RALEIGH, N.C. - Cutting costs for insurance companies is the end result of a bill that passed the North Carolina House last week, according to those who oppose the legislation. They say it would be at the expense of the public, since in the event of an auto accident or similar circumstance, the extent to which a person in North Carolina can hold someone else accountable for injuries could soon be limited..
If House Bill 542 becomes law, people hurt by the actions of others will be required to reveal the amount of insurance they have while, at the same time, defendants would be able to keep their insurance coverage secret.
Raleigh attorney Chris Nichols doesn't think that's fair when, for example, someone is injured by a drunk driver.
"The North Carolina GOP wants to change the law and allow an irresponsible driver to take advantage of the benefits that responsible people have worked for and paid for."
Contact Ai Insurance for all of your insurance needs. Auto, Home, Life, Health, Commercial...they can help. Save up to 50% on your current insurance! Compare your current plan with Ai Insurance rates. Offices in Fayetteville, Wilmington, Rocky Mount, Greenville, and Wilson. http://www.aiins.us
HB 542 passed the House last week and is now in the Senate Judiciary Committee. If voted out of committee, it will go to the Senate floor by June 17.
Nichols believes state lawmakers are bowing to the pressures of insurance company lobbyists.
"North Carolina has always favored the people; we're a populist state. And, if the governor signs this bill, she is reversing that trend. We become a state that caters to corporate interests only."
Those in favor of this provision and others in the bill insist they are a necessary part of tort reform for the state, to rein in the costs of legal action.
Stephanie Carroll Carson, Public News Service - NC
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Critics: Insurance Companies Benefit from NC Tort Reform Bill
RALEIGH, N.C. - Cutting costs for insurance companies is the end result of a bill that passed the North Carolina House last week, according to those who oppose the legislation. They say it would be at the expense of the public, since in the event of an auto accident or similar circumstance, the extent to which a person in North Carolina can hold someone else accountable for injuries could soon be limited..
If House Bill 542 becomes law, people hurt by the actions of others will be required to reveal the amount of insurance they have while, at the same time, defendants would be able to keep their insurance coverage secret.
Raleigh attorney Chris Nichols doesn't think that's fair when, for example, someone is injured by a drunk driver.
"The North Carolina GOP wants to change the law and allow an irresponsible driver to take advantage of the benefits that responsible people have worked for and paid for."
Contact Ai Insurance for all of your insurance needs. Auto, Home, Life, Health, Commercial...they can help. Save up to 50% on your current insurance! Compare your current plan with Ai Insurance rates. Offices in Fayetteville, Wilmington, Rocky Mount, Greenville, and Wilson. http://www.aiins.us
HB 542 passed the House last week and is now in the Senate Judiciary Committee. If voted out of committee, it will go to the Senate floor by June 17.
Nichols believes state lawmakers are bowing to the pressures of insurance company lobbyists.
"North Carolina has always favored the people; we're a populist state. And, if the governor signs this bill, she is reversing that trend. We become a state that caters to corporate interests only."
Those in favor of this provision and others in the bill insist they are a necessary part of tort reform for the state, to rein in the costs of legal action.
Stephanie Carroll Carson, Public News Service - NC
If House Bill 542 becomes law, people hurt by the actions of others will be required to reveal the amount of insurance they have while, at the same time, defendants would be able to keep their insurance coverage secret.
Raleigh attorney Chris Nichols doesn't think that's fair when, for example, someone is injured by a drunk driver.
"The North Carolina GOP wants to change the law and allow an irresponsible driver to take advantage of the benefits that responsible people have worked for and paid for."
Contact Ai Insurance for all of your insurance needs. Auto, Home, Life, Health, Commercial...they can help. Save up to 50% on your current insurance! Compare your current plan with Ai Insurance rates. Offices in Fayetteville, Wilmington, Rocky Mount, Greenville, and Wilson. http://www.aiins.us
HB 542 passed the House last week and is now in the Senate Judiciary Committee. If voted out of committee, it will go to the Senate floor by June 17.
Nichols believes state lawmakers are bowing to the pressures of insurance company lobbyists.
"North Carolina has always favored the people; we're a populist state. And, if the governor signs this bill, she is reversing that trend. We become a state that caters to corporate interests only."
Those in favor of this provision and others in the bill insist they are a necessary part of tort reform for the state, to rein in the costs of legal action.
Stephanie Carroll Carson, Public News Service - NC
Critics: Insurance Companies Benefit from NC Tort Reform Bill
RALEIGH, N.C. - Cutting costs for insurance companies is the end result of a bill that passed the North Carolina House last week, according to those who oppose the legislation. They say it would be at the expense of the public, since in the event of an auto accident or similar circumstance, the extent to which a person in North Carolina can hold someone else accountable for injuries could soon be limited..
If House Bill 542 becomes law, people hurt by the actions of others will be required to reveal the amount of insurance they have while, at the same time, defendants would be able to keep their insurance coverage secret.
Raleigh attorney Chris Nichols doesn't think that's fair when, for example, someone is injured by a drunk driver.
