Paul's Web Blog

Archive for December, 2010

This has the easiest possible answer. All insurance policies are private contracts between you and the insurance company. In return for paying out the premium, the insurer pays you if you suffer an accident and incur a loss in one of the circumstances identified in the policy. But if you scratch the surface a little, there’s a more complicated answer lurking just underneath. When you insure your vehicle, you are one of a large group of individuals creating a central fund under the control of the insurer. The purpose of this fund is to pay out whenever someone is injured or suffers loss in a traffic accident. The notion of compensating victims means the fund is held as a financial and safety net. It catches people who would otherwise have to pay for their losses out of their own pockets. If you wanted to be political about it, the whole scheme is intended to be a redistribution of wealth from the drivers who can afford to pay and the victims who may not be able to pay. In some people’s books, this makes insurance one of these socialist inventions better suited to a communist country rather than the capitalist US.

So how should we view this “social contract”? The liability version is mandatory in all but three states. This is a form of government intervention, lifting the policy out of the usual private contract law, and placing it into a version of public law. To confirm this uneasy alliance between the state and the insurers, every state has an Insurance Commissioner heading a Department of Insurance. Their job is to police the market and protect you, the consumers. This is a balancing of interests. You as the consumers may be the drivers paying the premiums, or the victims collecting your compensation. Unfortunately, your interests oppose each other. Drivers want to pay as little as possible. Victims want the maximum compensation. To demonstrate the problem, let’s look at New Jersey where the law requires insurers to offer an equal amount of liability, and uninsured and underinsured coverage. The state legislates to direct how insurers shall run their business. GEICO is now the subject of a class action alleging it deceptively sold its policies, hiding the amount of UM/UIM coverage on offer.

This is a classic example of a state imposing a duty on car insurance companies and then being prepared to act in a policing role when insurers are shown to have ignored the law. This actually makes it quite difficult for the ordinary citizen when it comes to buying a policy. When you come online and ask for those multiple auto insurance quotes, do you know what your state’s law requires the insurers to include in their policies. If not, you could be innocently buying a policy that fails to give you the protections required by the law. In one sense, this is not so bad for the drivers because, if it turns out you have been deceived by your insurer, you can sue. But there are legal problems if people standing on a sidewalk are injured. They do not have an insurer to sue. That’s why it’s good to see individual states prepared to police their own laws.

As if things were not complicated enough, there has been a flood of corporate money into the political arena – thanks to the Supreme Court under Roberts in the case of Citizens United vs. FEC. It would not be unfair to describe the current situation as watching a waking giant suddenly walk through the campaign landscape. Anonymous donors are funding attack ads and the spread of highly misleading information about the current economic situation in general and the healthcare reforms in particular. As we head off to the polls, it’s therefore wise to draw breath and consider the extent of the dishonesty. Frankly, it’s no wonder the electorate are anxious and confused.

So let’s start with a few basics. First, the majority of the reforms are not due to come into force until 2014. This gives us plenty of time to work out the precise effects as implementation gradually eases us into full compliance. Second, the major fault with the reform is that it does nothing to control the prices of drugs or the treatments we receive. Imagine the debate in the White House. Potentially, we are picking a fight with the insurance industry, the healthcare industry, and the pharmaceutical manufacturers. This is a triple whammy. So, the President and his advisors decided to narrow the field to the insurance industry, hoping the premium rates and the cost of drugs, devices and treatments would take care of themselves. If the ads are attacking this cowardly failure, they are right. Without control over the prices, premiums are almost bound to rise.

Now a few words of reassurance. There’s nothing in the Act to force you to go through an official to get to a doctor. You will be able to choose your own doctor or insurance plan without anyone second-guessing you. There’s also no right for illegal immigrants to buy cover. They stay outside the system altogether. This will leave the current insurance companies to sell the policies whether directly or through the new exchanges. There’s no government takeover. Indeed, all the exchanges do is promote competition between the insurers. Premium rates should fall. This is supposed to be what capitalism is all about.

