A federal court recently upheld the right of employees to sue their employer for allegedly cutting employee hours to less than 30 hours per week to avoid offering health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Reported by Mondaq 46 minutes ago.
United States: Limiting Employee Hours To Avoid ACA Could Violate ERISA, Court Rules - Fisher & Phillips LLP
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United States: HHS Fact Sheet On Your Employees' And Clients' Rights Under HIPAA To Access Their Health Information - Seyfarth Shaw LLP
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), Public Law 104-191, contains extensive rules designed to limit access by non-health plan entities to certain individually identifiable health information.
Reported by Mondaq 21 minutes ago.
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The Boon Group, Inc. Announces James Patton As CEO
The Boon Group, Inc., a leader in employee benefits administration, today announced Mr. James Patton as its new Chief Executive Officer.
Austin, TX (PRWEB) March 09, 2016
The Boon Group, Inc., a leader in employee benefits administration, today announced Mr. James Patton as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Mr. Patton succeeds The Boon Group’s former CEO, Mr. Sterling Boon, who will continue as Founder and Chairman of the Board.
Mr. Patton previously served as President and Chief Operating Officer for The Boon Insurance Agency, Inc. Mr. Patton’s responsibilities included managing strategic planning and initiatives related to future business opportunities and practices.
With The Boon Group since 1999, Mr. Patton also served in previous roles including Vice President of Sales, where he managed strategic partner initiatives and oversaw the Sales, Marketing and Proposals Departments for The Boon Group. Prior to 2007, Mr. Patton served as the Vice President of Sales and Regional Sales Manager for The Boon Insurance Agency, managing an increasing number of the company’s sales offices, including New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, the Midwest market cluster, and, later, Los Angeles, San Diego, Anchorage, Dallas, Denver and Atlanta.
As CEO and President, Mr. Patton will lead the company in a new direction guided by values-based leadership, with employees and community at the top of the priorities list. The Boon Group revealed its new mission on Friday, February 26: By being human first, we are passionately driven to provide healthcare solutions that allow us to age fearlessly and live with purpose.
“We desperately want to lead with our values first,” Mr. Patton says. “I see so many people not only who don’t have health insurance, but who don’t understand how health insurance works, and don’t understand the cost of health insurance or why it costs so much. We’re asking ourselves how we can make healthcare more transparent and more affordable for everyone.”
“This is an exciting time for our company,” says Sterling Boon. “I’ve had the opportunity to watch James grow as a leader over the last 17 years and can say he is truly dedicated to and passionate about changing the face of healthcare and improving the lives of our employees, our clients, our partners and beyond. I believe he can lead us to become an organization that is more committed to community, compassion and connection.”
To learn more about The Boon Group’s new vision, and commitment to accessible and transparent healthcare, watch our Changing the Face of Healthcare: The Boon Group Vision video at https://youtu.be/TsM_bfQe-i0.
About The Boon Group
Headquartered in Austin, Texas, The Boon Group® is a full service employee benefits company dedicated to putting people first. Empowered by a sense of service, we believe that accessible and transparent healthcare is a basic human right. We stand with the employers and employees who, just like all who work at The Boon Group, are faced with the daunting task of navigating our healthcare system. Together, we can find a better way for all Americans to access healthcare. Reported by PRWeb 16 minutes ago.
Austin, TX (PRWEB) March 09, 2016
The Boon Group, Inc., a leader in employee benefits administration, today announced Mr. James Patton as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Mr. Patton succeeds The Boon Group’s former CEO, Mr. Sterling Boon, who will continue as Founder and Chairman of the Board.
Mr. Patton previously served as President and Chief Operating Officer for The Boon Insurance Agency, Inc. Mr. Patton’s responsibilities included managing strategic planning and initiatives related to future business opportunities and practices.
With The Boon Group since 1999, Mr. Patton also served in previous roles including Vice President of Sales, where he managed strategic partner initiatives and oversaw the Sales, Marketing and Proposals Departments for The Boon Group. Prior to 2007, Mr. Patton served as the Vice President of Sales and Regional Sales Manager for The Boon Insurance Agency, managing an increasing number of the company’s sales offices, including New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, the Midwest market cluster, and, later, Los Angeles, San Diego, Anchorage, Dallas, Denver and Atlanta.
As CEO and President, Mr. Patton will lead the company in a new direction guided by values-based leadership, with employees and community at the top of the priorities list. The Boon Group revealed its new mission on Friday, February 26: By being human first, we are passionately driven to provide healthcare solutions that allow us to age fearlessly and live with purpose.
“We desperately want to lead with our values first,” Mr. Patton says. “I see so many people not only who don’t have health insurance, but who don’t understand how health insurance works, and don’t understand the cost of health insurance or why it costs so much. We’re asking ourselves how we can make healthcare more transparent and more affordable for everyone.”
“This is an exciting time for our company,” says Sterling Boon. “I’ve had the opportunity to watch James grow as a leader over the last 17 years and can say he is truly dedicated to and passionate about changing the face of healthcare and improving the lives of our employees, our clients, our partners and beyond. I believe he can lead us to become an organization that is more committed to community, compassion and connection.”
To learn more about The Boon Group’s new vision, and commitment to accessible and transparent healthcare, watch our Changing the Face of Healthcare: The Boon Group Vision video at https://youtu.be/TsM_bfQe-i0.
About The Boon Group
Headquartered in Austin, Texas, The Boon Group® is a full service employee benefits company dedicated to putting people first. Empowered by a sense of service, we believe that accessible and transparent healthcare is a basic human right. We stand with the employers and employees who, just like all who work at The Boon Group, are faced with the daunting task of navigating our healthcare system. Together, we can find a better way for all Americans to access healthcare. Reported by PRWeb 16 minutes ago.
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Free or Low-Cost Health Insurance Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council - NSHC
Patch Riverhead, NY -- Free program at Riverhead Free Library
Reported by Patch 21 hours ago.
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The GOP's Nattering Nabobs of Negativism
"In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club -- the 'hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.'" -- Vice President Spiro Agnew, September 11, 1970
Regardless of one's personal politics, there is a serious reason for concern when the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan forgoes any sense of optimism or positivity to ceaselessly lament the sorry state of the United States of America.
The negativity began in earnest in August, when the Republican candidates first gathered in Cleveland, Ohio to inaugurate the start of the debate season."This country is in big trouble. We don't win anymore. We lose to China. We lose to Mexico both in trade and at the border. We lose to everybody."
- Donald Trump, Aug. 6, 2015
"Leading from behind is a disaster. We have abandoned and alienated our friends and allies, and our enemies are stronger. Radical Islam is on the rise, Iran's on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon, China is waging cyber warfare against America."
- Sen. Ted Cruz, Aug. 6, 2015In every debate since August, the GOP field--once in the double digits, now in the "Trump plus viable guests" range of candidates--has lamented the decline of America, doubling down on their appeals to a fear of immigrants, a fear of globalization and a fear of change.
The tune was no different in January."The millionaires and billionaires are doing great under Obama. But we have the lowest percentage of Americans working today of any year since 1977. Median wages have stagnated. And the Obama-Clinton economy has left behind the working men and women of this country."
- Sen. Cruz, Jan 15, 2016
"Our healthcare is a horror show. Obamacare, we're going to repeal it and replace it. We have no borders. Our vets are being treated horribly. Illegal immigration is beyond belief. Our country is being run by incompetent people. And yes, I am angry."
- Trump, Jan 15, 2016
"We elected a president that doesn't believe in the Constitution. He undermines it. We elected a president that is weakening America on the global stage. We elected a president that doesn't believe in the free enterprise system [..]. Let me tell you, if we don't get this election right, there may be no turning back for America."
- Sen. Marco Rubio, Jan. 15, 2016By the most recent March 3 debate, the candidates had shifted slightly away from lamenting American decline, only to expend an absurd amount of time attacking each other with such regularity that the debate transcripts were rife with the phrase "crosstalk" to signify instances when multiple candidates were talking over one another simultaneously."I'm not playing to anybody's fantasies, I'm playing to the fact that our country is in trouble, that we have a tremendous problem with crime. The border is a disaster, it's like a piece of Swiss cheese. We're going to stop it, we're going to stop people from coming into our country illegally. We're going to stop it."
- Trump, March 3, 2016
"For seven years, millions of Americans, we've been struggling, wages have been stagnating, people are hurting, our constitutional rights are under assault."
- Sen. Cruz, March 3, 2016Only one remaining candidate steadily avoided fear-mongering throughout the debates."You see, because throughout this campaign I've talked about issues, I have never tried to go and get into these scrums that we're seeing here on the stage. And, people say everywhere I go, "you seem to be the adult on the stage.""
- Gov. John Kasich, March 3, 2016Clearly, he's never going to be the GOP nominee.
This strategy of consistent, calculated negativity is the rhetorical equivalent of burning down villages and razing fields. One cannot effectively lead and govern a country that has been told it is weak, it is failed and it is in decline.
With unemployment rates in a steady decline, Iranian nuclear ambitions curtailed, millions of Americans gaining health insurance and no existential threats on the horizon, there is plenty of reason to be hopeful about America's future. The Democrats understand that people want hope, even as they seek the pragmatism and experience to back it up in 2016."This has been a campaign focused on issues. And I'm proud of the campaign Senator Sanders and I are running. [Our differences] pale in comparison to what has happened on the Republican side."
-Secretary Hillary Clinton, March 8, 2016Yet the GOP candidate field has chosen to wallow in pity and dissent like a potbellied pig, convincing a large number of Americans that the country is on a fast track to hell. That's inaccurate. More importantly, it's downright depressing.
Even when it is at its worst, America should dream about what it can be at its best. Every great president in the country's history has understood that even in the darkest times, Americans are capable of rising to meet great challenges. But in order to be able to rise, they must not first be beaten down with fear and hate.
The nattering nabobs of negativism who make up the GOP field have forgotten that lesson, and are coarsening the political discourse with their consistent appeals to Americans' worst fears and basest instincts at a time when the country is not weak at home or abroad.
The 2016 election is far from over. But what remains of the GOP field needs to make a major course correction for its attitude if it wants to stand a chance of selling the American people on its brand of politics in November.
America likes winners. America likes winning. That's why Donald Trump has found success as a human brand. Selling America short in pursuit of a self-destructive victory is a horrible tactic, a horrible desire and ultimately a losing strategy.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 20 hours ago.
Regardless of one's personal politics, there is a serious reason for concern when the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan forgoes any sense of optimism or positivity to ceaselessly lament the sorry state of the United States of America.
The negativity began in earnest in August, when the Republican candidates first gathered in Cleveland, Ohio to inaugurate the start of the debate season."This country is in big trouble. We don't win anymore. We lose to China. We lose to Mexico both in trade and at the border. We lose to everybody."
- Donald Trump, Aug. 6, 2015
"Leading from behind is a disaster. We have abandoned and alienated our friends and allies, and our enemies are stronger. Radical Islam is on the rise, Iran's on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon, China is waging cyber warfare against America."
- Sen. Ted Cruz, Aug. 6, 2015In every debate since August, the GOP field--once in the double digits, now in the "Trump plus viable guests" range of candidates--has lamented the decline of America, doubling down on their appeals to a fear of immigrants, a fear of globalization and a fear of change.
The tune was no different in January."The millionaires and billionaires are doing great under Obama. But we have the lowest percentage of Americans working today of any year since 1977. Median wages have stagnated. And the Obama-Clinton economy has left behind the working men and women of this country."
- Sen. Cruz, Jan 15, 2016
"Our healthcare is a horror show. Obamacare, we're going to repeal it and replace it. We have no borders. Our vets are being treated horribly. Illegal immigration is beyond belief. Our country is being run by incompetent people. And yes, I am angry."
- Trump, Jan 15, 2016
"We elected a president that doesn't believe in the Constitution. He undermines it. We elected a president that is weakening America on the global stage. We elected a president that doesn't believe in the free enterprise system [..]. Let me tell you, if we don't get this election right, there may be no turning back for America."
- Sen. Marco Rubio, Jan. 15, 2016By the most recent March 3 debate, the candidates had shifted slightly away from lamenting American decline, only to expend an absurd amount of time attacking each other with such regularity that the debate transcripts were rife with the phrase "crosstalk" to signify instances when multiple candidates were talking over one another simultaneously."I'm not playing to anybody's fantasies, I'm playing to the fact that our country is in trouble, that we have a tremendous problem with crime. The border is a disaster, it's like a piece of Swiss cheese. We're going to stop it, we're going to stop people from coming into our country illegally. We're going to stop it."
- Trump, March 3, 2016
"For seven years, millions of Americans, we've been struggling, wages have been stagnating, people are hurting, our constitutional rights are under assault."
- Sen. Cruz, March 3, 2016Only one remaining candidate steadily avoided fear-mongering throughout the debates."You see, because throughout this campaign I've talked about issues, I have never tried to go and get into these scrums that we're seeing here on the stage. And, people say everywhere I go, "you seem to be the adult on the stage.""
- Gov. John Kasich, March 3, 2016Clearly, he's never going to be the GOP nominee.
This strategy of consistent, calculated negativity is the rhetorical equivalent of burning down villages and razing fields. One cannot effectively lead and govern a country that has been told it is weak, it is failed and it is in decline.
With unemployment rates in a steady decline, Iranian nuclear ambitions curtailed, millions of Americans gaining health insurance and no existential threats on the horizon, there is plenty of reason to be hopeful about America's future. The Democrats understand that people want hope, even as they seek the pragmatism and experience to back it up in 2016."This has been a campaign focused on issues. And I'm proud of the campaign Senator Sanders and I are running. [Our differences] pale in comparison to what has happened on the Republican side."
-Secretary Hillary Clinton, March 8, 2016Yet the GOP candidate field has chosen to wallow in pity and dissent like a potbellied pig, convincing a large number of Americans that the country is on a fast track to hell. That's inaccurate. More importantly, it's downright depressing.
Even when it is at its worst, America should dream about what it can be at its best. Every great president in the country's history has understood that even in the darkest times, Americans are capable of rising to meet great challenges. But in order to be able to rise, they must not first be beaten down with fear and hate.
The nattering nabobs of negativism who make up the GOP field have forgotten that lesson, and are coarsening the political discourse with their consistent appeals to Americans' worst fears and basest instincts at a time when the country is not weak at home or abroad.
The 2016 election is far from over. But what remains of the GOP field needs to make a major course correction for its attitude if it wants to stand a chance of selling the American people on its brand of politics in November.
America likes winners. America likes winning. That's why Donald Trump has found success as a human brand. Selling America short in pursuit of a self-destructive victory is a horrible tactic, a horrible desire and ultimately a losing strategy.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 20 hours ago.
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Pivot Health Fills Gaps in Coverage Caused by High Health Insurance Deductible
MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Pivot Health fills a gap in coverage caused by high health insurance deductibles. Health consumers can lower out-of-pocket expenses and save on doctor costs by bundling for simple online purchasing.
Reported by Business Wire 21 hours ago.
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This Anti-Obamacare Governor Is Proving How Hard Repeal Really Is
WASHINGTON -- Kentucky has turned into the place where Obamacare repeal rhetoric meets Obamacare repeal reality. Reality is winning.
