The United States is a country dedicated to the principles of free trade, the freedom of businesses to rise, grow, and mature, to employ the nation’s citizens, to use its infrastructure, and to profit. Business is the lifeblood of the American way of life, a way of life that Americans have defended with blood, sweat, and tears. In exchange for this exalted position, business has been required to pay taxes, but also to provide health care plans for their employees. Until recently, the cost of health care plans for employees have seriously reduced the employer’s bottom line, especially those of small businesses. With the passage of the health care reform bill of 2010, small businesses will be given help to meet this responsibility, and still be able to make a profit.

Assigning to business the provision of health care plans for their employees was the country’s way of affirming that many people become ill as a result of working hard, that businesses ‘use up’ these people, and that businesses have a moral responsibility to care for their employees, some of whom virtually give up their lives for the company’s goals. Teddy Roosevelt expressed this understanding when he castigated business for “throwing back upon the community the human wreckage due to its wear and tear.” For him, and as it turned out, for the nation, business could meet its responsibility to its employees and to the nation by providing insured health care.

In the future, robots might well run the whole enterprise, but for now, businesses require people to achieve their business goals. It’s also true that work does takes its toll on humans, on their bodies, minds, and family life. Before business was assigned the responsibility of providing health care plans for their employees, the money paid to the employee was regarded as compensation for both the work performed and the cost to the employee’s health. That changed, as the impact of work on the employee became clearer, and the dependence of business on the employee  was no longer understated. Eventually, compensation for labor was no longer strictly defined by a paycheck; fair compensation came to include health insurance. Today,  its no longer just an expectation; health insurance in now our national law.

The United States health care reform bill of 2010 requires businesses employing 50  persons or more to provide health insurance to their employees. However, this provision doesn’t take effect until 2014, four years from now. In the meantime, to encourage business to provide health care coverage for their employees now, small businesses will receive tax credit incentives if they do. This will enable small businesses to achieve a better bottom line than they currently enjoy, due to the high cost of medical insurance, including their group health care plans.

Whether the rationale for assigning health care coverage to businesses today is valid or not, business has been irrevocably assigned the task. At least you can be sure your competitors are having their profits reduced by the same health care expense. They’re not going to have the extra profit to spend on quality improvement any more than you are. Quality products and services are what made the U.S. the great economic power that it was. Quality employees are a significant factor in creating quality products and services. Finding and training good employees can be expensive. Inexpensive, but comprehensive health care plans can be used as an enticement for getting and keeping quality employees. Your employees will, at some point, get sick. Without medical treatment, they could be absent a long time or could even die. Getting them healthy as quickly as possible and keeping them alive, as crude as it may sound, increases the probability that your company will continue to provide the quality products or services that keep your profits high. The burden may be hard, although there are also some benefits to be gained. However, the real prize of providing health care plans is in being not only a profitable company, but a noble one.

Who hasn’t heard a story of a health insurance provider who refused to pay on a  legitimate claim just to increase the provider’s profits? With every claim paid, their profits decrease. Yes, it happens, but then, bad apples are found in every  industry, from Wall Street to Main Street, from City Hall to the Capital. The question is how widespread the practice is, and there’s no telling. Still, we  shouldn’t paint the entire industry with the same brush. The health insurance industry has as many honest companies as any industry. Still, the U.S. Congress has put constraints on the industry in the new Health Reform Law of 2010 that should  help alleviate this industry of some of its embarrassments.

The health industry accounts for fully one sixth of the United States economy! Americans spend $2 trillion a year on health care, most dollars coming from health insurance providers who, of course, collect their money as premiums on health insurance policies. Health insurance providers make 3 to 6 percent profit from their premiums; the rest goes to operations and claims payments. The new Health Reform Law of 2010 has now put providers on notice: by 2011, providers must allocate at least 80 percent of premium payments to treatment. They’ll be forced to operate on 20 percent of their collections and extract their profit as well. This measure is intended to force providers to streamline their operations, control their expenses, and to reduce tendencies to deny claims. In the future, we can be assured, our providers will pay all legitimate claims without too much fuss. Good news indeed.

Health insurance providers have been saddled with additional burdens as a result of the passage of the Health Reform Law. After March 23, 2010, when President Obama signed the bill into law, providers were to immediately cease the practice of dropping a person’s coverage just because they get sick. Neither are they to deny coverage to sick children. In 2010, they are also ordered to remove lifetime caps, enabling the elderly sick to continue receiving care. The first year insures the sick will be able to get treatment, and that no one covered by insurance be denied when they need it most. Following this law, the health care insurance industry will no longer be open to accusations of inhumanity.

