Federal COBRA Benefits A Challenge For Downsized Workers

BEWARE! Insurance companies are using unscrupulous practices to get policyholders off its rolls!

While I understand that these companies need to make a buck to keep afloat, there must be some better way to make more money than to void a policy for just 2 cents!

Take Stan Rosen of Miramar, Miami. He lost his job, his wife was six months’ pregnant and he faced an operation and he had COBRA benefits to help make ends meet.

Then, by mistake he underpaid his November bill by two cents (!!), and his benefits administrator said his policy was being canceled. Rosen and his wife, saw “making ends meet” slip through their fingers.

He quickly paid the two cents (!!), and it got reinstated. But ONLY after he and his dad called about 100 times and got The Miami Herald involved that the company relented and continued coverage.

The Rosens’ case is an extreme example an incident that’s becoming more widespread: Laid-off workers are struggling through a bureaucratic labyrinth to keep health insurance while insurers and former employers have little to no interest in aiding them beyond what is required by federal and state laws.

What is COBRA?

COBRA (or Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985) is a law signed into effect by President Ronald Reagan that mandates an insurance program that helps employees continue health, disability insurance and postal services even in the event they are out of a job.

Federal COBRA coverage mandates companies with more than 20 employees to offer their laid-off workers as much as 18 months of health insurance, as long as the worker pays the entire cost of the premium.

Current COBRA coverage can easily cost $1,200 a month for a family, and that may be too expensive for most. The Obama administration last year began the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to subsidize 65 percent of COBRA costs for up to nine months, but many still can’t afford it.

What About COBRA for Companies With Less Than 20 Employees?

On the flip side, companies with fewer than 20 employees are covered by a state law, but people who have had to use it, like Robert Dollar of Miami, say it’s even more convoluted than the federal law.

“My COBRA has turned into a hysterical joke,” says Dollar, who pays $712.34 a month just to cover his wife.

Federal law requires large companies to give departing employees a thick COBRA packet stuffed with explanations. But state law makes an exception to small companies, like the one Dollar worked for.

Scores of phone calls and sent faxes later, Dollar’s efforts to contact his former company’s insurer, Neighborhood Health, to get the continuation coverage, was wasted when his former company switched to Aetna. The dismayed Dollar had to go through the whole process again. “It’s a maze of stuff,” he said.

Insurers Say COBRA Is A Liability To Them

According to Gran LeCompte, an executive with MDW Insurance in Coral Gables, Fla., says that for employers and insurers, COBRA is “a major pain in the butt. … There’s a ton of liability.”

A major key problem for insurers is that young and healthy employees who are confident of finding work tend to reject COBRA, while older and sicker and less confident workers will grab it. “Typically those who take COBRA coverage cost two to five times ((more) in benefits than a normal employee costs,” LeCompte says.

Furthermore, Federal law seek to keep insurers and employers in line by penalizing them for infractions. LeCompte says that means most big companies outsource the details to a company specializing in COBRA coverage and administration.

Rosen’s COBRA insurer is Ceridian, who spotted that Rosen had paid $334.97 for his November bill, rather than the proper amount of $334.99.

Federal law allows a month’s grace period to pay the full bill, but Rosen did not learn about the two-cent problem until he received his next bill, at the end of November, past the grace period that expired Dec. 3, which terminated the Rosens’ coverage.

Joe Brown, spokesman for Ceridian Benefits Services, told The Miami Herald the company was required to follow the letter of the law “or the company would be held liable.” Its legal responsibility was to administer Rosen’s insurance for his former employer, a Miami Beach hotel.

But Jay Rosen kept working at it.. He called the offices of a senator and representative. He called the former employer, and he kept hounding Ceridian reps. “The normal person would have given up long before I did,” he says.

Eventually, the insurer decided to forgive the two cents, and the Rosen policy was reinstated.

COBRA Benefits Eligibility Cut-Off Extended to March 01, 2010

The federal subsidy of 65 percent was slated to end Dec. 31, 2009, but just before the Christmas recess, Congress decided to extend its benefits: Workers laid off before March 1 can qualify for help, and all can get up to 15 months of subsidy.

In the reform packages now before Congress, the House version has a provision that people with COBRA could retain their coverage until the insurance exchanges start.

