Your health depends on the balance of an alkaline environment, created by eating foods such as tomatoes, avocados and green vegetables...striking the optimum 80/20 balance and regulating your body's acid/alkaline chemistry through simple changes in diet can result in weight loss, increased stamina and strength,a stronger immune system and a greater sense of wellbeing
2010-09-07
2010-08-18
2010-03-24
Curious about how the health care reforms affect you? Here's a breakdown (from my employer FBMC, a Premier Benefit Management company):
Short answer: It doesn't affect you financially until 2014. After that you'll have to have health insurance like you have to have car insurance. If you work for someone with fewer than 25 employees (with an average income of less than $50k) or you make less than about $10k a year, you're not required to have health insurance but you're guaranteed to have it available to you and you'll be given a lot of incentives (money) to get health insurance. If your employer doesn't offer it to you, your employer will be fined $2000 a year (starting in 4 years). If you don't have it, it'll cost you about $100 in 2014, $700 in 2016, and up to $2200 after I think 2020.
Over all getting health insurance will be cheaper and keeping your insurance is guaranteed even if you change employers, get cancer, have a sick child, or are considered "uninsurable", even if you don't have a job, even if you don't have money to pay for it.
If you have a religious objection to health care and doctors, you are also exempt.0
Here's a detail of what's gonna happen and when:
Immediate
* Tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums will be immediately available to small firms that choose to offer coverage.
90 days (June 2010)
* Temporary re-insurance program (until the Exchanges are available) to help offset the costs of expensive health claims for employers that provide health benefits for retirees age 55-64.
* Temporary high risk pool will provide immediate access to insurance for Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition.
6 Months (Sept 2010 - typical enrollment time for 2011)
* Requires health plans to allow young people up to their 26th birthday to remain on their parents' insurance policy, at the parents' choice.
* Health plans banned from dropping people from coverage when they get sick.
* Insurance companies cannot deny children coverage based on a preexisting condition.
* Health plans prohibited from placing lifetime caps on coverage.
* New plans tightly restricted on use of annual limits (HHS will define the restrictions)
* New group health plans prohibited from establishing eligibility rules for health care coverage that discriminate in favor of higher wage employees.
* New private plans required to cover preventive services with no co-payments and with preventive services being exempt from deductibles. Effective 6 months after enactment. (Beginning in 2018, this requirement applies to all plans.)
2010
* Medicare beneficiaries who hit the donut hole in 2010 will receive a $250 rebate.
* Funding for Community Health Centers will be increased to service the projected doubling of the number of patients seen by the centers over the next 5 years.
2011
* Over the Counter (OTCs) as eligible 213(d) expense limited to physician RX only.
* Medicare beneficiaries in the donut hole will receive a 50% discount on brand name drugs.
* Co-pays eliminated for preventive services and preventive service deductibles exempted under the Medicare program.
* Long-term care insurance program created to provide benefits to adults who become functionally disabled (financed by voluntary payroll deductions).
* To ensure value for cost of premiums plans in the individual and small group market required to spend 80 percent of premium dollars on medical services; plans in the large group market required to spend 85 percent. Rebates to policy holders are required by Insurers that do not meet these thresholds.
* Voluntary Long Term Care Insurance Program created.
2012
* Medicare Payroll tax on investment income -- the Medicare Payroll Tax will be expanded to include unearned income. That will be a 3.8 percent tax on investment income for families making more than $250,000 per year ($200,000 for individuals
2013
* FSA Cap of $2,500 becomes effective (indexed to CPI)
2014
* Separate Health Insurance exchanges would be created for small businesses to purchase coverage. The uninsured and self-employed would be able to purchase insurance through state-based exchanges with subsidies available to individuals and families with income between the 133 percent and 400 percent of poverty level.
* States required to expand Medicaid to include childless adults. Federal Government pays 100 percent of costs for covering newly eligible individuals through
2016.
* Insurance companies cannot deny coverage to anyone with preexisting conditions.
* Everyone must purchase health insurance or face a $695 annual fine. There are some exceptions for low-income people.
* Annual coverage limits banned for all health plans.
2015
* Funding to establish the Separate Health Insurance exchanges becomes available
2018
* Excise Tax -- Insurance companies will pay a 40 percent excise tax on "Cadillac" insurance plans worth over $27,500 for families, $10,200 for individuals (indexed to CPI). Dental and vision plans are exempt and will not be counted in the total cost of a family's plan.
* All plans required to cover preventive services with no co-payments and with preventive services being exempt from deductibles.
2020
* Medicare prescription drug "donut hole" closed.
Over all getting health insurance will be cheaper and keeping your insurance is guaranteed even if you change employers, get cancer, have a sick child, or are considered "uninsurable", even if you don't have a job, even if you don't have money to pay for it.