Gov. Matt Bevin (R) made his name in Bluegrass State politics as a tea party outsider, and throwing out the Affordable Care Act was one of his most common refrains. He used it first during his unsuccessful primary challenge against Sen. Mitch McConnell, now majority leader, in 2014, and then in his winning bid for the top position in the state last year.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the governor's office: Bevin's anti-Obamacare rhetoric started to tone down as Election Day approached. And in the months since he's been chief executive of Kentucky, instead of ripping up Obamacare out of his state, Bevin is making alterations to how the law works there and leaving its core elements and benefits in place.
A candidate who vowed to completely roll back Kentucky's expansion of Medicaid to more than 300,000 poor residents under the Affordable Care Act now is a governor who plans to put some conservative window dressing on the program, akin to what Gov. Mike Pence (R) did in Indiana. And rather than totally eradicate the state's health insurance exchange, Kynect, Bevin now plans to leave big parts of it in place even while sending its more than 100,000 customers to HealthCare.gov to buy their coverage instead.
That's quite a turnaround for a man who used to say stuff like this all the time:
RT if you agree: We need to stop #Obamacare in Kentucky!
— Matt Bevin (@MattBevin) May 16, 2014
MB: The reality is that Obamacare isn't working. It is killing the healthcare system. #kyelect
— Matt Bevin (@MattBevin) October 27, 2015
There's a lesson here for would-be Obamacare repealers.
Six years after President Barack Obama enacted the Affordable Care Act, the law has extended health coverage to an estimated 20 million people and driven the uninsured rate to a historic low, and the health insurance industry and other players in the private health care sector have adapted to the law, however awkwardly.
Bevin seems to have learned firsthand that it was impossible to snap his fingers and make all that go away without upsetting a lot of people.
In other words, when Republicans have had chances to put their repeal talk into action, they haven't.
That hasn't stopped the GOP-led Congress and Republican presidential candidates from clamoring for repeal -- or from making vague pronouncements about "replacing" Obamacare with something or other, even though it's not possible to achieve the Affordable Care Act goal of expanding coverage using the policies typically espoused by Republicans.
For all the bluster about Obamacare in Congress and on the campaign trail -- plus the many, many repeal votes -- state-level Republicans have had more opportunity to actually disrupt the Affordable Care Act.
For starters, there are still 20 states that refuse to expand Medicaid using federal money provided by the law, and two-thirds of states declined to establish health insurance exchanges, leaving the work to federal authorities.
Moreover, states like Florida and Texas enacted laws making it harder for insurance counselors to advise consumers. And many GOP-led states joined in on lawsuits that threatened to fell the Affordable Care Act at the Supreme Court.
But undoing Obamacare benefits that already exist is another matter entirely.
Bevin isn't doing it. Neither did Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R), who succeeded a Democrat in 2014 and is negotiating with the state's GOP legislature to extend the expansion there.
Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts also welcomed new Republican governors last year who followed Democrats, and scrapping Medicaid expansion hasn't been up for discussion in those states. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) hasn't moved to undo the expansion implemented by his Republican predecessor, Jan Brewer, either.Bevin, by the way, wanted to disrupt Obamacare in Kentucky despite its extraordinary success.
Only Arkansas saw a bigger decline in its uninsured rate among the states, as Kentucky went from 20.4 percent of residents without health insurance in 2013 to 7.5 percent in 2015, according to Gallup. And keeping the Medicaid expansion and Kynect have been popular in surveys, even though Kentuckians think poorly of the Affordable Care Act itself.
Maybe that helps explain what Bevin actually proposes to do now. On Medicaid, Bevin has talked about requiring beneficiaries to pay more for their care, not taking their coverage away from them.
And even though the Kynect brand name and website are being made sacrifices at the altar of anti-Obamacarism, Kentucky will continue to have a health insurance exchange that oversees insurers and handles other functions, following a model already adopted by Hawaii, New Mexico, Nevada and Oregon.
If that's the worst a tea party Republican ushered into office by a wide margin in a conservative state can do to Obamacare, maybe supporters of the Affordable Care Act don't have that much to worry about. And maybe those eager about repealing the law should steel themselves for more disappointment.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 20 hours ago.
Gov. Matt Bevin (R) made his name in Bluegrass State politics as a tea party outsider, and throwing out the Affordable Care Act was one of his most common refrains. He used it first during his unsuccessful primary challenge against Sen. Mitch McConnell, now majority leader, in 2014, and then in his winning bid for the top position in the state last year.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the governor's office: Bevin's anti-Obamacare rhetoric started to tone down as Election Day approached. And in the months since he's been chief executive of Kentucky, instead of ripping up Obamacare out of his state, Bevin is making alterations to how the law works there and leaving its core elements and benefits in place.
A candidate who vowed to completely roll back Kentucky's expansion of Medicaid to more than 300,000 poor residents under the Affordable Care Act now is a governor who plans to put some conservative window dressing on the program, akin to what Gov. Mike Pence (R) did in Indiana. And rather than totally eradicate the state's health insurance exchange, Kynect, Bevin now plans to leave big parts of it in place even while sending its more than 100,000 customers to HealthCare.gov to buy their coverage instead.
That's quite a turnaround for a man who used to say stuff like this all the time:
RT if you agree: We need to stop #Obamacare in Kentucky!
— Matt Bevin (@MattBevin) May 16, 2014
MB: The reality is that Obamacare isn't working. It is killing the healthcare system. #kyelect
— Matt Bevin (@MattBevin) October 27, 2015
There's a lesson here for would-be Obamacare repealers.
Six years after President Barack Obama enacted the Affordable Care Act, the law has extended health coverage to an estimated 20 million people and driven the uninsured rate to a historic low, and the health insurance industry and other players in the private health care sector have adapted to the law, however awkwardly.
Bevin seems to have learned firsthand that it was impossible to snap his fingers and make all that go away without upsetting a lot of people.
In other words, when Republicans have had chances to put their repeal talk into action, they haven't.
That hasn't stopped the GOP-led Congress and Republican presidential candidates from clamoring for repeal -- or from making vague pronouncements about "replacing" Obamacare with something or other, even though it's not possible to achieve the Affordable Care Act goal of expanding coverage using the policies typically espoused by Republicans.
For all the bluster about Obamacare in Congress and on the campaign trail -- plus the many, many repeal votes -- state-level Republicans have had more opportunity to actually disrupt the Affordable Care Act.
For starters, there are still 20 states that refuse to expand Medicaid using federal money provided by the law, and two-thirds of states declined to establish health insurance exchanges, leaving the work to federal authorities.
Moreover, states like Florida and Texas enacted laws making it harder for insurance counselors to advise consumers. And many GOP-led states joined in on lawsuits that threatened to fell the Affordable Care Act at the Supreme Court.
But undoing Obamacare benefits that already exist is another matter entirely.
Bevin isn't doing it. Neither did Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R), who succeeded a Democrat in 2014 and is negotiating with the state's GOP legislature to extend the expansion there.
Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts also welcomed new Republican governors last year who followed Democrats, and scrapping Medicaid expansion hasn't been up for discussion in those states. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) hasn't moved to undo the expansion implemented by his Republican predecessor, Jan Brewer, either.Bevin, by the way, wanted to disrupt Obamacare in Kentucky despite its extraordinary success.
Only Arkansas saw a bigger decline in its uninsured rate among the states, as Kentucky went from 20.4 percent of residents without health insurance in 2013 to 7.5 percent in 2015, according to Gallup. And keeping the Medicaid expansion and Kynect have been popular in surveys, even though Kentuckians think poorly of the Affordable Care Act itself.
Maybe that helps explain what Bevin actually proposes to do now. On Medicaid, Bevin has talked about requiring beneficiaries to pay more for their care, not taking their coverage away from them.
And even though the Kynect brand name and website are being made sacrifices at the altar of anti-Obamacarism, Kentucky will continue to have a health insurance exchange that oversees insurers and handles other functions, following a model already adopted by Hawaii, New Mexico, Nevada and Oregon.
If that's the worst a tea party Republican ushered into office by a wide margin in a conservative state can do to Obamacare, maybe supporters of the Affordable Care Act don't have that much to worry about. And maybe those eager about repealing the law should steel themselves for more disappointment.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 20 hours ago.
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Ten Fundamentals of Personal and Business Risk Management
Risk is generally defined as the possibility that something adverse may or may not occur. Thoughtful risk management is essential in personal and business endeavors. From dating to deep-water drilling, one must be cautiously alert to danger. The following comment provides a brief and incomplete educational overview of ten, of many, basic risk management principles. Always consult experienced professionals in specific situations.
Thoughtfully consider these points in a specific situation:
1. Investigate and study the past and the experiences of others, but recognize that there may be new and different present risks.
What events, positive and negative, have occurred in past situations like the one under consideration? What have others done in these circumstances? Due diligence is critical. There is so much readily available information that failing to investigate is inexcusable. "Trust but verify" goes the saying. Yet, a charming psychopath or con artist may sweep away fears and cause one to overlook obvious dangers. Additionally, be alert to the possibility that present risks may be radically different than past risks. For example, the tactics of infrastructure hackers, financial scammers, and personal predators, utilizing modern technology, constantly change. Military leaders are sometimes accused of "fighting the last war."
2. What assumptions underlie our actions, and what risks are anticipated and what risks are unanticipated?
The inability to accurately forecast the precise timing of the occurrence, if ever, of numerous low probability but high impact events (a massive earthquake, the dollar losing all value, being murdered, for example) means that one can only reduce the venerability to them. Additionally, one must realize that there are "unknown unknowns" that are outside of our thinking. It is a good personal and business practice to thoughtfully list the assumptions that underlie our decision making. What will happen if those assumptions prove to be incorrect or conditions change? The "obvious" may not always be the same. Collectively, we are living in a period of rapid change and disruption. Individually, extremely individualistic and narcissistic personalities consider any self-sacrifice laughable. For these individuals, people are to be used and tossed aside. Think. For example, is there an underlying assumption that Pacific Ocean shipping for goods will be available? Is there an assumption that a reliable informant must be a "good guy" and consequently need not be screened for weapons or a suicide bomb? Is there an assumption that church membership means that an individual has good character? Tricksters project images and astutely read their victims.
3. Thought processes concerning risk often involve fallacies.
Numerous studies show that individuals do not accurately perceive risks. Individuals and business leaders may be overconfident, excessively optimistic, and have a number of biases. Biases include a small sample and inexperience bias (not enough information to generalize), confirmation bias (information confirms preexisting beliefs), group thinking (an inability to challenge a dominate opinion), and the "halo effect" (bad things do not happen to good people). Thoughtful self-knowledge of one's limitations is important. The humility to seek expert advice, and to listen, is wise. One way to address this issue is through established objective checklists and protocols. Aircraft pilots have checklists to avoid mistakes. Businesses have management and legal protocols. Perhaps one should also create some personal protocols. An obvious example is not to drink and drive. The risk of harm is too great in a situation in which physical and mental abilities are impaired. What are some behaviors or risks that you personally will avoid?
4. Categorize the risks.
Are they natural (the earthquake), part of an economic or social system that we do not personally control (the dollar collapse), or something we might personally mitigate or influence through careful planning (being murdered). Nature events are somewhat predictable (fault lines in the earth shift) but their occurrence or non-occurrence is outside of our control. "You can't fight Mother Nature," but you can get out of her way or insure against her actions. The same is true of macroeconomic and social events. Individually, thoughtful situational awareness may keep you safe. Learn to be observant of your surroundings and have a plan of action. Trust you gut instincts.
5. Prioritize, as best one can, the likelihood of particular events occurring within each risk category.
Work down from highest likelihood to the lowest. Does an event occur with sufficient frequency (for example, the nonpayment of consumer debt) that it may be factored into the cost of doing business? Granting credit may or may not generate sufficient additional sales to more than offset bad debt losses. An old joke involves the loss of money on every sale but making up the loss through volume. In personal relationships, pay attention if and when friends and family say that an individual is "trouble." Past personal history is a good indicator of likely future behavior. For example, it is obvious that if an individual has engaged in extramarital affairs with others, or is currently doing so with you, then you are likely to be victimized as well. Be very cautious when a romantic interest states "We have an open marriage." Triangles may produce broken hearts and murder. Nevertheless, a common delusional though is that "This time will be different."
6. How much loss is associated with each listed event?
What type loss is involved: economic, emotional or physical, or a pesky, but comparatively trivial, annoying loss of time and energy. Is one able to absorb the loss or should the loss be transferred or shared or simply avoided outright? Is the loss so great, the potential reward so small, and the probability sufficiently known that one should not undertake the contemplated action? For example, perhaps one should not visit certain nations. Humanitarian intentions do not prevent tragedies. Some actions are best not undertaken. There is prudent risk taking (entrepreneurship, rightly done) and foolish risk taking (isolating oneself in a vulnerable situation). However, deeply held political, patriotic or religious beliefs or humanitarian concerns may cause one to act out of principle in a way that is contrary to what would be commonly believed to be "rational" self-interest. That is an acceptable motivation if one is acting with full factual awareness and this course of action does not harm others. If one has family or dependents, their needs must be considered before acting.
7. What interplay of factors (especially emotional) are causing one ignore a potential risk?
Are there misplaced or misaligned priorities? For example, flying a small aircraft into a thunderstorm in order to arrive at a scheduled meeting is sufficiently common to be called "get-there-itis." Is ego involved? Is a misguided sense of superiority and invulnerability causing one to engage in risky economic or personal behaviors? Individuals who believe their "systems" will "beat the market" or leaders who travel without bodyguards may suffer these delusions. Are emotional needs to be loved, appreciated, and admired involved? Tragic affairs and doomed (potentially dangerous) romances may result from these needs. Are the potential rewards so great, and the ability to recover from the possible loss sufficiently foreseeable, that one should act? This considers a limited window of opportunity. For example, students may ask a teacher to provide "extra credit" work in order to improve a low grade at the end of a course. This request has a potentially high reward and a relatively low risk if rejected. The old saying in many situations is "It never hurts to ask."
8. Be cautious when mathematically calculating risk.
There is a form of business risk calculation that multiplies the dollar amount of the loss times the percentage probability of it occurring. The underlying presumption is that there is a sliding scale of potential damage as might occur, for example, when an auto suffers damage in a "fender bender." However, many events may be binary in nature. They either do not occur at all ($0 loss) or they fully occur ($full amount loss). What type event is being considered? While actuarial science has great predictive value when addressing large numbers of similar events (mortality tables, for example), sometimes there is too small a sample, or there may be unrecognized and unconsidered factors involved in producing the event. One must be careful not to inappropriately ascribe mathematical certainty to a risk calculation. An old saying states: "Garbage in, garbage out."
9. Distinguish risk management and risk prevention.
Which is appropriate in this specific situation? Diversifying an investment portfolio is a common risk management strategy. Risk prevention may be not acting at all, such as the proverbial fruit jar full of coins buried in the back yard. Many commentators discussing both personal life and business activity suggest a bias for action. "Faint heart never won fair lady." However, an equal amount of popular wisdom suggests prudence. "Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.""He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day." One must be thoughtful.
