46.7% of Americans Paid No Income Tax in 2011

According to the Tax Policy Institute 46.4% paid no income tax in 2011.

The Gallup question specifically stated "Do you regard the income tax you will have to pay this year is fair?" It did not ask if the system was fair.

If those who pay no income tax think their zero share is fair (and logically they should), then a mere 16% of those who do pay taxes think their share is fair.

Here is my math: 55% think their share is fair. Subtract the 46.4% who pay nothing (and logically should be happy about that),  the net is 8.6 percentage points. (8.6 / 53.6) * 100 = 16%. 

Full text: Mish's Economic Trend Analysis 

President Obama's 2014 Budget Proposal Would Begin Taxing Your Retirement Accounts

President Obama's proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2014, released in April, would cap tax-advantaged retirement savings for individuals at just over $3 million next year. The asministration estimates that the limit on tax-preferred accounts would confiscate an additional $9 billion of workers earnings over 10 years.

President Obama seeks to limit the deduction for contributions to 401(k) and 403(b)-type defined contribution plans, defined benefit pension plans, and individual retirement accounts (IRAs) for an individual who has total balances or accrued benefits under those plans that are sufficient to provide an annual income of approximately $200,000 commencing at age 62. The proposal would be effective for taxable years beginning after Dec. 31, 2013. 

Walking can lower risk of heart-related conditions as much as running

Walking briskly can lower your risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes as much as running can, according to surprising findings reported in the American Heart Association journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.

Researchers analyzed 33,060 runners in the National Runners’ Health Study and 15,045 walkers in the National Walkers’ Health Study. They found that the same energy used for moderate intensity walking and vigorous intensity running resulted in similar reductions in risk for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and possibly coronary heart disease over the study’s six years.

“Walking and running provide an ideal test of the health benefits of moderate-intensity walking and vigorous-intensity running because they involve the same muscle groups and the same activities performed at different intensities,” said Paul T. Williams, Ph.D., the study’s principal author and staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Life Science Division in Berkeley, Calif.

Unlike previous studies, the researchers assessed walking and running expenditure by distance, not by time. Participants provided activity data by responding to questionnaires.

“The more the runners ran and the walkers walked, the better off they were in health benefits. If the amount of energy expended was the same between the two groups, then the health benefits were comparable,” Williams said.

Comparing energy expenditure to self-reported, physician-diagnosed incident hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes and coronary heart disease, researchers found:

• Running significantly reduced risk for first-time hypertension 4.2 percent and walking reduced risk 7.2 percent.
• Running reduced first-time high cholesterol 4.3 percent and walking 7 percent.
• Running reduced first-time diabetes 12.1 percent compared to 12.3 percent for walking.
• Running reduced coronary heart disease 4.5 percent compared to 9.3 percent for walking.

“Walking may be a more sustainable activity for some people when compared to running, however, those who choose running end up exercising twice as much as those that choose walking. This is probably because they can do twice as much in an hour,” Williams said. ...

Link to full text

Buyer Beware: New Health Ins. Subsidies Could Result in Surprise Federal Tax Bills Later

Reported in the Associated Press:

Millions of people who take advantage of government subsidies to help buy health insurance next year could get stung by surprise tax bills if they don't accurately project their income. … The subsidies are based on income. The lower your income, the bigger the subsidy. ...

What happens if you or your spouse gets a raise and your family income goes up in 2014? You could end up with a bigger subsidy than you are entitled to. If that happens, the law says you have to pay back at least part of the money when you file your tax return in the spring of 2015. ...

There are also special rules that protect people who marry or divorce from being required to pay back subsidies just because their marital status changes.

There are four thresholds for repaying the subsidies:

• A family of four making less than $47,000 would have to repay a maximum of $600.
• If the same family makes between $47,000 and $70,000, the amount they have to repay is capped at $1,500.
• If the same family makes between $70,000 and $94,200, the amount is capped at $2,500.
• Families making more than four times the poverty level have to repay the entire subsidy.... 

