Blog Entries tagged 'CDH'

Who Is Regina Herzlinger?

shades — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 22:00:00 +0100

For starters, she speaks our language. And that is the language of Consumer Driven Healthcare. A brief expose' of her positions are outlined in the December 22 edition of Business Week and worth a read. If time is tight, keep reading below for a summary and maybe even a few thoughts of our own (maybe).

Regina Herzlinger is a professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and she advocates neither government nor employer based healthcare. [...]

Why is Healthcare So Friggin' Expensive? Reason # 11

shades — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:00:00 +0100

Last month we posted an article that hit on the "Unscientific Top Ten Reasons Why Healthcare is So Expensive." Today we are here to offer you unscientific reason #11.

The U.S. Government doesn't trust you any further than they can throw you.

HDHPs and HSAs, by nature should save you money over traditional health insurance. BUT, the Government in all its wisdom/paranoia does what they can to undermine their efficiencies.

In this case, they passed some leg [...]

How The Pinch Stole Healthcare.

shades — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:00:00 +0100

Every Blue down in Blueville liked Healthcare a lot...

But the Pinch, who lived to the left of Healthcare did NOT!

The Pinch hated Healthcare, the whole Healthcare system!

Just don't ask why, only he had the wisdom.

It could be his head was screwed on to the left,

It could be his ears were plugged up and deaf.

But I think the most likely reason of all,

Was that he thought the Blues brains were much much too small.

But whatever t [...]

Goodbye Joe the Plumber. Hello Dan the Street Super.

shades — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:00:00 +0100

Dan Crowell represents the changing face of health and healthcare in America. Dan is the street superintendent for the city of Lafayette, Indiana. Now I don't know Dan but I read about him JConline.com, the online edition of the Journal Courier Newspapers of Lafayette and West Lafayette Indiana.

Both cities, faced with ever rising healthcare costs have joined together to save money on health insurance and to promote healthier employees. One of the keys to their st [...]

Reading The Tea Leaves Of Obama's Healthcare Reform

shades — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:00:00 +0100

One thing everyone agreed on regarding the Obama presidential campaign was that he picked his messages and stuck to them. And one of the ones that stuck to me, in fact, with all the media coverage I felt like it was nailed to me with a hammer and sixteen penny nails, was the notion that if you liked the health plan your employer offered you could keep it, but if you didn't you could have the same insurance federal employees enjoy. And for employers if they didn't [...]

It's Open Enrollment Season Out There. Are You the Hunter Or The Hunted?

shades — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 23:00:00 +0100

If you are one of those folks who dreads the open enrollment period for your health benefits, who puts their heads inside of their shell and basically runs and hides, I'm sorry to say, you are the hunted. If you simply sign up for whatever you had last year (but likely at a higher price, and possibly with reduced benefits) without doing your homework, you are the hunted. If you haven't figured out things like HSAs, HRAs, or FSAs, then you are the hunted. If you simpl [...]

Another $17 in My Health Savings Account (HSA) or is that My Hair Savings Account?

shades — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:00:00 +0100

When I was a kid, up until the age of about eleven, my Grandmother used to conduct Doctor Jekyl-like experiments on my hair with her handy scissors. I was a total toe head and when she was done they could have slapped me on the side of a paint can and called me the Little Dutch Boy.

I revolted at eleven and began a 30 plus year quest to find the perfect barber. Recently though, in my quest to save more money into my health savings account I decided to give Betty, my barber, [...]

Are You A Savvy Health Savings Account Shopper?

shades — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:00:00 +0100

I came across an article in Wednesday's (10/29) edition of Workforce Management Magazine which was extracted from a presentation made by Maureen E. Sullivan, SVP Blue Cross Blue Shield Association at the National Consumer Driven Health Summit on October 20. The name of the presentation was called Health Plan Initiatives, Trends and Research in Consumer Driven Care. If you want the full download please click on either of the links above for loads of relevant statistics re [...]

HDHP Creativity - A Nugget of HSA Education

shades — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 23:00:00 +0100

If you read "High Deductible Health Plan - Rejected" you know that my family got rejected for our new HDHP plan when we tried to switch insurance providers. This is a brief update on where we stand presently. If you have found yourself in a similar situation, might find this somewhat worthwhile reading. The challenge with my current plan is that our provider seems to think that they need not provide us with any prescription coverage unless one of us is rolled into [...]

"Hows Yo Mamma?" Annual HDHP Enrollment & What is an HSA?

shades — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 23:00:00 +0100

About this time every year employers all over the nation unveil their latest, greatest insurance offerings for the coming year. They've worked over their brokers, agents, and consultants, dusted off a few old tricks and brought a couple new ones to the game. They've frosted up this package with Betty Crocker's finest, served it up on their finest china, put it on a fork and are now playing the "airplane" game with you.

