Still a bit under the weather?

Well, it has been quite a while since my last post. A lot has changed since then, but a lot has stayed the same. What has changed is Healthcare Reform is in the process of being implemented and also repealed--at the same time.

Being in the industry, health insurance, I have some unique views to the inner workings of HCR. It's kind of like watching sausage being made. If you knew what what was going into the meat grinder, you would stop eating it! Many people, however, don't take the same approach when standing at the window of government services. They know what kind of garbage is going into the grinder, but think that the end result is going to be some kind of masterful silver bullet that will make our health insurance cost 50% less, and do 100% more than it currently does.

Is it just me, or does it seem like people still believe in fairy tales? Healthcare still needs fixing, and there are now some new wounds caused by HCR to add to the mix. Primary among them, is the high cost of insurance. Oh wait, HCR was supposed to fix that. Oh well, at least they tried. 3000 pages of new government legislation and counting and we still have 50 million uninsured and health insurance premiums are rocketing skyward. Hmmmm..... Better HOPE that more CHANGE is on the way in 2012!

Feeling Better Now?

Well this has certainly been a fun last few months. We now have a new health care reform plan in place that no one can figure out. I for one need medical care to repair the damage the new healthcare reform plan did as it was shoved down my throat! It appears from what I hear and read that a lot of what was promised is missing! I suppose that just goes to show that maybe a little more care should have been taken in the design and implementation of this plan.

Clearly the heath insurance situation for Americans needs some repairs. If my car, a Saturn, is not running well my first thought is not to replace it with a Rolls Royce--something I can't afford and don't need. My first thought is to find out what the problem REALLY is and allow someone that specializes in that particular specialty fix it. People used to joke that when the ashtray was full on a B-52 the military just replaced replaced the plane rather than emptying the ashtray.

It seems that a good portion of the population is ready to scrap the plane rather than to simply empty the ashtray. Are we trying to give health insurance coverage to the non covered or are we trying to cover everyone in the country with health insurance? Lets first identify the problem, then implement a solution!

I heard some of the best philosophy I have ever heard on this matter from Dennis Miller, the comedian, on the Bill O"Reilley show recently. Miller said "we need to separate the helpless from the clueless. No one has a problem with helping the helpless, but we don't need to help those that have no desire to take care of themselves." That is good logic!

Just as I suspected!

Well, the Congress put out their version of health insurance reform yesterday and the bill that is going to clarify all of the problems with health insurance is in excess of one thousand nine hundred pages. I mentioned in an earlier post that the government that has created the most complicated tax collection code in the galaxy would be prone to doing the same thing with health insurance reform. I would say they are off to a great start. The IRS code currently has more words than the Bible. In fact, the number of pages in the code, according to some estimates, doubled from just over 26,000 pages in 1984 to almost 55,000 pages in 2003. I assume they are still counting trying to keep up with new revisions (or new ways to discriminate).

We know they are just getting started on this bill, so it is much like a new born baby, it will start gaining weight as it soon as it is able to begin suckling off of it's "birth mother" our Federal Government. Just like a new born, when it really has a chance to open it's eyes and flex it's new found powers of control, it will grow bigger and stronger everyday.

Polls show a growing number of people in all sectors of the voting population to be increasingly opposed to this type of overhaul. Undaunted, Pelosi, Reed, and the gang push forward just as parents tend to do when they "know what is best for the children." How silly of us to form our own opinions. I am not anti government, but I am smart enough to see that everything, absolutely everything, I'll say it again, ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, the Federal Government touches costs more than is estimated, and grows way beyond the boundaries that are initially promised. I cannot think of one thing, one program, that our government has done to save us money. Even when they cut the budget, it's only a cut in the rate of growth. The government is like the lady who went to the mall and saved 50% on a $1,200.00 coat. Right away she went to work trying to figure out where to spend the $600.00 she had "saved."

