Why I’m Jealous of My Dog’s Insurance

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Credit Loren Capelli

NELSON'S doctors found the bulge in his abdomen on a Monday. An ultrasound and CT scan showed that a mass was crowding out his stomach and kidneys. It was one of the largest the doctors had ever seen. If they didn't do something, he'd be dead in a couple of days.

The hospital gave him a blood transfusion because he was anemic. A radiologist noticed that something might be wrong with his adrenal gland. His surgical team removed what turned out to be a 12.5-pound tumor, lifting it out like an overgrown newborn. Nelson's intensive care nurse called his family that night, and his internists gave them regular updates until he was discharged.

Nelson's health insurance covered 90 percent of the costs after a reasonable $500 deductible. I'm happy he has such good health coverage. He's my dog. And I'm jealous of him.

He has the kind of health care that I'd hoped the Affordable Care Act would usher in for those who, like my wife and me, have to buy health insurance on the open market. I'd long been frustrated at how health care shackles people to corporate jobs. I believed this legislation, signed four years ago this month, would free people to pursue their dreams, start new companies and not worry about the health insurance penalty.

What I didn't count on was that it would make things harder for me and my wife.

First, we were notified that we would be kicked out of our existing $263-a-month Anthem Blue Cross plan because it didn't meet the minimum standards of the new law. No problem, I thought. The plans in the new Covered California exchange would most likely be better and cheaper.

But we were shocked at what we confronted. The least expensive premium for a couple like us in our 40s would be about $620 a month. And because our household adjusted gross income is likely to be over the $62,040 cutoff this year, it's doubtful we'll end up with a subsidy to help offset that price increase.

Having always had insurance, we began to wonder if we might have to go uninsured, but in the end, w e enrolled. It's as if we just bought a new car that we will never see and that we can never pay off.

The gulf between my health care world and my dog's was driven home the other week. I have mild asthma. Normally it's not a problem, but when I get a chest cold, it becomes severe. One recent day I found that I couldn't breathe. My inhalers were all expired. I'd held off refilling them since my insurance would reduce the costs of the $58.99 inhalers only by a little more than $9. I knew from past experience that I probably needed a prescription for antibiotics, so I tried frantically to find a medical facility that would take our new Covered California Anthem Blue Cross bronze plan. When I did, they said it would be three weeks before I could see a doctor. Instead, I went to the drugstore and bought all the nonprescription medication that might help.

Around the same time, Nelson developed a skin infection. I got an appointment at the vet's the next day. They prescribed an antibiotic and did some blood tests. The medication caused diarrhea so I called his internist at his vet hospital, PetCare, and she prescribed a probiotic. Nelson's $40.42-a-month pet insurance isn't perfect — for instance it doesn't cover pre-existing conditions — but it paid almost all of these costs, and the vet followed up to make sure he was doing O.K.

I was envious. My 11-year-old brown Labrador was getting the kind of treatment that I could only dream of. I wanted to go to PetCare. I wanted pet insurance.

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I know that Obamacare is helping a great number of people. I understand that for the first time millions of people are getting health insurance. It's the one thing that gives me solace.

But let's not pretend that this new policy is the affordable health care savior that many of us were hoping for. For us, our new plan is a big financial hit for a product that does not make it any easier to get basi c health care.

It's still hard to understand what coverage we have. It's like trying to read tea leaves. Benefits descriptions can be contradictory and run nearly 200 pages long. One summary attached to my online account seems to say that if I go to the emergency room, I could potentially owe thousands of dollars. Another document suggests that I'm responsible for only $300. I've had two representatives give me two different explanations. The more I questioned these well-intentioned people, the more I realized how confused, overwhelmed and at times plain wrong they were.

Here's what I've been able to piece together. Previously, our family deductible totaled $13,600 for outpatient care and $6,600 for hospital care (with a maximum combined out-of-pocket cost of $13,600). Under our new plan, we have a deductible of $10,000 (and an out-of-pocket maximum of $12,700). In both cases, having deductibles that high means this is largely insurance to make sure that we don't go bankrupt if we become very ill. Yes, the new plan has more coverage, including pediatric vision. But we don't have children, and I'd trade coverage for things like substance abuse treatment and mental health in return for lower premiums.