10. Risk spreading and risk transfer, easily accomplished in business, is difficult in personal relationships.
Traditional business risk management involves risk spreading through techniques such as insurance, bonding, cosigners, collateral, and diversification. The risk remains but there are more potential sources of recovery. U.S. government financial guarantees are the closest to no risk that a business may achieve. However, personal risks to emotional and physical wellbeing are not always so easily transferred. Life and health insurance may replace lost income, pay medical expenses, and support dependents. In other areas, personal emotional support systems of family and friends are crucial. Abusers and predators isolate their victims. The horizons of victims narrow and they may empathize with the abuser (Stockholm syndrome) or somehow think that they deserve the abuse for being "bad." Intervention in a cycle of domestic violence is difficult. A threat of serious bodily injury or death requires a major disruption in routine that some individuals, tragically, are unable to undertake.
There are numerous barriers to appropriate risk management. Within a business organization contrarian opinions may be disrespected, the boss may "kill the messenger" who brings bad news, and there may be productivity and scheduling pressures that cause corners to be cut. In personal relationships it is said that "love is blind;" there is a mistaken belief that one person can change another person's personality through love or after marriage; and there is a tendency to disregard negative signals and hints of bad things to come.
Catastrophes frequently involve a sequence of small events that collectively produce a major event. Often there are several opportunities to "get off the train" before the crash. We need that insight as events are unfolding. Emotion may override rational thought as road rage illustrates.
The well-known Serenity Prayer of Reinhold Niebuhr, popular in twelve-step programs, states: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference." Life is full of risk. Some risks cannot be mitigated and others can be mitigated. May we be both wise and serene when assessing risks. Wisdom is always seeking appropriate professional advice. Serenity is living life fully without fear.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 19 hours ago.
Thoughtfully consider these points in a specific situation:
1. Investigate and study the past and the experiences of others, but recognize that there may be new and different present risks.
What events, positive and negative, have occurred in past situations like the one under consideration? What have others done in these circumstances? Due diligence is critical. There is so much readily available information that failing to investigate is inexcusable. "Trust but verify" goes the saying. Yet, a charming psychopath or con artist may sweep away fears and cause one to overlook obvious dangers. Additionally, be alert to the possibility that present risks may be radically different than past risks. For example, the tactics of infrastructure hackers, financial scammers, and personal predators, utilizing modern technology, constantly change. Military leaders are sometimes accused of "fighting the last war."
2. What assumptions underlie our actions, and what risks are anticipated and what risks are unanticipated?
The inability to accurately forecast the precise timing of the occurrence, if ever, of numerous low probability but high impact events (a massive earthquake, the dollar losing all value, being murdered, for example) means that one can only reduce the venerability to them. Additionally, one must realize that there are "unknown unknowns" that are outside of our thinking. It is a good personal and business practice to thoughtfully list the assumptions that underlie our decision making. What will happen if those assumptions prove to be incorrect or conditions change? The "obvious" may not always be the same. Collectively, we are living in a period of rapid change and disruption. Individually, extremely individualistic and narcissistic personalities consider any self-sacrifice laughable. For these individuals, people are to be used and tossed aside. Think. For example, is there an underlying assumption that Pacific Ocean shipping for goods will be available? Is there an assumption that a reliable informant must be a "good guy" and consequently need not be screened for weapons or a suicide bomb? Is there an assumption that church membership means that an individual has good character? Tricksters project images and astutely read their victims.
3. Thought processes concerning risk often involve fallacies.
Numerous studies show that individuals do not accurately perceive risks. Individuals and business leaders may be overconfident, excessively optimistic, and have a number of biases. Biases include a small sample and inexperience bias (not enough information to generalize), confirmation bias (information confirms preexisting beliefs), group thinking (an inability to challenge a dominate opinion), and the "halo effect" (bad things do not happen to good people). Thoughtful self-knowledge of one's limitations is important. The humility to seek expert advice, and to listen, is wise. One way to address this issue is through established objective checklists and protocols. Aircraft pilots have checklists to avoid mistakes. Businesses have management and legal protocols. Perhaps one should also create some personal protocols. An obvious example is not to drink and drive. The risk of harm is too great in a situation in which physical and mental abilities are impaired. What are some behaviors or risks that you personally will avoid?
4. Categorize the risks.
Are they natural (the earthquake), part of an economic or social system that we do not personally control (the dollar collapse), or something we might personally mitigate or influence through careful planning (being murdered). Nature events are somewhat predictable (fault lines in the earth shift) but their occurrence or non-occurrence is outside of our control. "You can't fight Mother Nature," but you can get out of her way or insure against her actions. The same is true of macroeconomic and social events. Individually, thoughtful situational awareness may keep you safe. Learn to be observant of your surroundings and have a plan of action. Trust you gut instincts.
5. Prioritize, as best one can, the likelihood of particular events occurring within each risk category.
Work down from highest likelihood to the lowest. Does an event occur with sufficient frequency (for example, the nonpayment of consumer debt) that it may be factored into the cost of doing business? Granting credit may or may not generate sufficient additional sales to more than offset bad debt losses. An old joke involves the loss of money on every sale but making up the loss through volume. In personal relationships, pay attention if and when friends and family say that an individual is "trouble." Past personal history is a good indicator of likely future behavior. For example, it is obvious that if an individual has engaged in extramarital affairs with others, or is currently doing so with you, then you are likely to be victimized as well. Be very cautious when a romantic interest states "We have an open marriage." Triangles may produce broken hearts and murder. Nevertheless, a common delusional though is that "This time will be different."
6. How much loss is associated with each listed event?
What type loss is involved: economic, emotional or physical, or a pesky, but comparatively trivial, annoying loss of time and energy. Is one able to absorb the loss or should the loss be transferred or shared or simply avoided outright? Is the loss so great, the potential reward so small, and the probability sufficiently known that one should not undertake the contemplated action? For example, perhaps one should not visit certain nations. Humanitarian intentions do not prevent tragedies. Some actions are best not undertaken. There is prudent risk taking (entrepreneurship, rightly done) and foolish risk taking (isolating oneself in a vulnerable situation). However, deeply held political, patriotic or religious beliefs or humanitarian concerns may cause one to act out of principle in a way that is contrary to what would be commonly believed to be "rational" self-interest. That is an acceptable motivation if one is acting with full factual awareness and this course of action does not harm others. If one has family or dependents, their needs must be considered before acting.
7. What interplay of factors (especially emotional) are causing one ignore a potential risk?
Are there misplaced or misaligned priorities? For example, flying a small aircraft into a thunderstorm in order to arrive at a scheduled meeting is sufficiently common to be called "get-there-itis." Is ego involved? Is a misguided sense of superiority and invulnerability causing one to engage in risky economic or personal behaviors? Individuals who believe their "systems" will "beat the market" or leaders who travel without bodyguards may suffer these delusions. Are emotional needs to be loved, appreciated, and admired involved? Tragic affairs and doomed (potentially dangerous) romances may result from these needs. Are the potential rewards so great, and the ability to recover from the possible loss sufficiently foreseeable, that one should act? This considers a limited window of opportunity. For example, students may ask a teacher to provide "extra credit" work in order to improve a low grade at the end of a course. This request has a potentially high reward and a relatively low risk if rejected. The old saying in many situations is "It never hurts to ask."
8. Be cautious when mathematically calculating risk.
There is a form of business risk calculation that multiplies the dollar amount of the loss times the percentage probability of it occurring. The underlying presumption is that there is a sliding scale of potential damage as might occur, for example, when an auto suffers damage in a "fender bender." However, many events may be binary in nature. They either do not occur at all ($0 loss) or they fully occur ($full amount loss). What type event is being considered? While actuarial science has great predictive value when addressing large numbers of similar events (mortality tables, for example), sometimes there is too small a sample, or there may be unrecognized and unconsidered factors involved in producing the event. One must be careful not to inappropriately ascribe mathematical certainty to a risk calculation. An old saying states: "Garbage in, garbage out."
9. Distinguish risk management and risk prevention.
Which is appropriate in this specific situation? Diversifying an investment portfolio is a common risk management strategy. Risk prevention may be not acting at all, such as the proverbial fruit jar full of coins buried in the back yard. Many commentators discussing both personal life and business activity suggest a bias for action. "Faint heart never won fair lady." However, an equal amount of popular wisdom suggests prudence. "Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.""He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day." One must be thoughtful.
10. Risk spreading and risk transfer, easily accomplished in business, is difficult in personal relationships.
Traditional business risk management involves risk spreading through techniques such as insurance, bonding, cosigners, collateral, and diversification. The risk remains but there are more potential sources of recovery. U.S. government financial guarantees are the closest to no risk that a business may achieve. However, personal risks to emotional and physical wellbeing are not always so easily transferred. Life and health insurance may replace lost income, pay medical expenses, and support dependents. In other areas, personal emotional support systems of family and friends are crucial. Abusers and predators isolate their victims. The horizons of victims narrow and they may empathize with the abuser (Stockholm syndrome) or somehow think that they deserve the abuse for being "bad." Intervention in a cycle of domestic violence is difficult. A threat of serious bodily injury or death requires a major disruption in routine that some individuals, tragically, are unable to undertake.
There are numerous barriers to appropriate risk management. Within a business organization contrarian opinions may be disrespected, the boss may "kill the messenger" who brings bad news, and there may be productivity and scheduling pressures that cause corners to be cut. In personal relationships it is said that "love is blind;" there is a mistaken belief that one person can change another person's personality through love or after marriage; and there is a tendency to disregard negative signals and hints of bad things to come.
Catastrophes frequently involve a sequence of small events that collectively produce a major event. Often there are several opportunities to "get off the train" before the crash. We need that insight as events are unfolding. Emotion may override rational thought as road rage illustrates.
The well-known Serenity Prayer of Reinhold Niebuhr, popular in twelve-step programs, states: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference." Life is full of risk. Some risks cannot be mitigated and others can be mitigated. May we be both wise and serene when assessing risks. Wisdom is always seeking appropriate professional advice. Serenity is living life fully without fear.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 19 hours ago.
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Hey Future Media Mogul, Don't Quit Your Day Job Just Yet
*"Capital is different from money. Money is used simply to purchase goods and services for consumption. Capital is more durable and is used to generate wealth through investment. Examples of capital include automobiles, patents, software and brand names. All of these things are inputs that can be used to create wealth. Besides being used in production, capital can be rented out for a monthly or annual fee to create wealth."* InvestopediaA few years ago at a Harvard Business School colloquium on Internet start-ups that I attended, a panelist scoffed at one ambitious young entrepreneur who asked a question about cashing out with an IPO. The panelist said, "Your occupation now is owner, founder. You're your own boss. Why do you want to become someone's *employee*???"
Interestingly, an Op-Ed in the New York Times last Sunday on failing upward stated, "Of the Internet start-up founders who receive so-called Series A venture funding, 87 percent are white and only 1 percent are black, according to the research firm CB Insights."
Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the 21st Century" demonstrates that the economic inequality decried by the Occupy movement is due to a higher rate of return on capital than on labor in the long run. For those who didn't study economics at university: the 1% get richer and most others labor to scrape by.
In the Agricultural Age feudal lords became land-owning gentry; in the Industrial Age aristocrats passed their capital to heirs through factories and land; in the Information Age capital is primarily transferred intergenerationally through brands names, property, family businesses and trusts.
Let's say you are a freelancer/entrepreneur that gets hired gig to gig (and is not provided with the security of health insurance, a retirement plan, and one steady paycheck from one employer that covers all of your food and shelter). Firstly, let's assume that you already invested some capital - anywhere from $2,500 to $200,000 - to gain the necessary education to perform your job. To start, in the Information Age everyone needs a website. Most of us are too intolerant to spend hours in a public library in 1 hour snatches of free computer time or in a Starbucks for free WiFi, so let's assume that we all live in homes with rents or mortgages and those homes have cable Internet connections for $65 per month (does anyone still use dial-up?). Most website hosts that are "free" (e.g. WordPress) still require that we purchase computers, smart phones with good cameras, domain names, maybe some software like Photoshop or Microsoft Word or Powerpoint... maybe some of us even bought decent video cameras and digital audio recording equipment... and maybe some of us even hired web designers and pay monthly fees for hosting plans and upkeep, etc.
Quite simply, as Independent Contractors our Internet "presences" are sunk costs - probably from $5,000 to $50,000 (maybe more) - and I am not even going to mention here the time it takes to create and maintain a decent website.
And if you cannot afford a publicist or Facebook Ads or Google Adwords to promote that website and your "brand," it will require much "social media" in order to pique potential clients' interest to lead them to your website to purchase your services. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, email blasts, blogging, and everything needed to "launch" (market, promote) your business can suck hours and hours from each week (which is why I usually refer to it "Business Media" rather than "Social Media").
If you agree with Monsieur Piketty then you will note that the majority of the 1% did not begin their lives without "capital." And yet the media consistently focus on outliers such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates who started with very little and became multibillionaires. Our media propagates the myth of meritocracy: that if you work hard, you will succeed (financially). But really, as Malcolm Gladwell demonstrates, it takes hard work PLUS opportunity, which mostly consists of being in the right place at the right time (Warren Buffet calls it "The Lucky Gene Club"). I mean, if you happened to be at Wharton or HBS in the mid 1980s or in the engineering department at Stanford in 1990s then you would have had to go out of your way to avoid becoming a multimillionaire - right?
My main point is that without "capital" most people do not have the basic security to be entrepreneurs and follow their dreams AND THUS BE IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME. Following dreams requires investment (websites, education, networking, marketing); investment requires capital.
Spending 20-30 hours of week "producing content" (blogs, Youtube videos, Instagram photos) does not have direct or immediate financial return. Economic exchanges are no longer so clear as exchanging 1 apple for 1 dollar. To "launch" a business now takes months of "building trust;" trust is primarily built by giving away "content" (blogs, videos, daily quotes via email, cool Instagram images, etc.) for free.
Entrepreneurs who have capital can afford to take risks, can afford to keep the electricity running while they make countless Youtube videos, Instagram ditties, and write weekly or daily blog posts.
Just keep in mind the possibility that in 300 years when historians look back on entrepreneurs, spending our "leisure" time to produce endless content for free while corporations earn billions of dollars in advertising revenue and share those profits exclusively with shareholders (other people who have capital to invest), those historians may consider us to be even more docile and subconsciously controlled than slaves on plantations in Confederate states were in the 1600s.
Yes, the capital owners (the major telecom corporations, the major pharmaceutical corporations, the major agriculture corporations, the major media corporations, etc.) are quick to inform us that we are always free to leave their plantations.
*But where would we go?
*photo by Brian Rasic
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 19 hours ago.
Interestingly, an Op-Ed in the New York Times last Sunday on failing upward stated, "Of the Internet start-up founders who receive so-called Series A venture funding, 87 percent are white and only 1 percent are black, according to the research firm CB Insights."
Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the 21st Century" demonstrates that the economic inequality decried by the Occupy movement is due to a higher rate of return on capital than on labor in the long run. For those who didn't study economics at university: the 1% get richer and most others labor to scrape by.
In the Agricultural Age feudal lords became land-owning gentry; in the Industrial Age aristocrats passed their capital to heirs through factories and land; in the Information Age capital is primarily transferred intergenerationally through brands names, property, family businesses and trusts.