Is Atlas Shrugging? Docs look to retire in face of ObamaCare

Most physicians have a pessimistic outlook on the future of medicine, citing eroding autonomy and falling income, a survey of more than 600 doctors from Deloitte Center for Health Solutions found.  

• Six in 10 physicians (62%) said it is likely many of their colleagues will retire earlier than planned in the next 1 to 3 years.
• Four in 10 doctors reported their take-home pay decreased from 2011 to 2012, and more than half said the pay cut was 10% or less.
• Among physicians reporting a pay cut, four in 10 blame the [ACA], and 48% of all doctors believed their income would drop again in 2012 as a result of the health reform law."  

ObamaCare: Striving to Be Better Than Third-World Care

Wait a minute.  Do you mean that government-monopolized care may not be as good as the citizenry is used to?  As you can see, federal regulators are working hard to make sure our new exchanges offer a luxury, adequate, barely tolerable experience.  

This is the federal official in charge of setting up the Exchanges: 

Chao said that he’d once held high hopes that the exchanges would run smoothly from the beginning, but that those hopes had been dashed. “The time for debating about the size of the text on the screen, or the color, or is it a world-class user experience, that’s what we used to talk about two years ago,” said Chao. “Let’s just make sure it’s not a third-world experience.” Both Chao and Cohen said that it’s likely that some of the state-based exchanges might not be ready on time...

 

Full story:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2013/03/22/cms-on-obamacares-health-insurance-exchanges-lets-just-make-sure-its-not-a-third-world-experience/  

Just why do doctors hate Medi-Cal so much?

(Note, under PPACA, California just expanded the number of residents eligible by 35%)  

• In many states, Medicaid pays doctors a fraction of what private insurers pay. In 2008, in California, a doctor made 38 cents on a Medicaid patient for every dollar he made seeing a privately insured one. In New Jersey, a doctor made 33 cents. In New York, 29. And states continue to decrease Medicaid physician fees, because it’s the only lever they have.  Full story.  
• For every person added to Medi-Cal or Medicare, doctors are forced to negotiate higher healthcare prices with the private insurance industry.  Those increase are passed onto you and your employees as increased premium.  PPACA has only exasperated that cost-shift.  

How Much Life Insurance Do You Need?

Here is a helpful summary from Miranda Marquit at Lifehacker: 

One rule of thumb is the 4%, which means that your family lives off the interest from your payout, and assumes that the lump sum earns 4% a year. If you make $45,000 a year, you would need $1.125 million in insurance coverage to generate your salary. Of course, you don't know that your family will be able to net 4% a year, considering market conditions and inflation. The money might run out over time, but this can give you a fairly quick way of determining how much life insurance you might need.

Another approach is to add up the cost of all of the expenses you expect your family to need to cover for a set period of time. You might decide that you want your life insurance policy to pay off debts that you have, as well as your mortgage, so that your family doesn't have to worry about these obligations. If you have a life partner that works, or that can get work, replacing your income doesn't seem as important as providing a way for your family to get financially squared away.

Also, consider how long your partner will have to support your children after you are gone. You can get coverage that will allow your youngest child to reach age 18. So, if your youngest is a baby, you might decide to get a 20-year term life policy (a little extra wiggle room). Then, you can add up what you hope to pay off with a life insurance policy. Your list might look something like this:

• $185,000 mortgage
• $7,000 car loan
• $20,000 student loans
• $6,000 credit cards
• 18 years x $45,000 = $810,000
• $5,000 funeral cost

The total by this reckoning is $1.033 million. Your family can pay off the bills, and then put the remainder into an account to draw on as income replacement. With earned interest, the money should last more than 18 years, although it wouldn't last indefinitely.

If you are confident in your partner's ability to earn a living, you might just decide on a number like $500,000 to cover expenses and pay off debts, and maybe contribute to your children's future education. At the very least, though, you want to buy enough coverage to pay funeral expenses and pay off debt. That way, your family has fewer things to worry about.

This Makes Recruiting for Lower to Middle Income Jobs Exceedingly Difficult

In aggregate, each household in poverty receives $60,000 per year.  The median working family earns just over $50,000.  The below is from Daniel Halper at the Weekly Standard. 

