Opt Out on Obamacare, Opt Into the Private Health Care Revolution


Book Description

Heading into 2014, American businesses face an important decision about health care: Opt in or opt out? With the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, in effect, companies with more than 50 employees will either offer health care benefits or face penalties. And the choice isn't as straightforward as it may sound—in many instances, some companies could save money by paying the fines rather than funding a health care plan. Others would lose money if they dropped coverage. Most employers would like to offer the benefit, but it needs to be truly affordable. Fortunately, the stampede of innovations introduced in the private sector over the last decade has simplified the decision; health costs can be managed if corporate managers make it a strategic priority. John Torinus Jr., author of The Company That Solved Health Care, the eye-opening book detailing one company's game-changing health care program, now gives Opt Out on Obamacare, Opt Into the Private Health Care Revolution, a game plan for improving workforce health and dramatically lowering health costs. Unlike the new national law, it concentrates on management science, not politics. Innovative corporations have engaged their employees in taming the hyper-inflation that has plagued the health care industry for decades. CEOs, CFOs, and COOs in front-running companies are deploying management disciplines and marketplace principles to invent a better business model for health care. They are bending the curve, and this book shows you how to follow suit.




The Grassroots Health Care Revolution


Book Description

When exploding health care costs threatened Serigraph’s solvency, the CEO went outside the box to find a solution. John Torinus Jr. applied innovative, cutting-edge strategies to cut his health care expenses well below the national average while improving his employees’ care. Now, across America, leading companies are following Serigraph’s example. There is a revolution brewing. A revolution that will dramatically lower health costs nationwide. John Torinus Jr., author of The Company That Solved Health Care, the eye-opening book detailing one company’s game-changing health care program, now presents The Grassroots Health Care Revolution. Featuring examples and interviews with the business leaders who are at the forefront of these innovations, The Grassroots Health Care Revolution is a game plan for improving workforce health and radically lowering health costs. Torinus avoids the politics of health care to focus on what businesses can actually control. He shows how pioneering corporations have engaged their employees to tame the hyper-inflation that has plagued the health care industry for decades. Executives in leading companies are deploying management disciplines and marketplace principles to invent a better business model for health care. These companies are bending the curve, growing profits and improving the health of their employees. Learn how you and your business can join the revolution.




The Company That Solved Health Care


Book Description

Explains how employers can take control of the increasing burden of health care costs, using the approach taken by Serigraph, a company that focused on consumer responsibility, primary care, and centers of value, as a model for improving health care while lowering the cost.




50 Vetoes


Book Description

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) remains vulnerable to repeal, largely because Congress and the Supreme Court have granted each state the power to veto major provisions of the law before they take effect in 2014. The PPACA itself empowers states to block the employer mandate, to exempt many of their low- and middle-income taxpayers from the individual mandate, and to reduce federal deficit spending, simply by not establishing a health insurance "exchange." To date, 34 states have refused to create Exchanges and some 16 states have announced they would not expand their Medicaid programs. Yet the Obama administration is trying to coerce states into implementing parts of the expansion that the Court rendered optional. This special White Paper provides a comprehensive review of the process now occurring between states and the Obama Administration, underscoring how a critical mass of states exercising their vetoes over Exchanges and the Medicaid expansion can force Congress to reconsider, and hopefully repeal, the rest of the PPACA.




The Human Cost of Welfare


Book Description

Why is the welfare system failing to work for so many people? This book examines the problems with the current welfare system and proposes reforms to create a smarter, smaller system that helps people improve their lives through rewarding work. Unlike other books on welfare, this one draws on the stories of more than 100 welfare recipients who are trapped in a system that keeps them underemployed and unemployed. The authors present case studies that show that being a part of a welfare program can actively result in the recipient having to limit their job efforts for fear of losing government assistance. The book examines all major U.S. welfare systems, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, SNAP, Medicaid, and others. The authors begin by exploring the nation's basic poverty issues and examining the relationship between work and happiness. Next, they zero in on specific welfare programs, reporting both on their dollar costs and on the ways that they fail enrollees. The book then concludes with strategies for addressing the shortcomings of the current U.S. welfare system. This book is appropriate for readers interested in public policy, government programs, welfare, and cultural shifts in America. It adds a new perspective to the existing body of welfare scholarship by systematically assessing the impact of welfare on the receivers themselves.




