IRS finalizes new tax for medical devices in healthcare law
WASHINGTON | Wed Dec 5, 2012 5:18pm EST
(Reuters) – The U.S. Internal Revenue Service on Wednesday released final rules for a new tax on medical devices, products ranging from surgical sutures to knee replacement implants, that starts next year as part of President Barack Obama’s 2010 healthcare law.
The 2.3-percent tax must be paid, effective after December 31, by device-makers on their gross sales. The tax is expected to raise $29 billion in government revenues through 2022.
Companies including Boston Scientific Corp, 3M Co and Kimberly-Clark Corp have been lobbying the U.S. Congress for a repeal of the tax.
A repeal bill passed the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives in June, but it has not been voted on by the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Many medical devices that are sold over-the-counter – such eyeglasses, contact lenses and hearing aids – are exempt from the tax, as are prosthetics, the IRS said.
The tax applies mostly to devices used and implanted by medical professionals, including items as complex as pacemakers or as simple as tongue depressors.
On CBS, Cheesecake Factory CEO Warns ObamaCare Will Be ‘Very Costly’
NORAH O’DONNELL: I have a really important question for you: one of the things that’s going to change, of course, in the new year is ObamaCare, or the Affordable Care Act. How do you implement that at Cheesecake Factory, and how will you pay for health care for all of your employees?
DAVID OVERTON, CHEESECAKE FACTORY CEO: Well, that – that’s a big question. We are working on that right now. We – we have been waiting to see what people will do and what’s really happening and what the – the different requirements will be. However, we do cover everyone that works over 25 hours today. So, unlike a lot of businesses, we already are paying a great deal in health care. So, we’re not sure how much more it will be – or how much less – or what exactly we’ll do. So, for us, it won’t be as bad as it will be for others, which it will be very costly.
O’DONNELL: But – but when you say it will be very costly, it will be passed on to who – the customers?
OVERTON: Well, I believe most people will have to do that or cheapen their product-
O’DONNELL: And how much do you think you will have to raise prices in order to pay for health care?
OVERTON: Well, as they say, we don’t know what – we don’t know what it is right now. We don’t know if what we’re actually paying is very, very close – and we won’t have to raise prices. So, we’ll see. I’d love to answer that for you – maybe in a year, I could.
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay. And so, and that point, a year from now, what would we be able to learn from you, you think, because The New Yorker magazine wrote this article saying that you had a lot of things that you could teach – from your experiences with health care.
OVERTON: I think – yeah – I think Doctor [Atul] Gawande. It’s not that I teach. He’s looking at us as a model. He thinks we’re the gold standard of the restaurant business. We do so many things right. We train; we innovate; we cut cost; and we – and we completely change the menu twice a year. And he’s never had a bad meal, and he says, how can we cook a thousand meals a day and get consistency? Wouldn’t that be a great model for the health care industry? So, he’s taking us and not linking us, as much as saying, these guys know what they’re doing. Over the years, they’ve really built a model that works. Why can’t we be more like them?
ROSE: Are you worried about this – ObamaCare – and how you provide the health care?
OVERTON: Not worried yet – and, when I hear the numbers, I might be. But, again, because we spend millions and millions of dollars today on health care, we don’t know exactly how much more we’ll pay. For those businesses that don’t cover their employees, they’ll be in for a very expensive situation.
Aronsohn and Company pushes vote on ADA compliant cement ramp at Graydon Pool
December 4,2012
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, After almost two years, the Village Council will ignore the obvious benefits of the mobi-chair and pick a final design for an ADA-compliant cement ramp for Graydon Pool. The vote is scheduled for December 5th .
There are two noncompeting concepts for Council members to choose between that were presented by the Ridgewood engineering department. The designs have been the topics at several council sessions and special meetings, and the most recently an informal assembly hosted by Deputy Mayor Albert Pucciarelli earlier this week.
The Ridgewood News is reporting that the “Dream Team” seems to be in favor of the first Option because it is the least expensive, least obtrusive and uses the smallest amount of cement.
