Obama Health Care

It is unfortunate that workplace human rights issues have not been properly understood by the managers and supervisors because of its complex nature.  The onus of preventing human rights violations is the responsibility of management professionals in charge of workplace.
The third report to the UN Human Rights Council, submitted earlier this year, outlines a new policy framework for human rights at work place that comprises three core principles 
-Governments’ duty to protect human rights
-Corporate responsibility to respect human rights
-The need for greater access by victims to effective remedies
These core principles have been endorsed by major international business associations and leading international human rights organizations alike. As a follow-up, chief executives from around the world have issued a call to action to renew their commitment to the protection of human rights in the spirit of the Universal Declaration. Organized by the United Nations Global Compact and already signed by nearly 250 business leaders from 68 countries, the CEO Statement is an expression of serious intent.
More than ever before, business leaders around the world seem to agree that the protection of human rights, beyond its moral and ethical compulsion, also make good business sense. Ensuring decent and safe workplace conditions, promoting non-discrimination and equitable justice and fair play in employment, respecting and safeguarding the rights of employees have all become central issues to the long-term sustainability of business.
At the same time, a lot more still needs to be done to make managements understand their basic responsibility to respect human rights and the steps companies need to take to ensure that they are living up to the laid down codes. Even the most committed managers say they need more practical and authoritative guidance on what human rights mean and how these issues can best achieved in their day-to-day operations.  Many companies are yet to provide basic services such as education, healthcare or safe drinking water and sanitation.
There is growing concern that if a number of workplace issues are not successfully protected against, it can impact the human rights of employees. Human Rights policies in many companies are at an infantile stage of development. Larger organizations may have Human Rights policy to ensure they are not supporting work that impacts the human rights of others.
Many of the principles of the Human Rights Act are designed to protect the worker within the workplace. For example, the workers have the right to a private and family life. So an employer who discriminates on personal grounds, for example, may be violating that worker’s right to a private life. The employer has the right to monitor communications within the workplace as long as the worker is aware of the monitoring before it takes place. A worker’s right to a private life means he or she has the right to some privacy in the workplace. If the employer doesn’t respect this, he is breaching human rights law. If the worker believes his human rights at work have been breached, he should talk to his employer first. If it is not effective, he can follow the internal grievance procedure, if any, in the written statement of employment. If that doesn’t work, he may take legal action.
The scenario is however changing and despite the current economic crisis, a growing number of business leaders and management professionals understand that human rights issues are of direct relevance to their long term success.

Sarah Jose
http://www.articlesbase.com/ethics-articles/how-to-tackle-human-rights-issues-at-work-713203.html

In the current war for talent, organizations are looking for talented CFOs with the proven leadership capabilities and track records of contributing to their employer’s strategic objectives. This article reveals the ways in which CFOs can differentiate themselves based on the ability to lead and manage in connection with established strategic goals.

The New CFO Role

We are now in a knowledge-driven marketplace where brainpower is the key resource for most businesses, most notably healthcare. In healthcare, the organizational winners are those that select individuals with considerable brainpower and subsequently apply that talent in the most creative ways. Recruiting and selecting such talented professionals is a crucial strategic issue and is a primary objective of healthcare organizations today.

While the objectives and requirements of healthcare organizations are changing, many veteran CFOs and finance professionals are feeling the pressure associated with this change. Roles that were once clear and defined are now changing and expanding, and many of you are asking, “How do I become a more effective contributor? What new skills do I need to position myself in this changing role and evolving industry?” Some of you are even asking, “Should I leave healthcare?”

So where do you, as CFOs, see yourselves in today’s knowledge-driven marketplace and emerging healthcare organizations?

First, your fundamental role continues to change. Just a few years ago, your role primarily revolved around managing a relatively large number of employees who collected and analyzed data for both cost containment and reimbursement maximization. Now, as a result of market forces and Medicare cuts associated with the Balance Budget Act, you are called upon to make business decisions regarding mergers and/or divestitures as well as the continuation of programs.