Let's say you are a freelancer/entrepreneur that gets hired gig to gig (and is not provided with the security of health insurance, a retirement plan, and one steady paycheck from one employer that covers all of your food and shelter). Firstly, let's assume that you already invested some capital - anywhere from $2,500 to $200,000 - to gain the necessary education to perform your job. To start, in the Information Age everyone needs a website. Most of us are too intolerant to spend hours in a public library in 1 hour snatches of free computer time or in a Starbucks for free WiFi, so let's assume that we all live in homes with rents or mortgages and those homes have cable Internet connections for $65 per month (does anyone still use dial-up?). Most website hosts that are "free" (e.g. WordPress) still require that we purchase computers, smart phones with good cameras, domain names, maybe some software like Photoshop or Microsoft Word or Powerpoint... maybe some of us even bought decent video cameras and digital audio recording equipment... and maybe some of us even hired web designers and pay monthly fees for hosting plans and upkeep, etc.
Quite simply, as Independent Contractors our Internet "presences" are sunk costs - probably from $5,000 to $50,000 (maybe more) - and I am not even going to mention here the time it takes to create and maintain a decent website.
And if you cannot afford a publicist or Facebook Ads or Google Adwords to promote that website and your "brand," it will require much "social media" in order to pique potential clients' interest to lead them to your website to purchase your services. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, email blasts, blogging, and everything needed to "launch" (market, promote) your business can suck hours and hours from each week (which is why I usually refer to it "Business Media" rather than "Social Media").
If you agree with Monsieur Piketty then you will note that the majority of the 1% did not begin their lives without "capital." And yet the media consistently focus on outliers such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates who started with very little and became multibillionaires. Our media propagates the myth of meritocracy: that if you work hard, you will succeed (financially). But really, as Malcolm Gladwell demonstrates, it takes hard work PLUS opportunity, which mostly consists of being in the right place at the right time (Warren Buffet calls it "The Lucky Gene Club"). I mean, if you happened to be at Wharton or HBS in the mid 1980s or in the engineering department at Stanford in 1990s then you would have had to go out of your way to avoid becoming a multimillionaire - right?
My main point is that without "capital" most people do not have the basic security to be entrepreneurs and follow their dreams AND THUS BE IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME. Following dreams requires investment (websites, education, networking, marketing); investment requires capital.
Spending 20-30 hours of week "producing content" (blogs, Youtube videos, Instagram photos) does not have direct or immediate financial return. Economic exchanges are no longer so clear as exchanging 1 apple for 1 dollar. To "launch" a business now takes months of "building trust;" trust is primarily built by giving away "content" (blogs, videos, daily quotes via email, cool Instagram images, etc.) for free.
Entrepreneurs who have capital can afford to take risks, can afford to keep the electricity running while they make countless Youtube videos, Instagram ditties, and write weekly or daily blog posts.
Just keep in mind the possibility that in 300 years when historians look back on entrepreneurs, spending our "leisure" time to produce endless content for free while corporations earn billions of dollars in advertising revenue and share those profits exclusively with shareholders (other people who have capital to invest), those historians may consider us to be even more docile and subconsciously controlled than slaves on plantations in Confederate states were in the 1600s.
Yes, the capital owners (the major telecom corporations, the major pharmaceutical corporations, the major agriculture corporations, the major media corporations, etc.) are quick to inform us that we are always free to leave their plantations.
*But where would we go?
*photo by Brian Rasic
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 19 hours ago.
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Deutsche Bank Goes "Searching For Liquidity;" Can't Find Any
Liquidity worries are so 2015.
In the new year, there are much more pressing concerns.
Like a possibly imminent, overnight yuan float, which would quite simply torpedo every risk asset on the planet even as it would probably be just the thing Beijing’s economy needs to secure long-term stability.
And then there’s crude prices which, when you strip out the volatility and near daily OPEC headline hockey, are poised to remain suppressed in perpetuity (don’t get lost in the daily melee, this is a story about fundamentals, and from a fundamental perspective, the outlook is bearish - just look at storage overflow and Iranian supply). That means the global deflationary impulse is likely to persist and that, in turn, translates to more central bank meddling and less liquidity.
*The funny thing is, although the punditry has apparently forgotten about liquidity, the issue now looms larger than ever because the junk bond liquidation is upon us, and that's just the start of what's ultimately going to be a bursting of the entire financial asset bubble central banks have inflated since 2009.* HY is just ground zero for liquidity issues, and make no mistake, you're going to see this take center stage in the months ahead.
Apparently, all of the above isn't lost on Deutsche Bank's research team (bless their hearts, because they'll all be fired in the space of 12 months as their employer crashes and burns in what will end up being the largest banking disaster in Europe's history) who are out with a rather insightful presentation on market liquidity.
We present, below, several slides which help to underscore the fact that "liquidity" is a lot like health insurance. *You don't need it until you do.* But if you get sick and don't have it... well... you may well end up sleeping in a cardboard box.
And to carry that analogy further, *markets are headed for Skid Row*. Reported by Zero Hedge 11 hours ago.
In the new year, there are much more pressing concerns.
Like a possibly imminent, overnight yuan float, which would quite simply torpedo every risk asset on the planet even as it would probably be just the thing Beijing’s economy needs to secure long-term stability.
And then there’s crude prices which, when you strip out the volatility and near daily OPEC headline hockey, are poised to remain suppressed in perpetuity (don’t get lost in the daily melee, this is a story about fundamentals, and from a fundamental perspective, the outlook is bearish - just look at storage overflow and Iranian supply). That means the global deflationary impulse is likely to persist and that, in turn, translates to more central bank meddling and less liquidity.
*The funny thing is, although the punditry has apparently forgotten about liquidity, the issue now looms larger than ever because the junk bond liquidation is upon us, and that's just the start of what's ultimately going to be a bursting of the entire financial asset bubble central banks have inflated since 2009.* HY is just ground zero for liquidity issues, and make no mistake, you're going to see this take center stage in the months ahead.
Apparently, all of the above isn't lost on Deutsche Bank's research team (bless their hearts, because they'll all be fired in the space of 12 months as their employer crashes and burns in what will end up being the largest banking disaster in Europe's history) who are out with a rather insightful presentation on market liquidity.
We present, below, several slides which help to underscore the fact that "liquidity" is a lot like health insurance. *You don't need it until you do.* But if you get sick and don't have it... well... you may well end up sleeping in a cardboard box.
And to carry that analogy further, *markets are headed for Skid Row*. Reported by Zero Hedge 11 hours ago.
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Annual Report Shows Trends in Employer-Funded Individual Health Insurance
Zane Benefits announces the release of the Employer-Funded Individual Health Insurance Annual Report 2016— a detailed, nationwide profile of how small business employers and employees are using employer-funded individual health insurance as an employee benefit today.
Salt Lake City, Utah (PRWEB) March 10, 2016
With health reform lacing news headlines, and bringing with it added pressure on small businesses to provide health benefits to their employees, more and more companies are turning to the individual health insurance market for solutions. These trends are verified in a new report released by Zane Benefits on Wednesday. The Employer-Funded Individual Health Insurance Annual Report 2016 provides a detailed, nationwide profile of how employers and employees are using employer-funded individual health insurance as an employee benefit today.
The findings in the report are based on a sample of 2,200 employers and 10,500 participants using a Zane Benefits defined contribution health benefit solution during the 2015 calendar year. Some of the key findings of the report are as follows:
1) Nationally, the average employer-funded health benefit allowance offered by employers is $426 per month, per employee. This average includes all states and family sizes.
2) The average employee utilization amount of the employer-provided health benefit allowance, among all states and family sizes, is $380 per month, per employee (an 89% utilization rate). As such, the actual employer contribution toward health benefits averages $380 per month.
3) Compared with offering traditional group insurance coverage, employers using a defined contribution solution save an average of 57% on comparable, comprehensive health benefits. This gives small business employers the ability to afford and, in many cases, improve their employee benefits offering.
“This report validates employer-funded individual health insurance as a viable solution to the benefits needs of small businesses,” says Rick Lindquist, President and CEO of Zane Benefits, “It’s a clear indicator that the old way isn’t working and the market is ready for a better way. As small business employers ask the health benefits question, it is important for them to know about this option. For many, it means the difference between offering benefits and providing nothing at all.”
Zane Benefits helps small businesses establish employee benefits programs that are employer-funded, but employee owned. This creates several time and cost-saving advantages for the small business, while providing employees with better value than cash, and access to the choice, products and perks of the individual insurance market. Zane Benefits solutions have been featured on the front-page of The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The New York Times. Reported by PRWeb 4 hours ago.
Salt Lake City, Utah (PRWEB) March 10, 2016
With health reform lacing news headlines, and bringing with it added pressure on small businesses to provide health benefits to their employees, more and more companies are turning to the individual health insurance market for solutions. These trends are verified in a new report released by Zane Benefits on Wednesday. The Employer-Funded Individual Health Insurance Annual Report 2016 provides a detailed, nationwide profile of how employers and employees are using employer-funded individual health insurance as an employee benefit today.
The findings in the report are based on a sample of 2,200 employers and 10,500 participants using a Zane Benefits defined contribution health benefit solution during the 2015 calendar year. Some of the key findings of the report are as follows:
1) Nationally, the average employer-funded health benefit allowance offered by employers is $426 per month, per employee. This average includes all states and family sizes.
2) The average employee utilization amount of the employer-provided health benefit allowance, among all states and family sizes, is $380 per month, per employee (an 89% utilization rate). As such, the actual employer contribution toward health benefits averages $380 per month.
3) Compared with offering traditional group insurance coverage, employers using a defined contribution solution save an average of 57% on comparable, comprehensive health benefits. This gives small business employers the ability to afford and, in many cases, improve their employee benefits offering.
“This report validates employer-funded individual health insurance as a viable solution to the benefits needs of small businesses,” says Rick Lindquist, President and CEO of Zane Benefits, “It’s a clear indicator that the old way isn’t working and the market is ready for a better way. As small business employers ask the health benefits question, it is important for them to know about this option. For many, it means the difference between offering benefits and providing nothing at all.”
Zane Benefits helps small businesses establish employee benefits programs that are employer-funded, but employee owned. This creates several time and cost-saving advantages for the small business, while providing employees with better value than cash, and access to the choice, products and perks of the individual insurance market. Zane Benefits solutions have been featured on the front-page of The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The New York Times. Reported by PRWeb 4 hours ago.
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Bernie Is Mainstream
Although his opponents seek to paint him as too far left, Bernie Sanders' views are mainstream. At Wednesday's Washington Post-Univision debate in Miami, for example, Hillary Clinton argued that Sanders' ideas are not realistic and too expensive. "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is," Clinton said. In fact, the ideas that Sanders has injected into the campaign are hardly radical. Sanders is in sync with the majority of Americans on most key issues.
Here's a brief run-down:
*Big Business
*
· About three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans -- including 84 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents, and 62 percent of Republicans -- believe that corporations have too much influence on American life and politics today, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. In contrast, only 37 percent think that labor unions exercise too much influence.
· The Pew Research Center discovered that 60 percent of Americans -- including 75 percent of Democrats -- believed that "the economic system in this country unfairly favors the wealthy."
· Fifty-eight percent of Americans said they would support breaking up "big banks like Citigroup," a key plank of Sanders' platform and the goal of a bill that Sanders sponsored in the Senate.
· Seventy-three percent of Americans favor tougher rules for Wall Street financial companies, versus 17 percent who oppose stronger regulation.
· Sixty-four percent of Americans strongly or somewhat favor regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and cars and requiring utilities to generate more power from "clean" low-carbon sources.
*Progressive Taxation
*· More than three-quarters of Americans (79 percent) think that wealthy people don't pay their fair share of taxes, while 82 percent believe that some corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.
· Sixty-eight percent of Americans favor raising taxes on people earning more than1 million per year, including 87 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents, and 53 percent of Republicans.* Inequality and Poverty
*· A strong majority (66 percent) say that wealth should be more evenly divided and that it is a problem that should be addressed urgently.
· Ninety-two percent of Americans want a society with far less income disparity than currently exists in the United States. Americans prefer some inequality to perfect equality, according to the professors at the Harvard Business School and Duke University who conducted the survey. But when asked to pick an ideal level of income disparity, Americans prefer the more egalitarian level similar to the one in Sweden (although without identifying the country by name) to that in the U.S. What's more, the rich and the poor, and Democrats and Republicans, are almost equally likely to choose the Swedish model. For example, 93.5 percent of Democrats and 90.2 percent of Republicans preferred the level of income distribution that exists in Sweden.
· Sixty-nine percent of Americans -- including 90 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents, and 45 percent of Republicans -- believe that the government should help reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else. Eighty-two percent of Americans -- including 94 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, and 64 percent of Republicans -- think the government should help reduce poverty.**Money in Politics*
*
· Eighty-four percent of Americans think that money has too much influence in politics. Slightly more Americans (85 percent) want an overhaul of our campaign finance system
· Seventy-eight percent of Americans think that campaign spending by outside groups not affiliated with candidates should be limited by law.
· A majority of Americans (54 percent) believe that money given to political candidates is not a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment. In other words, they disagree with the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.
*Minimum Wage and Workers' Rights*
· A recent poll by Hart Research Associates found that 75 percent of Americans (including 53 percent of Republicans) support an increase in the federal minimum wage to $12.50 by 2020. Sixty-three percent of Americans support an even greater increase in the minimum wage to $15 by 2020.
· Eighty percent of Americans favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to parents of new children and employees caring for sick family members. Even more (85 percent) favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to employees who are ill.
· A significant majority of Americans support the right of workers to unionize, despite several decades of corporate-sponsored anti-union propaganda. Eighty-two percent believe that factory and manufacturing workers should have the right to unionize. A vast majority support the right to unionize for transportation workers (74 percent), police and firefighters (72 percent), public school teachers (71 percent), workers in supermarkets and retail sales (68 percent), and fast food workers (62 percent).
*Health Care and Social Security
*· Over 50 percent of Americans (including one-quarter of Republicans and nearly 80 percent of Democrats) say they support a single-payer "Medicare for All" approach to health insurance, something Sanders has long advocated. Only 36 percent oppose the idea. 12 percent are neutral.
· Seventy-one percent Americans support a public option, which would give individuals the choice of buying healthcare through Medicare or private insurers. This was part of Obama's original health care plan but the insurance industry lobby killed it, thanks to every Senate Republican and a handful of Senate Democrats, led by Senator Max Baucus of Montana.
· The Gallup poll found that 67 percent of Americans want to lift the income cap on Social Security to require higher-income workers to pay Social Security taxes on all of their wages. Most people still don't realize that workers who earn more than $118,500 a year don't contribute on their full income and that simply removing that tax loophole for high earners would close the lion's share of Social Security's modest long-term funding gap. Legislation introduced by Senator Sanders and Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. Census Bureau data shows that only about 5 percent (1 in 18) of workers would pay more if the cap were scrapped, and only the top 1.4 percent (one in 71 workers) would be affected if the tax were applied to earnings over $250,000.
*Higher Education
*· More than three-quarters (79 percent) of Americans think that education beyond high school is not affordable for everyone in the U.S. who needs it. Seventy-seven percent believe that higher education institutions should reduce tuition and fees, while 59 percent and 55 percent respectively agree that state governments and the federal government should provide more assistance. The average tuition bill for students at a public four-year college has increased by more than 250 percent over the past three decades. More than one-third (35 percent) of 2000-2014 college graduates report graduating with more than25,000 in undergraduate student loan debt, in inflation-adjusted dollars. The recently graduated college class of 2015 has an average debt burden of $35,051 per student, the highest ever. Sanders introduced legislation to make four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free, paid for through a tax on Wall Street transactions.
