What 2014 brings for Obamacare

3:26 AM brings, Obamacare No Comments

| By Jay MacDonald, Bankrate.com

Health insurance will become more affordable for many and mandatory for most this year.

The long-awaited affordability features of the Affordable Care Act are finally ready for prime time in 2014, along with the Obamacare requirement that virtually all Americans must have health insurance or face a penalty.

Major provisions of President Barack Obama's health reform law, from its subsidies for lower-income applicants to its expansion of Medicaid, finally take center stage.

"Many Americans will start to learn what tax credits and cost-sharing subsidies they're eligible for and the vast benefits of the law," predicts Dania Palanker, senior counsel for the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C. "Not only will they have insurance, they'll have insurance they can afford to use."

And yes, like an episode of "Downton Abbey," there are certain to be surprises along the way.

"The other side of getting health insurance at an affordable price with a pre-existing condition is, the young will pay a higher price for their good health and age," says Michael Morrisey, a professor of health economics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. "When that sticker shock hits, it's probably going to be a big topic for the first half of 2014."

Here are the top six Obamacare plot twists sure to make headlines in 2014:

The spotlight finally shifts to the star of the Affordable Care Act: affordable health care.

If your income qualifies you for assistance, the law can help bring down the cost of your family's health coverage in two key ways:

By providing an advance tax credit to lower your monthly insurance premiums. By offering out-of-pocket subsidies to help you pay your insurance deductibles, copayments and coinsurance.

The premium tax credits are available at incomes between 100 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or roughly $11,500-$46,000 for individuals or $23,500-$94,000 for a family of four. You must purchase coverage through your state Obamacare exchange to qualify.

"These tax credit subsidies are provided on a sliding scale, meaning that those people who need help the most get the largest help," says Ron Pollack, executive director of the health care consumer group Families USA.

To qualify for the out-of-pocket subsidies, your household income must be below $59,000 for a family of four or $29,000 for individuals, and you must enroll in a silver (mid-level) health plan through your state's health exchange. The online exchange also can tell if you qualify for free or low-cost coverage under Medicaid.

Under health reform's "individual mandate," most Americans who don't have health coverage by March 31 will be assessed a penalty against their federal income tax for 2014.

The uninsured will be penalized the greater of 1 percent of their annual household income or the oft-cited $95 per person (and $47.50 per child under 18), to a family cap of $285.

Those per-person penalties jump to the greater of 2 percent of income or $325 in 2015, and the greater of 2.5 percent of income or $695 by 2016.

Morrisey says the uninsured middle class is more likely to feel the sting of the individual mandate than lower income groups.

"At $95 a year, the penalty is no big deal," he says. "But at 2.5 percent of income in 2016, if you're making $60,000 a year, the penalty is more than $100 a month. That's money that could be going toward insurance."

Douglas Hough, associate director of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, says the mandate's aim of herding everyone into the insurance pool is long overdue.

"It truly is revolutionary," he says.

Americans with pre-existing health conditions and women of all ages will have something momentous to toast for the New Year: equal treatment from health insurers.

Health insurance companies can no longer deny you coverage, charge you more, cancel your policy or exclude benefits because you have a life-threatening or chronic health condition. The provision applies to all but "grandfathered" plans that were in effect prior to the Affordable Care Act.

In addition, Obamacare prohibits insurance companies from charging women higher health insurance rates than men or denying them coverage because of health conditions such as pregnancy or cancer.

Don't cry for the insurers, says Morrisey. After all, they'll soon have millions of new policyholders to help absorb the added expense.

"Young, healthy people will pay a higher price to help insure the older and sicker," he says.

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Fear brings your investments

8:00 AM brings, Fear, investments No Comments

| By Chuck Jaffe, MarketWatch.com

Hockey great Wayne Gretzky statement "you miss that you not take 100 percent." This mantra applies to investments as well as.

Wayne Gretzky--the greatest ice hockey player of all times-once said that "you miss that you not take 100 percent." From the ice, the big one but admits he was "not a big risk taker... I stay away from things that I know nothing."

Two surveys published last month show, affecting most investors of better Gretzky second mood. Many are still afraid of the Borse--a fear created during the financial crisis five years - and the investors were not in their recordings. As a result, they have missed out, not only on the rally of recent years, but also on the way, better positioned for what happens next.

BlackRock published last month its first global investor pulse survey, which showed that during the continuous successes some exchanges worldwide are forced in best brands, "most people are to achieve not comfortable taking more risks to higher income." The poll surveyed more than 17,500 investors (including some 4,000 Americans) in a range of income.

In the United States were 48 percent of investible assets in cash, with only 18 per cent in shares and 7 percent in bonds, according to the survey took place.

This is ultra-conservative even by the standards of the common rules of thumb, as the old saw says that investors should take their age, subtract from 100 and use the result as a guide for how much of their portfolio in shares should be rough.

In the meantime, the investment company Institute annual survey of US households found that even people who own mutual funds are less willing to take investment risk than they were before the financial crisis. "The dramatic stock market decline from October 2007 to March 2009 still appears in investors minds, trailing", said Sarah Holden, ICI senior director of retirement and investor research.

If investors ever wanted or needed proof that Wall Street climbs a wall of worry, they've got it in the last five years. And they saw that it increases in the last six months, like everything from very Central Bank policy changes on international problems in countries such as Syria a Government discussed switching off and more made the headlines and feel would give it a market implosion every minute.

And yet, if off your news feed six months ago, you would turn it its now mostly happy with your portfolio as grown, completely unaware of all of the daily misery, that you missed.

This is not encouragement to "Don't worry, be happy."

Instead, there is an urge to properly understand the risk.

Investment professionals like to say that risk generates return on investment. A "less risk"portfolio as a "Return less portfolio" could be described that is clearly not what most investors look; If they were, they would their money in the mattress or the piggy bank to apply.

