TOP STORIES:
Hollande’s
Tax Rebels Underscore Mounting Opposition - (www.bloomberg.com) Another week, another round of protests in
France against President Francois Hollande’s
tax increases. Farmers have threatened to block roads into Paris tomorrow,
saying they’re “fed up.” Horse-riding centers are set to protest this weekend
against a higher sales tax, an issue ambulance drivers demonstrated against
earlier this week. The swelling tax revolts underscore the two-front economic
battle that has made Hollande France’s least popular leader since 1958. He’s
under pressure from the European Union to cut the budget deficit and from an
electorate squeezed by one of the world’s highest tax burdens and
unemployment at a euro-era record. In response, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayraultsaid
yesterday that while the government won’t back down on a sales levy set for
2014, it will consider overhauling the tax system.
Obamacare
Bailout Sought as Effort Planned to Bypass Site - (www.bloomberg.com) States and insurers are already working to bail
out President Barack Obama’s
health-care overhaul, anticipating the system’s online insurance exchanges may
not be ready by a critical December deadline. All of the alternatives have
drawbacks. Insurance companies are hoping to bypass the troubled exchanges and
directly enroll customers. While that strategy would ease access, it also might
prevent consumers from shopping for the best deal, a cornerstone of Obamacare.
States may extend special coverage for the chronically ill who are otherwise
shut out of the market. That’s if they can find the money. The rush to prepare
work-arounds is a sign of skepticism that the Obama administration will meet
its goal by the end of November to fix the technical problems that have plagued
the exchanges. If they miss the deadline, millions of Americans may find
themselves without health insurance next year.
French
riot police use tear gas on anti-tax protesters - (www.news.yahoo.com)
French riot police fired tear
gas at hundreds of anti-tax demonstrators in northwest France on Saturday after
protesters pelted them and tried to drive a tractor through a barricade, an AFP
photographer said. One demonstrator was arrested in Jugon-les-Lacs, a commune
in the Cotes-d'Armor region where some 700 people had gathered earlier in the
day. A security camera was torched and some protesters pelted police, who
responded with tear gas. Demonstrators chanted slogans against France's
Socialist government, which earlier this month suspended the application of the
so-called ecotax. "People struggle to pay their bills at the end of the
month, and now we're going to ecotax them" said one protester, pretending
to strangle himself. There were more anti-tax protesters elsewhere in Brittany
and also around the country, including near the major cities of Lyon and
Marseille, and in the capital Paris.
Energy
Dept. told to halt customer fee for nuclear waste disposal program that
doesn't exist - (www.rt.com) A
federal appeals court ruled Tuesday the US Energy Department must cease
collecting fees of around $750 million a year from nuclear energy customers
given the waste disposal program they’re funding doesn’t even exist. Since
1983, the Energy Department has collected a fee - established by Congress -
of a tenth-of-a-cent per each kilowatt-hour of electricity generated by
US nuclear reactors. Yet since its inception, development of the nuclear waste
disposal program at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles from Las Vegas, has stalled
despite the fund’s accumulation. When Barack Obama took office, he made good on
a campaign promise to stop work on the Yucca site. The secretary of Energy
is supposed to adjust fees based on the program’s costs. The department has, in
the absence of a functional site, continued collecting the fee based on what
Yucca’s cost could have been. Thus far, the fund has spent $7 billion, mostly
on the site, with $30 billion on hand and interest income, though Energy has
shuttered the office pursuing the Yucca project.
Obamacare Deductibles 26% Higher Make Cheap Rates a Risk
- (www.bloomberg.com) Americans
seeking cheap insurance on the Obamacare health exchanges may be in for sticker shock if they get
sick next year, as consumers trade lower premiums for out-of-pocket costs that
can top $6,000 a person. Expenses for some policies can reach $6,350 for a
single person and $12,700 per family, the most allowed by the health-care law,
according to a survey by
HealthPocket Inc. of seven states, including California and Ohio.
That’s 26 percent higher than the average deductible in the seven states, and a
scenario likely repeated across the country, said Kev Coleman, head of research
and data at Sunnyvale, California-based HealthPocket. Private employers have
been raising deductibles and co-pays for years to help control costs on health
coverage for their workers. Now insurers are using the tactic to lower premiums
on the government-run exchanges. While that has allowed President Barack
Obama to tout the affordability of plans, it poses a choice: Do
consumers gamble they won’t face a major medical bill, or boost monthly
premiums just in case?
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