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ByRicardoAlonso- Zaldivar TheAssociatedPress WASHINGTON If you're among the millions of con- sumers who got financial help for health insurance last year under President Barack Obama's law, better keep an eye on your mail- box. The administration said Monday it has started send- ing out tax reporting forms that you'll need to fill out your 2014 return. Like W-2s for health care, they're for people who got health in- surance tax credits pro- vided under the law. Because this is the first time Americans will ex- perience the complex connections between the health care law and taxes, there's concern that some people may not realize the new forms are important, and that they do need to open that envelope. Some consumers may not know what to do with the paper- work. Called 1095-A, the forms list who in each household got subsidized coverage through the health insur- ance exchanges, and how much the government paid each month to help with premiums. You don't actually file the form with your tax return, but you can't complete your return without the infor- mation it contains. Taxpayers, or their tax preparers, will use the fi- nancial details to fill out yet another form — 8962. That one is used to deter- mine whether people re- ceived the right amount of assistance that they were legally entitled to. The amount of the tax credit is based on a formula that takes into account in- come, household size, and health insurance costs in your community. Those who got too much of a subsidy will get their tax refunds reduced by the IRS. For example, you can get dinged if your income went up during the year, and you didn't realize you had to report that to HealthCare.gov or your state insurance ex- change. If you received less of a subsidy than you were en- titled to, the IRS will owe you instead. The Health and Hu- man Services department said it has started send- ing out forms to consum- ers in states where the fed- eral government is running the insurance markets. The first batches should start arriving by midweek. The forms can also be down- loaded from your Health- Care.gov account. States running their own insurance exchanges — including California and New York — will send out the forms separately. But they still must meet a Feb. 2 postmark deadline. Insurers say the feds have told them that they expect to mail about 4.5 million forms and they're tack- ling the massive job state by state. Tax preparation com- panies are seeing a whole new line of business in the health care law. But insur- ers are worried that per- plexed consumers will pep- per them with tax questions they're not qualified to an- swer. The health care law will mean lots more work for the IRS, and Commis- sioner John Koskinen is warning Congress that budget cuts could hamper taxpayer services this fil- ing season. The Obama administra- tion has been trying to of- fer reassurance. "In the coming weeks, HHS will work with other agencies, tax preparers and community organizations to arm ... consumers with the information they need to know as they prepare to file their taxes," Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell said in a statement. The health care law pro- vides subsidized private health insurance for peo- ple who don't have access to coverage on the job. Funnel- ing the subsidies through the tax system allowed the White House to claim that the law was "the largest tax cut for health care in American history." But the downside is it adds more complexity to a tax system that's already impenetrable for many people. Here are some pointers for consumers: • You may get more than one 1095-A. That could happen for any number of reasons, from having a baby to switching plans during the year. You'll need to keep all of them for fil- ing your taxes. • Contact HealthCare.gov or your state insurance ex- change if you believe there is a mistake on your 1095- A. Minor issues such as mis- spellings should not cause big problems, but it may take some effort to resolve financial inaccuracies. • If you got employer cov- erage part way through last year and were only in the insurance exchange for a few months, you will still need your 1095-A to ac- count for the subsidies that you got. • If you're used to filing Form 1040EZ, you can't do that any longer if you got subsidized health care. You'll have to file one of the longer forms instead. TAX REPORTING FORMS Got help paying for health care? Watch your mailbox THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Health care tax form 1095-A is seen in Washington. If you got health coverage through President Barack Obama's law this year, you'll need a new form from your insurance exchange before you can file your tax return next spring. By Olga R. Rodriguez The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO Hun- dreds of Kaiser Perma- nente mental health professionals through- out California kicked off a weeklong strike Monday to protest what they say is a lack of staffing that affects care. The health care pro- vider's 2,600 psycholo- gists, therapists and so- cial workers walked out to demand that Kaiser Permanente offer timely, quality mental health care at its psychiatry departments and clin- ics, said Jim Clifford, a union member and San Diego psychiatric ther- apist. Clifford said some pa- tients have to wait up to two months for follow-up appointments, which pro- longs the recovery pro- cess. "Kaiser purports to