Councilwoman Bernadette Walsh remained concerned over this option because it leads into one of the pool’s spillways ,causing concern because the spillway area is where debris, such as tree branches and sticks, collects before it is eventually flushed from the pool.
Councilman Tom Riche told the Ridgewood News that he agreed with Walsh about the spillway, and pressed the point that the ramp would be “a slippery hazard,” Richie remained not in favor of the ramp at all and added that the proposed out-of-pocket cost to the village, which excludes Bergen County grant money, is estimated to exceed $40,000.
Critics remain concerned that the ramp like the ‘elevators to nowhere ” at the train station will be an added obstruction and safety hazard as well as not be user friendly to those who need access . Others wonder if the cement ramp will damage the historic nature and land mark status of the pool an issue that seems to have been all but ignored by the council. Others see the ramp as dangerous and wonder what will be the Villages liability if an accident happens on an ADA complaint ramp?
Graydon Pool – ADA Compliant Ramp
At this point a ramp allowing direct access into the pool is in the design phase. Below are two plans that the Council plans to review at its November 28th Meeting.
Click Here for Plans for Option 1. https://mods.ridgewoodnj.net/pdf/manager/2012OpNo11026.pdf
Following the selection of a design the Village Engineer will develop detailed plans to enable bidding the work and construction will begin in late Spring 2013.
Senator: ‘Increasingly Clear [Obama’s] Comfortable Going Off the Cliff’
4:44 PM, DEC 3, 2012 • BY DANIEL HALPER
Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming believes President Barack Obama is “comfortable going off the [fiscal] cliff.”
“I think the president is increasingly showing his hand that he is comfortable going off the cliff,” Barrasso tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD, in response to a question about President Obama’s negotiation strategy. “He’s not involving Republicans in the process. He was playing golf this weekend with Bill Clinton, Ron Kirk, and ex-DNC chair Terry McAuliffe. He’s not seeming to be one to work together. He seems to be lecturing more than listening. And I just think that it’s increasingly clear he’s comfortable going off the cliff.”
The Republican senator believes Obama’s posture is being reinforced by bad advice he’s getting from some of his fellow Democrats. “[T]hat’s what he’s being advised to do by a number of his Democratic colleagues—Howard Dean, former chairman of the DNC said they should go off the cliff, Patty Murray, who ran the senatorial committee, said they should go off the cliff,” says Barrasso in a phone interview, referring multiple times to Obama’s weekend golf outing with Democratic stalwarts.
Barrasso thinks Obama should be working on getting a deal with the Republicans in Congress instead of spending his weekend on the golf course with such partisans.
Additionally, Barrasso believes Obama’s willingness to go off the cliff relates to his view of achieving fairness through the tax code.
Online sales may bring holiday fear for some U.S. malls
By Ilaina Jonas
NEW YORK | Fri Nov 30, 2012 6:44pm EST
(Reuters) – When it comes to the internet, David Simon’s kids can look but not buy.
“They are not allowed to shop on the Internet or I won’t pay for their room or board,” Chief Executive and Chairman of Simon Property Group Inc, the largest U.S. owner of malls and outlet centers joked at a the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts investor forum in June.
Although his kids and their generation still go to the mall, Simon worries what the habits of his grandchildren will be.
If online sales continue to grow and take away a bigger and bigger slice of the U.S. consumer spending pie, the future doesn’t look good for some malls. Yet in a weird twist, it looks brighter for others.
Last week’s starting gun for holiday shopping speaks volumes.
Nothing but Tax Increases , no Spending cuts offered McConnell ‘Burst Into Laughter’ as Geithner Outlined Obama’s Plan
6:14 PM, NOV 29, 2012 • BY FRED BARNES
Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, says he “burst into laughter” Thursday when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner outlined the administration proposal for averting the fiscal cliff. He wasn’t trying to embarrass Geithner, McConnell says, only responding candidly to his one-sided plan, explicit on tax increases, vague on spending cuts.
Geithner’s visit to his office left McConnell discouraged about reaching a “balanced” deal on tax hikes and spending reductions designed to prevent a shock to the economy in January. “Nothing good is happening” in the negotiations, McConnell says, because of Obama’s insistence on tax rate hikes for the wealthy but unwillingness to embrace serious spending cuts.
