photo credit: Hey Paul

Business Week:

Missing from Washington’s health-reform discussion is a simple change that would make insurance more affordable for millions of the nation’s smallest business owners by letting them fully deduct the cost of their health insurance premiums.

By a quirk in the tax code, self-employed workers who buy their own health insurance essentially pay an extra tax on their premiums. They’re the only taxpayers in the system who pay taxes on premiums, which count as a business expense for corporations and pretax income for employees. Because self-employed workers have no corporate employers to match their payroll tax contributions to Social Security and Medicare, they pay double the rate of wage and salary workers in a levy known as the self-employment tax equal to 15.3% of their net earnings. That’s on top of regular state and federal income taxes, and the income they spend on health premiums is not exempt.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Threats by retailers to cut off affiliate marketing relationships in states that are trying to tax sales generated by affiliates have had an effect.

The governors of California and Hawaii have vetoed legislation that would have imposed such taxes in those states.

The governors acted after such major online retailers as Amazon.com Inc., Blue Nile Inc. and Overstock.com Inc. began this week cutting off affiliates in states that adopted laws requiring collection of sales taxes by e-retailers with affiliates in those states.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called Overstock CEO and chairman Patrick Byrne to say he was going to veto the sales tax legislation. “We couldn`t be more pleased to have been directly told that the governor is going to focus on balancing the budget via cost cutting and not by jamming consumers and small businesses with new taxes,” Byrne says. “I compliment Governor Schwarzenegger on getting it right.”

Overstock reinstated relationships with its California affiliates following Schwarzenegger’s call, and resumed relations with affiliates in Hawaii today after getting news that Gov. Linda Lingle had vetoed that state’s sales tax law yesterday.

Photo by svilen001.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Overstock.com Inc. informed its marketing affiliates in four states — California, Hawaii, North Carolina and Rhode Island — that it is ending its business with them to avoid collecting sales tax.

Lawmakers in the states have passed or are preparing to pass legislation that would require companies to collect sales tax if they have marketing affiliates in the state. Affiliate marketers run blogs or Web sites and get a sales commission by featuring links to outside e-commerce sites.

Rival Amazon.com Inc. has taken similar steps in the past few days, ending ties with affiliates in three of the same states and warning about California.

The decision highlights mounting tensions between online retailers and cash-strapped states. Other states are considering similar laws that would use affiliates as a way to force companies to collect sales taxes for online purchases.

Chief Executive Patrick Byrne said Overstock plans to sever its affiliate relationships in each state that appears close to passage of similar laws, but will reinstate its businesses if the laws are found unconstitutional, vetoed or repealed.

Forcing e-commerce sites to collect tax upfront would strip a key advantage they have over traditional retailers, though consumers are technically supposed to pay a so-called use tax for online purchases on their own.

Photo by Overstock.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

One of the projects I have been working on the last few weeks, part of what has drawn my attention so that I am not posting as often as I would like to High Tech Affiliate has been the design and preparation of our new blog host which launches today.

PCABunited.com is a Conservative News Media and Opinion outlet, because in today’s economy a business must look out for it’s best interest and can not sit on the sidelines any more. You saw that heavily mapped by such companies as Wal-Mart Stores this past election where they campaigned among employees against the Pass Card legislation proposed by the Democratic Party that would take away the need for a silent vote for employees to unionize. Take one look at Chrysler and the chapter 11 filing, General Motors with their threat of the same and forced pairing with a non U.S. partner, and the slightly about water of FORD to see the negative impact of high union wages and union benefit demands.

Unions have driven prices up and business down at Albertsons Grocery Stores, have forced closer and outsourcing in U.S. Steel, have hampered Transportation services to the point where even having a bus route in a major city operates at a loss and is subsidized by taxpayer money to afford wages and benefits. My father in law worked for AC Transit in the Oakland Area. He earned over $17 an hour for a job that now pays over $29 an hour sitting on his backside driving a bus 10 hours a day. He retired to over $2,000 a month pension and over $3,000 a month total retirement income, always had tons of vacation and paid sick time and earned 80% of his wages during any layoff period. That’s right 80% of his paycheck even when not working.

We have seen schools closed in recent years for teacher strikes. There are teachers earning over $40,000 a year for 8 months of work while holding a part time job and having a working spouse. They say they are under paid and that classroom sizes are too big with too many students in a classroom. Well every time they pour more money into schools to build more classrooms, buy new books, repair old buildings, and hire more teachers. The current teachers strike and take the money that would eliminate their complaints.

Taxes. Omama and crew look to come after our pocket books and snag the rewards of our success, hard work, and investment and hand it to those who do not have the ambition to go out and get their own. The list does include some good people having bad times, but it also includes taking money from productive business owners, hard working upper and middle management, and other productive members of society, and handing it to drug users, drug dealers, career criminals, welfare fraud families, illegal aliens, drunks, and just plain lazy folks who refuse to work. These are the 80% of people on welfare. I know I have sat next to them in the lines myself desperate to feed my kids while between jobs and been offered the sale of crack cocaine sitting in line in the DES office.