And if you see a doctor outside your network, look out. We found this out the hard way. My wife and I both had to see a doctor in January. Our old policy and our new Covered California policy were both with Anthem Blue Cross, so a representative there told us to use our old ID cards for our visits since our new cards hadn't arrived yet. We were covered, he assured us. At the medical center, we gave our ID cards to the receptionist, who accepted them as valid, and went in to see our regular doctors. But later we found out that they were not in our new network's plan. The out-of-pocket cost for my simple 30-minute office visit: $303. My wife's annual exam and a couple of minor procedures: $918.

We're still waiting for quality health care that we can actually use, afford and understand — the kind of care that Nelson gets.

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Flood insurance still on the rise despite new law

JERSEY SHORE, Pa. (AP) — This small, central Pennsylvania river town doesn't have beach homes or boardwalks, but it shares more than a name with the famous stretch of New Jersey coastline 250 miles to the east.

Both are among the thousands of places around the U.S. where people could face trouble in the years ahead because of the rising cost of government-mandated flood insurance.

Earlier this month, Congress sought to ease their fears of sky-high premiums by rolling back a 2012 reform ending the government's costly practice of offering subsidized insurance for older homes and businesses in flood zones. The president signed the bill Friday.

But while the law was widely hailed as a victory for people who had seen their bills triple, quadruple or even increase 15-fold overnight, pocketbook pain for many has merely been delayed.

As many as 1.1 million policyholders with subsidized government insurance will still be hit with steady rate increases. While no one is sure yet how high rates will go, there is cause for worry in cities and towns that rely on affordable policies to keep businesses afloat and prop up the local housing market.

Lifelong Jersey Shore residents Lurie and Michael Portanova bought up a row of quaint, 19th-century brick shops along the West Branch Susquehanna River and have been lovingly restoring them. They found out a few months ago that the annual flood insurance premium on two buildings they bought in 2012 had soared from less than $3,000 to a minimum of $26,868.

Now, thanks to the congressional rollback, that rate will reset to where it was before — only to immediately start climbing again, year after year. Within five years, the bill will be more than $8,700. Within a decade, it will be more than $26,000.

"There's no way we can afford that. Just no way," said Michael Portanova. "We'd have to let it go back to the bank and walk away from it."

For years, people like the Portanovas relied on insurance that was far cheaper than the risks warranted. When Congress tried to stem the red ink by raising rates to reflect the real costs, people in the flood plains screamed — and the politicians listened.

But many say even the adjusted premiums will soon be beyond their means, though the question remains: Will the government continue to subsidize insurance in places that are increasingly untenable as sea levels rise and storms become more severe?

The Associated Press analyzed records from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for roughly 18,500 communities in the National Flood Insurance Program where the government offers subsidized rates.

The data show there are communities in every state where even a few years of price hikes could leave many affected owners unable to afford their properties. Hundreds of small river towns and coastal communities with significant numbers of homes and businesses in flood hazard zones are at risk.

FEMA's records also show why there is pressure to raise rates. Some communities with a large proportion of subsidized properties have been tremendously costly for the flood program. But there are just as many places where those policy discounts have cost taxpayers almost nothing.

The reform law signed by the president rolls back portions of a 2012 overhaul that took away subsidies immediately for any property that changed hands or was remapped into a higher risk flood zone. Both groups will now be able to continue paying subsidized rates.

But at least 820,000 homeowners will still get hit with rate increases of up to 18 percent each year until the program is collecting enough revenue to cover a $24 billion shortfall created by a series of catastrophic storms.

Owners of another quarter million businesses or second homes will see their rates rise 25 percent each year, until their premiums reach rates that match the true risk of flooding.

There are indications that rising premiums already have had an effect. Records reviewed by the AP show that national enrollment in the insurance program dropped by nearly 80,000 in the 12-month period that ended Jan. 31.

The FEMA datasets analyzed by the AP show that 1,402 communities nationwide have at least 100 homes or businesses facing gradual price hikes. Of those, 765 communities have at least 200 policyholders who will steadily lose their discounts.