This current headlong charge by our representatives in Washington to seize powers that are completely outside of our Constitution is only the largest and latest example of our slide toward Socialism. Even if you ignore the leadership of this President, tell me how the high-speed expansion of powers and programs outside the Constitution are anything but a slide in that direction. Our Constitution was designed to limit the powers of government, but the current batch of people up there now certainly don't want the facts to get it in the way of their grab for power. ALL of our representatives on both sides of isle have proven themselves to be less than honest. Some are in favor of the current legislation, some are opposed to the current legislation. The dirty secret that no one is talking about, is that they are ALL in favor of some type of power grab of the health insurance industry. The insurance industry controls more money than banking. The all want to get their grubby little mitts on it! They all talk as if some sort of legislation is a foregone conclusion! No matter how the bill turns out, even if it is limited in the governments eyes, it will be a massive transfer of power to Uncle Sam that we may never be able to get back.

Our bodies and therefore decisions on our health care are sacred! The choice of plans that finance our health care is a choice we have made. We vote with our pocketbooks. We simply need to change our buying habits and the system will adjust. It always has.

Where is the gang that has the bumper stickers that say "it's my body, not your choice" or "Keep your laws off my body." If government controls what procedures are covered and how much the doctor gets paid, then your healthcare will not be your choice!

And by the way, the current bill says it will cover 95% of the population. By my count that is approaching 20,000,000 million uninsured after this "baby" goes into effect. I thought that was whole driving force behind this bill, to cover the uninsured.

Am I missing something here?

Have a winning day!

Steve

Open Enrollment/Open Decision Time

Well, open enrollment season for health benefits is upon us. Many businesses are concerned about the movements in Washington and how it will effect their employee benefits package. Many business owners want to take a wait and see approach in making their decisions. Employees and their families are still going to need the health insurance they have come to rely on. No-one wants to go without coverage or can afford to be without. As confusing and uncertain as conditions may appear, decisions have to be made. The most recent plans moving through either house have provisions that indicate they will start in or after 2013.

Much of the so called reform legislation is yet to be written, let alone voted on or debated. A great deal of work and effort is yet to come if we are to truly have reform in this area of our economy. The poll data I looked at this morning indicates that 54% of Americans do not support the reforms that are currently being pushed. It may be back to the drawing board before this is all said and done. Something as serious and complicated as the financing of health care, a $2.2 trillion dollar item at 16.2% of GDP, deserves all of the debate, discussion, arguing, revising, and reinventing that we can put forward. My guess is that we must be very careful how we fix this. We may not get the chance for any quick do-overs with health insurance reform. It will be a very slippery slope, so let's urge our representatives to take it slow. Just think of how much anger or disappointment you feel when your employer changes your policy. Can you imagine if you are forced into a one size fits all plan? There is no way the government can afford to make sure we all have the best, so it will have to be a one size fits all plan on the lower end of the scale.

Employers fight hard every year to make sure their hard working employees have the best plan that the employee and the employer can afford. The average cost for employee only health insurance premiums was $9,144 in 2007. If you are working in small company that has 20 employees and the employer is picking up 100% of the employee only coverage, your employer is paying $182,880 per year just for employee only health care premiums. If your employer picks up any of the cost of the dependent cost then the tab could easily top $250,000 per year. We all need to make sure we are buying what we need and being responsible users of health care. Most people don't realize, because the industry and employers have done a poor job communicating, that the average name brand prescription costs $135.00 per month. Health care adds up very quickly.

It is easy to demonize the health insurance industry, but remember no one is immune from the scrutiny of this government and your industry may be targeted next. What if Uncle Sam came knocking on your door tomorrow and said "we need to reform your industry to save the economy." I am guessing none of us would be very happy no matter who we work for.

Freedom is not free and health insurance from the government won't be either! Make your choices wisely.

Have a winning day!

Steve

Health Insurance Solutions

Opponents of our current health insurance system continue to make good points along the way. One of the best I have read lately refers to the optimal size of a health insurance pool. I have not read any statistics lately on that topic, but I know from experience that you don't really start realizing the power of a large group until you top 1000 employees. The opponents contend that our current system and any proposed system of "competition" only makes matters worse. They say by creating more competition you further split the employee pool into smaller pools thus defeating the original purpose of health insurance that is to spread health risks over as large a pool as possible. Taking the insurance concept to the extreme would indicate that a single payer system, like other countries use, would ultimately be the best choice. Until someone can prove to me that any one organization, private or public, can handle all of the responsibility, and physically all of the information and administration necessary to provide for such a plan while not ultimately rationing the care to lower cost, I will continue my staunch support of the private sector maintaining control over the financing of healthcare.