*Same-Sex Marriage*
· Today, 60 percent of Americans believe it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to marry, according to the Gallup poll, a figure that is likely to increase in the coming years, especially after the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is legal. But in 1996, only 27 percent felt that way. That year, then-Congressman Sanders was one of only 67 House members to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of gay marriages.*Peter Dreier is the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. His most recent book is The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame. * *A longer version of this article appeared in The American Prospect.*
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 22 hours ago.
Here's a brief run-down:
*Big Business
*
· About three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans -- including 84 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of independents, and 62 percent of Republicans -- believe that corporations have too much influence on American life and politics today, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. In contrast, only 37 percent think that labor unions exercise too much influence.
· The Pew Research Center discovered that 60 percent of Americans -- including 75 percent of Democrats -- believed that "the economic system in this country unfairly favors the wealthy."
· Fifty-eight percent of Americans said they would support breaking up "big banks like Citigroup," a key plank of Sanders' platform and the goal of a bill that Sanders sponsored in the Senate.
· Seventy-three percent of Americans favor tougher rules for Wall Street financial companies, versus 17 percent who oppose stronger regulation.
· Sixty-four percent of Americans strongly or somewhat favor regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and cars and requiring utilities to generate more power from "clean" low-carbon sources.
*Progressive Taxation
*· More than three-quarters of Americans (79 percent) think that wealthy people don't pay their fair share of taxes, while 82 percent believe that some corporations don't pay their fair share of taxes.
· Sixty-eight percent of Americans favor raising taxes on people earning more than1 million per year, including 87 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents, and 53 percent of Republicans.* Inequality and Poverty
*· A strong majority (66 percent) say that wealth should be more evenly divided and that it is a problem that should be addressed urgently.
· Ninety-two percent of Americans want a society with far less income disparity than currently exists in the United States. Americans prefer some inequality to perfect equality, according to the professors at the Harvard Business School and Duke University who conducted the survey. But when asked to pick an ideal level of income disparity, Americans prefer the more egalitarian level similar to the one in Sweden (although without identifying the country by name) to that in the U.S. What's more, the rich and the poor, and Democrats and Republicans, are almost equally likely to choose the Swedish model. For example, 93.5 percent of Democrats and 90.2 percent of Republicans preferred the level of income distribution that exists in Sweden.
· Sixty-nine percent of Americans -- including 90 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents, and 45 percent of Republicans -- believe that the government should help reduce the gap between the rich and everyone else. Eighty-two percent of Americans -- including 94 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, and 64 percent of Republicans -- think the government should help reduce poverty.**Money in Politics*
*
· Eighty-four percent of Americans think that money has too much influence in politics. Slightly more Americans (85 percent) want an overhaul of our campaign finance system
· Seventy-eight percent of Americans think that campaign spending by outside groups not affiliated with candidates should be limited by law.
· A majority of Americans (54 percent) believe that money given to political candidates is not a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment. In other words, they disagree with the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.
*Minimum Wage and Workers' Rights*
· A recent poll by Hart Research Associates found that 75 percent of Americans (including 53 percent of Republicans) support an increase in the federal minimum wage to $12.50 by 2020. Sixty-three percent of Americans support an even greater increase in the minimum wage to $15 by 2020.
· Eighty percent of Americans favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to parents of new children and employees caring for sick family members. Even more (85 percent) favor requiring employers to offer paid leave to employees who are ill.
· A significant majority of Americans support the right of workers to unionize, despite several decades of corporate-sponsored anti-union propaganda. Eighty-two percent believe that factory and manufacturing workers should have the right to unionize. A vast majority support the right to unionize for transportation workers (74 percent), police and firefighters (72 percent), public school teachers (71 percent), workers in supermarkets and retail sales (68 percent), and fast food workers (62 percent).
*Health Care and Social Security
*· Over 50 percent of Americans (including one-quarter of Republicans and nearly 80 percent of Democrats) say they support a single-payer "Medicare for All" approach to health insurance, something Sanders has long advocated. Only 36 percent oppose the idea. 12 percent are neutral.
· Seventy-one percent Americans support a public option, which would give individuals the choice of buying healthcare through Medicare or private insurers. This was part of Obama's original health care plan but the insurance industry lobby killed it, thanks to every Senate Republican and a handful of Senate Democrats, led by Senator Max Baucus of Montana.
· The Gallup poll found that 67 percent of Americans want to lift the income cap on Social Security to require higher-income workers to pay Social Security taxes on all of their wages. Most people still don't realize that workers who earn more than $118,500 a year don't contribute on their full income and that simply removing that tax loophole for high earners would close the lion's share of Social Security's modest long-term funding gap. Legislation introduced by Senator Sanders and Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. Census Bureau data shows that only about 5 percent (1 in 18) of workers would pay more if the cap were scrapped, and only the top 1.4 percent (one in 71 workers) would be affected if the tax were applied to earnings over $250,000.
*Higher Education
*· More than three-quarters (79 percent) of Americans think that education beyond high school is not affordable for everyone in the U.S. who needs it. Seventy-seven percent believe that higher education institutions should reduce tuition and fees, while 59 percent and 55 percent respectively agree that state governments and the federal government should provide more assistance. The average tuition bill for students at a public four-year college has increased by more than 250 percent over the past three decades. More than one-third (35 percent) of 2000-2014 college graduates report graduating with more than25,000 in undergraduate student loan debt, in inflation-adjusted dollars. The recently graduated college class of 2015 has an average debt burden of $35,051 per student, the highest ever. Sanders introduced legislation to make four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free, paid for through a tax on Wall Street transactions.
*Same-Sex Marriage*
· Today, 60 percent of Americans believe it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to marry, according to the Gallup poll, a figure that is likely to increase in the coming years, especially after the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is legal. But in 1996, only 27 percent felt that way. That year, then-Congressman Sanders was one of only 67 House members to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which barred federal recognition of gay marriages.*Peter Dreier is the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. His most recent book is The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame. * *A longer version of this article appeared in The American Prospect.*
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 22 hours ago.
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Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey Welcomes More Than 40,000 Previously Uninsured To OMNIA
234,235 New Jerseyans Have Chosen High Quality, Affordable OMNIA Policy Through 2/26/16 and Company Confident of Hitting Target of 256,000 Enrolled By Year End-
Newark, NJ (PRWEB) March 10, 2016
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey (Horizon BCBSNJ) today announced that an estimated 41,258 of their new enrollees in the individual market were previously uninsured who chose OMNIA for their health insurance coverage. A total of 188,995 individuals, including 95,948 new Horizon members, selected during the 2016 open enrollment period one of the five new OMNIA Health Plans that offer significantly lower premiums, access to the largest network in New Jersey, and the option to save more money on out-of-pocket costs when seeking care at certain doctors and hospitals.
“Helping people move from the uninsured rolls and connecting them to affordable high quality health coverage that makes wellness a priority is the first step toward a healthier life and a healthier New Jersey,” said Robert A. Marino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Horizon BCBSNJ. “Affordability has been a barrier for some uninsured individuals and too often lower-priced policies required consumers to trade cost for quality. OMNIA premiums, on average, cost 15% less than our non-tiered plans and unlike high-deductible policies, don’t require members to incur large out-of-pocket expenses before the insurer pays claims. OMNIA is focused on keeping people healthy, not just treating them when they become sick.”
Of the previously uninsured New Jerseyans who are now covered by OMNIA, 15% are Hispanic, 13% are African American, and 13% are Asian. The Kaiser Family Foundation reported in 2014 that 25% of New Jersey’s Hispanic residents were uninsured and Horizon has made it a priority to enroll Hispanic New Jerseyans. Efforts included partnerships with Hola Doctor Insurance Services in Jersey City, The Hispanic Statewide Chamber of Commerce, and Save Latin America. Horizon also created the “Brunches with Benefits” program to present health insurance information in an informal setting to Hispanic communities in Hudson County and around the state.
More than three-quarters of the individuals choosing OMNIA selected a Silver or higher metallic level plan. Those plans, along with being lower priced, all feature no deductible, no coinsurance, and co-pays of $50 or less when seeking care from a Tier 1 provider. More than 60% of physicans in Horizon’s network, the largest in New Jersey, are in Tier 1 while 34 of 61 in-network hospitals are Tier 1. The average distance for a member to a primary care physician in New Jersey is 1.2 miles. The average distance to a Tier 1 hospital is less than 7 miles.
In addition to those enrolled through the individual market, OMNIA has become the choice of 45,240 members enrolled through a group plan including 28,798 in the small group (50 employees or less) and midsize (51-499 employees) groups. Also, large groups, Taft-Hartley Funds and school boards and local municipalities are enrolling. New Jersey employers continue to identify the high cost of medical care for employees as a major problem and the small and midsize employers have routinely faced double digit increases in the costs of providing healthcare coverage over the past decade.
About Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the state’s oldest and largest health insurer is a tax-paying, not-for-profit health service corporation, providing a wide array of medical, dental, and prescription insurance products and services. Horizon BCBSNJ is leading the transformation of health care in New Jersey by working with doctors and hospitals to deliver innovative, patient-centered programs that reward the quality, not quantity, of care patients receive. Learn more at http://www.HorizonBlue.com. Horizon BCBSNJ is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association serving more than 3.8 million members. Reported by PRWeb 21 hours ago.
Newark, NJ (PRWEB) March 10, 2016
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey (Horizon BCBSNJ) today announced that an estimated 41,258 of their new enrollees in the individual market were previously uninsured who chose OMNIA for their health insurance coverage. A total of 188,995 individuals, including 95,948 new Horizon members, selected during the 2016 open enrollment period one of the five new OMNIA Health Plans that offer significantly lower premiums, access to the largest network in New Jersey, and the option to save more money on out-of-pocket costs when seeking care at certain doctors and hospitals.
“Helping people move from the uninsured rolls and connecting them to affordable high quality health coverage that makes wellness a priority is the first step toward a healthier life and a healthier New Jersey,” said Robert A. Marino, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Horizon BCBSNJ. “Affordability has been a barrier for some uninsured individuals and too often lower-priced policies required consumers to trade cost for quality. OMNIA premiums, on average, cost 15% less than our non-tiered plans and unlike high-deductible policies, don’t require members to incur large out-of-pocket expenses before the insurer pays claims. OMNIA is focused on keeping people healthy, not just treating them when they become sick.”
Of the previously uninsured New Jerseyans who are now covered by OMNIA, 15% are Hispanic, 13% are African American, and 13% are Asian. The Kaiser Family Foundation reported in 2014 that 25% of New Jersey’s Hispanic residents were uninsured and Horizon has made it a priority to enroll Hispanic New Jerseyans. Efforts included partnerships with Hola Doctor Insurance Services in Jersey City, The Hispanic Statewide Chamber of Commerce, and Save Latin America. Horizon also created the “Brunches with Benefits” program to present health insurance information in an informal setting to Hispanic communities in Hudson County and around the state.
More than three-quarters of the individuals choosing OMNIA selected a Silver or higher metallic level plan. Those plans, along with being lower priced, all feature no deductible, no coinsurance, and co-pays of $50 or less when seeking care from a Tier 1 provider. More than 60% of physicans in Horizon’s network, the largest in New Jersey, are in Tier 1 while 34 of 61 in-network hospitals are Tier 1. The average distance for a member to a primary care physician in New Jersey is 1.2 miles. The average distance to a Tier 1 hospital is less than 7 miles.
In addition to those enrolled through the individual market, OMNIA has become the choice of 45,240 members enrolled through a group plan including 28,798 in the small group (50 employees or less) and midsize (51-499 employees) groups. Also, large groups, Taft-Hartley Funds and school boards and local municipalities are enrolling. New Jersey employers continue to identify the high cost of medical care for employees as a major problem and the small and midsize employers have routinely faced double digit increases in the costs of providing healthcare coverage over the past decade.
About Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the state’s oldest and largest health insurer is a tax-paying, not-for-profit health service corporation, providing a wide array of medical, dental, and prescription insurance products and services. Horizon BCBSNJ is leading the transformation of health care in New Jersey by working with doctors and hospitals to deliver innovative, patient-centered programs that reward the quality, not quantity, of care patients receive. Learn more at http://www.HorizonBlue.com. Horizon BCBSNJ is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association serving more than 3.8 million members. Reported by PRWeb 21 hours ago.
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CMS Official on 12 Obamacare Co-ops Failing: We Had ‘Very Little Actual Performance Information’
During a Senate subcommittee hearing on Obamacare, Andy Slavitt, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), explained that there was “very limited actual performance information” for the government’s co-op oversight team to evaluate the financial positions of 12 health insurance co-ops that eventually failed, costing $1.2 billion in lost taxpayer funding.
Reported by CNSNews.com 18 hours ago.
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Top Republican Unveils $98B in Cuts to Social Programs
A senior House Republican is seeking to cut child tax credits for immigrants working in the U.S. illegally.Powerful Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady also wants tougher rules to reclaim overpayments of health insurance tax subsidies under the new health care...
Reported by Newsmax 16 hours ago.
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8 Mistakes In Tax Planning
Planning pays off in most endeavors, and planning can pay off very well with respect to taxes -- or more accurately, failure to plan can cost you a lot of money. How, you ask? Consider these eight examples of planning failures that can lead to unpleasant tax surprises.
*1. Poor Organization -* Do you organize your necessary tax documents throughout the year so you can easily find them at tax time? Do you just leave them in a big stack until April 14^th? Do you not even bother to put them in a stack? Without necessary tax documents or receipts to back up your itemized deductions, you run the risk of being unable to claim valuable deductions or even incurring penalties for failing to file on time.
*2. Procrastination -* It is human nature to put off unpleasant tasks like doing your taxes. Unfortunately, the longer you wait to get started, the more likely you are to make mistakes on your return or have trouble finding necessary information (see Poor Organization).
*3. Failure to Adjust Withholding -* Be sure to adjust your withholding to account for life changes like marriage, birth of a child, job changes, or raises (remember those?). Failure to adapt may result in the wrong amount of tax being withheld, potentially resulting in a large tax bill and/or underpayment penalties. Over-withholding is not good either, because you are just allowing the government to make interest on your money instead of claiming it for yourself.
*4. Not Claiming Deductions or Credits -* Do not just assume that you are not eligible for a particular deduction or tax credit, or that you do not have enough tax deductions to itemize. Look over your potential tax deductions at the beginning of the year so you can keep all the necessary receipts and paperwork to make your claims.
*5. Failing to Report Health Care Subsidy Adjustments -* If you received subsidies to help you pay for health insurance purchased on the federal exchange, remember that your subsidy is an estimate based on your information at the beginning of the year (projected income, family size, etc.). Should something change during the year to alter your estimated income or your qualification standing, you must notify the health exchange as soon as possible so that they can make the necessary adjustments. Otherwise, you could be stuck with an extra tax burden at the end of the year.
