Sunday, August 16, 2009

Structured Settlements

What if you were injured?
The things you should know.



A structured settlement is a financial or insurance arrangement, including periodic payments, that a claimant with a personal injury tort claim accepts to resolve or to compromise a statutory periodic payment obligation. Structured settlements were first utilized in the United States during the 1970s as an alternative to lump sum settlements. Structured settlements are now part of the statutory tort law of several common law countries including but not limited to Australia, Canada, England and the United States. Although some uniformity exists, each of these countries has its own definitions, laws and standards for structured settlement.

Structured settlements may include income tax and spend thrift requirements as well as benefits. Structured settlement payments are sometimes called periodic payments. A structured settlement incorporated into a trial judgment is called a periodic payment judgment. Federal structured settlement laws include sections of the Federal Internal Revenue Code. State structured settlement laws include structured settlement protection statutes and periodic payment of judgment statutes. Medicaid and Medicare laws and regulations impact structured settlements. To preserve a claimant’s Medicare and Medicaid benefits, structured settlement payments may be incorporated into Special Needs Trusts and the Medicare Set Aside Arrangements.

For Federal income taxation purposes, the United States definition of structured settlement is found in Internal Revenue Code Section 5891(c)


  1. is an arrangement that meets the following requirements:
    A suit or agreement for periodic payment of damages excluded from gross income under Internal Revenue Code Section 104(a)

  2. An agreement for the periodic payment of compensation under any workers’ compensation law excluded under Internal Revenue Code Section 104(a)



  1. The periodic payments must be of the character described in sub paragraphs (A) and (B) of Internal Revenue Code Section 130(c)

  2. must be payable by a person who: Is a party to the suit or agreement or to a workers' compensation claim; or By a person who has assumed the liability for such periodic payments under a Qualified Assignment in accordance with Internal Revenue Code Section 130.

Now O. K. before you say I'm losing you with all the legal reference's let me get to the basis and importance of this hub. Now if we take a minute and forget the commercials we hear and see and go off on our branding of Lawyers and so on. I want to offer you a little different perspective on this. If we could look back in time and some of us can a little through grandparents or even maybe great grandparents. Think of how many times you've seen some elderly man missing some fingers or walking with a limp or missing a limb or half a limb. And probably if we asked most of them would tell us of the accident at work or while driving or helping a neighbor build or fix something. And also most of them probably suffered through the rest of their lives having to adjust to the things they could and could not do the same. Also most would probably tell you they never got any assistance financial or otherwise for the loss.


And that's why this issue and law is important, ever try living on a fixed income? Now imagine being young and getting injured and not being able to pursue your career and I don't think Walmart pays allot being a door greeter. So this really comes down to more than just suing the pants off somebody this could simply be a matter of making right and providing that which was lost. And losing one's lively hood can be devastating for the person, their spouse, children and everything around them. Hopefully this will never happen to any of us but when it does what do you do?


Well the obvious and only advice is get Legal representation because for most of us this is way over our ability to know exactly what we would need or deserve to provide a suitable living in a injured condition. Because there are just allot of things we would miss or not think about and sometimes we may not fully understand what certain injuries will do to our future. So if you have suffered an injury at work at someones home at someones place of business no matter how minor you may think it to be get proper advice from a Lawyer who specializes in this field before you dismiss it. You may seem fine now or it may just seem like a small injury but if you don't pursue it and it becomes a problem later oh well. So get what is right the first time.


I really would like to hear from you let me know what you have gone through if you've suffered an accident and please add any advice you might have.



Law Blogs

Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation




St. Jude Children's Research Hospital


This is a Hub that I am a little behind in writing it really should have been one of my first. And I will actually be planning to keep a series of Hubs on this topic as I feel it is a very worthy topic. I only hope and pray my words are worthy enough for the cause and that they can impress on all who read it to help the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and other Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation's in anyway possible.

First on a personal note I have no affiliation with St. Jude and the only association I have with them is my donations. Now my donations are meager at best I will admit as I like many of you live on a pretty much week to week basis and also like many of you there are certain parts of each month when my pay just covers the bills due that week. But I always try as often as I can to give what I can for Cancer research.