As said above, 2011 will require health insurance providers to spend 80 percent of their premiums on medical treatment. It is in 2012 that the industry will experience the full force of the law, as then, no provider will be permitted to refuse insurance to any U.S. citizen. They’ll have to make insurance available to everyone, sick or not. While this could prove an unfair burden as new claims from the sick will increase their payouts, the law has balanced this possibility with an equally binding force requiring all Americans to have medical insurance. Since insurance for the about 24 million poor Americans will be subsidized by $350 billion from the U.S. government, 2012 should see health insurance providers realize an increase in profits.

All of these measures are meant to control health care costs in the U.S., to provide all citizens access to insurance, and to assure the sick always have care. If all goes as planned, we can expect to see the reputation of health insurance providers at all time highs. Given what they do provide for society, that reputation should have always been high. Getting rid of those ‘bad apples’ should  renew our confidence in them again, with heartfelt gratitude.

A high number of business owners today have no idea of the role a commercial insurance quote can play in their businesses. Most believe that they are okay without one while others still think it is an expendable expense. In today’s business arena, a commercial insurance cover is among the prerequisite tools that any business must invest in as a safety measure.

A commercial insurance quote has of late become necessary to most businessmen and women in estimating how covered they are in respect to all their insurance liability requirements. Conducting business in the contemporary markets necessarily requires that you ensure a good coverage for any negligent act, accident or unexpected event etc that may accrue at the company. Else, if your business is proved liable to any such occurrences (such as negligence) the damages payable will totally bankrupt the company and push you out of operations in a jiffy.

You cannot afford to take your insurance coverage for granted at any one time. If for instance your company has employed a number of people to do hazardous jobs or any type of job for that matter (including delivering a service to customers), then your company need a sound commercial insurance policy. Such a policy must cover all the employees of and property of your company. This ensures that should anything happens to any one of these (property, machinery, employees), you are legible for financial assistance from the insurance cover. The key word here is that you must ensure sound coverage before the accident happens. You must always ensure that you are adequately covered at all times, so that if need be, the insurance coverage will be able to pick the bills when you need it to.

You cannot afford to assume that you are covered when you do not know for sure. And this is where a commercial insurance quote becomes indispensable to your business. The commercial insurance quote helps you to evaluate the underlying risk management component of your business versus the coverage parameters of your insurance. This ensures that should anything happen, you are aware of what is covered and what is not covered by the business’ insurance. This avoids a scenario where you realize too late that your insurance did not cover what you had all along thought it did.

Furthermore, commercial general liability policies require that such a quote proclaim a company’s protection and coverage against accidents and negligence, especially for companies whose operations include delivering service to customers such as transportation. A moving company for instance requires that its commercial vehicle insurance policy be valid for as many eventualities that may accrue in various jurisdictions you serve and in all manner of operations you may engage in.

It will be a great loss to your company and to you, if your vehicle is involved in an accident when transporting wares to a jurisdiction not covered by your basic insurance policy. In this regard, a commercial insurance quote is like insurance over your insurance coverage, ensuring that you are actually covered for all the coverage needs of your business. It is when you want to be sure of the extents of your business insurance coverage that you need a commercial insurance quote most.

Until recently, March 23, 2010 precisely, when the Health Reform Law of 2010 was signed into law by President Obama, most health insurance plans provided by employers covered your children until they were 18 or 21. The logic was simple enough: your child is under your care until they become adults, at which time they are old enough to enter the work force and obtain health insurance for themselves. Until then, health insurance for children was covered under most employer-provided health insurance plans. This approach seemed fair enough, but recent events have left thousands of our children without health care coverage.

While this arrangement previously seemed just enough, its deficiencies became clear in the recent economic collapses we’ve endured since 2008. Children reaching the age of maturity, 18 to 21, depending on the state, are normally no longer covered by the health insurance for children portion of the insurance plan their parents have from their employers. If jobs were available for our children – they are always our children, no matter what their age – then they could simply find a job in which the employer offers health insurance coverage, and get their own. The fact is that today we are experiencing the highest level of unemployment among teens and first time job seekers in the history of our economy. Even adults are having trouble finding work. Without a job, there is no insurance for these children, and waiting until they find work is not always a viable alternative. Some of these children have ongoing diseases, such as diabetes 1, which doesn’t go away just because you’ve turned 18. The inability of the economy to provide jobs for these fledgling adults is causing pain, debilitation, and death for many of our children, dropped from their parents health care plan, that had provided health insurance for children of the employee.