The new organizational realities demand that you assume a very different role. In the old model, finance had significant influence over operational issues. Finance is now called upon to assist operations in creating and delivering the value demanded by a very dynamic marketplace. This change moves you from a strictly financially driven focus to more of a business consultant role supporting operational initiatives. Your role as the CFO has expanded to include management oversight of non-financial functions in your organization, such as medical records, materials management, facilities, security, telecommunication, environmental services and human resources. Are you becoming the COO?

Second, this significant change in circumstance leaves you facing three conundrums:

The first is helping operations respond in a financially viable way to the quickly changing demands of the marketplace — a marketplace that keeps asking for new, different, and better services at lower costs.

The second is figuring out how to maintain consistent and sufficient cash flow in the face of the constantly changing payment formulas put forth by the government, insurance companies, and HMOs.

The third, and perhaps the hardest part for you, is keeping these two dynamic forces in alignment. Too often, the way your organization is paid is out of sync with the services demanded by the marketplace.

There is a shift from the scorekeeper duties of the old economy to the identification of solutions in the new economy. What hasn’t changed is that you still have the fiduciary responsibilities for protecting the assets of your organization. You must do this within the constraints of the reimbursement systems imposed upon your organization without compromising its ability to provide excellent services that are market-responsive. As such, you probably find yourself in the paradoxical roles of:

– Being a police officer: While being everyone’s pal

– Being an individual contributor: While also being a team player

– Being task-oriented: With strong relationship building skills

– Being predictable: Yet responding dynamically

– Being an historian: Yet planning for the future

– Having accounting knowledge: Applied to clinical outcomes

– Being a data gatherer: While maintaining a systems view

While the finance department is responsible for both sides of the chart above, your focus is increasingly on the right hand side.

The New CFO Skill Set: What it Takes to Succeed as the New CFO

The changing nature of healthcare and the resulting paradox in which you find yourself are inescapable. So, as the CFO, you must prepare yourself to meet all of the demands that are currently being placed upon you. You need to take an inventory of your current abilities and objectively compare them to the expertise you will need to move forward.

There are three areas in which you need a high level of knowledge to be an effective CFO because, in the new organizational reality, you are:

• Part business analyst. As such, you still need accounting/finance knowledge.

• Part COO. Your changing role requires a comprehensive understanding of the healthcare industry, not only from a financial perspective, but now also from an operational viewpoint. The familiar quote, “No margin, no mission and no mission, no margin,” defines the hard reality of what you are facing.

• Part lawyer. Negotiating and reviewing provider and supplier contracts, dealing with the buying and selling of assets, working with financing issues, etc., necessitates a high level of legal knowledge.

As an entrepreneurial CFO, you need two primary skills to maximize your abilities in the new economy.

The first skill involves critical thinking: the ability to sort through limited data quickly and determine its true importance; the power to obtain and maintain a long-term perspective; and the capacity to utilize “out-of-the-box,” creative thinking. CFOs must now be able to examine data from an opportunity perspective and not just from a bottom-line point of view. This means that finance cannot continue to only look backwards at an historically based budget and increase the coming year’s budget by 5% to reflect the Consumer Price Index.

Now, a CFO must read the marketplace and work with the value creators–the service providers– in the healthcare organization to explore trends and re-tool operations to meet the needs of a fickle marketplace. Your organization may even need to consider taking a financial risk in developing a service delivery area in anticipation of it providing access to a new, profitable market going forward.

The second primary skill is the ability to create and work within collaborative relationships both inside and outside of the organization. Departmental staffs no longer work independently, isolated from other departments. Their responsibilities often call for them to work crossfunctionally and collaboratively, integrating and supporting each other’s work.

Internally, in the new environs of healthcare, a CFO is frequently called upon to pull together multiple entities within the organization and assign them responsibilities that are interdependent.

