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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 [...]