The framers of the Health Reform Law were well aware of this crisis when they wrote the legislation. In a stroke of utter brilliance, they stipulated in the law that children with pre-existing conditions cannot be automatically dropped from their parent’s coverage when they turn 18 or 21. Its urgency won the stipulation first place among what portions of the law must be implemented immediately. In 2010, insurers may no longer drop a child from a policy that includes health insurance for children, not until they turn a whopping 26 years old. Countless children are being saved from misery and death by this act. If the child is 18, that child is being given 8 more years of coverage. Perhaps eight years from now, that child, then an adult, might be able to find a job and ease into an employer provided health care plan without any problem.

By the enactment of the Health Reform Law of 2010, health insurance for children has gotten the boost it needs for our times. Some believe this is still not enough. The urgent problem seems taken care of, but what of the millions of children who do not have some sort of health insurance for children because their parents cannot afford it? What is the law doing to assure they are not excluded?

The Health Reform Law is remarkable in that it has provisions for making insurance available even to the poor. Even families making up to $88 thousand a year will be  able to receive help from the federal government, in the form of subsidies. The poor may select their own plan, which may include insurance coverage for children, and the feds will pay the insurer what the family cannot pay. 24 million Americans are expected to benefit by this provision, at a cost of about $350 billion a year. Remarkably, this provision, along with the others it contains, is expected to reduce the federal deficit by $124 billion over the next ten years.

This law is a powerful expression of America’s love for their children. Changes are inevitable, so pay attention to what is going on with the law. We must never let the love of wealth replace the love of our children. If movement begins to go against any benefits to our children, oppose it. It’s human nature to defend and die for their children if necessary. Let nature be your guide. Keep health insurance for children a top priority by urging your congressperson to stand for children first. It’s only human.

There are some things in life you simply cannot avoid. One of these is health coverage. It does not matter if you are married, single, or have a large family, you need a health insurance coverage plan for a number of reasons. First and foremost, you never know when something might go down, and you need to be rushed to the hospital. Maybe you break your wrist or get into a fender bender and have to get an MRI done. Regardless of what the issue is, there comes a time when health coverage is imperative. And just imagine if you were facing a serious medical condition. At this point you would be seriously dependent upon a stellar health care plan. It can keep you from going bankrupt.

For single men and women, there are affordable individual health insurance coverage plans. Any time you deal with health coverage, you can expect to get a better deal based on two factors. One is your age, and two is your current health. Therefore if you are 25 and very healthy, you can get an affordable individual health insurance policy without much effort. The key is to take care of your health as best you can, and acquire a good coverage plan at a young age if possible. This way if you break your nose, need to visit a dermatologist, or have to go on for a minor operation, your health insurance will cover you; at least to some degree. It is worth the monthly payment.

A few websites that will help you find out more about affordable individual health insurance coverage are goldenrule.com, aetna.com, affordable-health-insurance.org, and ehealthinsurance.com. Be sure to take a closer look at these helpful websites in order to learn more about current health insurance coverage plans. Even if you are not searching for an affordable individual health insurance policy, it is wise to review these helpful sites. You can additionally learn more about family insurance coverage, policies for married couples, and low-priced insurance plans for individuals with pre-existing health problems. The key is doing your research beforehand.

On the flip side, it makes no sense to avoid decent and affordable individual health insurance plans. If you are aware how life works, then you already know that you will need health coverage when you do not have it. This is pretty much how it always works. Therefore it is prudent to look into a variety of affordable health insurance policies, and make a decision about which one is right for you. This way you will at least be prepared if something does happen. As for parents of children, it is basically imperative to acquire a good health insurance plan to be on the safe side.

Don’t expect to see a sudden drop in health insurance prices as a result of the enactment of the Health Reform Law of 2010. Our best hope at this time is that health insurance prices will start to stabilize. Although the 2,400 page law specifies a number of changes to health insurance policies and practices, the law is by no means a ‘finished’ product. At best, it’s a broad guideline that opens a multiple lane highway leading to a health industry available to all citizens. Along the way, opportunities for experimentation will present themselves, including  efforts to reduce costs, streamline administration, while increasing quality  of health care. Still, efficient and effective procedures and processes have yet to be devised. Amendments are certain to be proposed. The law is recognized by economists  and health care scientists as a first step, the beginning of what will be a somewhat long journey to universal, affordable health coverage for all Americans.

What’s affordable health coverage? Affordable is a relative term. The rich can afford what the poor cannot. A poor family may be able to afford a used, stark naked Yugo, while a rich family can certainly afford the same automobile, but they can also afford a Mercedes, which the poor family cannot. Health care plans come in the same sorts of varieties as automobiles. Some offer basic medical and prescription benefits, (the Yugo of health care), while others are complete in coverage, providing maximum coverage, from chiropractic treatment to catastrophic illness coverage, replete with coverage for organ transplants, unlimited lifetime coverage with no cap, and VIP hospital rooms. Our personal family budget and the income we may reasonably expect to earn, thus becomes what is affordable for us. If you’ve got the money or expect to earn it, you can afford it.