If you have a religious objection to health care and doctors, you are also exempt.0
Here's a detail of what's gonna happen and when:
Immediate
* Tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums will be immediately available to small firms that choose to offer coverage.
90 days (June 2010)
* Temporary re-insurance program (until the Exchanges are available) to help offset the costs of expensive health claims for employers that provide health benefits for retirees age 55-64.
* Temporary high risk pool will provide immediate access to insurance for Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition.
6 Months (Sept 2010 - typical enrollment time for 2011)
* Requires health plans to allow young people up to their 26th birthday to remain on their parents' insurance policy, at the parents' choice.
* Health plans banned from dropping people from coverage when they get sick.
* Insurance companies cannot deny children coverage based on a preexisting condition.
* Health plans prohibited from placing lifetime caps on coverage.
* New plans tightly restricted on use of annual limits (HHS will define the restrictions)
* New group health plans prohibited from establishing eligibility rules for health care coverage that discriminate in favor of higher wage employees.
* New private plans required to cover preventive services with no co-payments and with preventive services being exempt from deductibles. Effective 6 months after enactment. (Beginning in 2018, this requirement applies to all plans.)
2010
* Medicare beneficiaries who hit the donut hole in 2010 will receive a $250 rebate.
* Funding for Community Health Centers will be increased to service the projected doubling of the number of patients seen by the centers over the next 5 years.
2011
* Over the Counter (OTCs) as eligible 213(d) expense limited to physician RX only.
* Medicare beneficiaries in the donut hole will receive a 50% discount on brand name drugs.
* Co-pays eliminated for preventive services and preventive service deductibles exempted under the Medicare program.
* Long-term care insurance program created to provide benefits to adults who become functionally disabled (financed by voluntary payroll deductions).
* To ensure value for cost of premiums plans in the individual and small group market required to spend 80 percent of premium dollars on medical services; plans in the large group market required to spend 85 percent. Rebates to policy holders are required by Insurers that do not meet these thresholds.
* Voluntary Long Term Care Insurance Program created.
2012
* Medicare Payroll tax on investment income -- the Medicare Payroll Tax will be expanded to include unearned income. That will be a 3.8 percent tax on investment income for families making more than $250,000 per year ($200,000 for individuals
2013
* FSA Cap of $2,500 becomes effective (indexed to CPI)
2014
* Separate Health Insurance exchanges would be created for small businesses to purchase coverage. The uninsured and self-employed would be able to purchase insurance through state-based exchanges with subsidies available to individuals and families with income between the 133 percent and 400 percent of poverty level.
* States required to expand Medicaid to include childless adults. Federal Government pays 100 percent of costs for covering newly eligible individuals through
2016.
* Insurance companies cannot deny coverage to anyone with preexisting conditions.
* Everyone must purchase health insurance or face a $695 annual fine. There are some exceptions for low-income people.
* Annual coverage limits banned for all health plans.
2015
* Funding to establish the Separate Health Insurance exchanges becomes available
2018
* Excise Tax -- Insurance companies will pay a 40 percent excise tax on "Cadillac" insurance plans worth over $27,500 for families, $10,200 for individuals (indexed to CPI). Dental and vision plans are exempt and will not be counted in the total cost of a family's plan.
* All plans required to cover preventive services with no co-payments and with preventive services being exempt from deductibles.
2020
* Medicare prescription drug "donut hole" closed.
2009-12-17
2009-10-11
2009-09-01
2009-07-25
All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun
One of my favorite songs done up at a party. Good voice, good interpretation.
Beatbox Dub FX 10/10/2008 'Love Someone'
Groovy... Hip... Cool... Chill.... Give it a minute... I bet you'll give it the full 6 minutes.
2009-05-30
Thoughts of a Man... Ok, the beginning of my thoughts. This will be the area I write my book on programming philosophy. At this point I have a rough first draft of the preface "One is a Pattern".
Enjoy.
Enjoy.
2008-11-28
A Mom's First Thanksgiving With Her Son And His Partner
This blog struck me so deep I just had to reply (mine's the 4th comment). It was so nice to see a mother's concern for her openly gay son who recently came out and how she should handle something that I wish I could one day do, take my loved one to family gatherings and to feel normal...
I think that's what get's me most about being gay these days. How in so many ways it's better than it used to be, but the negatives are just so negative... it's like living in a country where I'll never be considered normal nor treated normally in love.
I sure hope the next generations have as much progress in their lifetimes as I have seen in mine.
I think that's what get's me most about being gay these days. How in so many ways it's better than it used to be, but the negatives are just so negative... it's like living in a country where I'll never be considered normal nor treated normally in love.
I sure hope the next generations have as much progress in their lifetimes as I have seen in mine.
