This time of year means open enrollment season and that means battling a consistent bevy of confusing acronyms: FSA, HSA, HRA, PPO, HMO, POS, and on. Reorienting every year to the different meanings, rules, and benefits of these acronyms is akin to relearning the scoring rules of curling every four years. Most Americans are interested [...]
Players in a college or high school basketball game are limited to 4 fouls and disqualified from competition upon receiving 5 fouls. This limitation is intended to discourage players from consistently fouling to maintain the pace of play. In basketball, there are good fouls and bad fouls. A good foul could be the result of commendable [...]
My mother owns an iPhone but constantly gets frustrated at her perceived difficulty of answering a call. I am confident that she has never downloaded an app, sent a text message, or used the phone to open an email. She can solve the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle but if you asked her to [...]
Many Americans are conditioned to treat employer-provided health insurance as an entitlement. This long-standing attitude stems from a system that, for decades, has precluded a large segment of the population from finding reasonably priced health insurance on their own. Anyone with a previous victory over cancer or a child with diabetes likely knows from experience [...]
It is estimated that nearly 26 million Americans will be eligible for some form of health insurance subsidy starting in 2014 under the Affordable Care Act. For individuals and families with incomes well in excess of 4x the federal poverty line, these subsidies will be a non-event. However, there are several situations where the subsidies [...]
Despite significant technology glitches, the new health insurance exchanges are open to the public and many Americans are now faced with the challenge of making heads or tails of the options. In addition to a plethora of choices, consumers are confronted with the interaction of federal subsidies which impacts the decision and can create planning [...]
For many individuals under the age of 65, the world of health insurance is about to become significantly more complex. On October 1, the new health insurance exchanges, a result of the Affordable Care Act (ACA or “Obamacare”), will publish available plans and pricing. On January 1, 2014, barring any last minute changes, the Affordable [...]