While the rate hikes will unquestionably affect the largest numbers of people in subtropical coastal cities like New Orleans, Miami and St. Petersburg, Fla., they also have the potential to deliver crippling blows to old river towns and port cities that have little in common with the eroding beach communities that have earned the flood program so much scorn.

The list includes places Brunswick, Ga., a port city where nearly 1,200 policyholders are set to gradually lose their subsidized rates.

The new legislation will offer temporary relief to people like Ray Bodrey, whose annual premiums had surged from under $700 to more than $4,700 before the rollback.

But if FEMA opts for an average increase of 15 percent each year, his annual payments would top $2,800 within a decade, and keep climbing — rates he says will push the limit of what he can afford.

"It doesn't help me at all. We've still got the same problem," Bodrey said.

Congress created the National Flood Insurance Program in the late 1960s, in part because private insurers had abandoned the market. Today, in most places, it is the only option for buying flood insurance, which is required for most mortgages on any property in a flood hazard zone.

There are about 5.5 million policies in force today, about 20 percent of which are subsidized.

In its latest overhaul of the program, Congress tried to deal with the affordability issue by including language asking FEMA to "strive to minimize" the number of policies with an annual premium that exceeds $1 for every $100 in insurance coverage.

Yet, that suggestion would be impossible for FEMA to follow without giving huge new discounts to the many policyholders now paying well above that rate.

All of that adds up to a big question mark for homeowners.

How high will their rates ultimately go?

One FEMA-funded study, conducted in 1999, estimated that 550,000 homes across the country would see premiums top $6,800 per year if they were required to pay a premium based on the true flooding risk.

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When Did We Decide It Was OK to Let Our Bosses Choose Our Health Insurance?

The contraception mandate controversy should prompt us to re-examine a relationship we have come to take for granted.

Photo by Comstock/Thinkstock

This week, the Supreme Court hears oral argument in two cases asking whether for-profit business corporations have religious liberty rights. Hobby Lobby, a group of craft stores with 13,000 employees, and Conestoga Wood, a small Mennonite furniture maker, want to be free of the Obamacare requirement that employer-provided health insurance plans need to provide certain forms of birth control. They argue that their religious convictions prohibit them from covering such items. Religious institutions, reproductive-rights advocates, and others have sparred over the conflicting rights claims, but one important part of the conversation has been missing almost completely: Why are American employers deciding the contents of our personal health insurance plans?  

It didn't have to be this way. Yet for decades we have allowed our employers virtually unfettered freedom to make all health coverage decisions—not just those related to contraceptives—on behalf of employees and, in many instances, their family members. Why? Isn't it time to rethink how we got to this place and whether we should do something about it?

Americans often fail to notice that a striking imbalance exists in health insurance purchasing: Although health insurance belongs to the employee, the employer gets to decide what that insurance will cover and under what terms. While contraceptives are the current lightning rod for controversy between employers and employees, tensions have emerged over the years around a whole range of health services, including treatments for autism spectrum disorder, in vitro fertilization, and bariatric surgery.

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Why does health insurance actually belong to the employee? Because the employee pays for it—directly and indirectly. Though both employees and employers generally co-finance insurance premiums (in 2012, employees reportedly paid an average of 18 percent of individual plan premium costs, and 39 percent of family plan premium costs), employees functionally fund 100 percent of premium payments. In other words, employers' health insurance premium contributions are not philanthropic investments—they are part of an employee's net compensation package. There is a clear wage-benefit tradeoff at work in the case of employment-based health insurance. Economic research shows that employers make fewer investments in real wage increases when they increase their health insurance premium contributions. Seen this way, employers should not be permitted to spend employees' remuneration in ways that subvert those employees' interests.

This is the deeper issue that lurks beneath the contraceptive mandate discussions. No matter how Hobby Lobby is ultimately resolved, we have acceded to an arrangement in which employers will continue to have nearly limitless discretion to make health insurance decisions on behalf of most Americans.

In 2010, 55 percent of Americans received their health insurance through their place of employment or that of a family member. As General Motors executives used to quip, "We are in the health care provision business and make cars on the side." In certain respects, they were right. Both General Motors and Ford have reported that they spend more on health insurance for their employees than they spend on steel. Similarly, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz claims that Starbucks spends more on health insurance benefits than it does on coffee beans.