The larger problem is that investors for portfolios that are free from risk looking as if such a thing actually exists.

This not the case.

Put your money in the mattress, you have completely avoided risk that lost probability of your funds, but you have stock purchasing-power risk, to keep hugging the potential for your money with inflation in the course of time. (In the mattress, also you would need to risk about how your nest egg could endanger a fire, theft or other disasters.)

It does so for practical where you can avoid any risk of any kind of risk, only by exposing themselves to another.

"Always too conservative as risky as anything that could meet your portfolio", Steve Wood, chief market strategist for Russell said investments. "A riskless portfolio is not what people want to follow, because low-return or return-less would be."

In this economy, and with the current market investors have too little choice but to accept risk stock market partly because the Federal Reserve policies virtually force her hand. While the interest was altogether to creeping have, they are not still rises on most forms of savings.

And it is fair to say that at this time Wall Street the wall of "unnecessary concern." Climbing has in the last five years the standard & poor's 500 index ($INX) is 15 percent annually; Factor in the crisis and prolong the time frame after a decade and this profit will be cut in half.

But at 7.5 percent, which has market in the last ten years about what investors have been taught are its annualized return of shares.

Ironically, studies show that these types of stocks are about half would disappoint investors when the appeal to the other half. The unfortunate investors are those expected a greater-than 10-percent return for the chance to share, while that pleased investors are just grateful that they suffer no losses and stay something significantly better than they could have earned in cash.

"Is there a stock exchange can not without risks," said Rob Kron, Director and head of investment and retirement education for BlackRock, "but stock market avoid losses without other risks."

Gretzky, investors need to borrow not "big risk-taking", but you have to take risks and understand why they take it.

If you "do your shots" because you take a calculated risk and that your portfolio will benefit in the long run believe by waiting, until later, Gates try, then you have a strategy.

But if you are not taking the shots, because you are still scared about events now more than five years in the rear-view mirror must detect, influence how the ultimate score. You're kidding yourself if you think that the kind of strategy-even if you verlassliche-- holds does not "lose."

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Mill's revival brings back blankets, US jobs

10:00 AM blankets, brings, Mills, revival No Comments

FARIBAULT, Minn. — The Faribault Woolen Mills is weaving its way back from oblivion one thread and one American employee at a time.

In 1852, Alexander Faribault founded the Minnesota town bearing his name.

Thirteen years later, the Faribault Woolen Mills opened for business, shipping its products all over the world.

As it blanketed the global marketplace, the factory wove itself into the community — until 2009, that is, when it literally stopped mid-stitch, bankrupted by poor management and a weak economy.

"When they shut the doors here, I was devastated," said 31-year old Jenny Jones, who helped make blankets there for four years until the plant closed. "To drive by here and see this beautiful place closed, it was so hard for me.

"This place means so much; not just to me, but to the community."

The building sat untouched for nearly two years. If you snuck in, you'd see wool still sitting in bins. Blankets were left, half-made. ?

Over time, several interested parties toured the facility, but no buyers. Ultimately, a company operating out of Pakistan offered to buy the equipment. ?

Everything was labeled and tagged for shipment. Then something unbelievable happened. ?

'You could say it was stupidity'
Two men in this quiet community of 23,000 people decided to roll the entrepreneurial dice. ?

Cousins Chuck and Paul Mooty decided to buy it all, from the aging equipment to the formerly global brand.

"The only thing that worked in here were some of the lights," said Paul Mooty, a lawyer who ran another business for the better part of a decade before taking over the woolen mill. ?

At first blush, it didn't appear to be a very good idea.

"For the baseline story, I guess you could say it was stupidity," said Chuck Mooty, who was a retired executive at Dairy Queen.

Both men were successful, and neither needed the money, so why risk family money on a rusty old company that hadn't registered a sale in two years?

"We were both ready for a new challenge," Chuck Mooty said. "It's about bringing jobs back. It's about bringing opportunities back to a number of people. And so it has that community piece.

"It also has that business piece of competition, of how do we take a neat nostalgic brand and hopefully try to create it to be relevant in today's world?"

Faribault Woolen Mills now has 35 employees, most of whom worked there before the company was shuttered in 2009.

The Mooty cousins told NBC that although they're not yet profitable, they are fully funded. In addition, they expect the number of employees to rise to 50 by year's end and double that in 2012.

The impact has already been monumental for the community. ?

"When I got the call, I was excited. I was jumping around," said Jones, who had gone back to school to earn her teaching degree. She dropped that plan the moment an opening became available at the mill. "I love getting up every day coming in here. ?

"It's great having a job again."

The Mooty family is banking on the Faribault Woolen Mills brand and its intrinsic value. It has a 145-year old history and has warmed an incredible range of people — from soldiers in World War I to passengers on airplanes.

Chuck and Paul Mooty also think the return of manufacturing jobs to the Minnesota community could be repeated in other parts of the country.

"People are a little tired of hearing, 'We can't do it,'" Paul Mooty said. "We can do it. We're going to do it here. And I think that message can hopefully carry over to other industries and get back to manufacturing here (in the U.S.)."

Chuck Mooty is less rah-rah when talking about possible manufacturing growth in the United States.

"We bring, hopefully, a competitive price and timeline that says, 'You know what, I'm going to support domestic,'" said Mooty, who noted that fuel, labor and shipping costs are more expensive in emerging markets than they used to be.

The mill means more than just a job for many of the 35 people working there.

Mary Boudreau, 76, worked at the mill for 50 years and came back when it reopened.

"I'd like to see the place go again," she said as she worked with Jones to set a loom for a new rug pattern. "I started here in 1954, and here I am. Still here." ?

And so is the Faribault Woolen Mills.

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