Therefore, if issues arise which need to be arbitrated, CFOs must have well-developed conflict resolution skills in order to create mutually beneficial relationships. Resolving issues in a manner in which everyone wins is the key to creating long-term, productive relationships within the healthcare setting.

Externally, you must pull together some semblance of a unified, effective whole with the entities within your organization’s control and on whom it depends to fulfill its mission, i.e., payers, doctors, suppliers and other service providers. Meanwhile, you must still maintain fiscal health.

To Summarize

Healthcare organizations are looking for and rewarding those individuals with the brainpower and evolving skill sets necessary for the new CFO role of part business analyst, part COO, and part lawyer. For those with a talent for critical analysis as well as the ability to build collaborative relationships, the new environment in healthcare will be challenging and rewarding. Embracing these parameters for a successful career will allow CFOs to play a leading role in making healthcare organizations both market-responsive and fiscally sound.

This article is drawn from Phillips DiPisa’s Thought Leadership Library. You can find more perspectives on managing today’s complex healthcare organizations on our Web site at www.PhillipsDiPisa.com.

Phillips, DiPisa & Associates

62 Derby Street

Hingham, MA 02043

telephone: 781-740-9064

www.PhillipsDiPisa.com

Copyright (c) 2007. Phillips, DiPisa & Associates.

Phillips, DiPisa & Associates
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/healthcare-chief-financial-officers-an-evolving-role-in-a-changing-marketplace-98852.html

Many people may already hear about Chiropractic but not all of us are familiar with this term though it already existed for more than 112 years. Chiropractic is a form of alternative health care or complementary and alternative medicine that focuses on the structure of our body specifically to our spine, nerves, muscles and all its related functions.

The primary concept of Chiropractic is that the misalignment of the spine (subluxations) is the cause of many disorders or illnesses in our body. Chiropractic’s most significant contribution to health care is probably the discovery of therapeutic effects of spinal manipulation that are proven to help those people with muscular, skeletal and nervous ailments.

Chiropractic came in a Greek words cheir and praxis which literally means hand and action or done by hand. Chiropractic treatment primarily involves the use of hands to manipulate and adjust the structure of our body and it does not make use of any surgery or operation in treating spinal and muscular related ailments. The principle behind Chiropractic as alternative medical system was discovered by Daniel David Palmer. Chiropractic health care originally evolved in Unites States and is now a licensed form of health care in all its states. The Chiropractic treatment is likewise being practice in Canada, UK and to more than 100 nations across the world.

Though Chiropractic is considered as alternative or non-traditional form of health care and is clearly separated from the American Medical Association, Chiropractic practice is individually regulated by the government across the United States. Licensed individuals who practice chiropractic medical system are referred to as Chiropractors, chiropractic physicians or doctors of chiropractic.

To be a qualified Chiropractor, you need to have at least three years of pre-professional study in college prior to four year resident study in an accredited college of Chiropractic. As of today, the United States has 17 accredited chiropractic colleges in the USA. The accreditation of chiropractic schools is given by the Council on Chiropractic Education that is certified by the U.S. Department of Education.

After completing the degree of Chiropractic, they need to take a state licensure board examination in order to practice Chiropractic. Furthermore, majority of states in the US require Chiropractors to have continuing education credits to maintain their Chiropractic licenses.

The Chiropractic is also covered by majority of health maintenance organizations, private health care insurances and even the compensation systems of state workers. And from 35,000 Chiropractors in the United States way back 1980s, statistics said that there is now approximately 70,000 Chiropractors in the United States, 5000 in Canada and 1300 in the United Kingdom.

The practice styles of Chiropractors nowadays are divided into several Chiropractic health care approaches like traditional straight, mixer, objective straight and reform; but all of them strictly adhere to the precise adjustment of musculoskeletal of the body system and are using non-invasive or non-surgery treatments.