There is just no possible way that the federal government would be able to take over the entire health insurance industry, even something as mundane as collecting premiums and processing claims, and do it efficiently. It sounds good in theory, but for example look at the IRS. Something that should be very simple, assessing and collecting taxes, has become the most complex administrative nightmare in the history of civilization and all in the name of "fairness." Can you imagine that a government takeover of our health insurance system and in effect the healthcare system would be any different? So much power in the hands of so few is what has created the nightmare at the IRS. Dealing out goodies as it relates to healthcare financing in the form of "government run insurance" would certainly be more tempting in the grab for the voter base than the tax code currently presents. No matter which side of the debate you are on, it seems everyone wants to assume there are just a few problems that if addressed will solve all problems. There exists multiple problems that will require multiple fixes and I do not believe that the federal government will EVER be able to deliver the goods. Our healthcare system IS the best in the world, and we are different. I for one don't want to be like the rest of the world. It has nothing to offer that is not better here. We need to come up with better solutions from the free market system in COOPERATION with the federal government to develop a system that will maintain our status as the envy of the world. We should not settle for a substandard "everyone else is doing it approach." Let's leave that to form of reasoning to our elementary age children!

Have a winning day!

Steve

To Outsource or not to Outsource, that is the question!

In the business world today some words take on different or unusual meanings. Webster's added over 100 new words to the dictionary in 2007. Heck we even have new words created daily. Most of them are not difficult to figure out their meaning, but some are. Many people use or create acronyms and sometimes those are hard to figure out. With the rising popularity of texting, we had better get with the program. As a matter of fact, there is one of the new words in that last sentence. Fifteen years ago you would never tell anyone you had been "texted." Now you may have been texted a dozen times before you get out of bed each morning and you do not even know it until later in the day! LOL (Laugh out loud) we are constantly looking for ways to save time so we can do more. Don't we already have enough to do now?

Speaking of saving time, how does a business owner do that? In business, really all we have is our time and intellect, right? I mean when you strip it all down to the bare bones, it is those people who manage their time and their intellectual capital the best that gain the upper hand. So creating more time to work on improving the business would make sense right? How do you create more time? There are, after all, only 24 hours in a day so creating more time is really impossible. Or is it..... Outsourcing has become an accepted way to create more time. Most people don't think of it as creating more time, they think of it as becoming more efficient. Outsourcing simply takes a portion of the workload and assigns it to another company that can do the work more efficiently because they are set up to do so. Car manufacturers are a perfect example. They don't manufacture every single part that goes into car, it would be far too complicated and expensive.

So why do small businesses have such a difficult time outsourcing parts of their business that they cannot do as efficiently or effectively as an outsourcing service? I think it is because they do not fully understand the concept of outsourcing. Outsourcing HR has been increasing in popularity in recent years as more and more business owners become more familiar with the outsourcing concept and more comfortable with the idea that a well run outsourcing arrangement can really create more time inside an existing business that in return can create increased profits by allowing a business owner to have his staff spend more time focus on core business strategy.

Most business owners did not go into business to be an employer. I have said in the past, the employer function is simply a side effect of having a successful business. Most businesses are loathe to spend money "HR" because they view it not as a source of income, but as a drain on profits. HR is the last place they wish to spend money. I think that is because they don't stop and think what an efficient and well planned HR strategy can do. Outsourcing HR instantly creates an HR infrastructure that can literally catapult a business to heights of success not imagined. Like it or not, employees drive the direction of your business. If your business does not have a firm HR infrastructure in place, your concept of "control" may be skewed. Outsourcing HR may be a viewed by some as an admission of defeat. It should merely be looked upon as a new direction or strategy to ultimate success.

Yes, many businesses do just fine with their current HR practices. Those tried and true strategies that have served them over the last twenty years. "I don't need any help with HR" I often hear. "We are doing just fine." I sometimes wonder why people like that aren't driving an Edsel. Could it be, that there was a better idea for a car that came along and we all jumped on board? Maybe there are better ways to run a successful business by partnering with someone that has an idea for a "better way to do business." Check it out! Using a Professional Employer Organization can relieve the side effects successful businesses experience with attracting, retaining, and managing a workforce.