Geithner suggested $1.6 trillion in tax increases, McConnell says, but showed “minimal or no interest” in spending cuts. When congressional leaders went to the White House three days after the election, Obama talked of possible curbs on the explosive growth of food stamps and Social Security disability payments. But since Geithner didn’t mention them, those reductions appear to be off the table now, McConnell says.
Survey: Sex Makes Adults Happier Than Having Children
November 21, 2012 8:07 AM
ATLANTA (CBS Atlanta) – Sex means more to adults than having kids.
When asked about what makes them happiest, a group of adults participating in a survey ranked sex at the top of the list.
Drinking alcohol came in second place, with volunteering, religious contemplation and child care rounding out the top five spots, according to the website Daily News & Analysis.
The survey was conducted by researchers at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
Rudin Center for Transportation : New Jersey Commuter times Jump by 20 minutes post Sandy
November 27, 2012
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
According to the Rudin Center for Transportation at NYU New Yorkers managed to reach their places of work in impressively large numbers following Super storm Hurricane Sandy, not only as a result of transportation providers’ major efforts, but also through residents’ own adaptability and ingenuity.(https://wagner.nyu.edu/faculty/publications/publications.php?pub_id=2292 )
In the absence of subways, which typically transport 5.3 million people daily, commuters fanned out to buses, taxis, bicycles, and telecommuting. In the NYU Rudin Center’s survey of 315 commuters, where approximately half had typically taken subways to work, patterns shifted significantly to allow for a diversity of modes: buses, walking, bicycling and telecommuting, as shown in the charts below:
These figures represent the remarkable multi-modal transportation supply and user adaptability seen in few cities outside of New York. In many U.S. cities, which are limited to cars, buses or other singular transportation modes, the disruption caused by Hurricane Sandy would have, at least temporarily, crippled the economy.(https://wagner.nyu.edu/faculty/publications/publications.php?pub_id=2292)
Even further, the November 1-2 commutes often took twice or three times as long, and frustration levels were self-reported at an average of 3.35 out of 10, but the return to work was palpable on November 1-2, the days immediately following the Hurricane. It should be noted that the frustration levels were highest in Staten Island (7) and New Jersey (5.7), the surveyed areas most geographically separated from the operating offices of midtown Manhattan. The travel times and frustration index for those reporting to a workplace (not telecommuting) on November 1-2 is shown below: 50
Location Pre-Sandy Commute Time (minutes) Commute Time Nov. 1-2 (minutes) Average Frustration Level
Brooklyn 42 86 3.93
Manhattan 29 52 2.97
Queens 45 47 3.00
Bronx 41 63 2.14
Staten Island 84 240 7.00
New Jersey 52 69 5.67
Northern Suburbs 73 61 2.40
Long Island 85 85 2.00
Study: Porn Stars More Religious, Have Higher Self-Esteem Than Other Women
November 26, 2012 12:53 PM
HOUSTON (CBS Houston) — Stop thinking that all porn actresses are “damaged goods.”
A new study finds that female porn stars are more religious and have a higher self-esteem than other women.
The study, which was published in the Journal of Sex Research, concluded that these women do not fit the “damaged goods hypothesis.”
“In terms of psychological characteristics, porn actresses had higher levels of self-esteem, positive feelings, social support, sexual satisfaction, and spirituality compared to the matched group,” the study titled “Pornography Actresses: An Assessment of the Damaged Goods Hypothesis” concluded.
Watch What Warren Buffett Does, Not What He Says
4:16 PM, NOV 26, 2012
BY ADAM J. WHITE
Warren Buffett is by now no stranger to the national debate over federal tax policy. In 2009, he penned a New York Times op-ed calling for “truly major changes in both taxes and outlays.” Two years later, he returned to the Times with a widely publicized call for large tax increases on the “super-rich,” noting that his own effective federal tax rate (17 percent) was far less than his employees’ rates (ranging from 33 to 41 percent). President Obama liked the idea so much, he called for Congress to pass “the Buffett Rule” in his 2012 state of the union address.
