Oct 16, 2010

Federal Employees Health Plan 2011 Premiums

The US Gov't OPM announced the new rates for 2011 for the FEHB plans. Here is the chart showing 2011 premiums for national plans. For HMOs and other plans available in your area, click on FEHB site page.

For those of you who hate federal workers, you can see what the premium subsidy is for federal employees and retirees. Before you explode and bloviate, however, remember that salary + benefits = total compensation, and in general total federal compensation is not out of line with the private sector. In my view, federal employees are generally more risk averse than private sector workers, or more dedicated to public service, or lucky to have found a safe federal job and aware they couldn't command the same salary in a more competitive system. (Or some combination thereof.) We're no angels, but we aren't total ripoff artists, either.

Oct 12, 2010

Vitamin D status & elective orthopedic surgery

At last, dear reader, the orthopedic surgeons have come around to the realization that cutting into people's bones without testing their Vitamin D status is neanderthal. Here is a report of a speech by a leading orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC. Soon, I predict, it will constitute poor quality, if not outright malpractice, for elective procedures such as hip, knee or shoulder surgery to proceed without a vitamin D lab test and appropriate corrective D therapy.
I learned my lesson on D and elective orthopedic surgery the hard way. Maybe a fundamental understanding of the importance of vitamin d status to bone healing will quickly infiltrate the profession. Can't wait for my next follow up visit to find out whether my own orthopedic practice has evolved.

Oct 11, 2010

Medicare Premiums for 2011

Our CBO-Alumni den mother Kathy R sent the attached table around as a first look at what to expect for Medicare premiums in 2011. She took it from a report published September 23 by the National Health Policy Forum. I'm reproducing the table from that report here.

If you're in the "holdharmless" group, it's because you're not new to Medicare in 2011, and your income (modified AGI in 2009) is no more than $85,000. Otherwise, you're in another column. Note the income break points in the table. It makes sense to micro-manage your income if your AGI falls close to a breakpoint.
For example, make $85,001 (if you made only $85,000 in the previous year) and that extra dollar will net you about $58 per month, or about $700 per year, in extra Medicare Part B premium compared with the hold-harmless premium. That's a marginal tax rate of 78,000% on the last dollar (at least I think it is...it's hard for me to calculate high percentages.)