Those would allow everyone without employer-based coverage to sign up for a plan, regardless of preexisting conditions, with subsidies based on income levels. Such exchanges are not scheduled to start before 2013.

Beyond COBRA – So Why Not Cover Yourself Even More Thoroughly?

You know what? Insurance is Personal. Even if people are laid-off and tight with money, I believe that insurance is even more vital to keep going even for just minimal coverage.

So here’s a thought. Why not buy a term life insurance policy? Why not get more health insurance even if you lack cash? You can definitely buy very cheap health insurance even if you’re tight.

Would you believe you can get a good health insurance policy at ONLY $49 online? You betcha.

How to do it? You need to get as many quotes as you can. Shop around. Make sure you have all health insurance quotes in one place, then decide.

You don’t have to go to every insurance site too. You save a lot of time by using providers that give health insurance quotes for free at no charge. No money down and they only want your attention to refer to their large list of insurance companies who will be more than willing to underprice each other to sell you a policy.

That’s why online insurance policies are cheap and just as good if not better than meeting with an agent face to face. He just has more competition online.

Make them bleed for it then.

More Power To Us,
Life Insurance Quotes For Consumers
“Insurance is Personal.”

Phils Musings

Top 5 Ways To Generate Cheap Website Traffic

There is one thing all people strive for when trying to make an online business successful and that is producing a steady flow of web traffic. If people don’t visit your site, it will hardly have any chance of generating any income at all. It takes money to maintain an income generating web site.

Ever wonder how successful, revenue earning online businesses succeed? Most of them are spending lots of money to increase traffic to their sites, investing in many advertising campaigns and researching different forms of marketing schemes.

You don’t have to do all the above to create revenue for your site if you don’t have the resources. There are various ways to generate low cost website traffic without having to spend what you don’t have or can’t afford. Many people have relied on high cost methods and have ended up losing everything they own over it.

Below are the top five methods to generate low cost website traffic that I believe can help your site become successful. Even if you only generate a small percentage of successful visitors to client ratio, you will still see revenue, especially if you get high website traffic.

Exchange Links

This is a sure and proven method in the online business world. Not often would you see a site where there is no link to another site. Many webmasters are willing to exchange links with one another so that they could produce more public awareness about their sites. You’ll soon see and feel the sudden upsurge of the traffic coming in to your site from other sites when you start to use this method.

A major prerequisite in exchanging links with other sites, is having the same niche or content as the other site you are trying to exchange links with. Both sites should share a common subject so that there is continuity in providing service and information to what interests your target visitor.

Exchanging links also boosts your chances of getting a high ranking in search engine results. It is common knowledge that search engines ranks sites that have inbound theme-related links. With a good rank position in the search engines, you will generate more web traffic for your site without the high costs.

Traffic Exchange

This is similar to exchanging links, but on a different and higher level. This may cost a bit more than exchanging or trading links, but could be made less expensive because you have the chance to earn more revenue. Traffic exchange services is the idea of viewing another person’s site or page. This is done by the other person as well. This makes it so a site can use the contents of your site and vise-versa. This makes it so that you both benefit from each others efforts to generate web traffic. The other sites visitors can go to your pages and know more about your site as well as theirs. Once again the public awareness of your site’s existence is boosted.

Write and Submit Articles

There are lots of e-zines and online encyclopedias on the internet which provide free space for articles to be submitted. If you want to save costs, you can write the articles yourself or there are many freelance writers who are willing to write for you for a small fee. Although, if your aim is to save money, it is wise to write the articles for yourself.

Write something that you have expertise on so that when people read your articles, they can feel your knowledge about the subject and will be eager to go to your site more and more. It is also a great idea to include a resource box at the end of your article that can link them to your site. Make sure you write a little about yourself and your site in the resource box. If you provide a light, information-laden and interesting article, they will go to your site for more which will create more web traffic and revenue for you.

Make a Newsletter

This may sound like hard work because of all the articles you may need to use to build a newsletter, but on the contrary, this is not true. There are many writers and sites that are willing to provide free articles as long as they can get their name in your newsletter somewhere. As your newsletter gets passed around, you can broaden the public awareness of your website and maybe build an opt-in list for reader when your site becomes more successful.

