Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw) Weekend Contributor
When I think of places that would be ideally suited for taking advantage of solar power, Arizona is high on the list. There are approximately 20,000 Arizona buildings utilizing solar collection technology to replace or supplement normal power sources. However, that number may soon decrease if a new “solar tax” is implemented.
“A new interpretation of state law in Arizona could force customers to pay property taxes on leased solar panels. In a state with an estimated 20,000 solar customers and 85 percent of new solar installations being leased systems, the implications of an extra charge are tremendous. The new tax could result in an additional $152 per year for a residential solar array and even more for larger installations, the Arizona Republic reported. What’s more, the tax would apply to both new and existing customers.” Think Progress
At first glance, I guess it should not surprise anyone that a new tax may be initiated. However, when that tax is a tax on solar panels on commercial and residential buildings and includes solar panel arrays that are leased, it raised some eyes in Arizona. Why would the State of Arizona decide on a tax on the collection of power of the sun? The answer may surprise you.
“So, who would support the effort to charge solar customers more money? Solar advocates in Arizona point to the state’s largest utility, Arizona Public Service Company (APS).
Leasing solar panels is often the only option for middle class customers who want to go solar but can’t afford the cost of purchasing the array. And as rooftop solar in particular booms across the U.S., it’s middle class families that are leading the way — posing a real threat to utilities like APS. In fact, “solar technology is being overwhelmingly adopted in middle-class neighborhoods in the U.S., as more than 60 percent of solar installations are occurring in zip codes with median incomes ranging from $40,000 to $90,000,” according to a recent analysis by Mari Hernandez of the Center for American Progress. This trend has utility companies “worried that rooftop solar may undermine their business models as more of their customers go solar and buy less power from them,” Hernandez explained.” Think Progress
I guess maybe I should not be surprised that the APS may be against technology that allows its customers to buy less energy from the utility. I guess I should also not be surprised who APS has teamed up with in order to fight the use of solar power in Arizona.
The public utility has ties with ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the state regulatory body also has very strong connections to ALEC. “In the ongoing fight over whether Arizona will continue its remarkable expansion of solar energy, a ThinkProgress analysis reveals four of five members of the state’s energy regulator are tied to the conservative anti-clean energy group, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
The fight centers on Arizona Public Service Co. (APS), the state’s largest utility, versus solar energy companies over how much customers should be compensated for the energy produced by solar panels installed on their homes and businesses. APS believes customers receive too much credit for the excess energy produced by their panels while the industry maintains changing the policy, known as net-metering, would devastate their promising and rapidly expanding industry.
The state’s energy regulator, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), is expected to begin hearings on the net-metering proposal in November. Four of the five commissioners are members of ALEC, the group backed by fossil fuel interests, major corporations and the ultra-conservative Koch brothers. In 2012, ALEC dedicated its efforts to dismantling renewable energy laws around the country and though they failed completely in that effort, leaked documents from their recent annual meeting indicates they have no intention of backing down from the fight against clean energy.” Think Progress 2
Doesn’t it seem that the Koch Brothers have their dirty energy fingers in just about everything? As we have seen in the linked articles, the new tax would benefit the public energy utility to the detriment of many middle class consumers who are trying to save a few dollars in energy cost, while at the same time supporting the goal of using cleaner energy sources. It is interesting that the idea of a new tax is proposed by the same organization and its backers that are against other clean energy supporting taxes that would negatively impact their corporate interests.
According to the free market proponents like ALEC and the Koch Brothers, the market is only free when it benefits their interests. Everyone else, including the planet be damned. The fact that many of the consumers who would be disadvantaged by this solar tax would be middle class homeowners is just icing on the cake for ALEC.
It bears repeating that the additional cost of the tax would range from approximately $152.00 per year for a residential array and $9867.00 per year for a large commercial installation. Is the Arizona Public Service Company trying to destroy the solar industry?
Will the ALEC packed state regulatory commission find in favor of the ALEC proposal or will it back the solar energy industry and residential and commercial consumers? What do you think?
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http://www.sharecare.com/health/health-insurance/if-pre-existing-condition-hippa
Well, with a 30% participation rate, sure there will be a couple of stories, here and there, that go well.