Want to do more with less? Think about outsourcing.

Have a winning day!

Steve

New Widget

If you have not noticed, I have a follow widget on my site. Keeping up with many Blogs is difficult. using the Friend Follower Feature on my Blog will simplify this process for you. You can follow me privately, or follow me publicly. I hope you will click on the Follow button and return often. Thanks for reading!

Don't be Fooled by Rhetoric

Choice and Competition. The new tag line from Washington. As I was doing some research on the Texas Department of Insurance web-site I learned something very interesting. We have a lot of choice when it comes to group health insurance providers. I have been involved in the insurance industry for almost twenty years. What I have learned over that time is that most people have never heard of most insurance companies. When I would be making a presentation on a policy the prospect might say "I have never heard of this company." Well, they probably have never heard of over 95% of the insurance carriers out there. I knew there were a vast number of insurance companies doing business in Texas. The Texas Department of Insurance has 1960,THATS one-thousand nine hundred and 60 insurance companies authorized to do business in Texas. Over 600 of those are listed as life and health companies. Do we really need more choice? Listen to the supporters of government run health care and you would be led to believe that there are only a few providers available to buy insurance from. Would it really be more competition? I believe it would be unfair competition at best. Just like the Post Office is advertising to carry your packages for one price, if it fits in the box. That is one government subsidized price that the competition, UPS, FedEx etc, cannot offer. IS that fair competition Is it smart competition? The Post Office is predicting it will lose eight billion dollars this year. Can we believe that ANY further involvement in our health care situation will make it better?

Don't be fooled by rhetoric. There is a solution out there to help insure Americans without insurance. One thing is certain. It won't be done for less. It won't increase the number of providers of the quality of care. We all just need to take a step back and come up with some real solutions that aim at solving the actual problem.

Don't play games with Health Insurance!

While I agree that improvements need to be made in the way we pay for health care, I don't believe that a government option is an attractive solution. It is fashionable to talk about the "huge profits" of insurance carriers although they don't really exist. According to Rick Newman of US News and World Report "Overall, the profit margin for health insurance companies was a modest 3.4 percent over the past year, according to data provided by Morningstar. That ranks 87th out of 215 industries and slightly above the median of 2.2 percent."

One reason that makes a government run option frighteningly unattractive is the flip side of the profit coin; waste, fraud and abuse. The budgeting philosophy of the federal government, spend it or you don't get it next year, would make certain that a government health insurance option would bankrupt the country in a very short period of time. The sheer size of the bureaucracy would be staggering. The waste and inefficiency of the government run system, if it were run like all other government agencies, would make insurance company profits look like pocket change.

Let me put this delicately, anyone that believes that a government run health insurance option would make more competition must be smoking crack! (I am sure that at some point crack might be covered under a government run plan like "medicinal" marijuana) Can you think of a single other industry, association, organization or anything where allowing the entity that makes the rules, play in the game, creates fair competition? What if the NFL allowed the referees to form their own team. Would anyone want to play them if they kept switching the officials of the game from team referee's own bench? What if each team got to hire their own officials and when you came to play the Dallas Cowboys the referees were on Jerry Jones' payroll? Would that be fair competition? I think we have forgotten what free market competition is. There will be no "additional" competition" if the government becomes one of the players in the health insurance game. There are thousands of insurance carriers playing in the game now! Maybe we should keep the main point the main point, getting the uninsured insured!

There are far simpler and less costly alternatives that could be put into place immediately if this were really about getting Americans health insurance coverage. Bringing more people into the private health insurance system would reduce the premiums for everyone if everyone were paying them. Tax credits and other monetary incentives would get more people into the system without destroying it. The latest "co-op' idea from Washington already exists to some degree. Professional Employer Organizations already group employees together to mitigate the rise in health insurance premiums. PEO's offer cost savings on administration because they enjoy economies of scale when purchasing health insurance, workers compensation, compliance services and payroll. Depending on which number of "uninsured" you subscribe to, simply buying an individual policy for the "so called 15 million uninsured" citizens at $2000 annual premium would cost $30 billion per year. That is a large number in my pocketbook, but not for Uncle Sam! Is this discussion really about getting Americans health care coverage, or could it be something else? The folks in Washington only have our best interest at heart, right????

