In March of 2020, when the CARES Act was passed, most people were focused on pay protections, primarily since they included sole proprietorships, a category that covers most so-called “gig workers.” A lot of its provisions also went into effect relatively quickly. But there was another provision in that act and the associated FFCRA that might have ( Read more... )

The second week of 2022 has certainly had its ups and downs, and my goal work has reflected that. I did end up going back to work this week, but I was only able to manage two days in-person, although I was able to work the other three from home. My bout with COVID-19 is not quite over, despite the fact that I’ve been officially asymptomatic. It ( Read more... )

This isn’t the post I thought I was going to write.

I thought I was going to write about Pope Francis’ tone deafness with respect to his January 5th general address and its comments about pets versus children. But when I dug deeper, it turned out that the entire situation was little more than manufactured outrage and upset.

It’s understandable why ( Read more... )

One of the lesser-known provisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 is stricter disclosure requirements for group health plan broker commissions. On the surface, this seems like a great idea, especially in light of documents such as the oft-cited 2019 ProPublica/NPR report about broker compensation. What employer wouldn’t want to save ( Read more... )

Yesterday completed week #1 of the new year, and it was a bit of a strange one. At the beginning of the week, I was still very much feeling the lingering effects of my bout with COVID-19 that happened during the last week of 2021. By the end of the week, I was asymptomatic except for a very occasional cough and roughening of my voice.

In the ( Read more... )

Welcome to Second Row, a place for Catholic women who are orthodox and faithful but who don’t quite fit the “mold” of the normal Catholic lifestyle. We may be single career women who never met the right person; we may be converts or reverts who have a not-so-savory past; we may even be lesbians who are choosing to live consistent with the teachings ( Read more... )

Welcome to Radius!

I’ve worked in the field of employee benefits since 1999: first in human resources offices in both government and private industry; and then on the broker side focusing on small businesses. During that time, I’ve seen a clear need for better consumer education. That’s what this blog is all about: providing a resource for benefits ( Read more... )

Happy New Year! 2022 has already started out fairly decently in my world, in that both Will and I woke up this morning with clear indications that we’re getting toward the end of our respective bouts of COVID-19. Our vitals are mostly back to normal, and aside of still being quite tired we’re both starting to feel that way too. We’re taking the ( Read more... )

It was a long, long weekend for me as I was busy trying to redo the organization and URLs of my web site. Unfortunately, it took me three days (and a combined six hours on the Chat feature) with my web host* to figure out that they don’t support WP Multisite. Since I’m talking about a small personal site here, I couldn’t justify the cost of a ( Read more... )

I’ve spent parts of this weekend revamping and updating my web site, which is now located at https://collingwest.com. Unfortunately, at the moment I have run into a snag with WordPress Multisite. I have a ticket in with my web host and they’ve promised an email as soon as they get it figured out, but until then I’m not able to move forward with ( Read more... )