WASHINGTON -- Unable to meet tight deadlines in the new health care law, the Obama administration is delaying parts of a program intended to provide affordable health insurance to small businesses and their employees -- a major selling point for the health care legislation.
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The law calls for a new insurance marketplace specifically for small businesses, starting next year. But in most states, employers will not be able to get what Congress intended: the option to provide workers with a choice of health plans. They will instead be limited to a single plan.

This choice option, already available to many big businesses, was supposed to become available to small employers in January. But administration officials said they would delay it to 2015 in the 33 states where the federal government will be running insurance markets known as exchanges. And they will delay the requirement for other states as well.

The promise of affordable health insurance for small businesses was portrayed as a major advantage of the new health care law, mentioned often by White House officials and Democratic leaders in Congress as they fought opponents of the legislation.
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The delay will "prolong and exacerbate health care costs that are crippling 29 million small businesses," said Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana and chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. link

The question now is whether Mr. Obama will again propose to cut the COLA when he unveils his budget next week. We think he should not do so. The president might want to seem like he is willing to compromise by renewing his call for a COLA cut. But Republicans already spurned his offer and are unlikely to take him up on it now. They are more likely to paint him as a foe of Social Security, which would be reinforced by Democrats' opposition to the cut.

Even if Mr. Obama avoided those pitfalls, a COLA cut is a bad idea, as we will explain in this editorial. It also is a distraction from the real problems of Social Security.
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 Meanwhile, the nation is having a retirement crisis. Even before the recession, people had not saved enough to make up for the loss of traditional pensions. The downturn and slow recovery have made things worse. Less than half of households ages 55 to 64 have retirement savings, and of those, half have less than $120,000. Many near-retirees also have lost home equity or a job.

All that will leave most retirees heavily reliant on Social Security, which currently pays a modest benefit, on average, of $1,265 a month. Already, the majority of retirees -- with annual incomes up to $32,600 -- get two-thirds to all of their income from Social Security.

Even at higher incomes, up to $57,960, Social Security is the single biggest source, accounting for almost half. Only the top fifth of seniors, with incomes above $57,960, do not rely on Social Security as their largest source of income; most of them are still working.

Going forward, there is no escaping the reality that Social Security will be more vital than ever. link

The city council in a small north Georgia town voted Monday night to make gun ownership mandatory - unless you object.

Council members in Nelson, a city of about 1,300 residents that's located 50 miles north of Atlanta, voted unanimously to approve the Family Protection Ordinance. The measure requires every head of household to own a gun and ammunition to "provide for the emergency management of the city" and to "provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants."

Not that every household must go out and purchase a firearm.

The ordinance exempts convicted felons and those who suffer from certain physical or mental disabilities, as well as anyone who objects to gun ownership. The ordinance also doesn't include any penalty for those who don't comply.

But backers said they wanted to make a statement about gun rights at a time when President Barack Obama and some states are pushing for more restrictions in the wake of the Connecticut elementary school massacre in December that left 20 children and six educators dead.

As my Dad used to say..."Jesus Christ on a crutch..."

...the United States is reaping the benefits of an energy boom created by new drilling technologies that have unlocked vast domestic oil and natural gas reserves. Coupled with decreasing demand due to energy efficiency and continued cultivation of alternative energy sources, an increasing number of experts believe the U.S. could achieve energy independence by the end of the decade - realizing a dream born during the gas crisis of 1973.

Turns out the Cubs donated more to politics last year than all other major league baseball teams combined. Who did Cubs owner Joe Ricketts give most of his money to:

$12 million to the conservative "Ending Spending Action Fund". (Sheldon Addelson gave a measly $1.1 million to that group)

$!00,000 to the Romney SuperPAC "Restore Our Future".

and $100,000 to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

While there has long been substantial volcanic activity on the Big Island since the fall of 1983, that activity is presently restricted to the southeastern side of the island at two of Kilauea's craters, Halema'uma'u and Pu'u O'o. The Saddle Road is 80 miles away to the north, and runs directly through the center of the island between Mauna Kea, which hasn't erupted in more than 1,000 years, and Mauna Loa, which last erupted in 1984.

I can understand why tourists would be concerned at hearing such reports, since they obviously aren't from here, but you'd really like to think local residents would know better than to fall for that silly prank. I mean, I know where the vocanic activity is currently taking place, and I'm 200 miles away.

As for the radio station that broadcast this false report, I'd certainly expect some reprimands for the personnel who schemed this up, because deliberately seeking to sow panic and create chaos with a false report about an ongoing matter of public safety is certainly no laughing matter.

In the past three decades, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed. The rise has come even as medical advances have allowed many more people to remain on the job, and new laws have banned workplace discrimination against the disabled. Every month, 14 million people now get a disability check from the government.

The federal government spends more money each year on cash payments for disabled former workers than it spends on food stamps and welfare combined. Yet people relying on disability payments are often overlooked in discussions of the social safety net. The vast majority of people on federal disability do not work. Yet because they are not technically part of the labor force, they are not counted among the unemployed.

In other words, people on disability don't show up in any of the places we usually look to see how the economy is doing. But the story of these programs -- who goes on them, and why, and what happens after that -- is, to a large extent, the story of the U.S. economy. It's the story not only of an aging workforce, but also of a hidden, increasingly expensive safety net.