Look around, all of the innovations that have made our lives better in every way have been a result of free enterprise. No problem we have ever faced has been greater than the capacity of our free enterprise system's ability to solve. The government can help solve the problem, but government is not the THE solution.

Have a winning day!

Steve

Benefits that fit.

When it comes to providing benefits for your employees, making the right decision may be impossible, because there may not be one right decision. Individuals have different needs than a family. Financial means also weighs heavily into the picture. Choice and providers cause business owners to really have to fight to balance the needs of the employees and the the financial constraints of the business.

In my experience, group health insurance decisions are often times made based on the preferences and preconceptions of the business owner or executive. When I ask, why do you have this particular policy often the answer is "because that is what I wanted." If I ask again, why did you want that particular policy the answer is generally "because that is what we have always had."

A recent survey by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners uncovered a knowledge gap when it comes to finding and providing health insurance to employees. Many times business owners have people in the chain of command that are responsible for making decisions on benefits for the company that do not have an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of a health plan. This can be dangerous and expensive. Proper due diligence must be exercised to procure and implement appropriate benefits for you and your employees. If you do not have functional expertise on your staff, you should definitely be careful and ask questions. For the sake of your company you should ask tough questions and lots of them concerning the coverage. It is so expensive, it must meet the needs that you have and nothing more.

Finding the right plan(s) can be much less risky and gut wrenching by employing the expertise of a Professional Employer Organization. Using a co-employment strategy can assure that the people making the recommendations on plan design share in the consequences of overuse or under effectiveness. You probably did not go into business to be an employer, but rather to promote a great idea, service or product. Business schools should have a warning label like medicines. WARNING A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS CAN HAVE SERIOUS SIDE EFFECTS INCLUDING: EMPLOYMENT OF LARGE NUMBERS OF HUMANS, EXCESSIVE AND INVOLUNTARY GOVERNMENT INTERACTION, EXTREME DIFFICULTY SWALLOWING (fees and charges associated with being and employer) and INSOMNIA. Owning a small business is no laughing matter. The sheer number of hurdles that are placed in the path of entrepreneurs on daily basis are mind boggling. Do yourself a favor, get some help!

We all have a stake in controlling the cost of health care. Make sure your employees use the plan as it was intended and we will all pay less in the long run.

To read the full article reference in this posting visit http://www.naic.org/Releases/2009_docs/small_business_iq_survey.htm

Have a winning day!

Steve

HR that could cause an emergency!

Here is a timely article I came across.

New president, new Congress: 5 new employment laws could reshape HR.

President-elect Barrack Obama will be sworn in on Jan. 20, a Tuesday. By Wednesday, the HR world could well be on its way to one of the most turbulent periods of change in the profession’s recent history.

On tap from the new Democratic president—with support from a 111th Congress firmly controlled by Democratic allies—is an array of legislative and regulatory changes that will likely rewrite the employment law rule book, affecting everything from union organizing to FMLA protections to the federal minimum wage.

HR must start preparing now

“It’s critical for HR people to be aware of what’s coming down the pike,” said Michael Fox, a shareholder in the Austin, Texas, office of the employment law firm Ogletree Deakins. “Top management and the C-Suite, too. The next four years will be one of the most interesting and challenging times any of us have ever faced.”

Speaking during an HR Specialist audio conference just two days after the election, Fox laid out the employment law agenda the Obama administration will probably pursue—and offered advice on how HR should start preparing now.

According to Fox, five initiatives—all backed by Obama during the presidential campaign—will almost certainly become law early in the president-elect’s first term.

Not only did Obama campaign on the following issues; they are also politically popular measures that House and Senate Democrats can pass without risking middle-class voter backlash. “These are all easy in concept for Congress to embrace,” Fox said.

1. Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)

“The EFCA is organized labor’s No. 1 agenda item,” Fox said. The bill would amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), fundamentally overhauling how unions gain the right to represent a workforce and bargain for worker rights.

It would require the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to certify a union as the exclusive collective bargaining representative of employees once the union demonstrated that a simple majority of employees had signed union authorization cards—a so-called “card check.”

That’s a significant change that would almost certainly result in certification of more unions. In the past, Fox said, unions have often had little difficulty getting employees to sign authorization cards, but have lost support when employees cast secret ballots.