The amount of money spent on welfare programs equals, when converted to cash payments, about "$168 per day for every household in poverty," the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee finds. Here's a chart detailing the committee's findings: 

          

According to the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee, welfare spending per day per household in poverty is $168, which is higher than the $137 median income per day. When broken down per hour, welfare spending per hour per household in poverty is $30.60, which is higher than the $25.03 median income per hour. 

"Based on data from the Congressional Research Service, cumulative spending on means-tested federal welfare programs, if converted into cash, would equal $167.65 per day per household living below the poverty level," writes the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee. "By comparison, the median household income in 2011 of $50,054 equals $137.13 per day. Additionally, spending on federal welfare benefits, if converted into cash payments, equals enough to provide $30.60 per hour, 40 hours per week, to each household living below poverty. The median household hourly wage is $25.03. After accounting for federal taxes, the median hourly wage drops to between $21.50 and $23.45, depending on a household’s deductions and filing status. State and local taxes further reduce the median household’s hourly earnings. By contrast, welfare benefits are not taxed." 

Some Funny Math at Anthem Blue Cross

Anthem Blue Cross has agreed to lower premium rate hikes for about 630,000 individual policyholders in response to pressure from California insurance regulators, the Los Angeles Times reports (Terhune, Los Angeles Times, 2/15).

Background

On Feb. 1, Anthem Blue Cross enacted premium rates increases that averaged 18% for certain individual policyholders(AP/Sacramento Bee, 2/14).

In a rate filing last fall, Anthem said certain medical costs have increased by nearly 11%, while the price that the insurer actually pays is rising by 13.5% after adjusting for customer deductibles.

According to Anthem, the profit margin on its individual insurance plans in California was less than 1% in 2012. The insurer said it expects to lose money in the individual market in 2013 even with the rate hike (California Healthline, 11/28/12).

The state Department of Insurance deemed the premium hike excessive, saying that the rate request included unsubstantiated estimates of expected medical costs.

While the agency can review rate filings, it does not have the authority to reject them.

Details of New Rate Increase

On Thursday, Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones (D) announced that Anthem has agreed to reduce the average premium increase to 14%. The decision will save consumers an estimated $54 million.

The Times reports that even with the lower rate hike, some individual policyholders still could see their premiums increase by as much as 25%.

Anthem plans to provide refunds or premium credits to policyholders who already paid the higher rates this month (Los Angeles Times, 2/15).

Comments

In a statement, Jones said, "Health insurance has become unaffordable for far too many Californians." He added, "I appreciate that Anthem Blue Cross has agreed to lower these rates."

On Thursday, Darrel Ng -- spokesperson for Anthem -- said that the agreement between Anthem and California regulators still reflects rising health care costs (AP/Sacramento Bee, 2/14).

Source text: http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2013/2/15/anthem-agrees-to-reduce-rate-hikes-for-individual-policyholders.aspx#ixzz2L01jkZis

 

ObamaCare Appetizer: RomneyCare Bill Comes Due

Here is an indicator of what we are in for:   

• Health care was 23% of the MA state fisc in 2000
• It was 25% in 2006 (when RomneyCare was passed) 
• But it has climbed to 41% for 2013
• On current trend it will roll past 50% around 2020—and that best case scenario assumes the current Governor's price controls work as planned. (They won't.) 

In real terms the state's annual health-care budget is 15% larger than it was in 2007, while transportation has plunged by 22%, public safety by 17% and education by 7%. 

Today Massachusetts spends less on roads, police and schools after adjusting for inflation than it did in 2007.

Full text: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323968304578249694095831444.html?mod=googlenews_wsj  

Who Won't Pay the ObamaCare Individual Mandate Penalties?

Well, to name a few:    

• Illegal aliens 
• Criminals 
• The half of Americans who don't pay federal income tax, and 
• Anybody else generally deemed too vulnerable    

In fact, only about 2% of Americans actually will have to pay the penalty.  Yes, this is the topic about which the country fought vehemently for two years and ended in a Supreme Court case.  Why did we waste all of that time and money?   

Read more here from Katy Grimes in an article that I was quoted in extensively.