Canadians frequently own property here, pay real estate taxes here and greatly support our local economy with their dollars, so as far as I’m concerned, they are most welcome in my backyard of Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Clearwater and New Port Richey. Plus, I love Canada, so we usually have lots to discuss about their homeland when I meet a resident.

It goes without saying that Canadians on the road here are no less susceptible to car crashes than full time residents of Florida.

Florida residents are often confused by the insurance web after they are involved in a car crash. Which insurance pays for my doctor bills, is it my car insurance or health insurance? Why should I have to pay a deductible to my company to fix my car when it’s the other guy’s fault that my car is wrecked? Who pays for my permanent disability?

So, you can imagine how much more complicated it gets when a Canadian with car insurance and a separate health insurance policy both issued in Canada is injured in a crash in Florida – now it’s not only an issue of which insurances are primary, but which laws are applicable? There may be a conflict between the laws of Florida and the laws of the Canada and even the laws of their province.  Also, since insurance policies are contracts between two parties, even the insurance policies have to be scrutinized.  No two policies necessarily are the same.

In short, untangling the issue of insurances when Canadians are involved in a wreck in Florida through no fault of their own are almost impossible to decipher without assistance or extensive research.  We have a lot of experience with every aspect of this and would be happy to help out our Canadian friends.

The post Canadians in Florida Car Crash Cases appeared first on Blenner Law Group.

The A.C.A. is a four year plan. The government started implementation in 2010 and it will be largely completed in 2014.  Of the 88 points of policy to be put in place, 57 have already been accomplished, with another 31 coming in 2013 and 2014. And in the next two years the most important changes will take place.

Here’s a summary of what’s happened so far – these are provisions of the ACA already in place:

• All health insurance companies must spend at least 80% of all insurance premiums on actual health insurance. Not marketing, not private jets, not $50 million salaries. Money must go for actual health care. Before this, many insurance companies were spending less than 50% on actual health care! If you or your employer received a refund from your insurance company this year, this is why – they fell below the 80% mark in 2011;
• Adult children can be included on their parents’ health insurance policy up to age 26. This is extremely important for all the unemployed young people just out of college;
• Health plans are prohibited from placing lifetime limits on the dollar value of coverage, and from denying children coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions;
• The creation of a website to inform citizens of the plan itself: www.healthcare.gov;
• A number of Preventative Care measures that were costly are now provided by your insurance company at no cost to you. The intent is, it is cheaper to keep us healthy than pay when we get sick;
• Lots of changes to Medicare and Medicaid to stem the tide of inefficiencies, medical redundancies and curb fraudulent billing. These savings will be used for further start up programs of the ACA.

Here’s a summary of what’s to come in 2013 and 2014:

• Individual states will start setting up health insurance “exchanges” to give their citizens great choice in picking an insurance company. This work will begin in 2013, for completion by January 1, 2014;
• Starting January 1, 2014, every American will have a “guaranteed availability of insurance” regardless of age, pre-existing conditions and income. Those who truly can pay nothing for their insurance will apply to Medicaid. Those who can afford something will have lots of choice from the Insurance Exchanges;
• Starting 2014, there will be no annual limit on insurance coverage. Some policies cap out at $1 million per year AND lifetime limit. Obviously those with critical head injuries or paralysis exhaust those limits fairly quickly with no other recourse than Medicaid;
• In 2014, Employers may offer their employees a “reward” to enroll in Wellness Programs to maintain health that will reimburse employees for 30-50% of the cost of participation.
• Most controversially, Employers must provide their full-time employees health insurance and if they do not, they face a $2,000 per year per employee penalty. There are some exceptions to this.

The rationale of 100% health insurance participation by our citizenry is it’s the only way to drive down cost.  With a greater base of citizens paying for insurance it spreads the risk around. Typically younger, healthier people are more likely to be uninsured, but they do get sick and get into accidents. By forcing them into the market, they are protecting themselves, preserving the tax base from Medicaid and helping to pay for an aging, more expensive population of insureds.

The result of the ACA will be that approximately 30 million of the nation’s 40+ million uninsured citizens will find themselves with health insurance. While this obviously comes with a cost to employers, self-employed people and the middle class, we are the only remaining industrialized first-world nation that does not offer some degree of subsidized health insurance to its citizens.

I encourage anyone more interested in this topic to visit the government’s website on this, www.healthcare.gov, for more information.

The post ObamaCare – Here Comes the Affordable Care Act! appeared first on Blenner Law Group.

However, after representing scores and scores of clients over the years who have no health insurance and seeing the adverse results of this – the inability to get the back surgery he so needs to continue working, the client whose “primary care” is only ever going to the emergency room when she’s really sick rather than seeing a physician before reaching that critical state, and, in one tragic case, the client who died from cancer waiting for any kind of chemotherapy because she couldn’t find an oncologist that would take her Medicaid – over time the so-called Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been clicking into action to right some of these problems.

This week, the refunds are going out in the mail. If you are a self-paying insured, or if you are an employer in a small business paying premiums for employees, watch your mailbox.

You may not realize it, but last year another portion of the ACA went into effect mandating that health insurance companies spend at least 80% of its premiums on actual health insurance. Until then, health insurance companies were free to spend your premiums on anything they’d like. In fact, funds spent on actual healthcare was more like in the 60^th percentile. The rest went to over-the-top marketing, absurd salaries and crazy bonuses.

This has not only been widely reported, but our firm also received a refund from our health insurance company for the year 2011 this week. The check was in the thousands of dollars. You can imagine what this refund check has done for our former health insurance company (we fired them in December, 2011) having to send out probably tens of millions of dollars in refunds to thousands of individuals and companies, alike.  The days of obscene profits at the cost of the health insurance of their insureds is over.

