University of Virginia Slashes Health Benefits Due to ObamaCare
Citing ObamaCare as a reason, the the University of Virginia has announced that spouses of University employees who have access to health insurance through their own jobs will no longer be eligible for health insurance coverage.
In its announcement, President Obama’s healthcare plan is specifically mentioned by UVa as a reason for the rising costs that forced the university to drop working spouses. ObamaCare is expected to add $7 million to the university’s health care costs.
UVa was also a public supporter of ObamaCare:
Working spouse provision: Starting Jan. 1, spouses who have access to coverage through their own employer will no longer be eligible for coverage under U.Va.’s plan. Spouses who do not have coverage elsewhere can remain on the employee’s plan, and coverage of children is not affected. …
Provisions of the federal Affordable Care Act are projected to add $7.3 million to the cost of the University health plan in 2014 alone. Federal health care reform will create new costs related to the “individual mandate” that requires all Americans to have health care coverage (or pay a penalty).
Hearing on Valley Hospital postponed when too many people show up
Thursday, August 22, 2013 Last updated: Thursday August 22, 2013, 7:27 AM
BY BARBARA WILLIAMS
STAFF WRITER
The Record
RIDGEWOOD — Opponents of the proposed expansion at The Valley Hospital are frustrated and angry that they have to wait another six weeks to present their case after a public hearing was abruptly canceled when village officials decided the room had become overcrowded.
After seven months of listening to experts hired by Valley testify before the Planning Board in favor of the hospital’s proposal to expand to nearly 1 million square feet, opponents were supposed to get their turn Tuesday night.
Instead, the meeting was shut down when officials said there were too many people in the room at Village Hall, violating fire codes.
“I think this was strategic — we rallied and they want us to just go away,” said Angele Ekert, a resident and one of the opponents who tried to attend the meeting.
Many previous hearings on the issue had been held in large halls at the middle and high schools. This meeting was scheduled in a room that officials said could not hold the approximately 130 who wanted to attend. Opponents pointed out that many more people had been in the same room during other events, like the village reorganization meeting, and those had not been adjourned.
Village officials said they did not realize so many people would attend the hearing. “We’ve been having hearings since April and haven’t had this issue before,” Kathryn Razin, attorney for the Planning Board, said on Wednesday. “The board had no reason to anticipate anything differently last night.”
Board Chairman Charles Nalbantian said they considered trying to use some type of technology to include people standing outside the room but felt it wouldn’t allow complete public participation.
The debacle harkened back to another mishap at a Planning Board hearing on the same issue. In June 2010, the Planning Board moved its meeting to a small auditorium at George Washington Middle School for its vote on a previous hospital expansion plan. So many people were locked out that police from three towns had to help local officers get control of the crowd.
“It’s no surprise that Barack Obama endorsed Cory Booker today. Booker is not only a strong and enthusiastic rubber stamp for the Obama Agenda, he has proposed a series of radical ideas even further to the left than anything President Obama has suggested.”
METUCHEN, NJ – Steve Lonegan, Republican nominee for United States Senate, released the following statement about President Obama’s endorsement of Cory Booker:
“It’s no surprise that Barack Obama endorsed Cory Booker today. Booker is not only a strong and enthusiastic rubber stamp for the Obama Agenda, he has proposed a series of radical ideas even further to the left than anything President Obama has suggested. People in New Jersey are sick of Barack Obama’s lies, his health care plan, his data collection and his inability to lead our nation back to economic prosperity. Cory Booker is too liberal for New Jersey.”
Lonegan served as Bogota Mayor for twelve years, winning three times in a town that gave Barack Obama 67.5 percent of the vote in 2012. He served for seven years as state director of Americans for Prosperity New Jersey, where he helped defeat liberal attempts to expand big government. Steve Lonegan is the conservative Republican candidate in the New Jersey special election for the United States Senate. Lonegan stands firmly on the bedrock conservative values of small government, fiscal responsibility and individual liberty.
UPS to drop 15,000 spouses from insurance, cites Obamacare
Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg
A United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) employee scans a package while making a delivery.
Carla Caldwell, Morning Edition Editor
United Parcel Service Inc. plans to remove thousands of spouses from its medical plan because they are eligible for coverage elsewhere. The Atlanta-based logistics company points to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as a big reason for the decision, reports Kaiser Health News.
The decision comes as many analysts are downplaying the Affordable Care Act’s effect on companies such as UPS, noting that the move reflects a long-term trend of shrinking corporate medical benefits, Kaiser Health News reports. But UPS repeatedly cites Obamacare to explain the decision, adding fuel to the debate over whether it erodes traditional employer coverage, Kaiser says.
