How Will This Law Affect You?

With the passage of the Health Care bill, many are likely wondering how it will affect them. Will the United States become a socialist nation with everything controlled by the government?! Despite what many conservatives are saying, that isn't the case.

But back to what will happen in regards to your health care:

-No Caps.

Previously, many health care plans had a cap, or a maximum amount you could spend in a year/in your lifetime before you had to start paying out-of-pocket. That won't happen anymore. This affects people with serious illnesses, as they will never be kicked out of treatment or go bankrupt because of their disease.

-Drug Discounts for Seniors

-No more being denied for pre-existing conditions (not effective immediately)

-Tax Breaks (amount would be determined on household income).

So those are a few of the things that we can expect in the immediate, and not so immediate future. Hopefully this bill will pull us out of some debt in the long run.

Health Care Happenings

This health care bill may be one of the most influential pieces of legislation to get passed or killed this decade. If it passes, the United States could be saved from trillions of dollars worth more of deficits in the future. Obama and the House of Representatives are both confident that the bill will have enough votes to pass.

The Washington Post offers a minute-by-minute update of who is voting yes and who is voting no.

here's the status of the votes as of 2:03 pm pacific time: (click image to enlarge)

This Cobbler Isn't Going Anywhere

In these hard economic times, those independent businesses that stay open seem to be the ones that offer unique services. For example, this man is a cobbler, that is he fixes shoes. Being as not many cobblers are around anymore, he doesn't have much competition. Also, as he explains, you can pay 12.50 to get a heel put on your shoe, or you can buy a new pair for 100. So, in a bit of a twisted way, the recession is actually giving him a few more customers who can't afford to buy new shoes. However, he does say that business this year is much better than last year, on the whole.

Chernoffs Stay Off the Street

The Chernoff's are all unemployed at the moment, but are managing to live on unemployment checks for the time being. It's very fortunate that this family had enough money before hand to be able to afford that. However, many people without jobs may have worked at part-time jobs, such as fast food restaurants, and they don't receive unemployment checks. Additionally, families may have 4 or 5 children to feed rather than just one. Being able to stick to a frugal life style without unnecessary spending is definitely a skill that American's, including myself, need to learn.

Nigerian prince still wants your money!

This article from CNN discusses something that I've always found funny, because of how ridiculous it seems. Unfortunately, people do fall for it.

Internet fraud cases surged by 22% in 2009, and financial losses doubled compared to the year before as scammers took advantage of Americans rendered desperate by the recession.

This article details how much money has been lost collectively by the American people because of internet scams. You've probably seen them in your junk email folder, they ask you for your banking information and you will apparently receive lots of money. Of course if you gave out your information, you would quickly lose lots and lots of money. This is very unfortunate for those who were so desperate in this recession they took a risk, and lost.

A long-running Internet scam involving a fictional Nigerian Prince is still in cyberspace, Kane said. In this scam, a "prince" promises vast riches in exchange for your banking information.
Most people don't fall for an obvious scam like that, but there are enough gullible victims to keep the fraudsters in business, he explained.

So when roaming the net, be cautious. Anything asking for things like your social security number or other personal information should be approached with care. A place where scammers find opportunities is in the job market, where they will post fake job applications to receive your personal info.

The message is, be careful kids.

They Want to Kill the Bill

In this lovely video, we have conservatives rallying against health care. Chanting "Kill the Bill". What they apparently are so livid about is the fact that the government will control health care.
Tom Price: "Is that what you want?"
People: "NO!"

Listen, Tom, what I don't want is to have to pay so much money for medical bills and health insurance that I can't afford to get through college or buy a house when I'm out of it.
We need health care reform. According to Tom Price, this Bill is "betraying fundamental American principles". Well, if you mean that it is giving everyone good care, and actually looking out for the citizens of this country, then yes, I suppose it is betraying your fundamental principles.

Teacher Calls Student Loser

A North Carolina public school teacher has been suspended for writing the word “loser” on a 6th grade student’s notebook. “He thought it was funny, the kids thought it was funny…our school district doesn’t think it’s funny,” said Jan Blunt, Communications Director for Buncombe County Schools.

I fully believe in teachers joking around with students, because most of my teachers are like that, and I have a good sense of humor. However, I think if a teacher is going to joke around with his or her students, they have to have a good sense of how far they can go without offending certain kids. The way it sounded to me from the video, the mom saw the comments, the child didn't complain about them. It's appropriate that they suspended the teacher because he had prior warnings, but I think firing the teacher would be too drastic of a move. It's unfortunate that he will have to censor himself around students.