The EFCA also mandates binding arbitration of initial union contracts if the union and the employer cannot reach a collective bargaining agreement within 90 days. And bargaining would have to begin within 10 days of union certification. Those first 100 days bracket an extremely tight time frame that virtually ensures that many contracts will wind up being finalized through arbitration. Initial contracts would be in force for two years.

The EFCA would also mandate significantly higher penalties for employers found to have violated the NLRA.

Fox isn’t sure the EFCA will be enacted without changes, and the card-check provision may be stripped out as Congress negotiates. Business groups are already lobbying hard to kill it.

“There has been significant push back to taking away the secret ballot. There may be compromises on that front,” Fox said. “However, there will be resistance to weakening the binding arbitration requirements, which in many ways is the most significant part of the EFCA.”

2. Expanded employee FMLA rights

A suite of bills would extend FMLA leave to more employees—and affect more employers. Among the proposals:

• Reducing from 50 to 25 the number of employees an employer must have to be covered by the FMLA
• Mandating seven days of paid sick leave for all employees
• Explicitly authorizing FMLA leave for employees affected by domestic violence
• Providing 24 hours of annual FMLA leave for parents to participate in children’s school activities

In addition, the Family Leave Insurance Act would create an employer-paid insurance program to create what amounts to paid FMLA leave.

3. Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

This legislation, a Congressional response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2007 Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber decision, would liberalize statutes of limitations on when employees could file pay discrimination lawsuits.

In Ledbetter, the Supreme Court affirmed a Title VII provision requiring employees to file pay discrimination complaints within 180 days of the alleged discriminatory act (300 days in cases covered by a state or local anti-discrimination law). Lilly Ledbetter argued that each low paycheck she received over the years constituted a new discriminatory act. But the court said the discriminatory act happened decades earlier, when Goodyear first hired her at a pay rate below that of male employees. Since more than 180 days had passed since then, the court said Ledbetter could not sue her employer.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a platform centerpiece at the Democratic National Convention in August, would amend Title VII to make clear that each allegedly unfair paycheck could be considered a fresh incident of discrimination.

4. Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)

ENDA would create a federal prohibition on discrimination based on sexual orientation. Essentially, ENDA would place discrimination against gay and lesbian employees on a par with discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender and other characteristics already prohibited by Title VII and other federal laws.

An alternative version of ENDA would also prohibit discrimination based on gender identity, providing workplace protection to transgender people.

Thirteen states and the District of Columbia already have laws banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Seven other states prohibit sexual orientation discrimination only.

5. Arbitration Fairness Act

Look for legislation prohibiting employers from requiring employees to arbitrate employment-related disputes instead of filing lawsuits in court. Although many of the bill’s provisions are aimed at protecting consumers, it would also apply to employment contracts.

How to pay?

Fox listed several other legislative initiatives likely to find favor in the Obama White House and in the Democrat-controlled House and Senate. Among them: an increase in the federal minimum wage, the redefinition of many supervisors as employees for union-organizing purposes, higher caps on punitive damage awards in discrimination cases and greater protection for employee whistle-blowers.

Fox says the nation’s current financial crisis is unlikely to slow down passage of many of these bills, simply because they won’t directly affect the federal budget.

“Some people may think that the financial crisis so constrains Congress that they don’t pass much of this legislation. I don’t believe that,” he said. “In an ironic way, this may open the door to shifting expenses to employers that Congress itself will not be free to appropriate. It will be easier to ask employers to pay for seven days of paid sick leave, for example, than it will be for Congress to legislate greater federal spending.

“One of my concerns,” he continued, “has always been that Congress does not really understand how much it costs to comply with many employment laws—or to litigate cases that result from noncompliance.”

Business groups have begun mounting vigorous opposition to many of these measures.

Expect some of these sweeping changes to happen very quickly, Fox warned. “Recall that the FMLA was passed and signed into law within two weeks of President Clinton’s inauguration,” he said. “Very few will recognize the labor and employment law world that we will soon be facing.”

What is Health Insurance?

