Speaking at the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) annual conference in Aberdeen, Mr Salmond said he would challenge such a policy.

UK Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said increases were difficult but sometimes necessary.

Mr Salmond also unveiled a £5m investment fund for small businesses.

In his speech, the first minister said: “In terms of the pre-budget report, the SNP MPs join with others to challenge the policy of increasing the tax on jobs in the middle of a recession.

When businesses are saying to me the priority demand is to reduce the deficit, then they can’t then in the next breath exclude the means of doing that
Lord Mandelson
Business Secretary

“It cannot be right to increase the tax on jobs as the country is still in the throws of recession.”

Speaking ahead of the conference, Lord Mandelson said: “If you were to choose some alternative way of raising taxation, for example, VAT, there would be many sectors of the economy who would be coming to me and saying please don’t do that.

“Nobody likes increased taxation and you don’t introduce it unless you have to.

“When businesses are saying to me the priority demand is to reduce the deficit, then they can’t then in the next breath exclude the means of doing that.”

‘Finding savings’

Shadow Chancellor George Osbourne, who also addressed the conference, said: “I am working night and day to try and avoid Labour’s National Insurance rise, not just on small businesses and large businesses but on many many thousands of people in Scotland because it is also an income tax rise.

“What I am looking for are the ways to avoid it and that means finding savings elsewhere.

“But I am only going to be able to give that commitment when I am absolutely clear that I can afford it because the last thing people want from politicians at the moment are promises that they can’t keep.”

Small businesses truly are the lifeblood of the economy and are doing all they can to ensure the country fully recovers from the recession this year
John Wright
FSB national chairman

Mr Salmond also announced the creation of a £5m investment fund for small businesses.

He said the fund would offer more than 430 growth businesses in the east of Scotland access to loans of up to £50,000.

The government said the fund had the potential to generate increased turnover of £34.56m in small and medium-sized enterprises and could create approximately 1,300 new jobs.

The initiative will be supported by £2m in European Regional Development Funding and £3m of funding from the 12 local authorities who will deliver the scheme.

It will operate in Fife, Aberdeen, Angus, Edinburgh, Clackmannanshire, Dundee, Falkirk, Fife, Midlothian, Moray, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Lothian.

FSB national chairman John Wright said: “Small businesses truly are the lifeblood of the economy and are doing all they can to ensure the country fully recovers from the recession this year.”

The federation, which has over 20,000 members in Scotland, exists to protect and promote the interests of the self-employed and all those who run their own business.

Premiums for the program would be automatically deducted from the paychecks of people who work for participating employers, but employees would have the choice to opt out. Payouts would go only to those who had paid premiums for at least five years.

The long-term care program is in the House bill. But it is not yet clear if it will be in the Senate bill being shaped by Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Democratic centrists such as Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota have warned the program could add to the deficit. Proponents say it would fund itself.

Leaders of the Senate health committee are pushing for the program partly as a legacy of the panel’s former chairman, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. The Obama administration has endorsed it.

The program is meant to help address a looming problem in the U.S., where relatively few people have long-term care insurance to cover expenses if they need home care or a nursing home. Currently, the main federal resource for such coverage is Medicaid, which applies mainly to the poor. Medicare, the federal health program that covers the elderly, doesn’t include a long-term care benefit.

Long-term care is a concern for Kirby Tepper, 51, a psychotherapist in Los Angeles. Mr. Tepper bought a long-term care policy five years ago, after such coverage helped pay for the care of his ailing father. Mr. Tepper, a single cancer survivor who has Type 1 diabetes, pays $240 a month for a policy that would cover about five years in a nursing home. He would be interested in an additional federal program, he said, if “it’s a small premium that increases my benefits. “But he said he wouldn’t relinquish his current policy, which he sees as a safety net.

This year, average nursing-home costs for a semiprivate room are $198 a day, while hourly rates for home health aides are $21, according to a survey from MetLife Inc.’s Mature Market Institute.

The federal program would pay at least $50 a day, with the amount calibrated by the disability of recipients. People would be eligible if they couldn’t perform two or more daily activities, such as eating or bathing on their own. The benefit would continue until they recovered or died. Premiums would be set by the government to keep the program solvent.

The Congressional Budget Office, in an analysis of the program, assumed average monthly premiums of $123, and a typical daily benefit of $75. The office projected that the long-term care program in the House bill would be in the black by $72 billion in its first 10 years, and by a smaller amount in the following decade once more people started getting payouts. After 2029, it would start increasing the federal deficit, the CBO said, but its budget impact would be “fairly small” compared with other provisions of the bill.

However, Sen. Conrad and six other Democratic centrists expressed concern about “large, long-term spending increases that far exceed revenues.”

“It is unsustainable,” said Frank Keating, the former Oklahoma governor who is chief executive of the American Council of Life Insurers. The lobbying group, which has members that sell long-term care insurance, points to an analysis by the American Academy of Actuaries that said the program would likely draw a heavy proportion of participants with health conditions, while healthier people opted out.

The program’s backers say the legislation would require it to be “actuarially sound.” To assuage budget concerns, the version in a Senate bill could include new language barring taxpayer money from being used to fund the benefit.