Pro American awareness must be raised and patriotism bolstered. We need to renew the Buy American spirit and stop letting politicians apologize for our America being such a great place to live and do business. We must stand up as productive Americans, Proud Americans, and fight for our rights as a nation. We must stand up as Christian business people and not be afraid to put God and Country first. No more must we fear what could be lost but embrace what can be gained by the renewal of the American spirit and the quest for the American Dream.

With that I give you Proud Conservative American Bloggers United.

Andy Zeus Anderson

Andy

Original post to follow.

Barrack Obama the other day in a town hall meeting was talking about how much he hated seeing video of  tax payers that have had enough with high taxes and errant spending waving tea bags at him. He said he would prefer to sit down and have a face to face discussion on how we are going to make health care affordable any time soon.

Well Obama here you go. TORT REFORM moron. Stop the frivolous lawsuits that drive malpractice insurance through the roof and the cost of health care declines rapidly. Insurance fairness act. A bill needs to be passed to mandate that all forms of Insurance be fair in billing.

Example:

Current system :

A insurance company insures a motorist or doctor and they get a claim against them. The insured pays the deductible and then within 30-60 days gets a review and depending on the amount and how long they have been insured either gets a higher rate or is dropped. More often then not they get dropped. The insurance company now passes on the added cost of the claim to all people they insure penalizing every account holder for the actions of the one. If a doctor in California gets sued for 5 million and loses , he is dropped and never pays a dime on the amount and the bill is passed on to doctors around the nation. Those doctors then raise fees and bam health care cost go up across the board.

My brother was in 3 accidents within a year, not one of them was his fault, no tickets, no charges, and no claims against him. His insurance company stated that he obviously was not a very defensive driver and he was being dropped by them. His next insurance company is charging him an extra $40 every 3 months for accidents that were the fault of 3 careless drivers. These are not fair practices.

In my case a major, biggest name in Insurance used a loophole in Texas Law to skip out on paying $8,000 in medical bills from a accident where one of their clients ran a red light and t-boned us. I have bad credit now for unpaid medical bills from it and have been black balled from management jobs after 16 years of being in management because my credit report calls me a high risk. First off medical bills I thought were medical records and should not be made public by TRW, and here’s the kicker. The loophole had to do with the doctor not noting on follow up visits that the original injury was sustained in the accident. My doctor stopped noting this on follow ups and treatments at the point I began negotiations with the insurance company. Hmm… Doc suddenly had money move to Africa to treat aids patients.

Under TORT reform the burden of proof would be switched to the claimants instead of the doctors, the judge would be empowered to overturn jury verdicts that had ignored legal bindings, and the maximum awards would keep cost in control. Face it even the wrongful death of a millionaire business owner is not cause for a 20 million dollar jury award and when they place a price on the head of someone like me earning less than 30K per year it’s just unfair to American’s everywhere. Especially since the doctor usually loses his license, and is dropped by the insurance company, and everyone else has to pay the flipping bill.

Do that and the the fair cost of insurance will be affordable to all Obama. you can make health care a personal responsibility and cut taxes so people can afford it. In no manner should we continue paying high taxes to throw more money at broken systems. If the system is broken fix the system, don’t waste my money hoping it fixes itself.

Here’s my tea bag, here at Proud Conservative American Bloggers United we hold tea parties 365 days a year, get use to the idea and stop whining about Americans exercising their rights to tell you you are wrong.

Andy Anderson

www.pcabunited.com

Andy

Original post to follow.

Barrack Obama the other day in a town hall meeting was talking about how much he hated seeing video of  tax payers that have had enough with high taxes and errant spending waving tea bags at him. He said he would prefer to sit down and have a face to face discussion on how we are going to make health care affordable any time soon.

Well Obama here you go. TORT REFORM moron. Stop the frivolous lawsuits that drive malpractice insurance through the roof and the cost of health care declines rapidly. Insurance fairness act. A bill needs to be passed to mandate that all forms of Insurance be fair in billing.

Example:

Current system :

A insurance company insures a motorist or doctor and they get a claim against them. The insured pays the deductible and then within 30-60 days gets a review and depending on the amount and how long they have been insured either gets a higher rate or is dropped. More often then not they get dropped. The insurance company now passes on the added cost of the claim to all people they insure penalizing every account holder for the actions of the one. If a doctor in California gets sued for 5 million and loses , he is dropped and never pays a dime on the amount and the bill is passed on to doctors around the nation. Those doctors then raise fees and bam health care cost go up across the board.