That is the definition of spin. You ignore the facts and find a success case, any success case, to distract from the actual statistics and data.
HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) protects you if you have a pre-existing condition in several ways. First, if you switch jobs or take a new job that offers a group health plan, you can’t be denied access to that healthcare plan just because you have a pre-existing condition. The new group plan can, however, exclude you from coverage for that particular pre-existing condition for up to 12 months. This is a compromise that HIPAA brought about. Before the law, the plan could just deny you coverage for that condition…forever! The law also lets you reduce (or completely get rid of) that 12-month exclusion period, if you had continuous health insurance coverage in the last year (meaning coverage that had breaks no longer than 63 days).
Happy? Then just wait a second. The insurance companies distrust each other and you. So, the story’s a little different for individual insurance. If you had group insurance and lost it, then HIPAA prevents the individual plans from denying you coverage as long as you had continuous coverage for 18 months. However, HIPAA can’t protect you if you only have an individual insurance plan, so an insurance company can still refuse to give you insurance based on a pre-existing condition…that is until 2014 at which point, the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) will go into full effect and health insurance companies will no longer be able to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. No matter what.
Less
Ask Randyjet how the ACA has helped his wife. He has shared her story on this blog a few times.
But, hey, we HAD to provide free birth control to rich socialites. I mean, what wealthy woman can be expected to pay for her own birth control? It’s a basic human right that it be free, even if you’re wealthy! Not heart medication, or insulin, no, birth control! Because how did we women ever pay a reasonable copay for birth control before?
My own wonderful insurance policy, which I lost thanks to Obama, had a deductible of $500, and I could go to just about any doctor in the state that I wanted to. And it had out of network benefits, and co-insurance for off-formulary, and a large formulary.
I guess I didn’t know how bad I had it. Thank goodness Obama saved me, and now I am lucky enough to have a $6,000 PER PERSON deductible.
Now there are no lifetime limits, but there are also strict drug formularies that don’t cover much, and out of pocket for off-formulary does not count towards max spending caps.
This is coupled with huge deductibles.
People are now financially worse off.
Remember when families were going to save $2500 a year, and this was going to stop people from going bankrupt from medical bills. He sure pulled a fast one on us, because he KNEW at the time about the higher premiums, higher deductibles, etc.
Why so many people are just fine with their president lying to them is beyond me.
Hahaha – who would have thought that a 30% provider rate, and extreme difficulty for cancer patients finding treatment would have been called a “trade off?”
You know, if Obama had been honest, and said, look, you’re going to lose the insurance you had, you will lose the doctor you like, premiums will double, on average, and we’ll have a 30% provider rate, do you think this would have passed?
It passed based on false promises and outright lies. And you think we can just patch it up here and there?
Feynman:
HIPPA prevents someone from being turned away because of a pre-existing condition. It allowed them to switch insurance without having a covered condition be considered pre-existing under the new insurance.
The ACA law and its regulations add up to over 6 feet when stacked. If we like, say, 12 things about it, we do not add revisions to this beast.
We repeal, and then we start over, one at a time, with those 12 things that we do find to be improvements.
Because I have read large sections of the ACA. The problem is in its design. Its flaws are inherent to its design. If we take away certain aspects, it crumbles. For example, if we took away the requirement for everyone to purchase health insurance, the risk pool becomes too sick and too poor, and it financially crumbles.
Anyone who says, “Let’s just improve it,” does not understand the design of the law.
But if we take one or two aspects that we do like, and encode those, we can slowly craft some real improvements.
I have also listed how 4 out of 19 top cancer hospitals accept all Exchange policies.
But by all means wear pink and participate in a walk for breast cancer. That should make up for destroying treatment options for cancer patients.
Oh, and while we’re discussion raising funds via these walks for cancer research, consider this: Exchange policies have extremely tight drug formularies. Many major medications, such as MS drugs, are not on formulary. And there is no off-formulary coverage, at all. Any out of pocket expense for off-formulary does NOT count towards your max cap. And that can mean thousands of dollars.
Tight formularies, with no off-formulary coverage, throws a complete damper on drug research. Why would companies investigate promising new drugs if they won’t be covered? Who could afford them?