In my dealings with business owners and executives over the years I have noticed quite a lot of confusion or misunderstanding when it comes to health insurance. The answer to what health insurance is may be better answered by asking, why do we have health insurance? The answer is going to vary widely. For a person of considerable financial means the answer will be quite different from the person that has little. At the end of the day they though, they both would likely want to have the same result in case they have a significant illness; no major financial disaster. No one wants to be ruined by a health crisis. Health insurance should save the day, right? You get sick, the insurance pays. Benefits between policies can vary widely, but in general when it comes to group health insurance avoiding financial distress is what we expect, and that is what the plan will generally deliver.

The expectations of the public has changed over the years as it relates to what they want from their health insurance. It mirrors what we want in other purchases. We want the best and we want to pay the least for it. The days of low cost insurance are gone. It is expensive. It is however a choice. We can pay the high cost of insurance or gamble with our future on the chance that we can stay healthy and avoid the doctor. It is just a rule of the universe, you cannot get something for nothing.

I am reminded of a story I heard that goes like this. Many years ago a great king called in his most wise servants and scholars asked them to boil down all the wisdom in the universe. In two weeks they came back and presented the king with a volume of books that looked like a set of encyclopedias. "Well done" said the king, "but this is too cumbersome, reduce all the worlds wisdom to a single book." The wise men were very perplexed, but fearing for their lives they went back to the drawing board to consolidate all the worlds wisdom into a single book. Two weeks later they returned and presented the king with single book. "Well done said the king." After reading the book the king was convinced that the wisdom could be reduced to a single sentence. One sentence that would give one all the wisdom needed. He called the wise men back and told them, "reduce the wisdom of the world to a single sentence and you will have completed your duty." Scared for their lives and fearing they could not complete the task they begged the king to reconsider, but the king insisted that the task could be done. So the wise men went to work. Two weeks later they returned to the king with a single sentence on a piece of paper. Reluctantly, they handed the paper to the king. The king read the words and sat silently. After pondering it's meaning a few moments he said "well done my servants. You have reduced all the wisdom in the world into a single statement. You truly are wise."

It is hard to believe that a single sentence could contain so much wisdom, but it is as true today as it was all those years ago. I guess you're wondering what that statement was. What was presented to the king simply said, "There ain't no free lunch!" I don't know if that is all of the wisdom in the world, but there is certainly a lot in that sentence.

When we buy things we are usually very careful to make sure that what we buy will fill the need we have. If we are going hiking we need hiking shoes. We don't use a shovel to hang a picture. Can you imagine how much auto insurance would cost if it included car washes and oil changes? What if it included your inspections and registrations? What if it included coverage to repair the engine when it wears out? It would be extremely expensive! It would cost as much as, well health insurance. Imagine that. We carry the minimum insurance possible on our car. We need to apply the same logic to our health insurance. We used to refer to it as major medical. It would pay for major things. Now we ask it to pay for everything and we are surprised that the cost is escalating and it is becoming difficult to pay for.

Insurance companies all want to deliver a good quality product for the money. They could not stay in business if they didn't. That is free enterprise. If you are the owner of a small business you have a lot of good choices when it comes to purchasing a plan for your employees. There are rules in most states however that divide small group plans from large group plans. Any insurance company will analyze a census and determine the associated risk. If a company is under 50 employees then it is a small group, over 50 large group. There is no choice in which group you go into. Insurance is about spreading risk. The more people you have paying in premiums the better. The main differences you will get in price in small group is the difference in coverage. All of the carriers understand the risk equally. There aren't too many variables. "Shopping" your group to multiple carriers will get different rates, but be careful that you are getting what you think you are paying for. You do have one alternative if you in the small group plans that would put you in a large group plan and pricing model. A Professional Employer Organization will aggregate your employees with their group of employees and possibly improve your plan's benefits and produce pricing stability that you cannot achieve on your own.

When looking for your next insurance plan for your employees do yourself a favor, make sure the plan does what you want it to. I recently saw a statistic that said over 90% of Americans use less than $1,000.00 per year of medical treatment. I saw another statistic that says the average annual premium for a family is over $12,000. Is it possible that we have a breakdown between what we pay for and what we get or need? Health plans need to be carefully considered, but make sure you are not paying for benefits in the plan that you don't want or won't use. There ain't no free lunch! This I know for sure.

I invite your comments.

Have a winning day!

