Since Barrack Obama took office in January I had been following his qeues on the stimulus package. Coming out of the holidays the economy did not look any brighter, and I think real concerns of job loss started to hit home. So I watched and listened even more intently to the daily updates and pundits on what they thought was going to be in it, whether we needed it, who was going to fight it etc. We’ll fast forward to Feb. 12, my fears became reality, I was laid off from work. Three days later Feb. 17th a massive (although some think not massive enough) stimulus bill was passed. What this meant, I had no clue. Even when I called the IRS and Dept. of Education, they didn’t know. It was too early.
Well today one of the other people laidoff shot out an email to the group. In it are the details of how part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is being used to help unemployed Americans. Personally, this helps me out a heck of a lot more than giving anymore money over to AIG! If you are unemployed, or know someone who is recently, please send this information:
On February 17th, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (HR 1) to help stimulate the US economy. A major component of this new law created temporary changes in COBRA and the employer’s obligation under COBRA. I have spoken with Conexis and they are working feverishly to send out instructions for employers. They should send you something by next week. The new policies become effective March 1st and plan employers have until April 17th to notify eligible COBRA beneficiaries of the changes. At this time I wanted to let you know the latest information about this issue:
1) I have written a short summary of the changes on my blog:
http://www.benefitscafe.com/blog/2009/02/economic-stimulas-and-health-insurance.html2) The US Department of Labor sets policy for COBRA and their guidance info is here: http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/COBRA.html also, I found the “COBRA Premium Reduction Fact Sheet Helpful.”
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/fsCOBRApremiumreduction.html3) The IRS has sent out some guidance on how employers recoup the premium that they pay on behalf of eligible COBRA beneficiaries here:
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=204708,00.htmlAll of this is happening very quickly and this impacts every company in the US with 20+ employees. DOL and the IRS are trying to figure out what to tell people in order to comply and how to adjust their automated payroll tax collection system. The COBRA administrative companies (Conexis, Infinisource, etc.) are trying to figure out what to tell their clients. Payroll companies (ADP, Paychex, etc.) are trying to figure out how to change their systems to integrate the credit on the 941 forms.
OCO stands for “Orbiting Carbon Observatory”. The mission as described on 
Unfortunately, what you will hear about the project is how it failed…About 3 quarters of the way thru the launch, launch command called for the contingency plan to be implemented, “Nobody leave the room, nobody call out.”. A little while later they say that, “The faring did not separate from the spacecraft”. A press conference will convene in 2 hours…The excitement of the event was immediately replaced with a feeling of disappointment. I think my emotions were heightened (good and bad) because of sharing it with these other individuals. Unfortunately the mission failed. Unfortunately not enough people pay attention to what NASA does (we pay for this!!!). One positive, we have access to watch events like this.