The Ridgewood Police Department would like to advise residents that the National Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign will be conducted from August 16, 2013 through September 2, 2013. The Ridgewood Police Department will be conducting special patrols focused on drinking and driving during the period.
The Ridgewood Police Department has deployed extra roving DUI patrols and will continue to to so over the next two weeks as part the statewide Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign.
When You Can’t Actually Keep Your Health Care Plan
Alyene Senger
August 22, 2013 at 6:50 am
President Obama has said that his health care law largely doesn’t impact anyone who already has coverage. Tell that to all the people who are being dropped from their health plans.
UPS made a news splash yesterday when it announced it is dropping coverage for spouses of employees if they are offered coverage through their own employers. The delivery company expects to remove 15,000 working spouses from its health coverage next year, saving the company about $60 million a year.
And UPS isn’t the only one. Dropping spousal coverage has become a trend among employers due to continually rising health care costs. Obamacare’s wide variety of benefit and coverage mandates combined with new fees, taxes, and penalties of course all increase the cost of coverage, intensifying the trend. The University of Virginia made a similar announcement yesterday.
According to a new survey by consultants Towers Watson, in 2013, 4 percent of surveyed employers excluded working spouses from coverage and another 8 percent plan to do so in 2014.
There’s no ambiguity here. UPS was clear that Obamacare played a large role in its decision to change its plan structure:
“[T]he ACA has mandated several changes that have been impacting the cost of coverage for UPS employees since its implementation. These include:
Coverage for dependent children up to age; regardless of whether they are enrolled in school, are married, or (beginning 2014) have coverage available from their own employer;
Removal of lifetime and annual benefit limits;
Fees for comparative effectiveness research; and
Fees to help fund the public exchanges.
We are making these changes to, in part, offset cost increases due to the ACA and so that healthcare premiums remain the same for most of our people.” (Page 18 of the memo).
And many more changes to employer-sponsored insurance are likely to come in the near future. According to the Towers Watson survey, when asked how they thought plans would change by 2018—the year that Obamacare’s “Cadillac” tax on high-cost plans takes effect—92 percent of employers said plans would be different, with 47 percent saying they anticipated significant or transformative change.
Do you like your health care plan? Sorry. With Obamacare in effect, costs are going up and plans are changing. If lawmakers would defund this unworkable law, we could focus on health care reform that puts people in charge of the type of health coverage they want.
The Orpheus Club Men’s Chorus of Ridgewood begins rehearsals Wednesday, Sept. 4,
The Orpheus Club Men’s Chorus of Ridgewood begins rehearsals Wednesday, Sept. 4, at 8p.m. at the Cupola, 100 W. Ridgewood, Avenue, Paramus.
The chorus is composed of about 50 men from all over northern New Jersey, and sings a variety of music, including the classics,show tunes, folk songs, opera, and other musical styles. It presents two concerts a year, one in December and one in May and also sings at other venues.
John Palatucci, a noted choral conductor, has led the chorus for the past 23 years, and Ron Levy,a distinguished concert pianist, is at the keyboard for rehearsals and concerts. Any man interested in singing is invited to the rehearsal.
The Ridgewood Police Department is accepting applications for School Crossing Guard Positions. Applications are Available at the Police Desk located at 131 North Maple Avenue Ridgewood NJ. P/T position, 10 hours per week (2 hours per day) starting at $17.49/hr. Send application to Police Chief John Ward, Ridgewood Police Dept, 131 N. Maple Ave., Ridgewood, NJ 07450 or return the application to the Police Records Room. The Village of Ridgewood is an EOE and civil service community.
Reader says fire and police had no choice to address the situation.
The crowd overfilled the room and fire and police had no choice to address the situation. PB Chairman and Aronsohn tried very hard to come up with a solution for 45 minutes. There are legal issues here and the right decision was made. Gail Price was not even there. I agree Valley representatives and attorney are smart a***s.
Please don’t overlook the real news here. Valley’s attorney, Jonathan shrill drill, was forcefully objecting to CRR standing and forcefully objecting to CRR using Valley’s own documents to support opposition to the huge expansion. Preposterous as it is, Drill objected to his own clients legal position and reasoning on PVH reopening.
Pete McKenna presented himself as a true gentleman. I hope the board took to heart his words about the seven year nightmare, the burden this has placed on their fellow residents, the turmoil and uncertainty suffered through daily. Residents like McKenna should be able to find comfort and peace at home in Ridgewood not a 2,651 day nightmare.