The problem then is to buy an affordable health coverage plan that fulfills both our basic and specialized medical needs. The various insurance plans are ‘packages’, consisting of covered services. In choosing the package, naturally, you  want it to consist of every possible service coverage – there’s no telling what the future might bring – but, each component raises your total cost. Getting every possible service naturally raises the price. The problem for you is to put together a package that will cover all the essentials and any special needs your health condition may require. Insurers put together packages for you to choose from. Look at several of them; remember, they are not all the same.

When you’re young, a basic affordable health coverage plan will do, but as you age, more services will be required. As you get older, your income should increase, such  that, what was not affordable when you were young, is affordable when you’re older. Sit down with your chosen provider’s agent and plan for the extensions you can expect to need as you age. The new law prohibits discrimination against the sick. A pre-existing condition no longer precludes you from getting the insurance you need to cover the treatment for a condition your policy did not cover. Waiting until a condition arises is not smart, however, because you can expect to pay higher rates  Speak with your doctor about what he or she anticipates for your health, given your family history. Your doctor may be your best adviser.

Let us hope for and work towards bringing down the cost of medical insurance, but until then, if ever that day comes, your best bet is to get an affordable health coverage package that will cover conditions you can expect at each stage of your life.  One delightful benefit of the new law is the promise of the nation to subsidize the poor who cannot afford insurance. Up to this point, people have been going bankrupt in their efforts to pay off medical bills their insurance didn’t cover. If you are making less than $88,000 a year, the government will subsidize your health care. You no longer need to become destitute to stay healthy – and alive. In this sense, affordable health coverage is available to everyone now.

Keep abreast of the ongoing changes to the law. Be involved. The law is a broad road towards universal health care coverage for everyone, but the vehicles to carry us to that goal are being built as we proceed. Perhaps, in time, the ‘Mercedes’ of health care packages will finally become affordable health coverage for everyone.

Being a self-employed individual in the United States is sometimes a bigger pain than it is a blessing. At tax time, you feel it the most. You can see the discrimination between you and a corporate employee making the same hourly compensation as you by simply comparing your tax return amount to his or hers. They always seem to make out better than you. It’s the same with health insurance. Work for a big company, and you’ll get the best health insurance rates possible, but apply for health insurance for individuals and your wallet will surely wince! The exorbitant premiums you must pay will more than likely keep you from getting insured. This fact has been taken into account by the new Health Reform Law, and now the Feds are doing something to make health insurance affordable for you.

Health insurance for individuals is expensive simply because you aren’t bringing  any business to the insurer but yourself. Like other products for sale, the greater the amount you purchase, the cheaper the cost per item charged. Because large corporations can bring more business to insurers, they are given the best premium rates per employee. It’s as simple as that. You can’t blame the insurers. After all, health insurance is a business, not a humanitarian undertaking. Numbers are important to their bottom line, as it is for any business. The more they sell, the greater the profits. As a lone wolf, you’ve had to face the fact: alone, you’ll pay the most.

In its Health Reform Law, the federal government undertook bringing affordable insurance to all Americans. Recognizing that many self—employed people were uninsured because of the price tag on health insurance for individuals (as well as for small businesses), the framers of the law saw fit to include a requirement that aims to bring insurance cost for the ‘lone wolf’ down to the same price as the corporate man or woman now pays. In the near future, health insurance for individuals will be available at group rates. This will be made possible by the proposed health insurance ‘exchanges’.

The concept of health insurance exchanges is a brilliant solution to the inequity the self-employed individual now endures. These exchanges will be available throughout the country. Each exchange will represent a pool of many thousands, perhaps millions, of people up for health insurance. At each exchange, health insurance providers will make their products available, and the number of people  in a given exchange will be treated as a group, just as the employees of a corporation are treated as a group. The people who will belong to the exchange will be owners of small businesses and the self-employed (or unemployed) individual. Being a part of a group, these individuals are no longer required to pay premiums at their highest rates. They’ll get them at group or exchange discounts.

If you’re a self-employed individual looking for medical insurance, you’re in luck. Shortly you’ll be able to purchase health insurance at attractive corporate rates. It makes you wonder if the government, having done this, might not soon turn to the inequities in the tax code that penalize self-employment. For now let’s be happy we can finally get health insurance for individuals at affordable prices. We can be healthy and live!