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Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Economic Education

Well well ... Besides the general public getting a lesson on Obamacare - the government has just realized that they are about to screw over SmallTown USA!
(photo from Google search - but most towns could use the money to update their equipment more than getting healthcare that the volunteers can get from their full time jobs)

You know those small towns who can't afford to have a regular Fire Department or can't afford to subcontract a fire department or they are too far from a city which has a department ... We have SEVERAL if not "tons" of these cities in MN {my brother used to have a Volunteer Station on the block behind his house on New Brighton, MN when I was much younger}

They have these kind of departments in the south quite a bit, in states like CA and NV ... Even NY state has them in their smaller communities, I'm betting.

About 3/4 of firefighters across the US are volunteers - they fight Wild Fires and small town fires, they show up to medical situations and even get the occassional cat out of a tree ... No, really.

Well here's what they've found ... The JOB DISCRIPTIONS for these people are the issue ...
<blockquote>"If the IRS classifies volunteer firefighters and emergency medical personale as employees, fire departments maybe unintentionally forced to comply with the requirements that could force them to contain their emergency response activities or close entirely"
Chuck William R. met calf
international Association of Fire Chiefs </blockquote>
ANY fire fighter who puts in more than **30** hours of work {the new definition of FullTime} will have to be supplied health coverage or the cities could be faced with a fine PER fire fighter

And to top this off ...

If they are NOT volunteer fire fighters -- they will see a 40% hit in a Cadillac Tax for the insurance they already have in place by their UNIONS ...

Geez!

Our town does not have its own police or fire department, but we live close enough to a couple cities where we contract them to also cover us ... so far it has worked great - they can get here in less than 5 minutes I've found - it saves the city money and keeps taxes way down {of course that's a comparative rate}

Hubby says that since they are "subcontractors" the city doesn't have to cover any of the benefits .... I don't think so - I'm betting that the city will be hit for a portion of that healthcare cost ...

I guess we will be like lots of cities ... 

We will have to wait and see what the IRS says come next year

And of course to ALL EMS workers ... Fire/health/PC ... I'd lke to say

THANK YOU


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