POOꟼ

Following up on the HSA post someone made earlier, FSAs (Flexible Spending Accounts) re an optional medical thing some employers offer. They are never a replacement for insurance, but are intended to be supplemental.

They're a temporary use-it-or-lose it fund you pay for (and your employer can but probably wont contribute to) with a current maximum contribution limit of 3200 (some funds alow limited rollover, but it's capped by law, and not required) that you can use to cover some medical expenses insurance wont cover. That's a bunch of stuff, but the big ones are these:

• Deductibles: The amount of money you have to pay out of pocket before insurance will spend a penny to help you.
• Copays: Flat fees you might have to pay out of pocket per medical proedure or bill .
• Coinsurance: A percentage of a medical bill that insurance requires you to cover (20% coinsureance means you pay 20% out of pocket and they pay 80%.
• Some prescription meds.
• Dental
• Not sure about vision

You can choose at the beginning of the year how much money you intend to put into your FSA, and then your employer deducts an amount from each paycheck to fill that fund. This money is non-taxable going in and out, which is the primary form of savings.

The catch? Twofold:

1. As mentioned, it is use-it-or-lose-it. The employer pockets what you can't rollover.
2. You have to guess how much you will spend by how much you're declaring at insurance re-up time. Under or overguessing leaves money on the table.
3. If you are terminated , whether you get fired, quit, or get laid off, the employer keeps everytjing you've put in. I lost 1200 dollars this way is how I know. I don't recall how this interacts with COBRA, but you can't afford COBRA anyway.

So how can you make this shit deal possibly wothwhile? You can use ALL of it up front. So if you just started and you've gotten one paycheck and have FSA and put in 5 bucks, you can INSTANTLY use the ENTIRE amount of your election. So if you elected for max FSA, you can get a 3200 dollar procedure done on day 1, and the employer pays it all, even if you haven't paid anytjing in yet. Once that's done, if you quit or get fired, they cannot come to you to cover what you haven't paid in yet. That's money they spent that they can never get back.

So if you have a covered procedure that you know you need done, you can fuck over an employer with this one cool trick. Capitalists HATE this. But mind that it will probably take some time to get your appt scheduled and your procedure done, so you might have to work until that happens.

The other cool thing about this: It covers dental expenses INCLUDING ORTHODONTICS. For those of you who havent been working long, insurance that covers ortho is unicorn territory. In an ideal scenario, you get hired, FSA kicks in, you call to get an appt and get in the next day for an ortho consult, buy the high end ortho they are offering (make sure to get them to bill it all up front), then quit and get ortho for free.

Is it worth it if you plan to stay at a company? That's complicated and highly individualized, but youre bound to need at least some small amount even if it's just for a physical, assuming you dont forsee getting fired. If you're young and healthy and wear a fucking n95 lile you should, you probably don't need to risk FSA at all. If you have rollover (ask HR of you do), that might be worth going up to if you're not sure, since you get 2 years of coverage then, assuming you stay employed.

A major apartment company in Colorado is charging a Greeley family more than $4,000 in fees after their mother died in her unit, something the family feels is "unethical." This comes in the same month as the company was sued in Denver court for allegedly charging illegal fees to tenants across the state.

In October, Leticia Farrer had just moved in to the Avenida apartment complex in Loveland, managed by a major apartment company called Greystar.

Farrer had dementia, but her family says she was still quite independent.

"She was so fun, very fun, and very family oriented. She loved her kids, loved her grandkids, she was always there for them," recalled Farrer's former daughter-in-law of 25 years, Kelly Gantos. "We thought we would get her into a place that was 55+ community. They had lots of events that were supposed to be able to get the seniors out and, you know, mingle so she could have friends."

But in early January, Farrer passed away unexpectedly. Just a couple days later, Gantos says the apartment complex sent her family a bill for $4,140 in penalty fees, because she says the complex claimed that her death meant that she broke her lease early.

"It's completely unethical," Gantos said. "I mean, everyone says, well, unethical isn't illegal, but taking advantage of people is wrong."

On top of that, Gantos said the company kept Farrer's security deposit.

Gantos says her family does not plan to pay the fees charged against Farrer's estate.

"We were shocked," Gantos said. "It's not right, and we feel that if we stand up, others will be able to follow... So we want to set that example that says we're not going to do it, and neither should anyone else have to."

Colorado law says a lease is nullified after a tenant dies, unless the lease says otherwise, then the lease prevails. In this case, Farrer's lease did stipulate that she would be held to the lease terms even in the event of a death.

"The manager did offer her condolences. Said she was sorry for our loss, but the lease is the lease, so there wasn't really any compassion," Gantos said.

Gantos says her family wants to see Colorado laws changed to make sure no other family has to face similar headaches. They have even already reached out to their local state representative.

Her family's not the only one having trouble with Greystar.

A class action lawsuit filed earlier this month in Denver District Court alleges the company has charged potentially thousands of tenants with "unlawful... junk fees."

Jason Legg with Justice for the People Legal Center is the lead attorney on the case.

"They're junk fees, either for things that aren't legitimate or wouldn't be chosen by a tenant if they had a choice, or for things that, you would expect to be included in kind of the base price you're paying for, and certainly that are not adequately disclosed to Colorado renters," Legg said.

He says Greystar's actions against Gantos' family are "predatory."

"You have what's fair and just and allowed by the law, and then you have another actor, this company using that situation to try to extract more money, and that seems very predatory to me," Legg said.

He encourages anyone experiencing potentially unfair fees to file a complaint with the attorney general's office, and to seek help from legal organizations like his.

"There's power in numbers and organizing your community to talk about common issues like that helps to build power and push back on these issues," Legg said. "I would very much encourage them to talk to their neighbors. They have a right to do that in the state, to organize and to work on building that power, forming tenants unions and associations to help push back on some of these practices themselves."

So far, Greystar has not responded to CBS News Colorado's requests for comment.

In the meantime, Gantos says she's going to continue to take a stand.

"This is not something that we're going to tolerate," said Gantos. "We're going to do something about it."

I had a post removed for "Patsoc bullshit," and I freely admit I didnt fully understand the body of the work I was reposting (I posted it here in hopes that more savvy people could provide me some context). What is PatSoc, how do I recognize it, and why is it bad? Also, who is Haz and why is he bad?

Summary of video:

1. Put a pro-Palestine sticker on a business window
2. Take a picture of this
3. Post or have friends post on social media congratulating X company for supporting Palestine
4. Let company PR sweat and struggle as theyre forced to either affirm or disavow this.

Thoughts?