And one more good thing about Chiropractic is that there are continuous research studies to strengthen and expand the scientific understanding of this form of alternative medical system. An example of agency that supports researches for the advancement of Chiropractic is the National Center For Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Merry Jazz
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/understanding-chiropractic-as-an-alternative-to-traditional-medicine-115547.html

Since 2000, health insurance premiums paid by Wisconsin employers for family and individual health coverage rose 4.6 times faster than earnings, according to a new report.

The report, “Costly Coverage: Premiums Outpace Paychecks In Wisconsin,” released by Families USA, shows the situation is even worse for workers.

For a family health insurance policy, average employees’ share of premiums have increased 141 percent, or 6.9 times faster than wages.

Families USA is a national organization for health care consumers.

“Rising health care costs threaten the financial well-being of families across the country,” Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said Tuesday during a teleconference. “If health care reform doesn’t happen soon, more families will be priced out of coverage they used to take for granted.”

Nationally health insurance premiums rose quite significantly over the past 10 years. On average, insurance premiums for family coverage rose 93 percent.

At the same time this occurred, median earnings rose by 19 percent, Pollack said.

“What is so surprising about these increases is these premiums now purchase thinner coverage that come with higher deductibles, higher co-pays and less benefits,” Pollack said.

Families USA released reports on health insurance premiums as they relate to earnings for Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oklahoma Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin Tuesday.

Oklahoma had the lowest premium growth compared with earnings, at 3 percent, while Alaska and Washington had the highest at 5.3 percent.

In Michigan, where Families USA did not release a report but did have data, health insurance premiums rose 12.9 times faster than wages.

Other findings in the Wisconsin report include:

• For family health insurance coverage provided at work in Wisconsin, the average annual health insurance premium (employer and worker’s share together) rose from $7,112 in 2000 to $13,772 in 2009.

• For family health coverage, the worker’s portion of annual premiums rose from $1,458 to $3,512, an increase of 141 percent.

• Between 2000 and 2009, the median earnings of Wisconsin workers rose $4,974, or 20.4 percent.

“In the case of health care reform, the numbers don’t lie,” said Robert Kraig, program director for Citizen Action of Wisconsin. “This new report makes it is very clear that the rate of health insurance inflation in Wisconsin is completely unsustainable, particularly given the stagnation of wages in Wisconsin.”

In Milwaukee, area employers paid between 4 and 9 percent more for health care premiums than the national average in 2009, according to the results of two surveys: a nationwide survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Education Trust,

Chad
http://www.articlesbase.com/insurance-articles/health-premiums-rising-faster-than-earnings-corrinne-hess-1241973.html

Medical professionals last week lauded the idea of all Americans having health insurance but were disappointed in what the health care reform bill did not cover and its lack of detail on how the process would play out.
Read the rest of this entry »

A Florida urologist says he won’t turn away anyone, but a sign on his door makes clear his disgust with healthcare-bill backers. A Florida doctor who considers the national healthcare overhaul bad medicine has posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Obama to seek care elsewhere.
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Health-care reform is in the same political realm as climate change, with the country divided among those who believe it is settled, those who doubt everything about it, and those waiting for more evidence.
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The global recession now underway is the result not only of a financial panic, but also of more basic uncertainty about he future direction of the world economy.

 Consumers are pulling back from home and automobile purchases not only because they have suffered a low to their wealth with declining stock prices and housing values but also because they don’t know where to turn.

 Should they risk buying  a new car when gasoline prices might Soar again? Will they e able to put food on the table after this year’s terrifying rise in food prices?

Decisions about business investment are even starker. Businesses are reluctant to invest at a time when consumer demand is plummeting and they face unprecedented risk penalties on their borrowing costs.

They are also facing huge uncertainties. What kinds of power plants will be acceptable in the future? Will they be allowed to emit carbon dioxide as in the past?

 Can the United States still afford a suburban lifestyle, with sprawling homes in far-flung communities that require long-distance automobile commutes?