*6. Failing to Track Carryover Items -* Some tax benefits carry over into the next year if you cannot claim the entire credit this year. Examples include capital losses beyond the deduction limit of $3,000 and excess charitable contributions. However, you won't claim them if you forget about them, or have not tracked the carryover amount correctly.
*7. Missing Quarterly Tax Payments -* Independent contractors must pay their taxes quarterly once they achieve sufficient revenue. Making those payments late, or forgetting to make them at all, will cause you to incur penalties.
*8. Vetting Preparers -* It may be tempting to have your taxes done by those who promise you the largest refund, but do not trust anyone who can promise that without looking at your tax form. If you are seeking advisors to help you, check out their ratings and credentials well before your taxes are due.
Do not fall prey to these pitfalls. Take care in planning your taxes, and the only surprise you will have at tax time is how much money you have saved on your tax bill.
This article was provided by our partners at moneytips.com
Related Stories:Getting The Jump On April 18How To Save For Taxes If You Are A FreelancerSeven Unusual Tax DeductionsPhoto ©iStock.com/dsharpie
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 17 hours ago.
*1. Poor Organization -* Do you organize your necessary tax documents throughout the year so you can easily find them at tax time? Do you just leave them in a big stack until April 14^th? Do you not even bother to put them in a stack? Without necessary tax documents or receipts to back up your itemized deductions, you run the risk of being unable to claim valuable deductions or even incurring penalties for failing to file on time.
*2. Procrastination -* It is human nature to put off unpleasant tasks like doing your taxes. Unfortunately, the longer you wait to get started, the more likely you are to make mistakes on your return or have trouble finding necessary information (see Poor Organization).
*3. Failure to Adjust Withholding -* Be sure to adjust your withholding to account for life changes like marriage, birth of a child, job changes, or raises (remember those?). Failure to adapt may result in the wrong amount of tax being withheld, potentially resulting in a large tax bill and/or underpayment penalties. Over-withholding is not good either, because you are just allowing the government to make interest on your money instead of claiming it for yourself.
*4. Not Claiming Deductions or Credits -* Do not just assume that you are not eligible for a particular deduction or tax credit, or that you do not have enough tax deductions to itemize. Look over your potential tax deductions at the beginning of the year so you can keep all the necessary receipts and paperwork to make your claims.
*5. Failing to Report Health Care Subsidy Adjustments -* If you received subsidies to help you pay for health insurance purchased on the federal exchange, remember that your subsidy is an estimate based on your information at the beginning of the year (projected income, family size, etc.). Should something change during the year to alter your estimated income or your qualification standing, you must notify the health exchange as soon as possible so that they can make the necessary adjustments. Otherwise, you could be stuck with an extra tax burden at the end of the year.
*6. Failing to Track Carryover Items -* Some tax benefits carry over into the next year if you cannot claim the entire credit this year. Examples include capital losses beyond the deduction limit of $3,000 and excess charitable contributions. However, you won't claim them if you forget about them, or have not tracked the carryover amount correctly.
*7. Missing Quarterly Tax Payments -* Independent contractors must pay their taxes quarterly once they achieve sufficient revenue. Making those payments late, or forgetting to make them at all, will cause you to incur penalties.
*8. Vetting Preparers -* It may be tempting to have your taxes done by those who promise you the largest refund, but do not trust anyone who can promise that without looking at your tax form. If you are seeking advisors to help you, check out their ratings and credentials well before your taxes are due.
Do not fall prey to these pitfalls. Take care in planning your taxes, and the only surprise you will have at tax time is how much money you have saved on your tax bill.
This article was provided by our partners at moneytips.com
Related Stories:Getting The Jump On April 18How To Save For Taxes If You Are A FreelancerSeven Unusual Tax DeductionsPhoto ©iStock.com/dsharpie
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 17 hours ago.
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The Economics of Obesity & Bariatric Surgery
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket."
-Eric Hoffer
"Lesson number one: Don't underestimate the other guy's greed."
-Frank Lopez (from the movie Scarface)
"If you got the money, honey
I've got the time"
-Lefty FrizzellAs I note in my new book, Brand New Man: My Weight Loss Journeyy, weight loss is a multi billion dollar business where desire and emotion can overtake reason. Which means it is fertile ground for rip-off artists.
Americans spend more than $60 billion a year trying to lose weight. And only five percent of those people keep the weight off for five years or longer. The best predictors of life expectancy are nutrition, access to quality health care, income and education.
Increased life expectancy is a valid reason to seek better health and body shape. Unless you have a true desire to die at an early age.
Society puts a premium on looks, and "fat shaming" is a form of bigotry that is acceptable by many in the mass media. Television news stories on obesity are normally accompanied by a film clip of some overweight (and usually poorly dressed) person's rear end. Fat people are often stereotyped as lazy and stupid. Through the lens of popular media, an overweight man often has the intellect, manners and physical makeup of Chris Farley or the guy who played Flounder in the movie Animal House. Fat, drunk and stupid.
Billions of dollars of advertising convince us that we need to be thinner and the health risks of obesity are very real. As Michael Pollan, Gary Taubes and others have articulately written, we need to wage a full blown battle against fructose and its addictive properties. I reached a point where I was drinking at least six diet soft drinks a day and dropped them cold turkey. I felt like a junkie kicking heroin. It took a couple of months before the physical cravings went away.
I kept gaining weight and I kept spending time and money in a vain attempt to fight back. I am cool and rational in a business setting, but emotions would take over when the issue turned to weight loss. I wanted to believe. I wanted to find the quick and ultimate answer.
Finally, I realized that I had to do what I understood how to do in business: Take emotion out of the decision making and develop a plan based on facts.
I had to consider every option that would lead to a long-term solution. Just like I would in a business setting. For the first time in my life, weight loss surgery made it to my list of options.
*My Long, Strange Trip to Bariatric Surgery *"Lately it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it's been"
-The Grateful Dead
"Only Nixon could go to China."
-Vulcan proverb quoted by Mr. Spock in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered CountryIt's hard to believe I am a living example of the advantages of weight loss surgery.
In my work as a structured settlement and litigation-related consultant, I've seen several situations where people died from gastric bypass surgery. I've gotten to know the intimate details of how they died and know their families. If your primary experience with skydiving is dealing with the families of people who died during jumps, you are less inclined to embrace the idea of parachuting yourself. That's exactly how I felt about weight loss surgery. Not only was I opposed to it, I tried to talk anyone and everyone out of doing it. All I knew were the horror stories.
I've never had a client die during a Weight Watchers meeting. But if morbid obesity knocks 10 years off your life, you are dying slowly and painfully as opposed to dying quickly. There is a point where radical measures are needed.
I was at that point.
A few years ago, one of my trial lawyer friends was discussing weight loss surgery and noted, "They don't seem to be killing as many people as they used to." I followed up privately with several star medical malpractice attorneys and found that his statement was correct. When you look at the numbers, weight loss surgery had gotten safer.
A study published in the March 2014 Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that "death rates are, in general, very low." The study showed that the death rate was between 0.08 percent and 0.31 percent. The team went through 150 studies of weight loss surgery, involving 162,000 patients. The average BMI of the group was 46. A BMI of 46 on a person six-foot-tall (like I am) would mean a weight of 339 pounds. The study showed that their BMI dropped between 12 and 17 points in the five years following surgery.
Translating BMI to layman's terms, that means if a person had weighed in at 330 pounds before weight loss surgery, five years later, he or she would weigh between 250 and 214 pounds. A weight loss between 80 and 116 pounds.
I'd been incredibly lucky. I made it to age 55 without heart disease or permanent injuries. I've been on blood pressure medicine since age 25 and used a CPAP for sleep apnea for more than 20 years. I was just starting to inch across the border from pre-diabetic to diabetic. My cholesterol level is low. I'd been in the hospital twice for short stays unrelated to obesity. Once when I was five years old and once when I was 50. Yet, I was 140 pounds overweight.
The odds of me living a longer life after weight loss surgery were better than dying during the surgery. My decision was strictly based on health and longevity. To focus on looks and sex appeal diminishes the basic message of weight loss: this is all about health.
*The Illogical World of Bariatric Surgery and Health Insurance *
Brand New Man on Amazon
"It's a fact - I'm a quack
The disgrace of the A.M.A.
'Cause my patients die, yah my patients die
Before they can pay"
-"Like a Surgeon" by Weird Al Yankovic
"A new car built by my company leaves somewhere travelling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."
-Ed Norton's character in the movie Fight Club
"America's health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system."
-Walter CronkiteI went into the process of weight loss surgery backwards. My first goal was to get a hospital that would allow me to have it.
When I decided to make a move, I found that I could not purchase a plan for my small business or an individual health insurance policy that would even cover the COMPLICATIONS of weight loss surgery. I purchased Anthem group insurance for my Kentucky-based businesses and pay 100 percent of the premium for my employees and their families. I had insurance brokers search high and low for a policy that would cover weight loss surgery. No luck. My employees were willing to switch to a different plan if it could help me get weight loss surgery, but we had nowhere to go.
I wound up paying for my own weight loss surgery, but complications remained an overwhelming concern. If I had a heart attack during surgery or the day after, my health insurance wouldn't cover it. If I didn't get the surgery and had a heart attack induced by my obesity, the insurer would pay for that. They would also pay for all my blood pressure medicines, CPAPs, diabetes medicines, walkers, amputations, hospital stays and doctor visits if I did not get surgery.
The insurance company attitude doesn't make sense long-term, but the companies are not thinking long-term. One of the big arguments in favor of a single-payer system for health insurance is that insurance companies are not interested in solutions to long-term problems. Like most publicly traded companies, health insurance companies are focused on the next fiscal quarter, not the next decade. What is best for the patient may not be best for the immediate profit margin.
From a cash flow basis, many health insurance carriers find it more profitable to pay for medicines, sleep apnea equipment, doctor and hospital visits and things associated with obesity than to write a large, one-time check for weight loss surgery. People can change insurance carriers on a regular basis, and an insurer can write a check to make a person healthy only to have them jump to another company. According to the Obesity Action Coalition, the cost of surgery is paid for in 3.5 years, but most health insurance carriers choose the immediate over the long-term.
Anthem Insurance hit the jackpot with me. I paid for my own surgery and dramatically decreased my risk factors. They did not have to pay a dime for that result.
Risk management can be like the decisions that Ed Norton's character made in the movie Fight Club. He decided it was cheaper to let people die than to fix a small automobile problem. Many real life car manufacturers make the same decision.
What is logical in health care is not always most immediately profitable for the insurance company.
I've spent years and hundreds of hours looking for bariatric coverage. There are 974 pages in the Affordable Care Act. I've read them all, looking for a provision that would help me. No luck. No insurance carrier in Kentucky offers small businesses, or individuals not receiving Medicaid, a chance to buy a plan that will cover bariatric surgery or its complications.
If I lost all my money and went on Medicaid, I could get the surgery for free. If I managed to stay healthy until age 65 and go on Medicare, I could get the surgery for free. If I was in Congress, my insurance would pay for the surgery and its complications. Most government entities offer insurance that covers the surgery and its complications. If I worked for a large company, most of them offer weight loss surgery, or at least cover the complications of weight loss surgery.
Bariatric surgery is an example of where Main Street loses to Wall Street. Small businesses can't buy the same kind of coverage as people who are richer, poorer or work for a large organization. Some individuals and small businesses can get coverage for obesity surgery through a health insurance exchange. It all depends on where you live. Kentucky joined roughly two dozen other states in not offering obesity surgery as part of their health insurance exchange. A story on NPR noted the almost direct correlation between the states with highest obesity problems and the states that are not offering obesity surgery through their exchanges.
The worse the obesity problem, the less the politicians want to do anything about it.
I decided to pay for my own surgery, but then I had to find a hospital that would take me. A few years ago, I went to a seminar (every bariatric program makes you sit through a seminar like you are signing up to participate in a multi-level marketing program) for a hospital based in Central Kentucky, and they made me leave the seminar when they found out what kind of health insurance I had.
This time around, I was determined to keep looking.
*How I Found BLIS in the Health Insurance World *"Don't you know things can change
Things'll go your way
If you hold on for one more day"
-Wilson Phillips
"Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being 'round
Help me get my feet back on the ground
Won't you please, please help me?"
-The Beatles
"High risk insurance
The time is right"
-The RamonesBLIS is a fascinating specialty insurance program run by Regi Schindler in Oregon. His customers are people paying for their own weight loss surgery. Schindler uses the analogy that BLIS is similar to a warranty on a new car. It allows patients the comfort of knowing that if something goes wrong, they won't be hit with additional medical expenses.
Because of BLIS, I was able to have weight loss surgery on Dec. 1, 2014.
Schindler has skin in the game. If a surgery goes wrong, his company is on the hook. Following the car warranty analogy, it could be the cost of some new wheel covers, but in today's expensive health care world, it might be the cost of a new Mercedes or maybe a fleet of Mercedes with a Cadillac thrown in. Schindler is very choosy about who he insures. His data and loss ratio calculations come to the same conclusion: it is not about the patient. It's not about the facility where you do your bariatric surgery. What makes the difference to BLIS is the surgeon who does the work.
Schindler has an extensive background in medical risk management, including several years at the Mayo Clinic, but in 2005 he left the safety net of a corporate career to develop an insurance concept he is passionate about.
Regi helped to create a terrific idea in offering insurance coverage for specialty types of surgery, such as bariatric surgery, plastic surgery and orthopedics that many insurance carriers don't cover. Schindler calls his program "surgeon-centric" and in a 2012 article in Bariatric Times, he explains his business model in intricate details. I assumed that BLIS would base their pricing on the health of the individual patient. Instead, it is based on the type of procedure and the experience BLIS has had with the surgeon doing the procedure.
When I asked Schindler to sum up by saying, "the better the surgeon, the lower the patient's premium," he tended to agree. Regi has built the company with a laser focus on getting excellent surgeons to participate.
Like any insurance provider, BLIS wants to keep their claims low and track the individual results and outcomes to make sure that the surgeons in their program are doing their best to stop minor complications from becoming major complications. BLIS and I had parallel goals. They wanted to increase access to surgery for as many people as possible. I wanted to increase access to surgery for me. Schindler is passionate in his commitment to offering a way for people to have surgery that could not previously and is focused on improving the patient experience.
Surgeons in the BLIS program have a number of incentives to look at the bigger picture and focus on minimizing and avoiding complications. I was thankful that BLIS is not a traditional health insurance carrier and has a model that seems to put patients over profits. On the other hand, I was a profitable client for BLIS. I purchased coverage which cost me $1,697.23 and I never had a complication or claim. I came away a happy customer. BLIS came away with $1,697.23. A win-win.
My frustration is that I did not find BLIS five years ago. In my hundreds of hours of searching, I kept looking at traditional health insurance carriers, rather than looking for a company like BLIS. None of my physicians, or physician friends, had ever heard of BLIS. BLIS is well thought of by the surgeons who use their services. Since that universe is extremely small and focused, the name recognition for BLIS amongst people outside that world is low. But people are finding their way to BLIS. According to their website, which Regi confirmed, the company has offered protection on 14,000 cases since 2006.
BLIS brought a degree of sanity to the illogical world of health insurance for weight loss surgery.