Join Online Communities and Forums

This only requires your time and nothing else. This lets you share your knowledge and expertise with many online communities that are populated with people. You can also get free advertising when you visit forums that have the same subject or niche as your site. Make sure you share your two cents with everyone and let them see how knowledgeable you are with the subject. As you build your reputation, you also build the reputation of your website. Making it a reputable and honest business that could be frequented and trusted by many people.

My Top 3 Affiliate Marketing Tips

What I am about to reveal will probably not make some fellow gurus happy, but this needs to be said:

- No matter what they say about affiliate marketing, it’s virtually impossible for everyone to get those 5,000 – 10,000 dollars a month they are raving on about. The reason? There is simply too much competition! However my fellow gurus are correct on one point: No money will fall into your hands if you are not doing anything to get it there…

I decided to help you get started in the right state of mind, by giving you these high level tips below, that will help you make some money with the different kinds of affiliate marketing programs you can find on the internet.

1. Google Adwords

Some say the days of free traffic are over, but there are still some traffic coming that way, however those hits are surely fading away quickly. You can choose to work hard creating web pages that rank well in the search engines, but still – it’s very hard to do. If you still feel like trying, there are lots of Search Engine Optimization Guides available for you to download, both paid and free.

Simply by paying for clicks with Google (it’s called the Adwords program), you can get the top three positions on the search engines that matter the most – in a matter of minutes. It may come as no surprise to you that there are lots of guides available on how to optimize your google adwords campaigns as well! Did you know that the “engine” that drives some of the traffic is called Adsense? The adsense program allows website owners to put ads on their sites, and when the ads are clicked – the site owner just made some cents online. Most Google Adwords Guides recommend turning off that part of the campaign, due to the click fraud involved, which will give you bad quality, non converting traffic.

2. Your own email list

Building an email list of subscribers is hard, but doable. The task of sending offers to your very own email list is the ideal way to build a residual income online. Instead of sending traffic away and hoping for the best, the best alternative for you (in my opinion) is having your own email list to which you will be able to send multiple offers on periodic intervals. There are lots of autoresponder services that you can subscribe to, and if you feel like having total control, there are several Autoresponder Scripts available for purchase as well.

3. Having Your own affiliate program

Did you know that the gurus are aware of the fact that every visitor that fills out form on your site can generate 50 cent in revenue? What about if you pay someone 25 cents (50% commission) to generate that same amount of traffic, that you would otherwise pay Google to get?

This is the secret most newbies don’t know (and that the gurus don’t want you to know about): Let others generate the traffic you need to make some sales! There are a lot of advantages using this approach, including the fact that now others pay Google to get the traffic for you.

Final Words:

Yes, when it all comes down to it, everything involves paying for traffic in one way or the other. Just remember – in order to make the online income you dream about, you’ll need to invest very wisely in the different kinds of advertising available to you.

To Your Success,

Anders Eriksson

Private Label Rights Membership Site Owner

Affiliate Marketing Tips and Tricks

No matter what you may have heard about affiliate marketing, anyone can make money online affiliate. And it’s not hopeless for everyone to make as much as 5,000 – 10,000 dollars a month, all that is needed is a little hard work and a little know how.

1. Google and Overture Even though the days of free traffic aren’t completely over, they are indubitably fading away quickly. You can choose to work solid creating web pages that score well in the search engines, though it’s very compressed to do. By paying for clicks with Google and Overture, you’ll possess the top three positions on the search engines optimization that matter the uttermost. If you desire to generate web traffic from Yahoo, all you need to do is be at the top of Google.

2. Your own email list Sending offers to your very own email list is the ideal way to build freedom and surplus revenue. Instead of sending traffic away before hoping for the best, you should instead have your own email list to which you are capable to send multiple offers.

3. Your own affiliate program If you knew that each filled out construction on your site generated .50 cent in income, would you at rest be willing to pay some person else .25 cents to make that identical traffic’ The most unnoted ways of generating movement is having others produce it for you. There are many advantages to this manner, including the fact that others will be getting your movement for you. Read the full article on affiliate marketing tips here: Affiliate Marketing Tools . When it all comes down to it, everything involves productive for movement in one way or another. To shape extra revenue, you’ll need to invest wisely in advertising.

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