No! Say it ain't so!

McD's threatens to drop health coverage for hourly employees.

Who cares? The new law provides better coverage.

I went over to the Kaiser Family Foundation to take a look at what I might qualify for under the healthcare law if I were a single McDonald’s worker (using 2014 dollars). Generously assuming I’d make $10/hour (I believe shift managers make about $9.81/hour) I calculate my yearly salary at $20,800 – or about 181% of poverty.

Turns out I’ll be on the hook for a premium of about $1127 a year, or about $21 per week. That’s $11 less a week than I’d pay for McDonald’s mini-med benefits. But instead of yearly maximum benefit of $10,000 I’d have no maximum benefit at all since maximum benefits are no longer legal. And I’d only have a maximum out-of-pocket expense of $2,083. This plan – a ‘silver’ plan under the new law – is going to be quite a lot better than McDonald’s

Earlier today a friend forwarded an email about the scary Obamacare bill. It was forwarded on by a guy I know to be extremely conservative and in the health insurance biz. The claim: a new sales tax on home sales of 3.8% was created in the health care bill. So if you sell your $400,000 home you have to pay $15,200 in sales tax.

Shockingly enough, this isn't really true. There is a kernel in there though. Over at factcheck we learn the following (my emphasis):

The truth is that only a tiny percentage of home sellers will pay the tax. First of all, only those with incomes over $200,000 a year ($250,000 for married couples filing jointly) will be subject to it. And even for those who have such high incomes, the tax still won’t apply to the first $250,000 on profits from the sale of a personal residence — or to the first $500,000 in the case of a married couple selling their home.

So the tax is not on the sales price of your home. It is on the profit you made on your home. So to be subject to the $15,200 tax you would have to sell a home you bought for $200,000 for $850,000 (edited on 10/04 to correct math). Plus, the tax only applies to people with VERY high incomes. Most people wont' be subject to it no matter how much they sell their home for.

That same email contained this line, "Everyone better wake up to the fact that people in Canada and Europe by and large are not happy with their healthcare."

This is a common meme of people opposed to health care reform so it's not surprising that it came from a guy that sells individual health care policies for a living. But, as with everything else in this email it IS JUST PLAIN FALSE.

Europeans and Canadians, by and large, ARE HAPPY with their health care. Much more so than people in the United States. And why not, their healthcare systems provide much better outcomes. The United States ranks 38th in over all life expectancy according to the U.N. You know who's number 36? Cuba. According to the U.N. we also rank 33rd in infant mortality. And if the U.N. isn't a good source of information for you, our very own CIA has us ranked 46th.

Again, I ask, who are you voting for in November?