*Why I Can Say I Am a Brand New Man *
Sixteen months after weight loss surgery, I am 113 pounds lighter. My diabetes and many other ailments have reversed. At age 57, I am competing in the 2016 Crossfit Games.
The economics of obesity have been hard to navigate, but the rewards of getting to the goal line have been tremendous.Read about Don in a Lexington Herald-Leader feature by Tom Eblen
Watch Don on WYMT's Issues and AnswersDon McNay, ChFC, MSFS, CLU, CSSC is a financial expert, journalist and author of seven best-selling books. His new book, Brand New Man: My Weight Loss Journey, released on Feb. 27.
McNay is one of the world's best known experts on structured settlements and how lottery winners handle their money. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky, and you can learn more about him at www.donmcnay.com
McNay has a Masters Degree from Vanderbilt University and a second Masters Degree from the American College. He has four professional designations and is in the Eastern Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni.
McNay has been a Huffington Post contributor since 2008 and his insights have appeared in hundreds of publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Forbes and USA Today. He has appeared on television and radio programs around the world including CBS Morning News, CBS Evening News, ABC News Radio, AM Canada, CTV News and RAI Television in Italy.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 15 hours ago.
-Eric Hoffer
"Lesson number one: Don't underestimate the other guy's greed."
-Frank Lopez (from the movie Scarface)
"If you got the money, honey
I've got the time"
-Lefty FrizzellAs I note in my new book, Brand New Man: My Weight Loss Journeyy, weight loss is a multi billion dollar business where desire and emotion can overtake reason. Which means it is fertile ground for rip-off artists.
Americans spend more than $60 billion a year trying to lose weight. And only five percent of those people keep the weight off for five years or longer. The best predictors of life expectancy are nutrition, access to quality health care, income and education.
Increased life expectancy is a valid reason to seek better health and body shape. Unless you have a true desire to die at an early age.
Society puts a premium on looks, and "fat shaming" is a form of bigotry that is acceptable by many in the mass media. Television news stories on obesity are normally accompanied by a film clip of some overweight (and usually poorly dressed) person's rear end. Fat people are often stereotyped as lazy and stupid. Through the lens of popular media, an overweight man often has the intellect, manners and physical makeup of Chris Farley or the guy who played Flounder in the movie Animal House. Fat, drunk and stupid.
Billions of dollars of advertising convince us that we need to be thinner and the health risks of obesity are very real. As Michael Pollan, Gary Taubes and others have articulately written, we need to wage a full blown battle against fructose and its addictive properties. I reached a point where I was drinking at least six diet soft drinks a day and dropped them cold turkey. I felt like a junkie kicking heroin. It took a couple of months before the physical cravings went away.
I kept gaining weight and I kept spending time and money in a vain attempt to fight back. I am cool and rational in a business setting, but emotions would take over when the issue turned to weight loss. I wanted to believe. I wanted to find the quick and ultimate answer.
Finally, I realized that I had to do what I understood how to do in business: Take emotion out of the decision making and develop a plan based on facts.
I had to consider every option that would lead to a long-term solution. Just like I would in a business setting. For the first time in my life, weight loss surgery made it to my list of options.
*My Long, Strange Trip to Bariatric Surgery *"Lately it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it's been"
-The Grateful Dead
"Only Nixon could go to China."
-Vulcan proverb quoted by Mr. Spock in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered CountryIt's hard to believe I am a living example of the advantages of weight loss surgery.
In my work as a structured settlement and litigation-related consultant, I've seen several situations where people died from gastric bypass surgery. I've gotten to know the intimate details of how they died and know their families. If your primary experience with skydiving is dealing with the families of people who died during jumps, you are less inclined to embrace the idea of parachuting yourself. That's exactly how I felt about weight loss surgery. Not only was I opposed to it, I tried to talk anyone and everyone out of doing it. All I knew were the horror stories.
I've never had a client die during a Weight Watchers meeting. But if morbid obesity knocks 10 years off your life, you are dying slowly and painfully as opposed to dying quickly. There is a point where radical measures are needed.
I was at that point.
A few years ago, one of my trial lawyer friends was discussing weight loss surgery and noted, "They don't seem to be killing as many people as they used to." I followed up privately with several star medical malpractice attorneys and found that his statement was correct. When you look at the numbers, weight loss surgery had gotten safer.
A study published in the March 2014 Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that "death rates are, in general, very low." The study showed that the death rate was between 0.08 percent and 0.31 percent. The team went through 150 studies of weight loss surgery, involving 162,000 patients. The average BMI of the group was 46. A BMI of 46 on a person six-foot-tall (like I am) would mean a weight of 339 pounds. The study showed that their BMI dropped between 12 and 17 points in the five years following surgery.
Translating BMI to layman's terms, that means if a person had weighed in at 330 pounds before weight loss surgery, five years later, he or she would weigh between 250 and 214 pounds. A weight loss between 80 and 116 pounds.
I'd been incredibly lucky. I made it to age 55 without heart disease or permanent injuries. I've been on blood pressure medicine since age 25 and used a CPAP for sleep apnea for more than 20 years. I was just starting to inch across the border from pre-diabetic to diabetic. My cholesterol level is low. I'd been in the hospital twice for short stays unrelated to obesity. Once when I was five years old and once when I was 50. Yet, I was 140 pounds overweight.
The odds of me living a longer life after weight loss surgery were better than dying during the surgery. My decision was strictly based on health and longevity. To focus on looks and sex appeal diminishes the basic message of weight loss: this is all about health.
*The Illogical World of Bariatric Surgery and Health Insurance *
Brand New Man on Amazon
"It's a fact - I'm a quack
The disgrace of the A.M.A.
'Cause my patients die, yah my patients die
Before they can pay"
-"Like a Surgeon" by Weird Al Yankovic
"A new car built by my company leaves somewhere travelling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."
-Ed Norton's character in the movie Fight Club
"America's health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system."
-Walter CronkiteI went into the process of weight loss surgery backwards. My first goal was to get a hospital that would allow me to have it.
When I decided to make a move, I found that I could not purchase a plan for my small business or an individual health insurance policy that would even cover the COMPLICATIONS of weight loss surgery. I purchased Anthem group insurance for my Kentucky-based businesses and pay 100 percent of the premium for my employees and their families. I had insurance brokers search high and low for a policy that would cover weight loss surgery. No luck. My employees were willing to switch to a different plan if it could help me get weight loss surgery, but we had nowhere to go.
I wound up paying for my own weight loss surgery, but complications remained an overwhelming concern. If I had a heart attack during surgery or the day after, my health insurance wouldn't cover it. If I didn't get the surgery and had a heart attack induced by my obesity, the insurer would pay for that. They would also pay for all my blood pressure medicines, CPAPs, diabetes medicines, walkers, amputations, hospital stays and doctor visits if I did not get surgery.
The insurance company attitude doesn't make sense long-term, but the companies are not thinking long-term. One of the big arguments in favor of a single-payer system for health insurance is that insurance companies are not interested in solutions to long-term problems. Like most publicly traded companies, health insurance companies are focused on the next fiscal quarter, not the next decade. What is best for the patient may not be best for the immediate profit margin.
From a cash flow basis, many health insurance carriers find it more profitable to pay for medicines, sleep apnea equipment, doctor and hospital visits and things associated with obesity than to write a large, one-time check for weight loss surgery. People can change insurance carriers on a regular basis, and an insurer can write a check to make a person healthy only to have them jump to another company. According to the Obesity Action Coalition, the cost of surgery is paid for in 3.5 years, but most health insurance carriers choose the immediate over the long-term.
Anthem Insurance hit the jackpot with me. I paid for my own surgery and dramatically decreased my risk factors. They did not have to pay a dime for that result.
Risk management can be like the decisions that Ed Norton's character made in the movie Fight Club. He decided it was cheaper to let people die than to fix a small automobile problem. Many real life car manufacturers make the same decision.
What is logical in health care is not always most immediately profitable for the insurance company.
I've spent years and hundreds of hours looking for bariatric coverage. There are 974 pages in the Affordable Care Act. I've read them all, looking for a provision that would help me. No luck. No insurance carrier in Kentucky offers small businesses, or individuals not receiving Medicaid, a chance to buy a plan that will cover bariatric surgery or its complications.
If I lost all my money and went on Medicaid, I could get the surgery for free. If I managed to stay healthy until age 65 and go on Medicare, I could get the surgery for free. If I was in Congress, my insurance would pay for the surgery and its complications. Most government entities offer insurance that covers the surgery and its complications. If I worked for a large company, most of them offer weight loss surgery, or at least cover the complications of weight loss surgery.
Bariatric surgery is an example of where Main Street loses to Wall Street. Small businesses can't buy the same kind of coverage as people who are richer, poorer or work for a large organization. Some individuals and small businesses can get coverage for obesity surgery through a health insurance exchange. It all depends on where you live. Kentucky joined roughly two dozen other states in not offering obesity surgery as part of their health insurance exchange. A story on NPR noted the almost direct correlation between the states with highest obesity problems and the states that are not offering obesity surgery through their exchanges.
The worse the obesity problem, the less the politicians want to do anything about it.
I decided to pay for my own surgery, but then I had to find a hospital that would take me. A few years ago, I went to a seminar (every bariatric program makes you sit through a seminar like you are signing up to participate in a multi-level marketing program) for a hospital based in Central Kentucky, and they made me leave the seminar when they found out what kind of health insurance I had.
This time around, I was determined to keep looking.
*How I Found BLIS in the Health Insurance World *"Don't you know things can change
Things'll go your way
If you hold on for one more day"
-Wilson Phillips
"Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being 'round
Help me get my feet back on the ground
Won't you please, please help me?"
-The Beatles
"High risk insurance
The time is right"
-The RamonesBLIS is a fascinating specialty insurance program run by Regi Schindler in Oregon. His customers are people paying for their own weight loss surgery. Schindler uses the analogy that BLIS is similar to a warranty on a new car. It allows patients the comfort of knowing that if something goes wrong, they won't be hit with additional medical expenses.
Because of BLIS, I was able to have weight loss surgery on Dec. 1, 2014.
Schindler has skin in the game. If a surgery goes wrong, his company is on the hook. Following the car warranty analogy, it could be the cost of some new wheel covers, but in today's expensive health care world, it might be the cost of a new Mercedes or maybe a fleet of Mercedes with a Cadillac thrown in. Schindler is very choosy about who he insures. His data and loss ratio calculations come to the same conclusion: it is not about the patient. It's not about the facility where you do your bariatric surgery. What makes the difference to BLIS is the surgeon who does the work.
Schindler has an extensive background in medical risk management, including several years at the Mayo Clinic, but in 2005 he left the safety net of a corporate career to develop an insurance concept he is passionate about.
Regi helped to create a terrific idea in offering insurance coverage for specialty types of surgery, such as bariatric surgery, plastic surgery and orthopedics that many insurance carriers don't cover. Schindler calls his program "surgeon-centric" and in a 2012 article in Bariatric Times, he explains his business model in intricate details. I assumed that BLIS would base their pricing on the health of the individual patient. Instead, it is based on the type of procedure and the experience BLIS has had with the surgeon doing the procedure.
When I asked Schindler to sum up by saying, "the better the surgeon, the lower the patient's premium," he tended to agree. Regi has built the company with a laser focus on getting excellent surgeons to participate.
Like any insurance provider, BLIS wants to keep their claims low and track the individual results and outcomes to make sure that the surgeons in their program are doing their best to stop minor complications from becoming major complications. BLIS and I had parallel goals. They wanted to increase access to surgery for as many people as possible. I wanted to increase access to surgery for me. Schindler is passionate in his commitment to offering a way for people to have surgery that could not previously and is focused on improving the patient experience.
Surgeons in the BLIS program have a number of incentives to look at the bigger picture and focus on minimizing and avoiding complications. I was thankful that BLIS is not a traditional health insurance carrier and has a model that seems to put patients over profits. On the other hand, I was a profitable client for BLIS. I purchased coverage which cost me $1,697.23 and I never had a complication or claim. I came away a happy customer. BLIS came away with $1,697.23. A win-win.
My frustration is that I did not find BLIS five years ago. In my hundreds of hours of searching, I kept looking at traditional health insurance carriers, rather than looking for a company like BLIS. None of my physicians, or physician friends, had ever heard of BLIS. BLIS is well thought of by the surgeons who use their services. Since that universe is extremely small and focused, the name recognition for BLIS amongst people outside that world is low. But people are finding their way to BLIS. According to their website, which Regi confirmed, the company has offered protection on 14,000 cases since 2006.
BLIS brought a degree of sanity to the illogical world of health insurance for weight loss surgery.
*Why I Can Say I Am a Brand New Man *
Sixteen months after weight loss surgery, I am 113 pounds lighter. My diabetes and many other ailments have reversed. At age 57, I am competing in the 2016 Crossfit Games.
The economics of obesity have been hard to navigate, but the rewards of getting to the goal line have been tremendous.Read about Don in a Lexington Herald-Leader feature by Tom Eblen
Watch Don on WYMT's Issues and AnswersDon McNay, ChFC, MSFS, CLU, CSSC is a financial expert, journalist and author of seven best-selling books. His new book, Brand New Man: My Weight Loss Journey, released on Feb. 27.
McNay is one of the world's best known experts on structured settlements and how lottery winners handle their money. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky, and you can learn more about him at www.donmcnay.com
McNay has a Masters Degree from Vanderbilt University and a second Masters Degree from the American College. He has four professional designations and is in the Eastern Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni.
McNay has been a Huffington Post contributor since 2008 and his insights have appeared in hundreds of publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Forbes and USA Today. He has appeared on television and radio programs around the world including CBS Morning News, CBS Evening News, ABC News Radio, AM Canada, CTV News and RAI Television in Italy.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 15 hours ago.
↧
↧
Top Republican unveils $98B in cuts to social programs
WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior House Republican on Thursday reprised a proposal to cut child tax credits for immigrants working in the U.S. illegally. Powerful Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, also wants tougher rules to reclaim overpayments of health insurance tax subsidies under the new health care law as part of package […]
Reported by Seattle Times 15 hours ago.
↧
Meet The Third Party
Does Donald Trump even lift, bro?
That was the implied question behind Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson's address to the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, as the former two-term New Mexico governor rattled off his various athletic accomplishments -- a lousy strategy if you're crafting a Tinder profile, but it certainly made for an attention-grabbing stump speech.
"I'm a competitive athlete," Johnson, who served as the Libertarian Party's standard bearer in 2012, boasted to several thousand convention attendees. "I've done hundreds of athletic competitions … I'm planning to ride the divide, which is a 3.000-mile unsupported mountain bike race. ... I've done Ironman Hawaii four times."
Sure, Johnson was technically appearing at a forum on the future of conservatism, and sure, Johnson's Antarctic expeditions and hot air balloon hobby didn't exactly have a lot to do with that. But Johnson wasn't there to gab about the 10th Amendment. Johnson was there to let you know that bro skis, that bro mountain bikes, that bro climbed Mount Everest on a broken leg and that bro, in bro's own words, is a "fierce competitor."
Bro wanted you to feel his bicep -- no, really feel it.
"Why is anyone going to want to talk to me if I'm going to be a dolt?" Johnson answered later, albeit coyly, in an interview with The Huffington Post. "I do believe I've led a really interesting life."
