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GOOD READS GET INSPIRED SNAPSHOT OF THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT FOR GAIN INSIGHT AND REALTORS AND OTHER PROFESSIONALS The Mortgage Wars: Inside Fannie Mae, BigMoney Politics, and the Collapse of the American Dream By Timothy Howard Tim Howard's account of his days as CFO of mortgage giant Fannie Mae has just hit bookshelves, eight years after he was ousted from his post and slapped with a securities fraud lawsuit, an ordeal that would claim eight years of his life. The first book on the financial crisis written by one of the top players at the time, The Mortgage Wars tells the behind-thescenes story of a tug-of-war that ended in a catastrophic collision of big money and big politics in their battle over an $11 trillion industry. By: Michael Cahill, Vista Health Solutions Do you know about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and how it will impact you? As a Realtor or other small business owner working in the industry, it is important that you do. There is a large amount of diversity when it comes to the employment situations of those working in the mortgage and real estate sectors. Some are self-employed, some work for small or large companies, and some people run those companies. The ACA affects all of these people in dramatically different ways. Let's look at just what this law means in all of those situations. Buying Insurance as an Individual According to the law's individual mandate, everybody must have insurance. Otherwise, you'll have to pay a penalty. Healthcare.gov and its state exchange counterparts were created to facilitate the law's all-inclusive healthcare coverage mandate. In addition to the tax credits you can get from plans bought on these exchanges, the important thing to know is the organizational system for plans. Plans are divided into four tiers: bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. In that order, plans have low to high premiums and cover the smallest to the largest amount of out-of-pocket costs. The Scoop on Tax Credits Let's talk about the tax credits, which are two very different matters for individuals and businesses. For individuals and families, it is simple. If your income is between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty line, you can get a tax credit on plans purchased at Healthcare.gov. A concrete number can't be given offhand, but the Kaiser Family Foundation's subsidy calculator will at least give you some idea of how much these tax credit subsidies may be. Small businesses need to fulfill three conditions to qualify for a tax credit. The business has to have fewer than 25 full-time employees, the employees' income has to be around $50,000 or less, and the employer has to be covering at least 50 percent of the employees' premiums. By Patricia Cliff The Employer Mandate or 'Wait, What?' Employers with 50 or more full-time employees are probably not too happy to hear that they will have to provide all of their full-time employees with health insurance starting in 2015. The alternative is a penalty, to the tune of $3,000 per full-time employee after the first 30 staff members. Regardless of how many employees you have, chances are you will have to tell your employees what their healthcare options are. Healthcare.gov includes a resource page that tells you if you do in fact have to do that, and it also provides sample notices you can use for this purpose. You Can Keep Your Plan…Maybe To keep your plan, it has to be compliant with the ACA's laws for grandfathered health insurance coverage. The plan in question first must have been in existence before March 23, 2010. Simple enough. However, your plan also has to meet some, but not all, of the ACA's regulations. That isn't too bad. Lastly, the plan must not have made any big adjustments to its coverage since March 23, 2010. If you are one of the unlucky people who has received a cancellation letter, it could be because of one of these reasons. However there's now a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel for those who've already received a cancellation notice from their insurer. The president announced late last month that insurance companies can continue offering plans through the end of 2014 that otherwise would have been cancelled. But hold your applause—it's now up to the insurance companies to decide whether or not they will ultimately continue offering those plans. Your best bet if you're one of those whose plan was cancelled, is to contact your insurer directly. The Art of Selling Real Estate offers timely, practical advice that any agent can use to overcome post-2008 obstacles and build a successful career in today's economic environment. Author Patricia Cliff shares her career's worth of knowledge and experience, anchored around the concept of personalized service. She shows readers how to build lifelong relationships with clients as their trusted real estate advisor and become the indispensable element in every real estate transaction. Meet SHOP SHOP on Healthcare.gov does the same thing for small business owners buying insurance that the site's Marketplace does for individuals. Basically, it allows you to look at all your options together so you can evaluate them with relative ease. More importantly, some plans have tax credits attached to them. To get a SHOP plan, your business must have less than 50 full-time employees. Businesses with 50-100 full-time employees will have to wait until 2016 to purchase plans on SHOP. How Are You Feeling? It is entirely possible for parts of this law to get overhauled. After all, it is a huge piece of legislature that makes a lot of changes to our national healthcare system. For now, continue to educate yourself on the requirements and options available, and stay on top of the news as the ACA, right now, is making headlines on almost a daily basis. Michael Cahill is the editor of the Vista Health Solutions Blog. He writes about the health care system, health insurance industry, and the Affordable Care Act. Follow him on Twitter at @VistaHealthMike. The Alternative Answer: The Nontraditional Investments That Drive the World's BestPerforming Portfolios By Bob Rice The Yale Endowment keeps only 6 percent of its investments in U.S. stocks, but its portfolio has produced a 100 percent gain over the past decade. The world's elite investors have long relied on alternative investments to produce superior returns. Until now those options were exclusively for institutions and the super wealthy, but author Bob Rice says any informed investor today can play the same game for inflationprotected income, risk-adjusted growth, and long-term wealth transfer. 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