What was that 1983 PB quote? 30 years ago “valley needs to find another solution other than expansion”?
Reader asks Gail Price How about the GWMS fiasco when police from several towns appeared?
The Planning Board erred in presuming that attendance would be low based on previous meetings. “This is the first time this has happened,” said the attorney substituting for Gail Price. Really? How about the GWMS fiasco when police from several towns appeared? A lot of people, including the press, would obviously want to hear CRR’s experts testify for the first time.
More likely this was a cynical attempt to squeeze and heat the crowd. In either case logic and the fire code won out and the meeting was postponed.
The lemonade from this lemon stew is that by September 30 (a) more people will be in town and able to attend and (b) CRR’s advisers will have had an extra 6 weeks to read through ten tons of backup material (we send our condolences) and prepare.
Ridgewood Water in Non-Compliance for 2011 and 2012
August 20,2012
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Ridgewood Water reports that the Ridggewood water system violated drinking water standards in 2011 and once again 2012 .
Through these are not emergencies Ridgewood claims to be taken the corrective measures necessary to remedy the situation .
Ridgewood water is required to monitor drinking water for specific contaminants on a regular basis, but during the 2011 and 2012 time period the Water company claims to have inadvertently been in non compliance with monitoring certain contaminants making the water quality assurances inaccurate .
Ridgewood water claims to have monitored Nitrates in all 51 active wells but 1 . Nitrates in drinking water above 10ppm pose health risk in infants of less than 6 moths old and high nitrate levels can cause “blue baby syndrome”.
A TID is really the best friend of the developer, not the community.
A TID will not fix all that is wrong with Ridgewood. A TID will only collect money from developers to take care of new problems brought on by new development. A TID does not have to (legally) fix any problems that are pre-existing. A TID is really the best friend of the developer, not the community.
By creating a TID, large scale development that should not and currently cannot be built, will easily get passed through our approval process. These proposals will easily pass through because we will all be focused on all the $$ brought in through the TID. Long after these buildings go up and the TID money has dried out, we will be stuck with large, out of character buildings abutting our railways and blacking out our skyline. Hundreds of new residents will increase demand on our services (fire, police, schools,etc), and our taxes will most certainly rise!
Developer files suit against school’s move
Thursday, August 22, 2013
BY LESLIE BRODY
STAFF WRITER
The Record
The parents of a 19-year-old Closter student with autism have filed suit to stop his county-run school from moving to Ridgewood from Rockleigh, saying the move would hurt his education and put him in danger.
Daibes
The New Bridges program, run by the Bergen County Special Services school district, taught about 60 disabled high school students last year at the Rockleigh campus, which the county is trying to sell. Bergen County officials announced last February that it planned to move the program to Our Lady of Mount Carmel School in Ridgewood for the coming school year while awaiting construction of a new facility on county land in Paramus.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Superior Court in Hackensack, Elizabeth and Fred Daibes, a prominent Bergen County developer, argued that the county planned the move without taking into account their son’s “individual education plan,” a legally binding document spelling out services for students with disabilities. The Daibeses’ suit claims their son has a history of running away and might bolt into a busy street near the Our Lady of Mount Carmel building on Passaic Avenue in Ridgewood. The suit also notes that he has a “significant history of anxiety, aggression, destruction of property and tantruming in response to change.”
This Homeland Security Employee Is Preparing for a Coming Race War
Abby Ohlheiser 216,911 Views Aug 21, 2013
A Department of Homeland Security employee who works on, among other things, the procurement of guns and ammunition for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, spends his nights and weekends preparing for a coming race war and advocating for anti-gay causes, according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Meet Ayo Kimathi, a.k.a. “the Irritated Genie,” who told his bosses at the DHS that his anti-white, anti-gay site, “War is on the Horizon,” was just an entertainment site that sells concert and lecture videos.
You see, DHS employees, even those with office jobs like Kimathi’s, have to get outside activities approved by their supervisors, according to the SPLC. Kimathi’s former supervisor told the watchdog group, which tracks hate speech and groups in the U.S., that despite her former employee’s banal description of his extracurricular activities, the actual content of the site left her “stunned.” She continued: “To see the hate, to know that he is a federal employee, it bothered me.” She added that had Kimathi’s site been accurately described to the agency, there’s no way the DHS would have signed off on it. Possibly to keep his bosses from looking up his work, Kimathi used only the site’s acronym, WOH, in his permission request. In addition to his involvement in the purchase of ICE supplies, Kimathi also had a public profile for the agency, speaking at vendor events. As “Irritated Genie,” Kimathi also has a public profile as a black supremacist advocate.