be the leader in health care, but it's continuing the history of discrimination against the mentally ill, and that's unacceptable to us," said Clifford, who has been with Kaiser for 13 years. The mental health workers are represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, which has been unable to reach a contract agree- ment with Kaiser since the union formed five years ago. John Nelson, Kai- ser's vice president of government relations, denied there is a short- age of mental health staff. He said the health plan has increased staffing statewide by 25 percent in the past three years, while mem- bership grew by 8 per- cent during the same period. He said the false claims are part of the union's bar- gaining tactic. "They think that attack- ing Kaiser Permanente's reputation will get them a better contract," Nelson said. "It's frustrating, it's dis- appointing, but it's their strategy." He said that appoint- ments are being resched- uled and that during the strike, psychiatrists on staff will treat patients in crisis or with an emer- gency. CALIFORNIA Kaiser's 2,600 mental health workers strike By Maria Cheng and Clarence Roy-Macaulay The Associated Press FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE Sierra Leone rang in the new year without the usual midnight festivities on its beaches in the steamy cap- ital. Instead, the president urged the nation to stay at home, fast and pray that the plague of Ebola will fi- nally end in West Africa. "Our national New Year's resolution for 2015 is surely we must defeat Ebola, and to snuff out this vile and ungodly disease," says re- tired Maj. Alfred Palo Con- teh, who is heading the country's National Ebola Response Center. Whether the world's worst-ever Ebola outbreak can be wiped out in West Africa in 2015 is uncertain. To a large extent, it depends as much on locals changing their practices and beliefs as it does on continued in- ternational assistance. The World Health Or- ganization now says there are enough beds to isolate and treat Ebola patients, but not all are in the hotspots where the dis- ease is spreading fastest. The United Nations esti- mates that the number of scientists needed to track the outbreak must be tri- pled. WHO is also working to speed testing of experimen- tal Ebola vaccines but even if an effective shot is found, it would still take months to ramp up production. One of the biggest prob- lems is finding all contacts of confirmed cases. Teams are in place in Guinea, Li- beria and Sierra Leone — the three worst-hit coun- tries — to monitor sus- pect cases, but too little is known about where the vi- rus is spreading. Typically, every confirmed Ebola case has about 12 to 20 possible contacts who must be mon- itored. In Sierra Leone, the epicenter of the current cri- sis, officials are reporting just eight, leading to suspi- cions that contact tracing is inadequate. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon previously said the epidemic could be over by mid-2015 but WHO is now declining to set a specific timeline after hav- ing been burned on previ- ous predictions. Last Octo- ber, WHO expected that all Ebola patients and safely bury all victims by Jan. 1, but neither goal was met. There are now burial teams trained to provide safe and dignified buri- als for all Ebola victims, but the under-reporting of deaths means it's impossi- ble to tell if all people killed by Ebola are safely buried and whether there are un- known chains of transmis- sion. Among concrete prog- ress since the crisis gained international attention last summer, a major initiative led by the U.N. has been put into place, including: • Building 41 Ebola treat- ment centers • Setting up 23 labora- tories • Sending hundreds of staff from Britain, Canada, Cuba, China, the U.S. and elsewhere Still, more health work- ers are needed and offi- cials are still struggling to build more basic Ebola centers, which won't treat patients but simply isolate them while they await test results. There are also plans to set up more mobile labs and to send specially- trained anthropologists to work with villages hostile to Western help. Some vil- lagers suspect the moon- suited Ebola doctors are bringing the virus to their communities, instead of saving them from it. "We cannot control the outbreak if there is no trust from the population," said Brice de la Vigne, direc- tor of operations for Doc- tors Without Borders in Belgium. De la Vigne said convincing West Africans to change deeply engrained but risky burial practices or to seek help from Western doctors instead of tradi- tional healers will also be difficult. "We need to spend a lot more time listening to the people and readapting our messages because there is no 'one size fits all' ap- proach to this," he said. The U.N. also claims it is still short of cash to fund all necessary containment efforts. As of late Decem- ber, WHO said it had gotten about $215 million to fight Ebola. The U.N. has previ- ously said it might need $4 billion. VIRUS Ending Ebola in '15 depends on locals as much as aid THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Members of the British forces are on a boat as they deliver Ebola-related aid goods, and personnel who are working on containing the virus in Freetown, Sierra Leone. 100JacksonStreet Red Bluff (530) 529-1220 No Enrollment Fee $25.00 month RANDAL S. ELLOWAY DDS IMPLANTDENTISTRY 2426 SO. 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