If insurers do increase their premiums, most states have the power to review the increases and decide whether they are justified. Hopefully, more states will use this power to protect you. The Justice Department has just filed suit against Blue Cross and Blue Shield for abusing its dominant position in Michigan to force up its competitors’ costs. Finally, there’s no threat to Medicare benefits. In fact, the benefits will either stay as they are or increase slowly. The only people who will see a change are the members of the Medicare Advantage plans who will lose some of their unjustified subsidies.

It’s true that this is a big change to the health insurance market. But we already see advantages. Insurers can no longer reject children on the basis of a pre-existing condition, young adults can stay on their parents policies until 26, insurers cannot cancel your policy if you fall sick, and so on. Health insurance has always been complicated and it remains so now. But there’s no need to panic. No matter what the attack ads say, the changes should end up favoring you.

Every state in the union has a Department or Office of Insurance run by a Commissioner. This all sounds very impressive but, for the most part, these Commissioners have quite a low profile. Only in states where the holder of the office is activist and defends consumer rights, do you get any publicity in the media. Mostly, in these cases, it’s all negative coverage as the large corporations pay for big headlines saying they will be put out of business if the Commissioner continues to wage war against them. In other words, the insurers are perfectly content with the system so long as it’s toothless. But the moment it may threaten their profits, it’s the worst type of state intervention imaginable. So is this role and the department in support actually a good thing, or is it yet another example of big government wasting taxpayers’ money?

The framework is an ideal for the protection of consumer rights. In theory, the Commissioner sets the framework for competition within each state. With competition, insurers are forced to offer better products at lower prices to keep their market share. There are potential controls over the right to raise premiums and a role in handling and adjudicating on complaints. So if you have the good fortune to live in a state controlled by the Democrats, the odds are you have a Commissioner who is actively defending your rights, limiting rises in premiums and prepared to punish any insurer found to have treated you badly. If you live in a Republican state, the likelihood is your Commissioner rarely does anything to threaten the local insurers and, if complaints are upheld against local insurers, you can be sure you will never hear about it.

As an example of good practice, let’s swing by New York which has just published its Annual Ranking of Complaints. Why is this important? Well, if you are coming up to a renewal or looking around for your first policy, it’s a good idea to know which companies have the lowest number of complaints. If you buy blind, you could get to a claim and then discover why this insurer has one of the highest number of complaints about its claims handling. In many states, this information is either not published or only published as bare numbers with the identities of the insurers carefully removed from public view. New York is proud of its record in consumer protection. This is important because, in 2009, New Yorkers spent about $10 billion on insuring their vehicles.

So the next time you use this site to get car insurance quotes, check out the website operated by your state’s Commissioner to see what information on complaints has been published. In New York, you would discover that Nationwide Mutual has the best record with no complaints upheld whereas Long Island Insurance has the worst record among the 167 insurance companies licensed to sell policies in New York. It had 265 complaints upheld against it. Remember, size is everything. Allstate Insurance took in $1.26 billion in premiums and had 180 complaints upheld against it. Just buying your auto insurance from a large company is no guarantee of better treatment.

Insuring your health becomes more and more expensive each year because the medical costsare going up steadily regardless of the economical situation. If you don’t want to pay too much for health plans, the first thing you have to understand is that knowing the basics is a must. Only this way you will be able to choose the right policy and get the adequate coverage for the money you’re paying.

What plansare offered?

Health insurance comes in two kinds: indemnity plans and managed care plans (that arecomprised of HMOs, PPOs), and POS).

Indemnity plans give you the total freedom of choosing a doctor to visit and your coverage is calculated according to your actual visits and types of services you receive.

Managed carplans usually provide broader coverage options but have specific restrictionson where you will get your services. There’s always an agreement between theprovider and a network of healthcare facilities you may get your services fromand get covered. And if you choose to visit a doctor outside this network youwill typically get denied of coverage or get covered to a lesser extent.