To a large extent, economic recovery will depend on a much clearer sense of the direction of future economic change. That is largely the job of government.

After the confused and misguided leadership of the bush administration, which failed to give any clear path to energy, health, climate and financial policies,

president-elect Barack Obama will have to start charting a course that defines the American economy’s future direction.

The united states is not the only economy in this equation.

We need global vision of sustainable recovery that includes leadership from china, India, Europe, Latin America, and yes, even Africa, long marginalized from the world economy, but very much part of it now.

There are few clear points to have come additional income in these days. First one is,

Gagan Kainth
http://www.articlesbase.com/home-business-articles/easy-work-from-home-jobs-today-everyone-needs-some-decent-information-to-overcome-into-these-crises-669911.html

O Believers!

The new Messiah. His divinity is all about change, hoping for change and changing for the hope – not to mention coolness and hype. So what is the second coming of Jesus doing ? In the name of progressive change the divine one has reappointed 28 former Clinton advisers to his ‘shadow government’, named Tim Geithner an insider from the New York Central Bank and someone who is partially responsible for the current economic mess as Treasury Secretary [bad choice]; and now his holiness has announced that HE and HIS government [not markets you understand], will create 2.5 million jobs. Right out of thin air! Or maybe just by adding holy water ? Note to the Messianic genius – governments cannot create anything. Maybe his divinity can read the history of the 1930s and the failure of the New Deal to re-educate his Harvard trained mind before he wipes out the US economy ‘creating’ 2.5 million eco-jobs with welfare money.

O Believers!

The great one, the new prophet and savior of mankind, truly believes that HE [with divine approval?] will save the US economy and ‘manufacture’ jobs. Listen to what his Harvard trained eminence, with the ancient prophets smiling from above no doubt, had to say about HE and HIS team’s plan to solving the government created economic crisis: “..this plan is big enough to meet the challenges we face. … We’ll be working out the details in the weeks ahead, but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jump-start job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy.”

O Believers!

Blessed be the prophet Obama. The new messiah’s plan in his own words [are they divine?], “will mean 2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011.” Saving, creating, – a national effort ! personal and communal meaning ! Maybe we can call this the new ‘Volksgemeinschaft’ or the O’Messiah’s state-individual community agreement ? His divine being has proclaimed that the US will be engaged in a 2 year national socialist effort at inventing jobs – how communal, patriotic and heart warming. Tears well up in sundry eyes, as hearts throb to the messianic beat. But there is a slight problem for the holy messiah and the true believers – governments don’t create jobs.

O Believers!

But the kool-aid drinking media and the frenzied and brainwashed [but they hate Christians remember] O’Messiah cult, too busy to read, to get educated, and too disdainful of human skill and ingenuity, will wildly applaud and believe the Black Jesus and his commandments that ‘we shall create and save 2.5 million jobs!’ That would be the 11th commandment along with the other 10 that no one in today’s highly educated world can name. Markets will no doubt rise, female media correspondents faint, and Oprah and friends, along with the racist Trinity Church in Chicago will scream and dance.

O Believers!

The only problem is that government does not create anything. Government does not have independent revenue sources. Government does not have private capital. Government does not create private markets, private contracts, supply and demand and price points. Government does not expand anything other than state power which crowds out and destroys private capital. By destroying private markets in ‘creating’ welfare programs all a government will do is increase debt and actually increase real unemployment over a longer period of time.

Apparently basic economic knowledge is not a requirement to be President or a messiah.

O Believers!

The O’Messiah is simply imitating the failed policies of FDR in the 1930s – one of the great statists and socialists of all time and much beloved by students, professors, and the media. FDR’s statist deal apparently ‘created’ 5 million jobs in the US during the 1930s. Roads, bridges, stadia, public gardens and parks were all ‘created’ by FDR’s autocratic government. However in 1939 25-35 million men were still unemployed – the same number as in 1932. So over a 7 year period nothing changed. FDR did not create jobs, he did not stimulate the economy. In fact he raised taxes, increased government spending by 3 times, increased the Federal debt by 10 times, and after 7 years of hyper-active government interventionism the result was the same – mass unemployment.