Why have employers emerged as the primary providers of health insurance in the U.S.? Several historic and economic reasons explain how we got here. Employment-based insurance coverage expanded in the early- to mid-1900s as unions increasingly demanded more benefits from employers. World War II–era wage controls played a contributing role as well. These wage controls exempted health benefits and thereby gave employers a convenient way to top up salaries and compete for scarce labor.

A variety of economic incentives also sustained employment-based coverage. Providing insurance at the place of employment presents an attractive way to pool risk and minimize adverse selection. A significant threat insurers confront is that individuals will only purchase health insurance when they are already sick and need to use it.  But this risk is minimized when employees purchase their insurance at the workplace through a pre-designated enrollment process.

Employees also benefit from favorable tax treatment of employment-based health insurance. Under the tax code, health benefits are excluded from employees' taxable income (they are also deductible for employers as business expenses). This tax exclusion is sizable—it reduces the functional cost of workplace health insurance by an estimated 10 to 35 percent, depending on an employee's marginal tax rate. It is also one of the single largest federal government expenditures. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the health insurance exclusion reduced federal revenue by $248 billion in 2013, including lost income and payroll taxes.

All of this explains why employers have become big players in the health insurance business. But it fails to explain why employers are allowed to determine the cost, quality, and accessibility of the insurance they purchase for their employees. As a legal matter, under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), employers make these determinations as business decisions. Enacted in 1974, ERISA was designed to protect the interests of those participating in employment benefit plans such as pensions or, in this case, health insurance plans. But while this may have been the intention of the legislation, under ERISA employers maintain discretion to pick and choose health insurance plan contents according to their own business or other preferences, with only minimal restrictions in place. The historic rationale for this was that while employers had strong incentives to offer workplace health insurance (competitor companies were doing it, and there were tax benefits), there was no mandate for them to do so. As a consequence, employers were free to offer any health insurance or no health insurance and, consequently, employees had no right to workplace health insurance.

But Obamacare changed all that. Obamacare's employer mandate will require large employers to provide coverage or pay a penalty starting in 2015. Employees of large firms now have a reason to expect that they will receive their health insurance at the workplace. When they do so, employers will be purchasing health insurance plans on employees' behalf and using employees' remuneration to do so. We have yet to reconcile ERISA with the Affordable Care Act in this respect, and it is important that we do so.

One way to remedy this conflict would be by establishing policy that makes employers into legal fiduciaries—like investment and pension managers and others who safeguard our personal investments. Such fiduciaries are entrusted with duties of care and loyalty to those who benefit from their services. They must act in the sole interest of those they serve, without regard to their own financial, moral, or other preferences. Employers, acting as legal fiduciaries, could invest employees' remuneration in insurance plans offering a diversified pool of health benefits that reflect employees' needs. We could require employers to ask about employees' coverage needs before selecting health insurance plans for the next enrollment year, a practice that is largely nonexistent to date. For example, through an annual confidential survey, employers could capture employees' health needs, aggregate them, and approximate a best-fit health plan or plans to satisfy employees' needs.

Such a reconceptualization would be groundbreaking. Under this revised model, employers would act on behalf of employees and in their exclusive interest in buying health insurance. Employees' needs—economic, moral, or otherwise—would come first.

Obamacare means that employers will remain the dominant providers of health insurance in the U.S. for the foreseeable future. That debate is over. But now is the time to challenge the existing model for health insurance decision-making and institute safeguards to ensure that individuals and families—rather than their employers—can pick the contents of the health insurance they buy. As conversations continue to swirl around the contraceptive mandate and Obamacare more broadly, let's not forget an important conversation that hasn't yet taken place—clarifying once and for all the role of employers as our health agents.

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Horizon DataSys Unveils Their Technology Roadmap of Instant Windows OS & Data Recovery Tools

(Ping! Zine Web Tech Magazine) – Horizon DataSys, the premier developer of instant PC recovery solutions, announced today the following roadmap of its current software developments and upcoming releases.

