Obamacare and Health Insurance for Sea Org & Staff (USA)

[guanoloco]

Yeah - mine was around 200K for 17 years of dedicated service! I actually got it in writing! I could not believe they actually figured it out!

Wait a minute, Bea, isn't SO on a recurring 5 year contract? Are you telling me they calculated your 5 year services at 200K?

 

[Lone Star]

Wait a minute, Bea, isn't SO on a recurring 5 year contract? Are you telling me they calculated your 5 year services at 200K?

No Local Org staff are on a 5 year contract. SO sign Billion Year contracts.

 

[guanoloco]

No Local Org staff are on a 5 year contract. SO sign Billion Year contracts.

Every 5 years to 2.5 years resets their freeloader's debts currently; hence, the recurring 5 year contract for the SO. I don't know how long that practice has been implemented.

What this means is that you're considered to have worked off your services up to 5 or 2.5 years ago even if you're in for 30.

PS I'm aware of the billion years I'm talking about how the freeloader's debt is currently calculated, AFAIK.

 

[clamicide]

In CA the SO utilizes Medi-Cal.

Since what year? Or, what years were you familiar with this happening? and, did it happen only after an SO member had a medical problem of significance? I'm trying to just align certain things that I saw happen. Unless, fuck (who knows) SO was actually putting in false claims for SO members that never knew it happened... and I gotta bite my tongue before I say too much on this.

Honestly, I really would like to know what info you have.

 

[Bea Kiddo]

Every 5 years to 2.5 years resets their freeloader's debts currently; hence, the recurring 5 year contract for the SO. I don't know how long that practice has been implemented.

What this means is that you're considered to have worked off your services up to 5 or 2.5 years ago even if you're in for 30.

Last 5 years I re-did PRO TR's, Metering, Academy Levels 0 to 4, Class IV Internship, NED and Internship. SHSBC, and Internship, Class IV C/S and Internship, Pro Sup Course and Internship, CCRD Auditor training and probably several intensives of auditing at OT V rate. All at Flag, so Flag full price rates. Yeah, it is still likely 200K still. Sigh.

Off subject! Back to Obamacare....

 

[guanoloco]

Last 5 years I re-did PRO TR's, Metering, Academy Levels 0 to 4, Class IV Internship, NED and Internship. SHSBC, and Internship, Class IV C/S and Internship, Pro Sup Course and Internship, CCRD Auditor training and probably several intensives of auditing at OT V rate. All at Flag, so Flag full price rates. Yeah, it is still likely 200K still. Sigh.

Off subject! Back to Obamacare....

That explains it. However, what doesn't explain it is that most of this stuff is a job requirement that the employee MUST do to perform their duties...in this instance Bea is training for her job as an auditor at the orders of her employer...who then bills her for this training while paying her less than $2500/year for 80+ hour average work weeks.

Ron always operated in Exchange in Abundance!

End of derail.

 

[Bea Kiddo]

That explains it. However, what doesn't explain it is that most of this stuff is a job requirement that the employee MUST do to perform their duties...in this instance Bea is training for her job as an auditor at the orders of her employer...who then bills her for this training while paying her less than $2500/year for 80+ hour average work weeks.

Ron always operated in Exchange in Abundance!

End of derail.

Sorry! 80 hours. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?!?! No offense but if I only had to work 80 hours that would have been an awesome vacation. Try more like 90 to 100 for slow weeks. Some days were 17 hour days, and several times I had to stay up a week straight. Phew. No more derail. I am guilty!

 

[Sindy]

The reason I started this thread is because I don't know what will happen, and I was hoping to start a discussion about it with knowledgeable, informed, interested people who care about this topic and might have intelligent contributions to make.

Also, I was hoping for more eyeballs and eventually a lawyer to comment on relevant bits of employment law and any exemptions that might apply.

Finally, I was hoping to point out to everyone that the law also has an individual mandate whose exemption doesn't appear to be available to Scientologists.

Unless they're below the poverty line and can get on Medicare, assuming the church has not covered them, they will still have to buy their own insurance.

AFAIK, Sea Org workers are not currently on Medicare. Maybe someone here can comment on that. My understanding is that recently, a Sea Org worker named D. Kevitt was in an accident that left him in an ICU, and that he had no insurance and was not on Medicaid.

Oh, you wanted to have intelligent discourse, did you? You wanted to bring minds together to ponder the ramifications of these new developments. Yeah. Good luck with that...

Thanks for coming over here and trying. Sheesh the derails get fucking annoying sometimes.

It's so irritating to have to read through 5 pages of a thread before the derailing jerk gets ignored enough for some actual communication to go through.

There's my derail. (Consider this post to be the invisible 13th floor on the elevator. I was never here).

 

[guanoloco]

Yeah! What was I thinking? There are no days off.

Seriously I was going to type 100+ but didn't want to go too out R for any readers.