Now I have not been what you would call a lifetime giver to St. Jude. Just over the last few years. I started when after a few times of getting those handy little envelope labels and notepads they mail out. Now I'm sure many of you know what I'm referring to and you probably even used one of the labels yourself mailing a off bill or something. But one day I actually read the letter that came with the labels and a light kind of came on when I realized the services St Jude's and other Cancer Research and Children's Hospitals offer. Not only to the children who are so innocent and undeserving of having this dreadful disease but to the families many of whom are often suffering through several tragedies at the same time.

The main and obvious one of course is seeing their child suffer with something they have no control over. And then there is the added pressure from the financial strain as many of the parents do and rightfully so want to be with their children as much is possible. Those of us with children and who have been blessed not to have to face this can barely begin to imagine the pain and hardship these children and their families go through. I think we all can understand though that if we did face this things like our career's, house's, car's and such would suddenly take a back seat to our child.

And this is where St. Jude Children's Research Hospital becomes a God send to Cancer patients and their families. But this is also where St. Jude along with the children and their families need us. Cancer is as we all know a very expensive disease and all of St. Jude's services are provided on a non profit basis. Here are Some facts about St. Jude Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital was founded in 1962 by the late entertainer Danny Thomas. Its mission is to find cures for children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. St. Jude has treated children from all 50 states and from around the world.

On average, 5,400 active patients visit the hospital each year, most of whom are treated on an outpatient basis.
St. Jude has 78 inpatient beds and treats upwards of 250 patients each day.
St. Jude is the first and only pediatric cancer center to be designated as a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute.
St. Jude is the first institution established for the sole purpose of conducting basic and clinical research and treatment into catastrophic childhood diseases, mainly cancer.
Research findings at St. Jude are shared freely with doctors and scientists all over the world.
St. Jude also enjoys a worldwide reputation as a teaching facility. The medical and scientific staff published more than 600 articles in academic journals in 2008, more than any other pediatric cancer research center in the United States. This is an average of a St. Jude paper being published every 17 hours.

St. Jude is the only pediatric cancer research center where families never pay for treatment not covered by insurance. No child is ever denied treatment because of the family’s inability to pay.
St. Jude has developed protocols that have helped push overall survival rates for childhood cancers from less than 20 percent when the hospital opened in 1962 to 80 percent today.
Now please if you just kind of skimmed over this at least read closely the last to point's and let them sink in! This is what caught my heart just realizing the ease this places on the parents of these children. And seeing how much of a difference they have made in Pediatric Cancer Research and how they have changed the survival rate.

Think about that and let's put in visual terms in 1962 if you had 100 children with Cancer over 80 of them died! Compared to today where only 20 would die and I'm sure they are determined to make this number even lower.

So please join me by following the link below and give what ever you can. You will also see many of the other service's they provide and most importantly the children who could be yours or mine and deserve a happy normal life. I hope this Hub will do them some service and touch some of you to give and support a Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation today!

Now even if you can't donate look over their patient and parent section and pick a child by name and pray for them and pray for all those in the Pediatric Cancer Research field.


Parenting Blogs

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Cheap Health Insurance is it possible



