percent and have the highest premiums and lowest out-of-pocket costs, with an average individual deductible of $347.

*Which of those plans is right for you depends on your health and your financial situation:*

· If you already know you have an expensive medical condition, consider a plan with a higher premium that covers more of your costs.
· If you are generally healthy you might come out ahead paying a lower premium and a bigger share of your health costs, because those costs are most likely not going to be that high. Of course, you need to be prepared to pay more if you do unexpectedly become sick or injured. 

-*Out-of-pocket expenses*-

The terms “cost sharing” or “out-of-pocket costs” refer to the proportion of your medical bills you will be responsible for paying when you actually receive health care. Cost-sharing never includes your monthly premium.

If you buy insurance through your state marketplace, you’ll be able to see and compare the cost-sharing structure of plans before you buy. If you get insurance through a job, the information will be on the Summary of Benefits and Coverage form.

These are the four cost-sharing terms you will see.

*Deductible. *The amount you pay every year before the insurance company starts paying its share of the costs. If the deductible is $2,000, then you would pay cash for the first $2,000 in health care you receive each year, after which the insurance company would start paying its share. In every plan you can buy, preventive services will be covered in full even if you haven’t used up your deductible for the year. *Some plans will also pay a portion of your costs for a few other services, usually doctor visits and prescription drugs, even before your deductible has been met.* This is more common with Gold and Platinum plans but some Silver and Bronze plans also cover some services before the deductible has been met.*Copay. *A fixed dollar amount you pay for certain types of care. You might pay $30 for a doctor visit and the insurance company will pick up the rest. Plans with higher premiums generally have lower copays, and vice versa. And some plans do not have copays at all. They use other methods of cost sharing.

*Coinsurance. *A percentage of the cost of your medical care. For an MRI that costs $1,000, you might pay 20 percent ($200). Your insurance company will pay the other 80 percent ($800). Plans with higher premiums generally pick up a larger portion of the bill.

*Out-of-pocket limit. *The most cost-sharing you will ever have to pay in a year. It is the total of your deductible, copays, and coinsurance (but does not include your premiums). Once you hit this limit, the insurance company will pick up 100 percent of your costs for the remainder of the year. Most people never pay enough cost-sharing to hit the out-of-pocket limit but it can happen if you require a lot of costly treatment for a serious accident or illness. Plans with higher premiums generally have lower out-of-pocket limits.

The new health law says that in 2014, the out-of-pocket limit for plans sold to a person and to small groups cannot be more than $6,350 for a person or $12,700 for a family. But most Silver, Gold, and Platinum plans have lower out-of-pocket limits than that.Every health insurance plan has a network of providers—doctors, hospitals, laboratories, imaging centers, and pharmacies that have signed contracts with the insurance company agreeing to provide their services to plan members at a specific price.

If a doctor is not in your plan's network, the insurance company may not cover the bill, or may require you to pay a much higher share of the cost. So if you have doctors you want to continue to see, you will want them to be in the plan's network.

Some state Health Insurance Marketplaces, including those operated through the federal HealthCare.gov site, have links to provider directories that you can see before you buy. But the directories are not standardized and may be hard to use or out of date. Moreover, to keep costs down, many of the plans sold through the state Health Insurance Marketplaces have smaller networks than you may be used to. That is why you should check and double-check with the health plan and your doctor's billing office to make sure your desired providers are in the network of the plan you are considering.

If you are given a choice of insurance through a job, you can obtain provider lists from participating insurance companies, or from the company’s employee benefits department. You can use our hospital Ratings to research the quality of the hospitals in your network.*Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers or sponsors on this website. Copyright © 2006-2014 Consumers Union of U.S.*

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