Great job improving health care, guys!
Karen,
from your NYPost link
‘Before President Barack Obama’s health care law, a cancer diagnosis could make you uninsurable. Now, insurers can’t turn away people with health problems or charge them more. Lifetime dollar limits on policies, once a financial trapdoor for cancer patients, are also banned.
“Patients may have fewer choices of doctors and hospitals in some exchange plans than others … but the rules for such plans go a long way toward remedying the most severe problems that existed for decades,” said Steve Weiss, spokesman for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.’
Yes. There are trade-offs, Karen. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
And wasn’t a lot of this going on before ACA.? Weren’t there stupid insurance company bureaucrats demanding that feeding tube patients be given gel capsules in 2000.? And I wonder how many of those crappy insurance policies that people brought in 2000 on the private market allowed them to go to MDAnderson for treatment.? I’d guess damned few. Can’t we stipulate that there were innumerable types of policies in 2000? Some better. Some terrible. I know my policy wouldn’t pay for cutting edge treatment. Heck, it wouldn’t even pay for a diagnostic test if the test found that you didn’t have what was suspected. And there sure wasn’t gene testing for breast cancer, either. That’s universal now.
Karen, you are being unreasonable. Good things will happen to Americans because of ACA. The program is not perfect. Let’s work at making work.
I have also previously posted an article from the CA medical association discussing why doctors just cannot afford to accept Exchange policies.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/doctors-boycotting-californias-obamacare-exchange/article/2540272
‘“It doesn’t surprise me that there’s a high rate of nonparticipation,” said Dr. Richard Thorp, president of the California Medical Association…“We need some recognition that we’re doing a service to the community. But we can’t do it for free. And we can’t do it at a loss. No other business would do that,” he said.
California offers one of the lowest government reimbursement rates in the country — 30 percent lower than federal Medicare payments. And reimbursement rates for some procedures are even lower.’
You can cast aspirations all you like, spin all you like, and post all the op-ed rosy theories you like. These are the actual figures: 7 out of 10 doctors in Democratic CA are opting out of Exchange policies.
Still think it’s all roses for cancer patients? Still think you can “shame” doctors into accepting a pay cut that can put them out of business? Good luck with that.
Obamacare has done real, lasting harm to people.
You do not libel garbage when you say it stinks.
Annie:
Would you accept a 30% pay cut? If you did not, how would you feel if someone called you shameful?
Doctors cannot keep the doors open for $26 an office visit. How are they suppose to pay rent, malpractice insurance, and salaries? Medicaid and Medicare do not pay enough to cover the cost of services. Providers have historically made up the difference by limiting patients on either of those plans, and getting paid more by insurance companies. But now Exchange policies pay just as low.
Shame on them for not wanting to go bankrupt?!
I have stated many times before that there are so many ways we can improve the insurance industry and healthcare. Giving doctors a 30% pay cut was certainly not one of them.
It’s almost as if Obama made a list of everything people did not want – such as restricting competition among insurance companies and reducing choices among policies, and then used that list as a model for Obamacare. Do you think he just used the wrong list?
John:
You posted, ” The sole concern of customers that install solar panels is cheating other customers. Their only legitimate goal is to not pay their fair share as they continue to rely on the grid.”
I am currently shopping for solar panels because I love the idea of creating clean energy, and lowering my electricity bills in the long run. Do people who install wind turbines do so to cheat people? What about the whole green energy movement?
Shame on those elite cancer hospitals for not taking plans under the ACA exchanges if that is still indeed the case.
http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@editorial/documents/document/acspc-026864.pdf
The ACA and how it can help people with cancer.
Karen,
I read the links. Note what I relayed to you about the Watchdog.org report that USNR published for them. Where you surprised about the Koch connection?
I also read the CNN report. (More on that later)
It is inaccurate to say I have not. read the reports. I wish you would stop saying that.
Since I cannot confirm your anecdotes, I have not confirmed anything about physicians. In this region, I have found no reports of physicians refusing to take Exchange policies. Further, I don’t respond to ‘journalists’ who are propagandists. It is wasted effort to try to fight propaganda with the very person who sent you the propaganda. That would be the Watchdog piece.