In early 2013, Horizon DataSys first introduced their freeware Reboot Restore Rx which has quickly become the go-to alternative for Microsoft's SteadyState. Windows Steady State was a freeware application for public access PCs that returned machines back to an administrator-defined pristine state after each end-user's session. Recently, in February 2014, Horizon DataSys updated this freeware utility to allow administrators to make the software invisible to public users. There are also other enhancements built into this latest update of Reboot Restore Rx v2.0 such as full Windows 8 compatibility, UEFI/EFI firmware interface integration, support for Windows Group Policies (GPO), and compatibility for GPT partitions for today's larger harddrives.

On the queue for release in the beginning of 2014 Q2 is a greatly enhanced build of Drive Vaccine. Drive Vaccine is a more advanced replacement for Windows SteadyState than Reboot Restore Rx. Drive Vaccine comes with its own free enterprise console, more auto-reset options, password authentication, and other enhancements. The latest release of this increasingly popular reboot-to-restore software will have a more intuitive interface that will allow users to manage multiple reset points (or "baselines"). Many advanced school systems are looking for alternatives to static Restore on Reboot solutions - And that is where Drive Vaccine fits in. This latest Drive Vaccine build will also have more navigational ease in setting up scheduled maintenance periods in a few clicks and many other improvements suggested by customers.

In 2014 Q3, Drive Cloner v6 is also scheduled to be released simultaneously with a new build of RollBack Rx v10x. Integration of Drive Cloner and RollBack Rx will enable the backup of RollBack Rx snapshots onto Drive Cloner images for offsite backup. Drive Cloner offers methods of incrementally backing-up data on various external media including onto external drives and to the cloud.

RollBack Rx is the best-of-breed instant restore software that fully integrates with Windows to create instant restore points (snapshots) that enable users to recreate all sectors of multiple harddrives back to how they were the second the snapshot was created. RollBack Rx, also known as the PC Time Machine, can back-up the largest available harddrives today in a few seconds. Integration with Horizon DataSys' imaging product Drive Cloner Rx will allow users the ability to backup these instant snapshots by being exported onto an image for external backup and off-site storage.

Lyle Patel, the President of Horizon DataSys, explained, "Our core focus is securing and recovering your data. Ensuring that you get your PC back up and running quickly after any disaster without any data loss is our first priority."

Toward this end, Patel explained that all these various solutions are together targeted set of offerings designed to maximize the availability of your computing resources and eliminate downtime. There's Drive Cloner for bare-metal recovery. There's RollBack Rx which is an instant recovery utility that integrates with Windows and is a faster and more comprehensive competitor to Windows System Restore with many more restore points (snapshots) and customization options. There's Drive Vaccine, a stripped-down version of RollBack Rx that simplifies public computing management by allowing IT admins to pre-define the system configuration to which the machines will automatically return.

Patel expanded that Horizon DataSys expects to soon add to this portfolio of industry-leading capabilities centered around and disaster recovery with a new forensic sector-mapping utility that will be able to search for recoverable files and folders on systems unprotected by any backup product.

"For a while now we've felt that there's a data recovery tool that's been missing from our toolkit. We regularly get requests asking us if we may be able to help recover data from systems not protected by any of our applications after some hardware or software catastrophe. As it is, we have to inform such people that we're unfortunately unable to help them. But we anticipate that soon we'll have a new forensic utility that will allow users to browse the contents of their source drive and discover files that are recoverable." Horizon DataSys hasn't yet settled on a name for this low-level scanning utility.

Andrew Shen, the lead developer, expounded that their company mission at Horizon DataSys is to offer a painless method to confront most common computer threats. And this can be anything from accidentally deleted files to malware and malicious hacks on up to operating system stability issues and hardware failures. "Our ambition is to offer the fastest and most reliable backup and restore for any such issues so that you're back up and running in no time as if nothing ever happened."

Horizon DataSys Corporation is a privately held software company headquartered in Blaine, Washington which develops, publishes, and distributes branded computer software applications specializing in end-point PC management, OS integrity, and instant restore.

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Tags: Drive Cloner v6, Drive Vaccine, Horizon DataSys, RollBack Rx v10x, windows

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March 31 Deadline Looms for Buying Individual Health Insurance

If you haven't bought health insurance yet, it's time to panic. You have less than a month to buy coverage or you may have to pay a penalty when you file your 2014 taxes next year.

