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Posts Tagged ‘legislators’
Proposed Health Reform
Monday, August 17th, 2009
With all U.S. economy problems -surging bank failures, rising foreclosures, and high unemployment, you would think that the resolution for these crises would be focused on by Congress. The legislators may have believed in a spin because they started new initiatives like cap-and-trade bill. Now, they passed the health care reform (H.R. 3200).
Under the proposed law, there is a requirement for employers to offer a health plan and pay the premium (at least 72.5%) for their workers. In addition, those citizens without insurance will be penalized by 2.5% tax. Rich people will be punished further with surcharge - they wouldn’t be able to deduct the fee.
However, some bill critics claim that this will deny medical treatment that’s supposedly for the elderly and disabled. When you look at pages 425-432, the bill authorizes conference payments between health care providers and patients to create “advanced care directive.” Physicians will receive higher reimbursement rate when they participate, although this is not a mandatory plan. This medical order may include hospice care, health care proxies, living wills, and other intervention details that the patient wants before the end of his life.
For most health care providers, they want to comply and boost revenue. Incentive payments require data sharing with government under Physician’s Quality Reporting Initiative.
Tags: bill, Congress, crises, foreclosures, health care reform, health plan, high unemployment, legislators, living will, medical treatment, physicians
Posted in Wills | No Comments »
Legislation Complicates Taxes and Estate Planning
Thursday, August 6th, 2009
Florida Bar requires Florida attorneys to report a certain number of CE (Continuing Education) credits each year. Most teleconferences and online meetings cost around $100. So it’s a treat when a sponsor, Regents Bank, came in and paid for a series of lectures from Cannon Financial’s Attorney Roy Adams. The bank offered local attorneys the chance to attend free, meet their staff in trust department, and receive CE credits for two hours.
Adams is a well- respected and known by estate planning attorneys in the area of speaking every January at Heckerling Conference in Orlando. The event is attended by over 2,000 attorneys.
One of the topics was the several pending estate tax legislation in Senate and the House. Most people will not be subject now to estate tax but when the unified credit amount or lifetime exclusion is $3.5 million (less gifts made) per person, this may reduce the lifetime exclusion (it may also be $7 million for a couple if properly planned). If the lifetime exclusion will be reduced to $1 million (which is already scheduled after 2010) and new legislation doesn’t change the existing law, there is no estate tax.
However, many legislators feel that eliminating estate tax (even for only a year) will greatly contribute to increase of federal deficit - this will eventually be paid back by the taxpayers in the future.
Tags: attorney, attorneys, Cannon Financial, CE, Estate Planning, estate tax, Florida, Heckerling Conference, legislators, Orlando, Regents Bank, Roy Adams
Posted in Estate Planning | No Comments »