MASSDEVICE ON CALL — The IRS this week published detailed rules for the individual insurance mandate , finalizing the law’s penalty for noncompliance.
In the 1st year without insurance the fine will be $95, or 1% of household income. Subsequently, the fine will increase to $695 per person, or 2.5% of household income, and then adjust to the cost of living along those lines.
The federal tax collection agency also detailed exceptions to the individual mandate. People who qualify for Medicaid but live in states that are not expanding Medicaid coverage through the ACA are exempt. In addition, Americans who are in between jobs, who object on religious grounds and some Indian Americans are also exempt, according to TheHill.com.
Florida scammer gets 34 months behind bars for Medicare fraud
30-year-old Joseph Valdes was given 34 months behind bars for his role in an illegal Medicare scheme that raked in $205 million. Valdes was formerly a marketer for American Therapeutic Corp., a Florida-based healthcare company. He plead guilty to several charges, including 1 count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and 1 count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S.
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Cleveland Clinic reaches into rural settings with concussion app
The Cleveland Clinic is broadening its iPad-based concussion detection program, expanding the app into rural settings where limited resources increase the importance of detecting head injuries early on . The app, called the Cleveland Clinic Concussion Assessment System, or C3, crunches data from a blow to the head to determine the extent of the damage and makes recommendations for future care. C3 is already being used to screen local high school athletes, and the app has been used to successfully screen for about 500 concussions.
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Katie Perry, Obama exchange shout-outs on twitter
Katie Perry voiced her support for healthcare reform on Twitter when she re-tweeted one of Obama’s tweets about insurance coverage. The
President responded in typical 140-character-or-less form with a shout-out to the pop singer’s new album, Roar. Both Perry’s and Obama’s exchanged messages bounced around the Twitterverse with more than 4,000 re-tweets each.
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Palin joins the ACA de-funding movement
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin threw her political weight into the plan to de-fund Obamacare with a threatened government shutdown, voicing her opinions in an email sent out by the GOP lobby group Senate Conservatives Fund. Palin jumped on board with the plan, backed by Senate conservatives Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).
In the email she wrote, "The time to take serious action to stop Obamacare is now … Don’t Fund Obamacare! Just remember – if you fund it, you own it!"
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