Steve

The definition of change

Webster's defines change in multiple ways. To make the form, content, nature, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone: to change one's name; to change one's opinion; to change the course of history.

Technology has dramatically changed our lives and most of us did not have any input on when and where this change would occur. Our TVs are better, our cars are better, our computers certainly are better. Everything that has a micro-chip of some sort runs faster, jumps higher, does more for less etc. Instead of writing a check most of us whisk the money we pay for things from our bank account to the sellers bank account in the blink of an eye and never think twice about it? We change our clothes, our oil, our hair style, the channel, the filter, the Presdient, the Congress and thousands of other things day in and day out!

When we change things, we usually do it to improve something. We certainly don't intend to change for the worse. Can you imagine telling your spouse, "let's change our favorite restaurant. This one is good and I really enjoy it, but it is awfully dependable and the food is good. Let's find something not quite so dependable and maybe a little more expensive." Your spouse would look at you like you had lost your mind.

We accept change every day without a second thought if the change is made for us. If some sales person like oh say.....me calls, heaven forbid that the person on the other end of the phone would consider changing. I hear "I have all that covered thank you very much! Everything is good and I don't want to try and make it better." I really had a guy tell me that the other day. I don't have time to try and improve. REALLY he said that! After a pause on my part that seemed like an eternity, I said thank you, hung up the phone and slammed my hand in the drawer just to make sure I was not dreaming. I do have time to improve. If you stop getting better, you will stop being good.

Some of the best things I have ever bought I changed from something I loved to something I loved even more! In any aspect of your life or business the object surely should be to make things better and that after all will require change!

I invite your coments!

Have a winning day!

Change YOU can believe in.

These days I hear the words, “were are not going to make a change,” a lot! The Status Quo seems to have quite a following. When I hear these words I really want to say…OH REALLY!?? When it comes to running a business, business owners like to maintain control and the “if something ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy reigns supreme. But what do they really have control of when it comes to managing their employees? People come and go, rules change, government intervenes, swine flu, traffic, the internet, email, family issues really, what do they have control of? The rent? No that changes at some point too. Hmmmm.

Providing health insurance benefits for employees is one of the areas that a business owner certainly does not have control over and government is doing it’s level best to leave even less control in the hands of the private sector, but that is a discussion for another day. Every year the health plan renews, new rates are proposed, the agent goes out for new competitive bids, negotiations ensue, agreement is reached and baam! Everything is under control again. WHAT? Is that process I just mentioned a choice that the owner would take on willingly? I think not. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, yet 95% of businesses go through this process year after year usually taking two or more months to complete and expecting to come out a winner in the process. Few actually win. The rates go up, the benefits go down and the business owner continues to lose ground both financially and morally as they deliver the less than exciting news to employees who generally expect things to go up for everyone except them! According to the latest news, since 2000 the cost of insurance has increased 95% while incomes have increased 17.5% I'm not so sure this process "ain't broke!"

There are alternative ways to approach this predicament and actually get a different result! Outsource!

I invite your comments. If you are a business owner, let me know what you like most about the process I described above J I really would like to hear from you.

Have a winning day!

Change is hard

As I was prospecting for business the other day I realized just how difficult it is for people to change. Asking people to consider a change in how they run their business is like asking them to change their favorite sports team. It is personal. It is a pride issue. It is a fear issue, but change is inevitable. I am reminded of a story I heard Zig Ziglar relate many years ago.

A young married couple was busy preparing for a holiday dinner. As the wife pulled a ham out of the fridge she called for her husband to come and cut the end off the ham. Dutifully, the young man did as instructed and upon completing the task asked his wife, "why do we always cut the end off of the ham?" His wife replied "I don't know. It is just what my mother always did." The husband, not satisfied with that answer, immediately called his mother-in-law and asked "why do you always cut the end off of the ham?" The mother-in-law replied, "Because my mother always cut the end off the ham." Immediately he called grandmother and asked, "Grandma, why do you always cut the end off the end of the ham?" She replied, "because I had a small pot!"

Sometimes we do things and we don't know why. It is just the way we do it. New ideas open doors and minds. If you have not reviewed your current practices for managing employees performance, retention, cost containment and liability exposure because you have it covered "just like you always have", maybe it is time to have a fresh look at outsourcing.