The Affordable Care Act requires most everyone who can afford health insurance to be covered by April 1 or pay a penalty. That penalty could be a maximum of $285 for a family of four or up to 1 percent of the family income, whichever is greater.

If you want to buy a health plan through a broker or directly from a health insurance company, you have only until March 15 to do so. Buy a plan by then and your coverage will start April 1. If you buy health insurance anytime from March 16 to the 31 outside the government-run marketplaces, your coverage won't start until May 1.

Exchanges offer some breathing room
You have a little more breathing room if you buy your plan from the government-run marketplace in your state. If you buy a plan through the marketplace anytime between March 16 and 31, coverage won't start until May 1. But the Obama administration will let you slide. "Health and Human Services granted an extension for those enrolling in the marketplace but not for those enrolling outside the marketplace," says Carol Taylor, employee benefit advisor for D&S Agency in Roanoke, Va., a partner firm of United Benefit Advisors.

There is some urgency because really the only reason you would want to buy from the government-run exchange or marketplace is if you qualify for a subsidy, Taylor says. "If you buy outside the marketplace, you should be able to get more choices, and likely a larger network that is more suited to your needs," she says. "Health insurance companies don't have to offer the exact plans in the marketplace as they do out."

Open enrollment ending
If you are going to buy from the marketplace, you must do so during open enrollment and open enrollment which began Oct. 1 ends March 31. The next open enrollment is proposed to start Nov. 15 and end Jan. 15, 2015.

There's a reason for the current open enrollment period ending. Lawmakers felt they had to set a deadline or some people wouldn't enroll until they were sick and needed medical procedures. For the law to work, the government needs everyone to have coverage especially those who are healthy. Under the law, insurance companies can't refuse coverage based on your health status.

After March 31, the only way you will be able to buy a health insurance policy through the government-run marketplace for the rest of the year is if something happens and you lose your current coverage. That "something" is known as a qualifying life event, explains Scott Ogburn, senior consultant at ECM Ferguson Solutions in Greenville, S.C..

That's true for employer-sponsored plans as well -- you can only enroll during its open enrollment unless you have a qualifying event. About 70 percent of employers have open-enrollment during the last two months of the year for coverage that starts Jan. 1, notes Taylor.

Sign up for health insurance within 60 days of event
To be eligible to enroll in health care coverage outside open enrollment you typically must do so within 60 days of the qualifying event. Events that qualify include moving to a new state that offers different health plan options, certain changes in your income such as going from a full-time to a part-time job, and changes in your family status or size.

You would be eligible to enroll in a plan if you had coverage through your spouse or partner and you divorce or split. If you get married, you would be allowed to be added to your spouse's plan or your spouse added to your plan, Taylor says. If you have a child or adopt a child, the child can be added to your plan at that time as well.

You also would be eligible to enroll in the marketplace if you lose or quit your job and thus lose your employer-sponsored health-care coverage or if you have coverage through a spouse, partner or parent and he or she dies. If you decide to stop paying premiums or drop your health coverage for some other reason, it won't count. You won't be eligible for special enrollment.

If you have a disability or your income is low enough that you qualify for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program in your state, you can enroll in these programs at any time. They have no open enrollment periods, says Ogburn.

Penalties for not having health insurance will rise in future years
Under health care reform, you can go 90 days a year without health insurance and not be penalized. But if you didn't sign up for health insurance by March 31, you will have used up your grace period for the year.

The penalties for failure to have health insurance increase significantly in future years. In 2015 it's the greater of 2 percent of income or $325 per person. In 2016 and later years, it's 2.5 percent of income or $695 per person, whichever is greater. After that time, the penalties are adjusted for inflation.

If you're uninsured for just part of the year, one-twelfth of the yearly penalty applies to each month that you are uninsured.

Taylor suggests using one of the online calculators including at health care.gov to see if you would qualify for a subsidy. The subsidy is based on a number of factors including annual income, family size and age.

If you qualify for a subsidy, you'd be better off buying from the marketplace and have until March 31 to decide. But if you don't qualify for a subsidy or for a small subsidy, you should look into plans available outside the marketplace, says Taylor. In that case, you need to get moving, she says, because time is running out.