The point is Scientology is already running afoul of and skirting serious employment laws in the US...I expect business as usual for Obamacare - although I don't understand it enough to know if it can be skirted...however, if it can be skirted Scientology will do it.

This is how they respect all laws wherein they totally violate the concept and intent of the law while not violating the letter of the law...and who pays attention to letters, anyway?

 

[Udarnik]

Yeah! What was I thinking? There are no days off.

Seriously I was going to type 100+ but didn't want to go too out R for any readers.

The point is Scientology is already running afoul of and skirting serious employment laws in the US...I expect business as usual for Obamacare - although I don't understand it enough to know if it can be skirted...however, if it can be skirted Scientology will do it.

This is how they respect all laws wherein they totally violate the concept and intent of the law while not violating the letter of the law.

And the application of the law is going to be contested by all sorts of legitimate organzations and tie up the courts for years. It will be quite some time before anyone gets around to noticing, let along doing anything about, whatever $CN does or does not do in this arena.

I know a little more than the average bear about the health insurance market, and the whole thing sure beats my pair of jacks. Sorry to the OP, but I won't even speculate as to what the courts will do when $CN's turn comes - I don't have a clue what the legal landscape will look like by that time.

 

[Bea Kiddo]

Sh*t I missed that. Sorry.

D. Kevitt is someone I know and I am sorry to hear that he had an accident. I hope he is ok!

As the medical co-ordinator for CCI, I can tell you what happened in the 90's. I have no idea if this helps you currently:

When I broke a bone and had to get a cast, at that time I was a minor and my mom applied for government assistance - medicare? Not sure the name. That was mid 80's.

---

In the 90's we would use Shaw Health Center where possible to check staff. ONLY if the Dr there said it was serious and they needed to go to the doctor/hospital (one guy they told me I better rush him or he would die. He had lost so much blood).

We would never go to the nearest hospital. As you know, the PAC Base is surrounded by hospitals and they never used them. We always went to either county hospital or Olive View hospital.

I would work with them on the way to make sure they understood that they have to look as pathetic as possible to get in faster. They could not act like make it go right SO members.

After hospital stay, we would go to finance dept and show them paystubs and they would write off the entire bill. This went on for a few years and they caught on then they started charging about $45.00 which was a beating for a Sea Org member. A lot of money. Sometimes I had MLO float money (kind of like petty cash) and I could pay it with that. But they would chase it down till it was paid.

But for the most part they wrote it off.

It was rare that anyone went to the hospital and was turned away as not serious - it was usually to the point of them being admitted.

-----

Does anyone have information on Damien Kevitt? Curious.

 

[Xenu's_Cousin(aka Fred)]

God, more unconstitutional, job killing crap. Wish someone would try all the morons who pushed this for Treason and draw & quarter them already.

In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business...xplained-in-1-paragraph-on-scotusblog/259097/

If you want to bring up Treason, I guess you were out of the Country and missed it when Valerie Pflame was outed.
If you want to bring up Morons... perhaps you were not paying attention when the Country was lied into a 3-Trillion debacle in Iraq.

F-ing Right Wing Doorknob. Just when I was starting to respect your Anti-Scientology opinions.
One thing this Country does *not* need it uninformed, clueless residents.

 

[freethinker]

Even though this makes sense, I had never heard that before. Is it in an FO?

Every 5 years to 2.5 years resets their freeloader's debts currently; hence, the recurring 5 year contract for the SO. I don't know how long that practice has been implemented.

What this means is that you're considered to have worked off your services up to 5 or 2.5 years ago even if you're in for 30.

PS I'm aware of the billion years I'm talking about how the freeloader's debt is currently calculated, AFAIK.

 

[failboat]

Sh*t I missed that. Sorry.

D. Kevitt is someone I know and I am sorry to hear that he had an accident. I hope he is ok!



Does anyone have information on Damien Kevitt? Curious.

I'm sorry.

http://tonyortega.org/2013/03/01/is...-in-hit-and-run-a-scientology-sea-org-worker/

On Sunday February 17, a man named Damian Kevitt, 36, was nearly killed in a gruesome hit-and-run incident that left him with what one doctor called the worst non-fatal injuries he’s ever seen. Kevitt was riding a bicycle near LA’s Griffith Park when a person driving a van hit him, then dragged him onto the middle of a freeway. Conscientious drivers stopped to protect Damian from getting run over by other cars, but his injuries were terrible: he’s already lost one leg and may lose another. Both of his arms are broken, a shoulder needs replacing, and he was so scraped up, an infection might come at any time that could kill him.
And without health insurance, the costs for his care are going into the millions, his uncle tells us. His uncle also confirmed for us that his nephew is the Damian Kevitt who is listed as a Scientology Sea Org worker in a 2005 document online.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=9007373

His GoFundMe page has been taken down, but here is the Wayback Machine's[SUP]TM[/SUP] cache of it:

http://web.archive.org/web/20130315222200/http://www.gofundme.com/26nbpc

WWP thread:

https://whyweprotest.net/community/...n-kevitt-nearly-killed-in-hit-and-run.109431/

 

[guanoloco]

Even though this makes sense, I had never heard that before. Is it in an FO?