Doltishness aside, it was certainly different. And it was clear Johnson wasn't just presenting himself as someone who can appeal to a conservative electorate cast adrift by Donald Trump, but as someone who can be the Libertarian Donald Trump by matching the front-runner's boisterous, media-savvy brand of politics. The greatest free market president. A really fabulous disciple of the Austrian School. Just the best. Ayn Rand. John Galt. It's gonna be beautiful. In case his point wasn’t clear enough, consider the Libertarian debate where he called Trump a “pussy.”
Gary Johnson is a kind of John Kasich-Donald Trump hybrid: avuncular, goofy and a little aloof, like the Ohio governor, but with Donald Trump's deeply ingrained sense of how an off-the-cuff style can keep the media's attention.
During a discussion of his open-market plan for health care reform, Johnson envisioned an America teeming with minute-clinics. "If we had a free market model for health insurance, we would have insurance to cover ourselves for catastrophic injury and illness and we would pay-as-you-go in a system that was very, very affordable," he said. "Stitches ‘R' Us! Gallbladders ‘R' Us!"
Johnson is honing his soundbites, and now's certainly the time to do so. The Democratic front-runner is Hillary Clinton, who remains a polarizing figure and has struggled to engender the kind of enthusiasm enjoyed by Bernie Sanders and, previously, by Barack Obama. On the other side of the aisle, establishment and conservative Republicans are suffering a nervous breakdown over the prospect of a Donald Trump or Ted Cruz nomination. A number of prominent lawmakers, including Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, have already spoken out against Trump's politics, and Cruz is as popular in the Senate as a five-day work week (which is to say, not at all). Cruz's colleague Lindsey Graham literally joked about murdering him.
"Can you believe the state of politics right now?" Johnson exclaimed with almost childlike delight during his interview with The Huffington Post. "Arguably the two most polarizing figures in America, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, are going to be the nominees!"
"Trump gets the nomination by appealing to the 30 percent [of GOP voters] who think the scourge of the Earth is Mexican immigration," he added, unsympathetically. "I'm not making any claims that a Libertarian run is going to be any different than it was before, but if there were ever an opportunity, it is now."
Johnson is honing his soundbites, and now's certainly the time to do so. The Democratic front-runner is Hillary Clinton, who remains a polarizing figure and has struggled to engender the kind of enthusiasm enjoyed by Bernie Sanders and, previously, by Barack Obama. On the other side of the aisle, establishment and conservative Republicans are suffering a nervous breakdown over the prospect of a Donald Trump or Ted Cruz nomination. A number of prominent lawmakers, including Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, have already spoken out against Trump's politics, and Cruz is as popular in the Senate as a five-day work week (which is to say, not at all). Cruz's colleague Lindsey Graham literally joked about murdering him.
"Can you believe the state of politics right now?" Johnson exclaimed with almost childlike delight during his interview with The Huffington Post. "Arguably the two most polarizing figures in America, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, are going to be the nominees!"
"Trump gets the nomination by appealing to the 30 percent [of GOP voters] who think the scourge of the Earth is Mexican immigration," he added, unsympathetically. "I'm not making any claims that a Libertarian run is going to be any different than it was before, but if there were ever an opportunity, it is now."
The way Johnson sees it, there's a "vast middle" of the electorate that would be drawn to his socially liberal, economically conservative platform and turned off by the polarizing figures that are likely to secure the two main parties' nominations. Sure, maybe Democratic voters will have to stomach his desire to gut entitlements, and Republicans his stated belief that Mexican immigrants aren't ISIS sleeper agents, but Libertarians are banking on an exhausted electorate that won't mind as much.
"I've never said anything as stupid as Trump," Johnson contended.
Johnson, naturally, takes a glass-half-full view, and insists he could work with any Congress. With Democrats, he could pursue agenda items like immigration reform, criminal justice reform and reversing the decline of reproductive rights. With Republicans, he could team up on gutting Obamacare, entitlement reform and corporate tax reform.
"What you're reading is, 'Where's the third party?' The Libertarian Party is going to be the only [third] party on the ballot in 50 states," he predicted.
Johnson anticipates a kind of media snowball effect, with reporters inevitably turning their gaze to his candidacy, either through better-than-expected poll numbers or a natural curiosity about presidential alternatives. Johnson's biggest goal for the general election campaign is to gain a spot in the debates, and he is suing the Presidential Debate Commission over its 15 percent threshold for admittance.
"[The media] will probably [first] focus on the marijuana thing like they've always done," Johnson speculated about the narrative surrounding his campaign. "Unlike four years ago, now you've got 58 percent of Americans supporting legalizing marijuana, so in my opinion if that gets focused on, then OK, that's a good start."
"When [Republican Nebraska Senator] Ben Sasse comes out and says, 'I'm going to vote for the third party if Donald Trump is the nominee, and other Republicans are saying the same, what is he thinking? He's thinking Libertarian!" said Johnson. "[T]he table is set."
Before Johnson can implement his big-tent strategy, he needs to secure the Libertarian Party's nomination, and says he is "flying low" until the party finalizes its nominee during its Memorial Day convention in Orlando.
It shouldn't be too difficult. His chief opponent is anti-virus software magnate John McAfee, who last year was arrested for driving under the influence and for possessing a firearm under the influence. In 2012 he was named as a person of interest in a Belizean murder investigation and promptly dropped off the grid, resurfacing a month later in Guatemala, where he was ultimately deported to the U.S. Even by the Libertarian Party's eccentric, anything-goes third party ethos, nominating a guy who has had to replenish a go bag seems a bit far-fetched.
And if the Libertarians are trying to offer a credible alternative to Donald Trump, choosing a seasoned state executive over a paranoid survivalist who at this very moment might be slowly emerging from a swamp in full camouflage while gripping a knife with his teeth would seem to be the rational choice. Other candidates include an actor, a lawyer who likes to appear in Civil War regalia and a self-described "Spiritual Visionary since June 2006."
However, it's clear that if Johnson hopes to offer himself as a serious alternative to the Democratic and Republican nominees, he'll have to polish his presentation a bit. During a discussion about the late Antonin Scalia's Supreme Court seat, Johnson -- who believes the Senate should consider President Barack Obama's nominee -- conceded he couldn't name the remaining eight sitting Supreme Court justices. Asked about his plan to reform Social Security, he suggested three proposals, but could only articulate two: raising the retirement age and creating personal investment accounts.
"Gosh there's one other one, what is it?" Johnson mused before trailing off. The final proposal -- means testing for Social Security recipients -- came to Johnson several minutes later.
To his credit, he was able to discuss the proposal in detail, but if he does make it into the general election debates, there will be no two-minute lags, and SNL's writers would love nothing more than a pro-weed third party candidate who forgets things.
Then again, this is the Donald Trump election, and Johnson's eccentricities and weaknesses might actually be strengths. He's certainly ready to measure hands.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 14 hours ago.
That was the implied question behind Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson's address to the Conservative Political Action Conference last week, as the former two-term New Mexico governor rattled off his various athletic accomplishments -- a lousy strategy if you're crafting a Tinder profile, but it certainly made for an attention-grabbing stump speech.
"I'm a competitive athlete," Johnson, who served as the Libertarian Party's standard bearer in 2012, boasted to several thousand convention attendees. "I've done hundreds of athletic competitions … I'm planning to ride the divide, which is a 3.000-mile unsupported mountain bike race. ... I've done Ironman Hawaii four times."
Sure, Johnson was technically appearing at a forum on the future of conservatism, and sure, Johnson's Antarctic expeditions and hot air balloon hobby didn't exactly have a lot to do with that. But Johnson wasn't there to gab about the 10th Amendment. Johnson was there to let you know that bro skis, that bro mountain bikes, that bro climbed Mount Everest on a broken leg and that bro, in bro's own words, is a "fierce competitor."
Bro wanted you to feel his bicep -- no, really feel it.
"Why is anyone going to want to talk to me if I'm going to be a dolt?" Johnson answered later, albeit coyly, in an interview with The Huffington Post. "I do believe I've led a really interesting life."
Doltishness aside, it was certainly different. And it was clear Johnson wasn't just presenting himself as someone who can appeal to a conservative electorate cast adrift by Donald Trump, but as someone who can be the Libertarian Donald Trump by matching the front-runner's boisterous, media-savvy brand of politics. The greatest free market president. A really fabulous disciple of the Austrian School. Just the best. Ayn Rand. John Galt. It's gonna be beautiful. In case his point wasn’t clear enough, consider the Libertarian debate where he called Trump a “pussy.”
Gary Johnson is a kind of John Kasich-Donald Trump hybrid: avuncular, goofy and a little aloof, like the Ohio governor, but with Donald Trump's deeply ingrained sense of how an off-the-cuff style can keep the media's attention.
During a discussion of his open-market plan for health care reform, Johnson envisioned an America teeming with minute-clinics. "If we had a free market model for health insurance, we would have insurance to cover ourselves for catastrophic injury and illness and we would pay-as-you-go in a system that was very, very affordable," he said. "Stitches ‘R' Us! Gallbladders ‘R' Us!"
Johnson is honing his soundbites, and now's certainly the time to do so. The Democratic front-runner is Hillary Clinton, who remains a polarizing figure and has struggled to engender the kind of enthusiasm enjoyed by Bernie Sanders and, previously, by Barack Obama. On the other side of the aisle, establishment and conservative Republicans are suffering a nervous breakdown over the prospect of a Donald Trump or Ted Cruz nomination. A number of prominent lawmakers, including Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, have already spoken out against Trump's politics, and Cruz is as popular in the Senate as a five-day work week (which is to say, not at all). Cruz's colleague Lindsey Graham literally joked about murdering him.
"Can you believe the state of politics right now?" Johnson exclaimed with almost childlike delight during his interview with The Huffington Post. "Arguably the two most polarizing figures in America, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, are going to be the nominees!"
"Trump gets the nomination by appealing to the 30 percent [of GOP voters] who think the scourge of the Earth is Mexican immigration," he added, unsympathetically. "I'm not making any claims that a Libertarian run is going to be any different than it was before, but if there were ever an opportunity, it is now."
Johnson is honing his soundbites, and now's certainly the time to do so. The Democratic front-runner is Hillary Clinton, who remains a polarizing figure and has struggled to engender the kind of enthusiasm enjoyed by Bernie Sanders and, previously, by Barack Obama. On the other side of the aisle, establishment and conservative Republicans are suffering a nervous breakdown over the prospect of a Donald Trump or Ted Cruz nomination. A number of prominent lawmakers, including Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, have already spoken out against Trump's politics, and Cruz is as popular in the Senate as a five-day work week (which is to say, not at all). Cruz's colleague Lindsey Graham literally joked about murdering him.
"Can you believe the state of politics right now?" Johnson exclaimed with almost childlike delight during his interview with The Huffington Post. "Arguably the two most polarizing figures in America, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, are going to be the nominees!"
"Trump gets the nomination by appealing to the 30 percent [of GOP voters] who think the scourge of the Earth is Mexican immigration," he added, unsympathetically. "I'm not making any claims that a Libertarian run is going to be any different than it was before, but if there were ever an opportunity, it is now."
The way Johnson sees it, there's a "vast middle" of the electorate that would be drawn to his socially liberal, economically conservative platform and turned off by the polarizing figures that are likely to secure the two main parties' nominations. Sure, maybe Democratic voters will have to stomach his desire to gut entitlements, and Republicans his stated belief that Mexican immigrants aren't ISIS sleeper agents, but Libertarians are banking on an exhausted electorate that won't mind as much.
"I've never said anything as stupid as Trump," Johnson contended.
Johnson, naturally, takes a glass-half-full view, and insists he could work with any Congress. With Democrats, he could pursue agenda items like immigration reform, criminal justice reform and reversing the decline of reproductive rights. With Republicans, he could team up on gutting Obamacare, entitlement reform and corporate tax reform.
"What you're reading is, 'Where's the third party?' The Libertarian Party is going to be the only [third] party on the ballot in 50 states," he predicted.
Johnson anticipates a kind of media snowball effect, with reporters inevitably turning their gaze to his candidacy, either through better-than-expected poll numbers or a natural curiosity about presidential alternatives. Johnson's biggest goal for the general election campaign is to gain a spot in the debates, and he is suing the Presidential Debate Commission over its 15 percent threshold for admittance.
"[The media] will probably [first] focus on the marijuana thing like they've always done," Johnson speculated about the narrative surrounding his campaign. "Unlike four years ago, now you've got 58 percent of Americans supporting legalizing marijuana, so in my opinion if that gets focused on, then OK, that's a good start."
"When [Republican Nebraska Senator] Ben Sasse comes out and says, 'I'm going to vote for the third party if Donald Trump is the nominee, and other Republicans are saying the same, what is he thinking? He's thinking Libertarian!" said Johnson. "[T]he table is set."
Before Johnson can implement his big-tent strategy, he needs to secure the Libertarian Party's nomination, and says he is "flying low" until the party finalizes its nominee during its Memorial Day convention in Orlando.
It shouldn't be too difficult. His chief opponent is anti-virus software magnate John McAfee, who last year was arrested for driving under the influence and for possessing a firearm under the influence. In 2012 he was named as a person of interest in a Belizean murder investigation and promptly dropped off the grid, resurfacing a month later in Guatemala, where he was ultimately deported to the U.S. Even by the Libertarian Party's eccentric, anything-goes third party ethos, nominating a guy who has had to replenish a go bag seems a bit far-fetched.
And if the Libertarians are trying to offer a credible alternative to Donald Trump, choosing a seasoned state executive over a paranoid survivalist who at this very moment might be slowly emerging from a swamp in full camouflage while gripping a knife with his teeth would seem to be the rational choice. Other candidates include an actor, a lawyer who likes to appear in Civil War regalia and a self-described "Spiritual Visionary since June 2006."
However, it's clear that if Johnson hopes to offer himself as a serious alternative to the Democratic and Republican nominees, he'll have to polish his presentation a bit. During a discussion about the late Antonin Scalia's Supreme Court seat, Johnson -- who believes the Senate should consider President Barack Obama's nominee -- conceded he couldn't name the remaining eight sitting Supreme Court justices. Asked about his plan to reform Social Security, he suggested three proposals, but could only articulate two: raising the retirement age and creating personal investment accounts.
"Gosh there's one other one, what is it?" Johnson mused before trailing off. The final proposal -- means testing for Social Security recipients -- came to Johnson several minutes later.
To his credit, he was able to discuss the proposal in detail, but if he does make it into the general election debates, there will be no two-minute lags, and SNL's writers would love nothing more than a pro-weed third party candidate who forgets things.
Then again, this is the Donald Trump election, and Johnson's eccentricities and weaknesses might actually be strengths. He's certainly ready to measure hands.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 14 hours ago.
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Humana to move 260 employees into new Miami office
Humana will move more than 260 employees into a new office in the Blue Lagoon area of Miami-Dade County as it consolidates its locations in the county. The health insurance and clinical care company (NYSE: HUM) signed a 60,511-square-foot lease at 6101 Waterford. It will move its CAC-Florida Medical Centers, Continucare, Humana IT and retail operations there. The Humana subsidiaries manage 22 CAC medical centers, 19 Continucare clinics and 17 Metcare medical centers in Florida. Taylor & Mathis…
Reported by bizjournals 14 hours ago.
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