The original article: March 31 Deadline Looms for Buying Individual Health Insurance appeared on Insurance.com

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Insurance penalty more than many expect

If you think not having health insurance will mean paying a simple $95 fine, you might be wrong. Because for most people, it's more complicated than that — and potentially more expensive.

"People say, 'It's just a Ben Franklin,' " said Brian Haile, senior vice president for health care policy at Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. "I say it's probably more than one."

Under the Affordable Care Act, most Americans are required by law to have health insurance. You can purchase a plan either on the new federal health insurance marketplace or off the marketplace but without financial aid. Those who have not enrolled in a policy by March 31 could face a penalty.

In 2014, the penalty is $95 per adult and $47.50 per child or 1 percent of adjusted household income, whichever is greater.

Whether you pay the flat penalty or 1 percent of income depends, in part, on how much you earn and your filing status.

For example, if you and your spouse have two children, your family's uninsured, and you file taxes jointly, you face a tax penalty of at least $285.

If your household income before deductions exceeds $50,000, you'd pay more. A household income of $75,000, for example, would mean a penalty of $547.

You won't feel the effects of the penalty for a while because it gets applied to your 2014 federal tax obligation, due in April 2015.

Because of that delay, "in some ways, it doesn't feel real to a lot of people," said Nancy Kelley, a certified application counselor at the St. Louis Effort for AIDS. Still, the penalty could catch taxpayers by surprise next year.

And if you choose to stay uninsured in 2015, expect a much-bigger penalty. Next year it will amount to $325 per adult or 2 percent of household income.

But like the law that created the penalties, there are complications.

First, if you earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level and you live in Missouri, you are exempt from the penalty. This is because the state chose not to expand Medicaid, so the federal government extended this pardon to those who would have been eligible under the expansion.

Second, if your previous policy was canceled because of Affordable Care Act requirements, you are exempt for one year.

You're also exempt from having to get insurance coverage if you're in prison, you're not legally in the U.S., you're in a health care sharing ministry or recognized religious sect that objects to health insurance, you're a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe, or if the cost of coverage would exceed 8 percent of your household income.

If you don't see your situation listed but believe you should be exempted, there is an appeals process available on the marketplace application. There's also a long list of hardship exemptions with several applications, depending on your situation.

This might be encouraging, too: You will not be penalized if you have a coverage gap of less than three consecutive months.

How much is my tax penalty?

Starting in 2014, having just one uninsured member of your tax household can cost you. All nonexempt members must have health insurance to prevent a penalty. If the penalty applies to you, your tax liability could increase, or the IRS could take money out of your refund.

This tool is for illustrative purposes only, and users should discuss results with a trained tax preparer before drawing conclusions.

Kelley believes most people are motivated more by the opportunity to have coverage than by the penalty.

"Starting with the penalty is kind of the negative side of it," she said. "But truthfully, you can get enrolled now and you will still have nine months out of the year that you will be covered with health insurance."

If you do decide to purchase a plan on the marketplace, there are only eight days left, so Julie Brookhart, spokesperson for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, offered some tips.

She said to allot a sufficient amount of time to fill out the online application, shop for plans and make a selection. She said to visit localhelp.healthcare.gov if you want to find in-person assistance nearby.

You can also visit CoverMissouri.org or GetCoveredIllinois.gov to find help in your state.

If filling out an online application, try for off-peak hours, such as late evening or early morning when the site is less likely to be backed up.

Brookhart does not recommend filling out a paper application because the deadline is so close. If you choose to go with paper, she said to call the marketplace hotline (1-800-318-2596) five days after submitting your application to complete your enrollment.

Here are some documents she listed to have on hand while completing your application:

• Social Security Numbers (or document numbers for legal immigrants)

• Pay stubs or W-2 forms for everyone who needs coverage

• Policy numbers for any current insurance plans

• A completed Employer Coverage Tool. This is an application on HealthCare.gov that requires information of all employer-based coverage available to anyone in the household, even if you're not enrolled.

Many people who make up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level will be eligible for tax credits, called subsidies, which will make their coverage cheaper.

Finally, Brookhart noted that unless you have a major life change after March, you will not be able to enroll again until November.

Such "life events" include marriage, birth and loss of previous coverage.

Kelley added to the urgency.