Regardless of which plan type you want to buy, you should make sure that it includes the necessary coverage options.

What needs to be covered?

An insurance plan that can be evaluated as good should include the following types of coverage:

• Hospital expense that will cover everything connected to hospital care.
• Surgical expense that will pay for allthe expenses connected to surgery.
• Physicians’ expense that will cover doctor visits either in office or a hospital.
• Lab coverage that will pay for most routine tests including X-Rays

What should also be considered?

When looking for health insurance you might also want to look for the following elements to be included:

• Prescription drugs
• Preventive care
• Mental health benefits
• Maternity care
• Vision care
• Dental care
• Chiropractic coverage

How much will it cost?

Besides the monthly premium that is easily evaluated by using health insurance quotes when shopping around you will also have to cover additional out-of-pocket expenses that vary across plans. This may push up the overall cost of health insurance, especially if you have family members who are going to the doctor quite often. So it is very important to see if your plan has any provisions regarding the following out-of-pocket costs:

• Co-payment: a specific amount of moneyyou will have to pay for each doctor visit (can vary across different providers and healthcare facilities).
• Deductible: the amount of money you will have to pay for the medical services out of own pocket before the insurance coverage kicks in (usually applied to indemnity plans).
• Coinsurance: the share of your medical expenses after reaching the levels of deductibles if there are any.

Where to buy health insurance?

The most obvious and direct way of getting a plan is to contact your insurance agent or an insurance provider directly and purchase an individual insurance plan. That will give you a lot of room for customization but on the other hand will turn out to be comparatively expensive.

You can search for a group insurance plan. Most employers provide group insurance options for their workers at affordable rates. The downside is that you won’tbe able to customize your plan according to your personal needs and will get the coverage that everyone else is getting.

MBBS Admission Process

There is nothing as noble as saving a human life! Not only today but since ages medical science has been kept and seen as a high esteemed profession. It is every parent’s dream to see their child excelling in medical sciences but there are only few lucky ones who get to achieve the desired.

MBBS admission process is a hard nut and requires lot of effort to crack. Let’s take a peek into what all it encompasses.

Admission Process for MBBS:

The earlier the better! The fever of MBBS entrance is high when students are in their high school days. This requires the candidate to complete 12th examinations or equivalent examinations.

For MBBS admissions, a student is required to pass his 12th class or equivalent with Physics, Chemistry, Biology (which includes practical test of these subjects) and Mathematics or any other elective subject with English as prescribed by NCERT.

The applicant applying for MBBS must have secured aggregate marks of 50% in Physics, Chemistry, and Biology taken together (40% in case of SC/ST/OBC). The candidate must complete 17 years of age on or before December 31st of the year of admission.

This new ptc site is called GlobalAdsPTC, which is a great site in my opinion as it offers benefits to both it’s members and it’s advertisers.

GlobalAdsPTC offers there advertisers a cost per action program where they get to chose what type of advertisement they feel would benefit most from. Right now GlobalAdsPTC offers guaranteed website visits also know as paid to click ads, Guaranteed reading of there ad which is known as paid to read ads, Guaranteed Sign ups which is exactly like it is stated they will guarantee sign ups to the amount of sign ups purchased ( Advertisers are responsible for verifying the sign up within 7 days or they will automatically lose the credit to the member ),  banner ads, featured banner ads, featured links, featured text ads, and finally a traffic exchange with a 1 to 1 ratio or you can buy traffic exchange credits.

GlobalAdsPTC offers there members a chance to make money online through there paid per action program and they give them a residual monthly income with there matrix club. Members can earn up to $0.02 per paid to click ad or paid to read ad they view. Members will also make $0.10 in the paid to sign up section. GlobalAdsptc allows there members to earn views to other sites there part of with the traffic exchange which is a 1 to 1 ratio. GlobalAdsPTC also allows there members to earn up to 100% of there personal referrals actions.