FO, I don't know. I'm only aware of the practice... I'm under the impression that essentially a billion year contract is unenforceable as in not recognized beyond one's lifetime. I'm not totally up on contract law but in the ones I'm aware of death usually ends the contract.

 

[failboat]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/19462743/Scientology-Employment-Policy-Letters-
http://www.scientology-lies.com/labor.policy.html
http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Employment-Tax-Forms

Here's some more employee stuff.

The W-2 form that Sea Org workers have to fill out is an employment tax form, according to the IRS.

This thread on WWP has some W-2 dox

https://whyweprotest.net/community/threads/assorted-sea-org-members-w-2-pay-statement-amounts.33844/

 

[failboat]

So how much do you estimate they could be up for? I mean if they have 5,000 SO members in the US, that would be about ten million dollars a year. So that would be a significant drain. Would it cost them more or less to just provide the healthcare?

Someone on WWP found an estimate at Marty's blog:

https://whyweprotest.net/community/...r-sea-org-workers-staff.112821/#post-2342665\

http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/practicing-scientology/#comment-257299

Marty, speaking about practicing Scientology, I want to add a comment about practicing medicine. Starting in 2014 I believe it will cost the Church of Scientology about $6,000,000.00 per year to insure all of their Sea Org members and staff at orgs and missions provided they do not expand any greater than they are at right now. Because after January 1, 2014 people are subject to penalties if they do not have mandatory medical coverage under the law, and their employer if any is subject to worse.
​

http://www.ncncf.org/2012/07/11/sho...care-what-the-ppaca-means-for-your-nonprofit/​

 

[failboat]

user Enturbuleak posted this over in our WWP thread:

https://whyweprotest.net/community/...or-sea-org-workers-staff.112821/#post-2344443

http://www.factcheck.org/2010/05/dhimmitude-and-the-muslim-exemption/

In our article "More Malarkey About Health Care," we wrote that some religious groups may indeed be considered exempt from the requirement to have health insurance. The law defines exempt groups using the definition from 26 U.S. Code section 1402(g)(1), which describes the religious groups currently considered exempt from Social Security payroll taxes. Eligible sects must forbid any payout in the event of death, disability, old age or retirement, including Social Security and Medicare.

Since we posted our article, we’ve obtained a list through the Freedom of Information Act of all the groups that have successfully applied for exemptions from payroll taxes. (We have posted the Excel file here.) The overwhelming majority of them are explicitly Anabaptist — that is, Mennonite, Amish or Hutterite. Those that don’t specify their denomination are still explicitly Christian. Having gone through the list, we can say with certainty that no Muslim group, and indeed no non-Christian group, has ever qualified for an exemption under the statute used to define exempt religious groups in the health care law.
​

The Excel file mentioned can be downloaded here:

http://factcheck.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/UploadedFiles/SSAGroups.xls

And no, Scientology is not on the list of groups exempt from Social security payroll taxes.

 

[failboat]

Anonymous WWP poster: https://whyweprotest.net/community/...or-sea-org-workers-staff.112821/#post-2344444

Ministers are not exempt from Obamacare

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2010/04/does-obamacare-like-social-security-.html

I am not familiar with the practices of Christian Scientists, but it looks as though their web site is correct that the general membership of the church will not be exempt from the obligation to purchase insurance under new § 5000A. Section 5000A cross-references § 1402(g) of the Social Security Act, which exempts those who are "conscientiously opposed to acceptance of the benefits of any private or public insurance which makes payments in the event of death, disability, old age, or retirement or makes payments toward the cost of, or provides services for, medical care." I gather that the Church leadership does not believe its practices meet this standard.

The confusion is that Form 4029, the form one files to apply for exemption under § 1402, specifically mentions "Christian Science practitioners" as potentially eligible for exemption from payroll taxes under the separate exemption for ministers. But "practitioners" here appears to mean those practice faith healing in exchange for compensation. And, since ministers are not exempt from the obligation to buy insurance under § 5000A, I gather than no Christian Scientist, practitioner or otherwise, is exempt from § 5000A.
​

 

[guanoloco]

One thing that may be a distinction is that local "churches" are granted a charter to operate. Under this agreement certain rudiments have to be "in" and maintained as in Ron's pics and Ron's office and other Ronsense.

As such I'm thinking that their staff members are their employees and perhaps a separate autonomous entity legally. If that's the case virtually all Class V orgs are below 50 employees.

I have no idea how the SO is structured but if that holds true for AOs, Gold, CLOs, et al, then nobody has 50 employees or more.