"People are really waking up and going 'Oh my gosh, this is real. I now really have to act.' "

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Police used data recovery to retrieve Rob Ford files – but iPhone was their undoing

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO – Court documents from a police investigation into Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his friend Sandro Lisi shed how police get their hands on video, text and audio files from computers and smartphones seized as evidence.

READ MORE: Police documents describe Rob Ford crack video

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Previously released judicial authorizations reveal that police obtained one laptop computer and seven cellphones as part of the ongoing investigation – well after Lisi's arrest on an extortion charge in connection with the now-infamous "crack video."

Police have gleaned multiple media files from the devices they've seized, but it looks like one had them stumped: Lisi's iPhone 4S.

iPhone sent to Apple to be unlocked

Another key detail in Wednesday's court documents reveals that Toronto Police travelled to Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. to gain access to the data from an iPhone 4S belonging to Lisi.

"LISI's phone was unable to be analysed because they did not have the current forensic tools to extract information from the phone," police documents read.

Toronto Police aren't the only ones turning to Apple for forensic assistance.

"There is a security and encryption level that right now is proprietary to Apple," said Tim Margeson, president of CBL Data Recovery, a Canadian data recovery firm headquartered in Toronto.

Apple assists law enforcement agencies to decrypt seized iPhones by court order. Apple reports the number of requests for information related to law enforcement investigations as part of its transparency report, which can be viewed online.

"Law enforcement requests most often relate to criminal investigations such as robbery, theft, murder, and kidnapping," read a statement regarding Apple's national security and law enforcement orders released in January.

"Apple reviews each order, whether criminal or under a national security authority, to ensure that it is legally issued and as narrowly."

According to Margeson, Apple isn't providing any information; they just provide the service to enable access to the phone.

But some private firms say they can do the same thing, gaining access to a wealth of information stored on devices like the iPhone.

Ben Carmitchel, computer forensics expert and president of DataRecovery.com, said his company has software that would allow them to extract data from an iPhone.

"The iPhone makes it so easy to delete a text; however – just like a computer – that text is not deleted and is retained for a very long time. They are retained in a database that is stored on the phone, marked as deleted and left alone," Carmitchel told Global News.

"Let's say we have a 16GB iPhone 4S. We can acquire an image of that iPhone and end up with a 16GB image of everything that is on that device – then we use software to see what's on that phone."

Data recovery

Last Halloween, Chief Bill Blair said investigators had extracted a deleted file from a hard drive seized in the Project Traveller raids last June. During a press conference in October, Blair described that video as containing "images that appear to be those previously reported in the press."

But just how did police manage to retrieve these files?

The process would include using data recovery and computer forensics to examine the hard drive in order to discover evidence.

"What they would do in a situation like this is secure what's called a bit by bit image of the unit onto some of their own storage. This alleviates any risk of damaging the original unit and keeps the chain of custody and evidence all intact for later on," Margeson said.

When you delete a file on your computer the file is not actually deleted – it's flagged and marked to say that it has been deleted, but the information is still there.

The information will remain there until your computer uses that space to overwrite the files.

According to Margeson, police would be able to use data recovery tools to scan through the indexed and un-indexed portions of a hard drive. He said if files had been deleted, it's likely that some of the video evidence and other documents pertaining to the case were found in the un-indexed portion.

"The way a computer works to store information is a lot like a book," Margeson explained.

"There is a table of contents and there are pages. When you delete information from a computer all its doing is eliminating the entry in the table of contents; but the page is still there. So they [would have been] able to go through all the pages and restructure that to find the appropriate images or documents."

That's how Toronto police would have been able to recover the video that shows Mayor Ford smoking what appears to be crack cocaine – one described for the first time in documents released Wednesday.

"Let's say for instance there is a file that has been deleted, but no new information has been written on top of it," said Herna Viktor, associate professor of computer science at the University of Ottawa.

"The recovery software would then simply go through the files, see that it has been flagged as deleted, try to un-flag it and then scan the disk and find the information for you."

But despite sophisticated data recovery software, 100 per cent file recovery is not always achievable.

There are two common instances where information could not be retrieved from a hard drive – if it's been physically scraped off, or if that particular file was overwritten with new information.

© Shaw Media, 2014

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