The point of this policy is not only to benefit Americans, but to ensure that from this point forward health insurance companies don’t waste money internally and to be more efficient in administering and paying for health care costs.

Next time “Uncle Joe” complains about  Obama’s “socialized medicine” perhaps he should consider how socialistic it is to give consumers what they actually paid for.

The post The Affordable Care Act and Why The Check is in the Mail appeared first on Blenner Law Group.

I wasn’t out of law school long and my new Florida Bar License still had a nice shine to it. In other words, I was pretty green attorney when this whole sordid saga occurred.

As a new associate, my boss advised that I needed to immerse myself in Court to get use to rules of evidence and civil procedure. The best way to start with limited experience was to start at the bottom – small claims court.

It didn’t take long to build a small claims practice. Before I knew it, other Palm Harbor attorneys started referring me all sorts of matters. Most attorneys avoid small claims court since its rarely lucrative enough for the trip downtown.  At one point, I remember looking at my calendar and it looked like I was taking up part time residence at the old County Courthouse in downtown Clearwater where small claims matters are largely heard.

However, there was one fateful new case that wasn’t scheduled for trial in downtown Clearwater – it was scheduled in Palm Harbor, at the North Pinellas Courthouse, currently where traffic trials are heard. The trial was scheduled at 10 a.m. for 90 minutes and it happened to be on Martin Luther King Day. Remember that – Martin Luther King Day.

Now the case was quite simple. A young Palm Harbor woman had been renting an apartment from a man who owned several units. She moved out and wanted her security deposit returned. The landlord refused to give it back to her claiming damage in excess of normal wear and tear. To say that both my client and the landlord were colorful characters would be an understatement. Because small claims court is designed to be a quick proceeding with little formal process, let’s just say that the details of their landlord/tenant relationship was…..unknown to me. It was a simple case of getting money back.

Anyway, Martin Luther King Day was a very new holiday –  maybe a year or two old and many municipalities hadn’t figured out what offices remained open and what offices would observe MLK Day and close for the day.

We were all present at the Palm Harbor Courthouse on MLK Day at 10 a.m.: my client, her boyfriend, the defendant, the witnesses and I. However, the courthouse was dark and empty. After a time, a guard finally approached us. “The Judge is on the phone for you” he said to me.

It turned out the Palm Harbor Courthouse was closed for MLK Day, but the downtown Clearwater Courthouse was still open. The Judge advised that if we could make it to Clearwater by 10:30 we’d still have one hour to try this case. “I expect to see you all in my chambers by 10:30.” So we all had 30 minutes to get to downtown Clearwater from Palm Harbor.

Here’s where it all went south. I told all present, who came in their own cars, that we all had to (legally) race our way downtown in half an hour if there was any way to get this case heard. If successful, we’d still have one hour to try this case based on a $350 security deposit.

I told my client and her boyfriend that I’d see them in downtown Clearwater and to get there as soon as possible.

Taking what I thought was a shortcut, I zoomed down a side road closer and closer to the courthouse. At this point I hadn’t realized that my presence in court is only as effective as the presence of everyone else. In other words, whether I was first or last didn’t matter. Nothing would happen until everyone else was present.

At this point, traffic came to an absolute halt. Nobody was moving. I soon discovered that what blocked me from getting to my trial was the Clearwater Martin Luther King Day Parade. Hundreds of people were parading down the street that separated me from the courthouse. In a near panic (and remember, what’s at stake is $350) I parked my car randomly and decided to make a run for it.

With briefcase in hand this new attorney made a mad dash for the courthouse, literally through the parade, past a yelling security officer and dodging tuba players from a local high school band. I was within one block of the courthouse when…….it started raining.

Pretty wet, I finally made it to the Judge’s chambers only to see that none of the other participants were in attendance. I was still the first one to get there. Everyone got stuck behind the parade.

This is where it gets interesting.

By the time the last party had arrived, we had much less than one hour to present this case. And there was a distinct change in demeanor of my client and her boyfriend. They were inappropriately laughing, joking, slurring words and……..drunk. This is mid-morning, folks. Their commute from Palm Harbor to Clearwater must have included some serious drinking and  driving because they were Friday night Frathouse drunk.

After testifying that she left her rented apartment in a very clean condition and therefore should get her $350 security deposit back, the landlord – who didn’t have a attorney and was representing himself – went on attack mode. “Your honor, look! She’s drunk right now! See what I’ve put up with for one year?”

To be as delicate as possible, Mr. Landlord told the court that he refused to allow my client to stay past the expiration of her lease because of her constant partying with men. Lots of men, usually one at a time. And in succession. Night after night. “She’s worn out the carpet with a steady stream of men in and out, in and out! I have to clean the place out and fumigate it!! Your Honor, she’s a *****” (surely you can insert your own word).

At this point the proceeding descended into what can only be described as a total verbal explosion with all sides screaming at the other. I looked up to see the Judge with his face in his hands, except he was laughing. He eventually looked at me with that look that seasoned attorneys give new attorneys. His gaze said, “Son, get used to it. We’ve all got stories like this….”

And now after practicing for more than 20 years I know it to be true. I’ve compared notes with other attorneys enough to know that we all have at least one story where we wished we’d have gone to dental school instead of law school.

What happened to these charming people? The Judge “split the baby” and awarded half of the security deposit back to my client and lectured the landlord to be more respectful of his tenants and to watch his words lest he get sued for slander.

Needless to say, I never take Martin Luther King Day for granted. MLK was a tower of a man in the area of human rights yet the day marking his memory is memorable to me for a completely different reason.

This article is written by Walt Blenner, a personal injury attorney practicing law in Tampa Bay area including Palm Harbor, New Port Richey and Dunedin FL

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