Rep. John Dingell, the Michigan Democrat who was one of the members who added the long-term care program to the House bill, said he wasn’t concerned that young people would opt out of it. By joining at a younger age, bill supporters say, younger workers could lock in lower premiums, which rise with age and are also likely to go up over time to track the benefit’s inflation-pegged growth.

John Rother, executive vice president of AARP, which supports the long-term care program, said the benefit would be “enough to pay for the kind of care most people need.”

Term Life Insurance will afford coverage to you for a specific period. Once this period is up, you can no longer qualify for benefits under the policy if you die. For example, if you buy a 20yr level term life insurance policy, after 20 years, the policy ends and so does your obligation to pay any premiums.

Alternatively, a whole life insurance policy will last until the day you die. You will continually pay premiums on this policy for the rest of your life. The advantage of a whole life policy over a term policy is that a portion of your premium is invested and that investment will grow over time. It will provide you with a return if you ever decide to cash the policy in while you are alive. If you do not cash in this investment portion, it will become part of the insurance settlement to be paid to your beneficiaries. Be sure to read the fine print of your policy however, as the invested portion of the policy is not always returnable to the beneficiary.

When exploring the differences between these two types of policies, it is important to understand that whole life policies are far more expensive than term life policies. It is a good idea to obtain quotes for a term life insurance policy as a comparison to whole life policy so that you can actually compare the cost verses value of either type of policy.

It is also important to choose companies that have a high financial rating. Rating companies such as AM Best and Standard & Poors routinely rate insurance companies based on financial performance, customer service, and their ability to pay claims.

With a term life insurance policy and with universal or whole life policies it is important to remember that they are designed to benefit the people you leave behind in the event of your death. The most important thing you can do in considering either type of policy is to calculate the cost incurred by your family in the event of your untimely death. This cost will include the loss of your income, the payment of your debts, as well as your funeral expenses. Remember that although term life policies are less expensive than whole life policies, the least expensive product is not always the best choice. This is also true when comparing one term life insurance policy against another term life insurance policy. Two policies with similar face values may have a cost that is vastly different from each other. This may have much to do with the rating of the insurance company involved. You may find that a lower rated company with lower ratings, customer service and the ability to pay claims issues the least expensive policy. “Many of our clients ask us what the major difference would be when purchasing insurance through a mutual life insurance company,” noted Bagni.

As with any insurance decision, be sure to consult a qualified and educated broker or agent. Get more information today at Paramount Life Insurance. They offer a FREE benefit analysis to all of their clients. Whether you are looking for a term policy or a universal life policy, we will find you the solution that makes good business sense. Get real time life insurance quotes today.

Term life insurance is one of the most common, and with good reason. Unlike the broad suite of permanent life insurance types, term insurance allows you to maintain far more flexibility in your finances. Term life insurance is designed to last for only a set period of time. There are a number of advantages associated with this approach, principal among them that it tends to be cheaper than its longer-lasting counterpart. You may also believe your worth or debts will change after a given period of time.

Permanent life insurance comes in a variety of types, from whole and universal to so-called survivorship insurance. The most pressing question when determining which type to get may be how you want your money to be invested and used over the length of that policy. Whole life is generally considered the more conservative type, as it maintains a fixed premium rate and involves considerable investments that may or may not be returned to the policy holder in the form of a dividend.

Universal life insurance works somewhat differently. Instead of flat premiums, you get to choose how much money you put into the investment arm of that policy. Although the carrier still determines when and how to invest the moneys, you can expect higher yield options to pay more in a bull market.

Each of the major permanent life insurance types allows for so-called “variable” iterations as well. For the most part, these offer greater flexibility in terms of the investment decisions that may grow or shrink your account. Savvy investors and anyone who likes to play the market may find more satisfaction and financial benefit in these fluid and adaptive policies.

Read the fine print! Ask an Elder Law Attorney to check policies before you sign them. Ask whether the premium can be modified in the future (e.g., whether additional coverage may be added, how coverage is adjusted with changes in health, and whether it would remain consistent if an emergency evacuation required a move), and at what price.

Make sure the policy clearly states what is covered. Some policies cover nursing home care, but not assisted living; others are more inclusive. Choosing a limited type of coverage is often less expensive, but a gamble since need is hard to predict.

Check whether the policy includes a waiting period during which you must pay all of your expenses out-of-pocket before your LTC coverage kicks in-a kind of LTC insurance deductible. The downside is that expenses during this period (called an elimination period) may be very costly and drain what resources you have. The upside is that some companies lower their premiums in proportion to the length of the waiting period, which can be up to 100 days.

Look at what qualifications the policy requires for benefits to kick in. Does it require a hospital stay? What about pre-existing conditions? Does coverage change if dementia is thrown into the mix?

Perform a background check on the financial health of your provider. Companies such as A.M. Best and Moody’s do annual evaluations on all insurance companies, reporting such events as complaints filed for non-payment. Avoid providers with reputations for dropping clients when health status changes.

Finally, for all of these long term care insurance options, remember the bottom line: Will your plan provide complete coverage, overall savings, and real value, or merely cut down on year-over-year cost?