Jan 19
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Yes, you really can negotiate the cost of medical care
Although many people are not aware of it, the medical industry is one of the few American industries where negotiating the price is not only acceptable, but common.
HMO’s usually negotiate lower prices in advance and that is why prices can be much higher for uninsured and the under insured.
In addition, the practice of price negotiation is not only available through major institutions. I
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Jan 19
It rained like the cliche, “cats and dogs” today. Loved it. It was fun to finally see sleet and hail pound on the roof of our home after so many long months of having no weather (e.g. I mean: weather that isn’t too exciting ). In California, we have two types of weather: warm and slightly warm. So when the rains visit us, it can be fun.
And it immediately reminded me that our house is now beginning to require maintenance. A good amount of it. For example, it has become mighty obvious that we’ll need to repaint our entire house by the summer. And we need the gutters cleaned. I wante
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Jan 19
Okay, let’s try this again. There are no longer any income phase-outs on Roth IRA conversions from Traditional IRAs. As in previous years, individuals or couples with a modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) over a certain limit are ineligible to contribute directly to a Roth IRA. In 2010, the phase-outs begin at $105,000 for single filers and $167,000 for those married filing jointly.
However, with no conversion limitations, people with any income can simply contribute to a Traditional IRA and then convert that to a Roth IRA immediately afterwards. <
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Jan 19
Visa Credit Card Company is accepted in several places every part of the world and tenders their card services to every person every part of the world as well. Anyway,Visa offers a big variety of plastics choices for every person’s wants.
The Classic Visa credit card is a uncomplicated card with a small spending limit. T
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Jan 19
When I arrived at work today after an enjoyable long weekend, I learned it was layoff day. Thankfully I was spared and will be trudging back to my desk tomorrow. But seeing coworkers let go did prompt me to review current unemployment benefits for Massachusetts residents.
- Regular Unemployment Insurance – up to 26 weeks
- Potentially Federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation – up to 53 weeks
- Potentially Federal/State Extended Benefits – up to 20 weeks
- Massachusetts maximum benefit rate is $629 a week
- Federal Subsidy for COBRA Premiums – former employer pays 65% of COBRA for six months
At first when I realized that my company had waited until 2010 to do this layoff I wondered if dodging having to pay for the COBRA benefit was behind the timing. Read more…
Jan 17
Wheee, what a ride!
The week can be neatly summed up by my 1:35 comment to Members in Friday’s chat, summed the week up quite nicely as I said: “So funny, a whole week of gains I thought were ridiculous wiped out in 4 hours.” Of course it’s easy to laugh when you play the market correctly – as I had said in the morning post, we had cashed out into Thursday’s run up and planned on going bearish through the weekend but it turned out we got our sell-off early, jumping the $100K Portfolio, for example, up 12% in one day – enough to send us back to cash rather than risk a weekend reversal.
We laid the groundwork for this little sell-off in last weekend’s posts as we put up an aggressive Buy List for Members but in my regular weekend post we emphasized the need to cover our buys with “Disaster Hedges” as we were heading to the tops I had predicted when I published the “Last Charts of the Decade,” where I set resistance targets of Dow 10,457, S&P 1,135, Nasdaq 2,314, NYSE 7,389 and Russell 638. As you
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