Medicare for All


Book Description

A citizen's guide to America's most debated policy-in-waitingAfter languishing for decades on the fringes of political discussion, Medicare-for-All has quickly entered the mainstream debate over what to do about America's persistent healthcare problems. But for most informed Americans, this surge of public and political interest in Medicare-for-All has outpaced a strong understanding of the issues involved. This book seeks to fill this gap in our national discourse, offering an expert analysis of the policy and politics behind Medicare-for-All for theinformed American.




Priceless


Book Description

In this long-awaited updated edition of his groundbreaking work Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis, renowned healthcare economist John Goodman ("father" of Health Savings Accounts) analyzes America's ongoing healthcare fiasco—including, for this edition, the failed promises of Obamacare. Goodman then provides what many critics of our healthcare system neglect: solutions. And not a moment too soon. Americans are entangled in a system with perverse incentives that raise costs, reduce quality, and make care less accessible. It's not just patients that need liberation from this labyrinth of confusion—it's doctors, businessmen, and institutions as well. Read this new work and discover: why no one sees a real price for anything: no patient, no doctor, no employer, no employee; how Obamacare's perverse incentives cause insurance companies to seek to attract the healthy and avoid the sick; why having a preexisting condition is actually WORSE under Obamacare than it was before—despite rosy political promises to the contrary; why emergency-room traffic and long waits for care have actually increased under Obamacare; how Medicaid expansion spends new money insuring healthy, single adults, while doing nothing for the developmentally disabled who languish on waiting lists and children who aren't getting the pediatric care they need; how the market for medical care COULD be as efficient and consumer-friendly as the market for cell phone repair... and what it would take to make that happen; how to create centers of medical excellence, which compete to meet the needs of the chronically ill; and much, much more... Thoroughly researched, clearly written, and decidedly humane in its concern for the health of all Americans, John Goodman has written the healthcare book to read to understand today's healthcare crisis. His proposed solutions are bold, crucial, and most importantly, caring. Healthcare is complex. But this book isn't. It's clear, it's satisfying, and it's refreshingly human. If you read even one book about healthcare policy in America, this is the one to read.




The Grassroots Health Care Revolution


Book Description

When exploding health care costs threatened Serigraph's solvency, the CEO went outside the box to find a solution. John Torinus Jr. applied innovative, cutting-edge strategies to cut his health care expenses well below the national average while improving his employees' care. Now, across America, leading companies are following Serigraph's example. There is a revolution brewing. A revolution that will dramatically lower health costs nationwide. John Torinus Jr., author of The Company That Solved Health Care, the eye-opening book detailing one company's game-changing health care program, now presents The Grassroots Health Care Revolution. Featuring examples and interviews with the business leaders who are at the forefront of these innovations, The Grassroots Health Care Revolution is a game plan for improving workforce health and radically lowering health costs. Torinus avoids the politics of health care to focus on what businesses can actually control. He shows how pioneering corporations have engaged their employees to tame the hyper-inflation that has plagued the health care industry for decades. Executives in leading companies are deploying management disciplines and marketplace principles to invent a better business model for health care. These companies are bending the curve, growing profits and improving the health of their employees. Learn how you and your business can join the revolution.




A New Era in U.S. Health Care


Book Description

A New Era in U.S. Health Care demystifies the Affordable Care Act for unfamiliar readers, setting an agenda for lawmakers and the health industry alike. It focuses on four key issues that will determine the success of this 2010 legislation: the use of state-run Medicaid programs to expand access to insurance; the implementation process; the creation of health insurance exchanges; and the introduction of a new organizational form, accountable care organizations.




Moral Hazard in Health Insurance


Book Description

Addressing the challenge of covering heath care expenses—while minimizing economic risks. Moral hazard—the tendency to change behavior when the cost of that behavior will be borne by others—is a particularly tricky question when considering health care. Kenneth J. Arrow’s seminal 1963 paper on this topic (included in this volume) was one of the first to explore the implication of moral hazard for health care, and Amy Finkelstein—recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on the topic—here examines this issue in the context of contemporary American health care policy. Drawing on research from both the original RAND Health Insurance Experiment and her own research, including a 2008 Health Insurance Experiment in Oregon, Finkelstein presents compelling evidence that health insurance does indeed affect medical spending and encourages policy solutions that acknowledge and account for this. The volume also features commentaries and insights from other renowned economists, including an introduction by Joseph P. Newhouse that provides context for the discussion, a commentary from Jonathan Gruber that considers provider-side moral hazard, and reflections from Joseph E. Stiglitz and Kenneth J. Arrow. “Reads like a fireside chat among a group of distinguished, articulate health economists.” —Choice