Henry Morgenthau was Treasury Secretary during this period and was the man responsible for writing the cheques. In 1939 he admitted the entire New Deal program was a colossal failure: “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and now if I am wrong somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosper. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started. And enormous debt to boot.”

You will never see such quotes or facts in history books, classrooms or in the media. FDR like the O’Messiah is a saint like figure. FDR ‘saved’ America during the Great Depression. Actually no, he and his policies and that of the preceding Hoover administration caused the Great Depression. The dirty thirties were a government creation not a market failure. High taxes, protectionism, reduced credit, massive regulation and an orgy of spending and governmental interference created and deepened the Depression. Far from saving anything, FDR actually destroyed not only millions of jobs, but millions of ordinary lives.

O Believers!

And for that FDR is a hero.

Now fast forward the new O’Messiah. HE and HIS government, like FDR’s, will create or save 2.5 million jobs. This is rather disappointing since the great socialist FDR created or saved at least 5 million. One would expect more from a divine being. But no matter. Like FDR the Black Jesus will create public works programs targeted at ‘infrastructure’ since according to his holiness only public money can ‘save’ the US’ decrepit infrastructural system. However we have the added bonus of hundreds if not thousands of Greenie programs which will be added. Apparently since the state is the only actor which can build a road, it must de facto be the only actor who can love and nurture Mother Earth. So not only will the adoring and publicly paid legions of O’Messiah supporters be busy repairing roads, bridges and sewers, they will also be engaged in trimming bushes, planting flowers, hugging trees, and tenderly cleaning up rivers and streams. We should expect that the welfare created armies of the new Messiah, during the GlobaloneyWarmed summer months of massive climate change will be dancing naked and gaily in the pristine forests and meadows that they have ‘saved’.

Not only will his holiness ‘save and create 2.5 million jobs’, he will also save Mother Earth!

O Believers!

It is enough to make one drop to his knees, crying and driveling snot and thanking the divine presence for his prescience and massive intelligence in saving us from ourselves! Blessed be the new Jesus !

So let’s see. The Black Jesus will hire 2.5 million good little statists. He will pay them by either raising taxes on others, or by incurring more debt by selling debt instruments to largely foreign buyers [if any remain]; or he will simply print the money. So the 2.5 million ‘created’ jobs are not actually jobs per se but a massive welfare program paid by taxes, future obligations with interest, or through a devalued currency and hence a living standard reduction for all taxpayers. Nice.

Would it be any different if his holiness asked every American to go outside and dig holes for 6 months ? He could then claim to have created 300 million jobs overnight and saved the US economy. He could repay the labor of digging holes, by granting every American a welfare cheque for this ‘work’. This payment would come from sur taxation or debt. Is increasing taxes and debt creating jobs? Does an economy flourish when incentives to produce product and make a profit are diminished? Does real GDP actually grow when you print money or sell debt and hand over the proceeds in welfare payments?

O Believers!

The O’Messiah’s plan is plainly stupid. It is FDR statism. New Deals have always failed. Nazi Germany contrary to popular myth was a bankrupt state in 1939 thanks to nationalist socialist engineering. War in 1939 was inevitable. The Russian empire imploded as ‘New Deals’ destroyed capital, jobs and even morality. Now we have the Black Jesus, whom the media chants is ‘gonna save us’ [so eloquent] proffering the same nonsense. HE will create or save 2.5 million jobs? No he won’t. Like FDR he will destroy millions of jobs and with it millions of lives. And like FDR being an elitist Ivy league snot he won’t care a whit and will use deception and lies to justify big government and the expansion of state power.