2008-08-29
Comcast limits customers to only 250 gigabyte per month starting October 1, 2008
Wow... I guess Comcast is really committed to defining fair use. Granted 250 GB is a lot of data, this would be analogous to telling each American they could only drive on US roads 10,000 miles a year... That may seem a lot to you and me, but if the limit is so high, why even have one?
Comcast does not offer business grade service in my area, even though I work at home. This effectively prevents anyone in this area from getting more than 250 GB of data a month no matter what their reason is, business or otherwise.
Perhaps they've not heard of data formats like Blue Ray at 8 Gigs a disk or VMWare images for virtual appliances. Really what they're likely trying to do is find another angle to limit bit torrent traffic which can easily crest their "fair use" limits.
However, I say to Comcast, you are short sighted. Offer your high usage users more service for more dollars or wake up and smell the Internet.
The future is massive bandwidth with increasing interconnectedness even among your existing customers.
Don't limit them, learn from them and figure out how you can handle staggering quantities of information. Perhaps it's time to start running localized bit torrent servers in major "hot" spots relieving some of the pressure from your clients many of whom could use bit tunnels between your locations.
Invest in the future, because I guarantee you... The Internet won't get any slower.
And tomorrow's application bandwidth requirements are gonna make today's 250 GB per month seem like a fond memory.
Don't start losing customers like you lost me a few months ago.
We'd hate to have to replace you with an ISP that actually offers unlimited use, NOT what you think is "fair".
Comcast does not offer business grade service in my area, even though I work at home. This effectively prevents anyone in this area from getting more than 250 GB of data a month no matter what their reason is, business or otherwise.
Perhaps they've not heard of data formats like Blue Ray at 8 Gigs a disk or VMWare images for virtual appliances. Really what they're likely trying to do is find another angle to limit bit torrent traffic which can easily crest their "fair use" limits.
However, I say to Comcast, you are short sighted. Offer your high usage users more service for more dollars or wake up and smell the Internet.
The future is massive bandwidth with increasing interconnectedness even among your existing customers.
Don't limit them, learn from them and figure out how you can handle staggering quantities of information. Perhaps it's time to start running localized bit torrent servers in major "hot" spots relieving some of the pressure from your clients many of whom could use bit tunnels between your locations.
Invest in the future, because I guarantee you... The Internet won't get any slower.
And tomorrow's application bandwidth requirements are gonna make today's 250 GB per month seem like a fond memory.
Don't start losing customers like you lost me a few months ago.
We'd hate to have to replace you with an ISP that actually offers unlimited use, NOT what you think is "fair".
2006-11-20
Presidents, Well Known or Not, Will Have Their Day on a Dollar - New York Times
Presidents, Well Known or Not, Will Have Their Day on a Dollar - New York Times: "The United States Mint is unveiling four designs for one-dollar coins today, featuring likenesses of the first four presidents. They begin a series that is to last a decade and portray every deceased president."
2006-11-03
Ask Will : New and Cool for VS2005
I gave a presentation on new and cool things for Visual Studio 2005 at the Capital City .NET User's Group meeting yesterday and presented a number of free and/or open source utilities for VS 2005. Here are the links and some commentary on each item I presented.
2006-10-12
Birds and bees may be gay: museum exhibition | Tech&Sci | Science | Reuters.com
Birds and bees may be gay: museum exhibition | Tech&Sci | Science | Reuters.com: "(Reuters) - The birds and the bees may be gay, according to the world's first museum exhibition about homosexuality among animals."
2006-10-10
Neuro Linguistic Programming
| Neuro-Linguistic Programming – or NLP – is a technique that we can use to alter the way we react. NLP looks at the relationship between how we think -neuro, communicate -linguistic and behave -programming. | |
2006-08-06
2006-08-02
Wired News: It's Alive (ish)
Wired News: It's Alive (ish): "Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology figured they could learn more from neuron clumps that acted more like real brains, so they've developed 'neurally controlled animats' -- a few thousand rat neurons grown atop a grid of electrodes and connected to a robot body or computer-simulated virtual environment."
2006-07-19
Invisibility Cloak
VVV - Viridian Vegan Viking: "Check out this video of an Invisibility Cloak being demonstrated at the University of Tokyo.
The wearer is moving in front of a television screen and colored backgrounds.
Observe that his face is not covered by the wallpaper background displayed on the cloak.
Very impressive. Plus, he has mad dance moves."
The wearer is moving in front of a television screen and colored backgrounds.
Observe that his face is not covered by the wallpaper background displayed on the cloak.
Very impressive. Plus, he has mad dance moves."
2006-06-27
Trends: 3D. What is it good for?
Trends: 3D. What is it good for?
Some VERY interesting Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality Interface, Holographic, and other real world inventions and prototypes being developed and coming soon to a store near you :)
Some VERY interesting Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality Interface, Holographic, and other real world inventions and prototypes being developed and coming soon to a store near you :)
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