HOW TO TRACK BILLS

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Changes to Workers Health Insurance

Changes to the recently passed health-care legislation will most dramatically affect Americans who don't have health insurance, most non-elderly Americans - about 160 million - are expected to keep getting coverage through their employers.

But workers could see some changes as a result of the new health care law. Beginning as soon as this fall, companies that offer health plans will have to allow employees to keep their children on their plans until the children are 26 years old.

Employers will also be prohibited from putting lifetime caps and some annual caps on benefits for their employees. Companies that begin offering new health plans will be subject to other new requirements, including a mandate starting in 2014 to provide an "essential benefits package" that is expected to be more comprehensive than a typical employer-provided plan. (Employers with existing health plans would be exempt from this new requirement.)

Most employers that now offer health plans would be able to change the kind of medical benefits they offer their employees, potentially increasing co-payments and deductibles or reducing what their plans cover. With inflation most likely the plans will continue to increase.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that by 2016, an average individual policy provided by a large employer would cost about $7,300 per year (and slightly more for workers at small firms). An average family policy would cost about $20,300 per year (and slightly less for workers at small firms). As now, those premiums would probably be split between employers and employees.

In comparison, in 2009, the average employer-provided individual policy cost $4,824 per year, and the average family policy cost $13,375, according to an annual survey by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.

Also beginning next year, employees will be automatically enrolled in a new insurance program, known as the CLASS program, to cover long-term care, unless they choose to opt out. The program is funded by a payroll deduction.

Beginning in 2014, employees who participate in wellness programs or meet health standards could also get up to a 30% break in their premiums, if their employer chooses to offer this incentive.

States are slated to set up regulated insurance marketplaces, or exchanges, in 2014, whereby insurers will offer plans that will have to meet basic standards set by the government. These were primarily designed to help people who don't get benefits at work to shop for health plans.

But employers with fewer than 100 employees would be allowed to enter these exchanges, potentially giving their workers a wider choice of plans than many have now.

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FLORIDA BUDGET DETAILS

Florida Insurance Reform

During the past Florida Legislature an attempted incremental progress toward stabilizing the Florida property insurance market passed SB 2044, which should help in shoring up the solvency of small domestic insurance companies. A recent report from Florida “Tax Watch” an independent research group shows that Florida’s insurance market is broken and needs to be reformed.

           Florida Legislature Adjourns

Florida lawmakers ended a contentious 60-day session that was permeated with politics, from Gov. Charlie Crist's declaration of an independent Senate candidacy to highly partisan debates over issues like abortion and teacher tenure.

As they head to the fall elections, lawmakers used the last day of their annual session to pass a $70.4 billion budget, which avoids tax hikes but raises university tuition, in between debates on abortion, guns and redistricting.

The House had a four-hour highly emotional debate over a bill requiring women to pay for ultrasound exams before an abortion, sending the measure to the governor in a 76-44 vote.

The Republican-led Senate sent a constitutional amendment to the Nov. 2 ballot that would counter two citizen initiatives backed by Democrats that sought to set new standards in the drawing of congressional and legislative district lines.

The Senate voted for a measure that would allow gun owners to take their weapons to work as long they were left in their locked cars or trucks. But it died in the House.

With Gov. Charlie Crist embroiled in a difficult U.S. Senate campaign, two state Cabinet members running for governor and Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, seeking a Cabinet seat, it was no surprise that politics overshadowed the 2010 session.

Gov. Crist was at the center of the most dramatic moments, vetoing a bill backed by Republican leaders that would have ended tenure for public school teachers.

And on the day before the session ended, Gov. Crist drew the focus away from Tallahassee as he announced in his hometown of St. Petersburg that he was leaving the GOP to run as an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate.

And on the last day of the session, Gov. Crist was a no-show as lawmakers ended their session at 8:47 p.m., with the House adjourning first shortly before 7 p.m.

As Gov. Crist continues as the governor, who was criticized by Republican legislators for abandoning his party, now gets to exercise his veto power over the hundreds of bills passed by lawmakers - particularly the abortion bill and the budget.

The contentious nature of the session was underscored by what did not pass.

A major revamping of Medicaid, the state-federal health care program for the poor and disabled, collapsed when the House and Senate could not agree on the scope of a plan to move more recipients into managed-care programs.

Efforts to strengthen state ethics laws and apply stronger ethics standards to the PSC failed. A move to crack down on texting drivers died in the House.

Among the session's most significant achievements was legislation allowing the Seminole Tribe to operate casino-style card games and slot machines around the state in exchange for more than $1 billion over the next five years. The accord, years in the making, provided more than $400 million for the new state budget.

The $70.4 billion state budget represents the first increase in state spending - up from the current $66.5 billion budget - in four years.

The budget used $2.3 billion in federal stimulus funding, while anticipating an additional $1 billion in federal help for Medicaid.

University and community college students will face at least an 8 percent tuition increase, while state workers will go without a raise for the fifth year. But the budget avoided major layoffs for state workers and did not cut their benefits.

School spending was slightly increased to $1.22 per student, but could rise by as much as $116.35 if school districts fully enact local-option property taxes. House Democrats opposed the budget in the 77-43 vote, citing a $160 million cut in road building and the limited use of extra Medicaid funding from the federal government.

House Minority leader Franklin Sands, D-Weston, said the budget "makes college more expensive and state roads more crowded."

But most of the Senate Democrats voted for the bill, which passed in a 33-4 vote.

Republican lawmakers defended the measure as a fiscally responsible budget that did not raise taxes, prevented pay cuts or major layoffs for state workers and set aside $1.4 billion in reserves despite the limited funding the state faced this year.

House budget chairman David Rivera, R-Miami, said the spending plan maintained support for schools, health care and public safety despite facing a $3 billion deficit heading into the session.

"Our priority in this process was to create the conditions necessary for generating jobs and jump starting Florida's economy," Rivera said. "This is the right budget at the right time."

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Sales Tax Fairness

Florida’s legislature has an anti-business problem, in a state that has a 12.3 percent unemployment rate how can you explain a tax policy that gives a competitive advantage to out of state retailers over our own businesses that employ Floridians?

The state’s out of date sales tax collection fails to collect these taxes from many Internet retailers that sell goods to Florida residents, these Internet retailers have no actual presence or roots in the state.

Florida could join a multi-state group called the “Streamline Sales and Use Tax Agreement” to move towards changing that. Leaders of the 2010 Legislature, like many before them fail to do so, mainly to avoid any retaliation in an election year for raising taxes.

The collection of sales tax on goods sold to Floridians isn’t raising taxes, it’s about enforcing them fairly so all Floridians contribute to the states revenue. It’s about leveling the playing field for our states retailers who face unfair competition from these online retailers who don’t charge Florida customers state and local sales taxes.

As many businesses have closed due to poor sales, many would have survived if they did not suffer lost sales due to these Internet tax-free sales, as was mentioned this is not raising taxes, if anything it will help us from raising taxes. When counties collect local taxes which are above our 6 percent base sales tax, they use that money to support many special needs, without these taxes they may have to go to the state for these funds, which now in turn may have to be subsidized by the state which now may need to raise taxes, just one vicious circle.