C. Read
http://www.articlesbase.com/news-and-society-articles/the-black-jesus-and-the-old-new-deal-to-create-25-million-jobs-675184.html

A government subsidy that pays 65 percent of health insurance premiums for unemployed people who remain on their former employer’s plan is only temporary, and those who need coverage most may not qualify for other insurance after it ends.

Diane Nelson, 48, of Riverview, Fla., has terminal lung cancer and worries she’ll have to stop medical treatments once the subsidy her husband gets under the COBRA program ends in November. The couple have been paying $377 a month in premiums, but without the discount, their costs will rise to $1,100, she said.

“I’ve looked into other insurance, but I’ve been denied a couple of them because it’s a pre-existing condition,” said Nelson. Her husband, who was fired as a heavy-equipment mechanic in February, has found work as an auto mechanic but doesn’t receive health benefits, she said.

While health care reform may make COBRA less relevant down the road, people like Nelson are focused on the near-term. The economic stimulus plan passed in February included the subsidy, valued at $24.7 billion, to reduce health-care costs for the growing number of fired workers, but it lasts for a maximum of nine months and is only available to employees who lose their job from Sept. 1, 2008, through the end of this year.

“I have no idea what I’m going to do come December,” said Nelson. They’ve depleted their 401(k)s and are “trying to keep our heads above water, but we’re slowly sinking,” she said.

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates about 7 million people will use the subsidy for some part of 2009. Without the subsidy, people keeping their employer-sponsored plan typically pay the entire cost of the monthly premium, plus a 2 percent administrative fee.

Under COBRA, a 1986 law, workers can remain on their employer’s health plan for as long as 18 months. The average time out of work is 25 weeks and the number of Americans out of work longer than 27 weeks rose by 584,000 to 5 million in July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Enrollments have doubled since the subsidy began, according to an analysis released Aug. 18 by Lincolnshire, Ill.-based Hewitt Associates Inc.

“The subsidy has truly been a life saver, a major reduction of monthly bills,” said James Fisher, 59, of New York City, who pays about $150 a month for coverage. He was fired in February from Hetrick-Martin Institute, a non-profit counseling center for teens.

With the subsidy, the average family pays $377 a month, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation of Menlo Park, Calif. The cost rises to $1,078 a month without it.

People with pre-existing conditions, like Nelson, may be rejected when applying for individual policies, or may pay more than they would under even unsubsidized COBRA, said Karyn Schwartz, a senior policy analyst for the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Still, for people without pre-existing conditions, individual plans are typically cheaper than unsubsidized COBRA, said Schwartz. The average monthly premium for an individually purchased policy was $217.75 for one person and $483.25 for a family in 2007, according to America’s Health Insurance Plans in Washington, which represents the health-care industry.

Individual plans, as opposed to an employer-sponsored group plan, are the “fastest growing sector of the business,” said Humana Inc. spokesman Mitch Lubitz. The number of customers has grown 17 percent in the past year to 345,000 in June 2009 from 295,000 in June 2008, he said.

Humana, based in Louisville, Ky., began offering short- term insurance in April for unemployed or part-time workers. Applicants can choose from many features found in group health plans, Lubitz said, and may opt for a policy length from 30 days up to six months or one year. Humana added individual dental and vision options in May as many COBRA users were continuing to pay for dental coverage, Humana’s Large Group Actuarial Director Beth Grice said.

Golden Rule Insurance Co., a subsidiary of Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth Group Inc., started offering dental and vision plans in the past 12 months, said Ellen Laden of the Indianapolis-based company. The company also added two temporary plans in June, “for consumers whose lives are in a time of transition,” Laden said.

A family of four, with parents in their mid-30s and two children under 10, would pay $133 to $163 in monthly premiums for six-month coverage with a $1,000 deductible, she said.

Chad
http://www.articlesbase.com/insurance-articles/laidoff-workers-dread-end-of-cobra-subsidy-margaret-collins-1169266.html