Healthcare
Major Health Insurance Cost Development: Insurers Willing to Cease Health-Based Price Discrimination
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A concession by a major health insurance trade group seems to be good news on the road to implementing badly-needed healthcare reforms and controlling health insurance costs. And that’s good [...]
Charming the Stimulus Act COBRA:
New COBRA Rights and Employer Obligations
A federal subsidy of continued health coverage under COBRA is one of the main “ease-the-pain” provisions of the Stimulus Act enacted Tuesday, February 17, 2009 (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Tax Act of 2009).
This provision is intended to keep the recession from swelling the ranks of the uninsured, by making COBRA coverage more affordable for [...]
Not Just a Bailout for the Rich; Mental Health Parity Law Comes Along for the Ride
Mental Health Parity Act: One of the “Sweeteners” Added to the Wall Street Bailout Bill
Thanks to the mess on Wall Street, over a third of Americans will have better health insurance coverage for mental illness and addiction treatments beginning January, 2010. That’s the date that the Paul Wellstone-Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity [...]
Benefits Crippling Large and Small Businesses Alike
Two New York Times items today create a useful, if discouraging, overview of the way the American reliance on employers to provide health and pension benefits hurts our economy (and health). One explores how collectively-bargained benefit commitments hampered GM and left it vulnerable to collapse. The other discusses the massive lack of health coverage in the small business sector and how states are attempting to remedy it.
Hospital Comparison Tool May Lead to More Affordable Healthcare
In my humble opinion, the health insurance crisis in the U.S. has many causes, and the “solution” is a puzzle with many pieces.
I am extremely leery of solutions that merely shift costs (such as to a single government payer), without doing anything to improve quality, encourage wellness, or encourage better competition among providers.
That said, one [...]
Health Care Cost Crisis Inspires Sucessful New Strategies
Some things to consider in looking for savings.
The rising cost of healthcare and unaffordability of health insurance is, of course, a national problem. But with our employer-provided insurance model, it is above all a crisis for employers seeking to attract and retain the best employees with an attractive wage and benefit package.
It would be [...]
Wal-Mart in the News — A Lot! (Part II)
Last week, at a St. Louis bloggers’ lunch, Dennis Kennedy and I were joking about all our uncompleted posts, and all my Part I’s that never got Part II’s.
Back in November 2005, when I wrote Wal-Mart in the News — A Lot! I meant for that post to be Part I of a series, and [...]
Harvard Rx for Health Insurance Costs — at a Price
I’m not gaining anything by pitching this book — and at a hefty $495 it’s clearly “value-priced” based on the notion that it promises business hundreds of times that sum in the cost of providing health insurance to employees.
But the fact it’s a Harvard Business School approach to the problem of soaring health insurance costs [...]
Wal-Mart in the News — a Lot!
Recently there has been a fascinating string of Wal-Mart news, much of it employment-related.
I’m not just gratuitously piling on the beat-up-Wal-Mart heap here. Wal-Mart is important — and bears watching — for a number of reasons.
First, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the largest private employer in the United States, Mexico and Canada, holding [...]
HR/Employment Blogosphere Update for October 1-26, 2005
I’ve been so busy switching to the new format and keeping up with the “Our Recent Reading” page that I’ve neglected to do this update for over a month. (New readers: I had been doing it weekly, publishing on Monday, and it was a popular feature of this Blawg.)
So here comes a [...]
Wanted: Access to Comparative Healthcare Quality and Cost Info.
Success of consumer-driven health plans, such as Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) depends on consumers’ willingness and ability, when their own money is on the line, to “research more about the cost, quality and the underlying necessity of the health care they use.”
The problem, though, is that while a wealth of medical resources are just a [...]