WOW! Is it just me or do these town hall meetings on
Health care seem to resemble something more like war
protest? Either way it seems to me that the sign in the
photo kind of sums up where we seem to be on this issue.
But it seems to me that the big problem at this point is
that there is no one who is explaining this properly to us.
And I'm sure not many people are reading the thousand
page bill all the way through.
I personally think Obama really needs to assign someone to really break this Health Insurance bill down in as clear and concise way as possible so as to prevent some of the rumors, misunderstandings and flat out lies that are being spread around.
I for one can say I really don't have more than half a clue exactly what or how this plan is going to provide me with health care at this point. I am hopeful it will work I pray it works but at this point I'm just not very clear on it. And I guess maybe I should try to read over the thousand or so pages. And it seems that maybe we all should as important an issue as Health Insurance is, but that's not the way we are as Americans I'm afraid it seems we are all to willing to let someone else skim over it and listen to their thoughts about it.
Kinda like how we hear the book is good but we'll wait for the movie to come out.
But isn't the problem with that what we are seeing played out with some of the emails and commercials that from what I'm learning our giving misleading information about the bill.
A few of them are, 1. There will be a Government death panel to review whether elderly people are worth certain treatments. 2. We will all be paying for public abortions without choice. 3. The Government will have access to our bank accounts without our choice. Now these rumors and statements from what I've researched are just not true. And isn't that what the problem is with waiting for the movie? The movie is usually gonna have a little if the Directors input or changed some by the screen writer so your not getting the original Author's full viewpoints.
So we have the Republicans saying this and the Democrats saying that and this is where the big quagmire comes in. And this is what I as an American must say I am so sick and tired of the stupid political nonsense and infighting. And I get a big feeling so are you my fellow Americans. Affordable Health Insurance is a very important issue for us we all know something needs to be done. I know from my experience in my last job I took the Health Insurance offered by my company mainly because of some dental problems my wife and I have problems which actually cost me a few days of work in fact. I had three levels to choose from the first level didn't include dental the third was just way to expensive so yeah I took the middle plan. Now add a little life insurance some long term disability and that was about $60 a week out of my average paycheck.
Now at the time I took this my wife and I both made average wages. My wife then lost her job so then I was stuck with a plan that had high deductibles the key one $1000 a person for the Dental Insurance per year. And a year wait for what they term pre-existing on the Health Insurance and yet I now couldn't really even afford losing that much of my check. But I now couldn't cancel the policy until November 2009 and this was only December 2008. So there I was I still couldn't use the Dental Insurance because I don't have a $1000 laying around and only a few things in the Medical didn't fall under the pre-existing.
So I now will be starting a new job next week and probably wont take any Health Insurance as I can't really afford to. My new job starts out at a lower wage but without the -$60 a week I'll still be doing better. And so from November 2008 till August 2009 I dished out roughly $2.200 for Insurance I never used and no longer have. And that is one of the big problems among many with our current means of health care if we get it through our Employers and we can't transfer it then if we decide to make a career change we start all over.
Now this is just my story and I know there are many of you out there with stories that make my problem seem pale in comparison. And I think we mostly all agree we need some kind of better plan. And my main reason for this post is just to implore all of you to research Obama's plan as best you can before you blindly dismiss it or shoot it down. Now the following link is one I urge you to check out I got this from a CNN report. Now I understand that we now have a lot of political affiliation going on with our news media but this link offers several other links not specific to CNN and I have checked several of them out and found that they give the true facts of what is or isn't in the health care bill. There is also a link for the actual thousand page bill.
So please get informed before you go to your town meeting or just discuss this at the water cooler. No the facts. And remember the truth and nothing but the whole truth! We can get affordable Health Insurance we must.
Go to www.cnn.com/josh and join me in praying for our Leader's to get this right!


Health Blogs

Sunday, August 2, 2009

The Story of Sammy Jo




There is a little girl, you all should really know.
She's cute as a button, her name is Sammy Jo.


Now Sammy has a Kitty Cat, and like Mary and her little lamb the story you all know.
Everywhere that Sammy went her cat was sure to go.

Not that the cat followed her much, this just wasn't the case.
See Sammy liked to carry her cat from place to place.

She carried it to school one day, she thought for show and tell,
but as she walked in the classroom the cat let out a yell.


Cause it seems one of her classmates thought it would be neat
to bring his dog to show and tell, and he sat by Sammy's seat.

Then hissing and scratching it leaped from Sammy's arm,
and as it leaped it hit the wall where hung the fire alarm.

And well as you would guess this caused quite an uproar
with cat meowing dog a barking, and children screaming and running out the door.

Except for one little boy who decided to stop drop and roll.
Although he wasn't on fire, so why we'll never know,.

Now the morale of my story I will now tell.
If your name is Sammy Jo and if you have a Kitty Cat, well...

DONT CARRY IT TO SCHOOL!

A poem written for one of my precious nieces

by R.W. Renfro