Once you provided me with the Concord citation instead of having to work without any leads, I was able to read the CEO’s op-ed. It is almost nine months old, policy may have changed, and we are only 6 months away from 2015 sign up. I’m going to be optimistic and suggest that Concord will be accepting Exchange policies.in 2015. Calls to the hospital and newspaper all go to voice mail.
As to CNN – do they practice journalism? Weren’t they employing psychics in the search for the plane.? Yes. That’s snark. But Karen, you have provided me with one piece of Tea Party dreck after another. And that would include the Veg-A-Matic guy. And recall how you felt about Obama after you asserted he made sure to stop NIH work on children’s cancer (hmmm? breast cancer and children’s cancer. Is there some connection here?). Well, I feel the same about your positions. In fact, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if you said you are a member of a Tea Party group. It’s simply foolish to try to argue with one.
Annie responded to your alarming report that ACA took away treatment from women with cancer. She provided several links. Have they changed your opinion regarding cancer treatment for women?
Thanks
TO MONOPOLIZE OR NOT TO MONOPOLIZE. THAT IS THE QUESTION. WHETHER ‘TIS NOBLER IN THE MIND TO EQUITABLY PARTICIPATE IN AN INFRASTRUCTURAL UTILITY OR TO SEEK AN ADVANTAGE OVER OTHERS OF NARCISSISTIC GREED.
A well regulated monopoly utility is definitively the most effective method of providing electricity. Monopoly electricity utilities exist to be professional, durable and reliable sources. Utilities must have the participation of all customers and ratepayers or they cannot exist. They must spread the costs among all customers. Public Utility Commissions resolve complaints. If solar panels are a legitimate source of electricity, they are available for employment by monopoly electricity utilities. Solar panel farms appropriately exist in remote areas.
Customers with rooftop panels continue to need, rely on and use the grid. They are not truly off the grid. Unsightly rooftop solar panels that diminish property values don’t work in cloudy weather or at night. Customers with panels must use the grid during those periods. The sole concern of customers that install solar panels is cheating other customers. Their only legitimate goal is to not pay their fair share as they continue to rely on the grid.
Panels are expensive either in the short or long run and their ultimate cost effectiveness has not been established. At some point, panels cost a lot of money. There are ancillary costs and maintenance such as monthly cleaning. Depending on the diligence of owners, rooftop panels may cease to function or become cost ineffective creating a dubious, unreliable future for that source of electricity. If rooftop solar panels are going to be a source of electricity, they must be regulated to assure reliable performance.
Do we assure, through Public Utilities Commissions, that monopoly electricity utilities are well run and effective? Do we continue to use them collectively and efficiently or do we destroy their revenue and make them financially nonviable?
IS IT ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL
OR,
EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF?
NY Post article – only 4 of the 19 top rated cancer hospitals who responded accepted all Exchange policies.
http://nypost.com/2014/03/19/nations-elite-cancer-hospitals-off-limits-under-obamacare/
Posters can link to theories about how great Obamacare is for cancer patients all day long, but they can have no answer to the data. A great many doctors and hospitals simply do not accept Exchange policies’ pay cuts. And you cannot spin “no”. If you ignore this data, you are ignoring the plight of real men and women, with cancer, who lost insurance that would have provided treatment. True Believers can cost lives in these scenarios.
What is it from Black Beauty, ignorance can cause more mischief than malice?
Another thing you can confirm for yourself is that many Exchange policies are restricted by county. What that means is that if you are not lucky enough to live in the same county as specialists who excel at treating your specific type of cancer, you are out of luck.
You can verify the county restrictions yourself. And then ask the representative what would happen if you had cancer and the provider was in another county. Do they offer out of network benefits?
Do the work yourself, like I did, rather than relying on Obamacare propaganda.
Because I did not take anyone’s word for it. I lost my own insurance. I found out for myself about the county restrictions, called around and could not find a single doctor who accepted Exchange policies, etc. And you could easily do this type of research, too.
Feynman:
I have repeatedly explained to you that the providers refusing the ACA are not doing so on political grounds. It is because they cannot afford the pay cut. That is what they are talking about with “negotiated rates” issues. Glad you were able to confirm it.