Now you're probably thinking, " [...]

Health Care, Politics, and Pool Pals

shades — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 23:00:00 +0100

So there's all kind of buzz on the internet today regarding the Doug Holtz-Eakin's conference call on McCain's health plan over the weekend. Basically, he wanted to set the record straight, or at least defend the McCain plan from the general assault that Mr. Barack Obama and Co. mounted against McCain's health care policy. If you are like me, you're probably asking, "what is a Doug Holtz-Eakin and what does he know about anything?"

Holtz-Eakin [...]

Awakened By Swooning Economy, Americans Take Back Their Health

shades — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 23:00:00 +0100

Now that is a headline I would like to see!

An article in The Wall Street Journal Health Section on September 22 essentially said, the woes of the U.S Economy are driving people away from healthcare.

When I scanned the article, I had to chuckle because I went to Parents' Night at my daughter's school last night, and her English teacher informed us that kids are reading less than ever, and importantly, that it's going to affect their ability to succeed.&n [...]

Consumer Directed Health & The Healthiest Nation Alliance

shades — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:00:00 +0100

Generally speaking I don't care for films that have subtitles. First of all, reading in the dark goes against, well,....... all the rules of reading. I mean, when you were a kid your mom or dad didn't come into the room when you were knee deep in a good book and say "hey, it's too bright in here, you need to turn out the light." Quite the contrary of course. Secondly, those films are generally distracting because in addition to having to read you [...]

In Healthcare, When is Oop a Good Thing?

shades — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:00:00 +0100

I ran across a cool website today called outofpocket.com; let's call it Oop for short. Oop is a good thing, not to be confused with Oops, a bad thing. Oop also rhymes with something that occasionally attaches itself to the bottom of my son's shoes, which he feels compelled to bring into the house, but that's a story for another day.

Outofpocket.com is an exclamation point on consumer directed healthcare, not only because its mission is to bring transparency to th [...]

Health Savings Accounts And My Left Ear

shades — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0100

It's been 77 days since I moved $17 from my "Hair Savings Account" into my Health Savings Account. This , the result of a bold experiment involving my wife, some sheers, and my generally thrifty disposition. The entire hair lowering experience was all documented (and wildly popular) in the article on HSAeducator.com entitled "Hair Savings Account - HSA" . Well, I'm hair to tell you, while I may be dumb, I am also slow. I am also a cheap a [...]

July 4th: Consumer Directed Health = Independence

shades — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0100

The folks at The Gradock Bulletin recommend that in honor of our nations' birthday, we spend a little bit of time thinking about the concept of independence and how it relates to our desire to take control of our healthcare needs.

For those who flunked American History in school, our founding fathers (the guys with the wigs) got really sick of the King of England sticking his hands into their pockets and telling them how to run their lives. Remember that "taxation without [...]

3rd Law of Healthonomics

shades — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:00:00 +0100

Let me start by saying that any article, blog, website, white paper, essay or other written communication that include "onomics" as part of any word in it, is, by its nature, going to be hard for most of us. Huh?

At college I was forced to take two quarters of economics. One was Micro Economics and the other Macro Economics. One of the two courses, I can't remember which one, was either taught by one of the worst teachers in the history of th [...]

Health Savings Accounts = Happy Savings Accounts

shades — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:00:00 +0100

I was driving in my car a little while ago and heard on some radio program that June 20th is the "happiest day of the year." A very pleasant idea indeed. I'm also wondering if some dude or dudess got paid to figure that out? Seriously, somebody did some study and got paid for it, to figure this out. I think it was outside the U.S., so we can take some consolation that it was not paid for with our tax dollars. Seems pretty low stress to me. I wond [...]

Radio Free Educator

shades — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 22:00:00 +0100

The folks at HSAeducator.com in conjunction with the folks at ICYOU.com just created a couple of HSA videos which you can now view in this blog and as soon as the HSAeducator.com folks can figure out how to post them permanently on the site, they'll do that too.

Do you remember those film strips they used to show way way way back in elementary school? Those hideous things that were basically pictures out of the most boring science books ever created (think fruit flies, frog diss [...]

Yosemite McCain on Healthcare

shades — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:00:00 +0100

I really want to do an overview on John McCain's Healthcare plans, but honestly Hillary Clinton's, "The American Health Choices Plan" pretty much sucked the life out of this kid. The sixteen or so blogs addressing her views on healthcare was a bit more than this A.D.D. boy can handle and possibly more than the average HSAeducator blog reading visitor could handle as well. It's something we are going to have to work up to.

Now this doesn't have [...]