Given that long, well-publicized history, there isn’t much news to be found in Buffett’s latest Times op-ed this morning, calling once again for a minimum tax on millionaires. Except that Buffett opens this one with a rifle shot at Grover Norquist specifically, and supply-side economics generally:
Suppose that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. “This is a good one,” he says enthusiastically. “I’m in it, and I think you should be, too.”
Would your reply possibly be this? “Well, it all depends on what my tax rate will be on the gain you’re saying we’re going to make. If the taxes are too high, I would rather leave the money in my savings account, earning a quarter of 1 percent.” Only in Grover Norquist’s imagination does such a response exist.
COLLEGE LAUNCHES RESEARCH INSTITUTE DEVOTED TO POT
Nov. 26 3:30 PM EST
ARCATA, Calif. (AP) — A public university located in one of California’s prime pot-growing regions has formed an academic institute devoted to marijuana.
The Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research at Humboldt State University plans to sponsor scholarly lectures and coordinate research among 11 faculty members from fields such as economics, geography, politics, psychology and sociology.
The Times-Standard of Eureka reports (https://bit.ly/V5H8zy) that one professor is studying recent campaigns to legalize marijuana, while another is investigating the environmental effects of pot cultivation.
“If anyone is going to have a marijuana institute, it really should be Humboldt State,” economist Erick Eschker, the institute’s co-chair, told the newspaper. Eschker is studying the connection between marijuana production and employment in the county.
The institute is probably the first dedicated to examining marijuana through the lens of multiple disciplines, according to sociologist Josh Meisel, who is leading the enterprise with Eschker. Humboldt faculty started discussing the idea in 2010 when California was preparing to vote on a bitterly contested ballot proposition that would have treated marijuana like alcohol.
The Democrat Embrace Of Fascism
13.11.2012
By Jamie Wendland
Like most Americans, when I was a kid, I was under the impression that all repressive regimes were just like Nazi Germany as portrayed in old movies. All dissenters were either immediately imprisoned or publically shot in the back of the head, no secret is made of it, and everybody knew and lived in constant fear for their own lives. But, that really isn’t the case with fascist or repressive societies. It’s actually a subtle process that is done with popular public support and under the guise of complete legality, justification, democracy and to the greater good of the society.
It is, in other words, the road to fascism present day America is taking and it’s only being accelerated by a delusional love affair with President, Barack Obama.
While Democrats and Obama Loyalists ride their rainbows and unicorns in celebration of the re-election of the messiah, we on the left, are shaking our heads, wondering how Democrats could support four more years of failed Bush policy. On nearly every issue, there was no discernable difference between Obama or Romney, particularly on foreign policy and civil liberties, where the only significant difference boiled down to who would attack Iran first and whether or not the US military still uses bayonets.
Democrats therefore, are left grasping for straws for any liberal distinction, drawing attention to Obama’s alleged progressiveness, by pointing to gay marriage, possible legalization of marijuana, or contraceptives. Let’s be clear, gay marriage and legalization are inevitable regardless of who is president, as the trend of the larger society is already in that direction and Obama has nothing to do with it. It has been the states and the courts, not the president, taking the lead in case after case. So far as contraception, the issue is so completely silly, it barely merits any discussion.
That said, Mitt Romney would have actually been best for restoring ideological sanity and preserving the liberal agenda.
PRAVDA.RU : American capitalism gone with a whimper
27.04.2009
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.
Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.
Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.
The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
Texans going wild with ‘secession fever,’ bumper stickers everywhere
November 25,2012
Move over, “Everything is bigger in Texas.” The Lone Star state has a new favorite bumper sticker and it’s a simple one-worder: “Secede.” Yes, it appears that “secession fever,” as some columnists are calling it, has taken over the red-leaning state following the post-election petitions — and sales of the stickers are just one sign. Among others, a perennial GOP candidate named Larry Scott Kilgore has announced he’s running for governor and will legally change his name to Larry SECEDE Kilgore — yes, with “secede” in all-caps. His web page also declares, “Secession! All other issues can be dealt with later.” [Source]