My brother was in 3 accidents within a year, not one of them was his fault, no tickets, no charges, and no claims against him. His insurance company stated that he obviously was not a very defensive driver and he was being dropped by them. His next insurance company is charging him an extra $40 every 3 months for accidents that were the fault of 3 careless drivers. These are not fair practices.

In my case a major, biggest name in Insurance used a loophole in Texas Law to skip out on paying $8,000 in medical bills from a accident where one of their clients ran a red light and t-boned us. I have bad credit now for unpaid medical bills from it and have been black balled from management jobs after 16 years of being in management because my credit report calls me a high risk. First off medical bills I thought were medical records and should not be made public by TRW, and here’s the kicker. The loophole had to do with the doctor not noting on follow up visits that the original injury was sustained in the accident. My doctor stopped noting this on follow ups and treatments at the point I began negotiations with the insurance company. Hmm… Doc suddenly had money move to Africa to treat aids patients.

Under TORT reform the burden of proof would be switched to the claimants instead of the doctors, the judge would be empowered to overturn jury verdicts that had ignored legal bindings, and the maximum awards would keep cost in control. Face it even the wrongful death of a millionaire business owner is not cause for a 20 million dollar jury award and when they place a price on the head of someone like me earning less than 30K per year it’s just unfair to American’s everywhere. Especially since the doctor usually loses his license, and is dropped by the insurance company, and everyone else has to pay the flipping bill.

Do that and the the fair cost of insurance will be affordable to all Obama. you can make health care a personal responsibility and cut taxes so people can afford it. In no manner should we continue paying high taxes to throw more money at broken systems. If the system is broken fix the system, don’t waste my money hoping it fixes itself.

Here’s my tea bag, here at Proud Conservative American Bloggers United we hold tea parties 365 days a year, get use to the idea and stop whining about Americans exercising their rights to tell you you are wrong.

Andy Anderson

www.pcabunited.com

Page after page and post after post the lambs are lining up for the slaughter. From the Obama plan to stop the Russian Guns from getting to Mexico by passing tighter gun laws on Americans, to dreams of trains to replace trucks and more spending on top of spending and taxes on top of taxes, more jobs cut to fewer created and the debt keeps piling higher.

You read things like Obama is just so cool, Obama is just so sexy, Obama is a GOD ( maybe of the Godless), or we need to be more like Europe? Hmmm, is that the Europe that pays $8-$12 a gallon for gas, so many walk everywhere including the elderly that can barely walk, many die waiting on government approval for the test that could have save their lives because of public health care? Maybe it’s the Europe that had all but fallen to Hitler in WW2, the Europe that adopted Arab Laws and wishes to take the rights of parents out of the hands of parents and give it to Parliament or the United Nations. Is it Western Europe where the socialist live or Eastern Europe where the communist also known as advanced socialist live?

We have spent Trillions more than we have, that’s a lot of zeros, a digit, and a minus sign in front of it that could take 2 generations to pay off if we stopped spending now. They want more, they want a enhanced drug war not in the current budget, more places to cross the border, not in the budget, they want to monitor the writings and gatherings of Conservatives and Veterans, not in the current budget. They want trains, and windmills, and wealth redistribution, all not in this budget or the stimulus. They spend and spend and flipping spend until we have no choice but to pay higher taxes to ever see the light of day.

We are all headed to a life in my lifetime of service to government from what started my lifetime as service to country. They can’t wake up, these are our kids and we let the liberal media and liberal education system brainwash them into forgoing logic and sleeping through life following this POP STAR, lord Obama. Our kids are trained in socialism, they disregard and fail to grasp the constitution. They want it free and easy, they have no work ethics, they kill babies, and turn their backs on God and we have only ourselves to blame as we waited 16 years too long to start having tea parties, and standing in the streets for our America. We let them own the media, we let them handle the schools, they are the one we told the kids, now listen to your teacher but never listened ourselves to what teacher was teaching.

We didn’t fight when we should have but I am fighting mad now as my America is under attack from the domestic enemies of the constitution and liberty.

We need to raise our voices louder, and shout from the highest hills, rise up and fight our sleepy nation. Wake you sheep , wake up and see reality. We must wage peaceful protest, and rallies, we must be on every news channel. When the liberals yell we yell louder. We must all register to vote and actually do it, from the towns and cities to capitol hill. We must accept that no candidate is perfect and be ready to support and fund the best person for the job as chosen by the majority.

We failed in 2008 to do exactly that. Those who cried over Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul stayed home and did not vote because their candidate lost, so instead of getting the best we could those who stayed home caused us to get what we have now. In the future we must accept that things may not be 100% of what we wanted but heck 70% of what we believe is better than having nothing to believe in for the next 4 years except that we will be victorious in the next election.

We must defend the Constitution, we must protect our rights , and must stand up and cry fowl when the policy is fowl and stinks like death, the death of American values, the death of freedom. Stand with me.

Andy Zeus Anderson