Five Things You Need to Know About Obama’s Public Health Insurance Option

The choice of a public health insurance plan is crucial to real health care reform. Here’s what you really need to know:

1. Choice, choice, choice. If the public health insurance option passes, Americans will be able to choose between their current insurance and a high-quality, government-run plan similar to Medicare. If you like your current care, you can keep it. If you don’t—or don’t have any—you can get the public insurance plan.

2. It will be high-quality coverage with a choice of doctors. Government-run plans have a track record of innovating to improve quality, because they’re not just focused on short-term profits. And if you choose the public plan, you’ll still get to choose your doctor and hospital.

3. We’ll all save a bunch of money. The public health insurance option won’t have to spend money on things like CEO bonuses, shareholder dividends, or excessive advertising, so it’ll cost a lot less. Plus, the private plans will have to lower their rates and provide better value to compete, so people who keep their current insurance will save, too.

4. It will always be there for you and your family. A for-profit insurer can close, move out of the area, or just kick you off their insurance rolls. The public health insurance option will always be available to provide you with the health security you need.

5. And it’s a key part of universal health care. No longer will sick people or folks in rural communities, or low-income Americans be forced to go without coverage. The public health insurance plan will be available and accessible to everyone. And for those struggling to make ends meet, the premiums will be subsidized by the government.

Sources:

1. “Words Designed to Kill Health Care Reform,” Huffington Post, May 7, 2009 http://bit.ly/Btp7O

2, 3, 4, 5, 6. “The Case for Public Plan Choice in National Health Reform,” Institute for America’s Future
http://bit.ly/UgrIP

Resurrection

… dusting off the cobwebs … *cough, cough*

#41

Onward

#33

December 7

Day #22

Counting

Day #20

How Are We Doing?

My team and I working on a customer satisfaction survey for a client right now. This client is a very successful company, with a huge share of its primary market. The company, like most good companies I know, is continually striving for improvement. They see a survey of their customers to be one vehicle for assessing areas for improvement.

In a meeting with the president last week, where we presented the question set, he brought up a very interesting point. He said the the sales VP’s (who had driven the tone and angle of the lion’s share of the questions),

“You guys skewed this set of questions to target the things you know you’re not doing well. Why do you need the customers to tell you something you already know?”

The company is asking several questions about specific areas in which they know they need improvement (processing returns, packaging & shipping, billing), and none about areas where they truly excel (marketing, sales, management).

This brings up an interesting situation. Given that you almost always find what you’re looking for when doing research , is there any value in researching anything other than what you need to improve? How significantly could this (or any) company benefit from addressing areas of strength rather than weakness? Why is it that we so frequently ask people only what we’re doing wrong, instead of also asking what we’re doing right?

Since people are more likely to tell you when you’re faltering than when you’re excelling, doen’t it seem that perhaps the information that most needs communicating is the positive? Can’t we learn just as much by analyzing data about our strengths? Couldn’t we gain by drawing out that which more people are reluctant to share – the things we do well?

Using all the letters

You probably remember the sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” as being the shortest meaningful sentence that uses all the characters in the Germanic alphabet.

We recently discovered the following, more “grown-up” alternative, which accomplishes the same task:

“Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs.”

Universal Airport Wi-Fi Now!

SALT LAKE – 5:30 p.m. August 10, 2006

Dateline Salt Lake City International Airport. Sometimes I think it’s a shame we live in a capitalist nation. The fact that wireless internet access is so cheap to offer makes it perfectly suited to offering at a ridiculous cost ($10 per day in this airport… at that rate, my home internet would cost over 300 bucks a month). The ISPs are cashing in.

 

Of course, it goes without saying that the people who travel and use laptops in airports are the same people who can afford to pay ten bucks for a brief internet connection. So I should be able to afford to pay to send the emails sitting in my inbox right now. But I don’t want to. That’s my point. I don’t think I should have to, especially in an airport.

 

I think it should be part of the deal. Part of the ticket price, maybe. The airlines could easily afford to shell out a few bucks out of the millions of tickets they sell each year to provide free wi-fi in all airports in which they provide commercial service. It would be a welcome and inexpensive perk that many travelers would enjoy. It’s not like it would be a cost-intensive build-out, the bandwidth is already in place, serving te ticketing and reservation systems and the countless other IT services provided to the airport’s permanent customers.

 

For those of us who pass through and have time on our hands, it would be nice to just turn on the computer and send some email without having to line the pockets of the monopolizing ISPs.

 

 

 

 

I missed my flight

SALT LAKE – 5:10 pm

 

I missed my flight. On accident.

 

I’ve never done this before. I’ve traveled all over this country and a bit in Europe as well, and never missed a flight unless there were mitigating circumstances (a late arrival, for instance) or I deliberately intended to do so.

 

This time, I was just blithely sitting in the food court when at 4:40 I looked at my cell phone and thought “Holy crap! My flight leaves in 5 minutes”. You see I had a 4:45 departure here in Salt Lake and my connecting flight had arrived at 3:50. I had PLENTY of time. I was wandering around, window shopping, having a sandwich, enjoying the view. And I just totally missed the flight. I have no one to blame but myself.

 

I just hope they can get me on the next one, which is the last one before tomorrow morning. I really did not intend to spend the night in Salt Lake. In fact, I try to spend as little time here as humanly possible. We’ll see if I get lucky. I’m on the standby list.

 

UPDATE at 6:02 PM. I managed to find the Worlds’ Niceset And Most Helpful Ticketing Agent. He graciously agreed to sign my ticket over to United Airlines, who had seats available. On my way to Denver! Yay! I don’t have to spend the night in The City of The Blue Vatican!