"The North Carolina GOP wants to change the law and allow an irresponsible driver to take advantage of the benefits that responsible people have worked for and paid for."
Contact Ai Insurance for all of your insurance needs. Auto, Home, Life, Health, Commercial...they can help. Save up to 50% on your current insurance! Compare your current plan with Ai Insurance rates. Offices in Fayetteville, Wilmington, Rocky Mount, Greenville, and Wilson. http://www.aiins.us
HB 542 passed the House last week and is now in the Senate Judiciary Committee. If voted out of committee, it will go to the Senate floor by June 17.
Nichols believes state lawmakers are bowing to the pressures of insurance company lobbyists.
"North Carolina has always favored the people; we're a populist state. And, if the governor signs this bill, she is reversing that trend. We become a state that caters to corporate interests only."
Those in favor of this provision and others in the bill insist they are a necessary part of tort reform for the state, to rein in the costs of legal action.
Stephanie Carroll Carson, Public News Service - NC
If House Bill 542 becomes law, people hurt by the actions of others will be required to reveal the amount of insurance they have while, at the same time, defendants would be able to keep their insurance coverage secret.
Raleigh attorney Chris Nichols doesn't think that's fair when, for example, someone is injured by a drunk driver.
"The North Carolina GOP wants to change the law and allow an irresponsible driver to take advantage of the benefits that responsible people have worked for and paid for."
Contact Ai Insurance for all of your insurance needs. Auto, Home, Life, Health, Commercial...they can help. Save up to 50% on your current insurance! Compare your current plan with Ai Insurance rates. Offices in Fayetteville, Wilmington, Rocky Mount, Greenville, and Wilson. http://www.aiins.us
HB 542 passed the House last week and is now in the Senate Judiciary Committee. If voted out of committee, it will go to the Senate floor by June 17.
Nichols believes state lawmakers are bowing to the pressures of insurance company lobbyists.
"North Carolina has always favored the people; we're a populist state. And, if the governor signs this bill, she is reversing that trend. We become a state that caters to corporate interests only."
Those in favor of this provision and others in the bill insist they are a necessary part of tort reform for the state, to rein in the costs of legal action.
Stephanie Carroll Carson, Public News Service - NC
No, You Can't Keep Your Health Insurance
A new study by McKinsey suggests that as many as 78 million Americans could lose employer health coverage.
ObamaCare will lead to a dramatic decline in employer-provided health insurance—with as many as 78 million Americans forced to find other sources of coverage.
This disturbing finding is based on my calculations from a survey by McKinsey & Company. The survey, published this week in the McKinsey Quarterly, found that up to 50% of employers say they will definitely or probably pursue alternatives to their current health-insurance plan in the years after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act takes effect in 2014. An estimated 156 million non-elderly Americans get their coverage at work, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
Ai Insurance of North Carolina offers the best insurance rates on auto, home, life, commercial, and health insurance. http://www.aiins.us if you ou are looking for car insurance, health insurance, commercial insurance, life insurance, or boat insurance...they can help..offices in
Fayetteville, Wilson, Rocky Mount, Greenville, and Wilmington.
Before the health law passed, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that only nine million to 10 million people, or about 7% of employees who currently get health insurance at work, would switch to government-subsidized insurance. But the McKinsey survey of 1,300 employers across industries, geographies and employer sizes found "that reform will provoke a much greater response" and concludes that the health overhaul law will lead to a "radical restructuring" of job-based health coverage.
Another McKinsey analyst, Alissa Meade, told a meeting of health-insurance executives last November that "something in the range of 80 million to 100 million individuals are going to change coverage categories in the two years" after the insurance mandates take effect in 2014.
Many employees who will need to seek another source of coverage will take advantage of the health-insurance subsidies for families making as much as $88,000 a year. This will drive up the cost of ObamaCare.
In a study last year, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, estimated that an additional 35 million workers would be moved out of employer plans and into subsidized coverage, and that this would add about $1 trillion to the total cost of the president's health law over the next decade. McKinsey's survey implies that the cost to taxpayers could be significantly more.
The McKinsey study, "How US health care reform will affect employee benefits," predicts that employers will either drop coverage altogether, offer defined contributions for insurance, or offer coverage only to certain employees. The study concludes that 30% of employers overall will definitely or probably stop offering health insurance to their workers. However, among employers with a high awareness of the health-reform law, this proportion increases to more than 50%.
The employer incentives to alter or cease coverage under the health-reform law are strong. According to the study, at least 30% of employers would gain economically from dropping coverage, even if they completely compensated employees for the change through other benefit offerings or higher salaries. That's because they no longer would be tethered to health-insurance costs that consistently rise faster than inflation.
Employers should think twice if they believe the fine for not offering coverage will stay unchanged at $2,000 per worker. "If many companies drop health insurance coverage, the government could increase the employer penalty or raise taxes," according to the new study, authored by McKinsey consultants Shubham Singhal, Jeris Stueland and Drew Ungerman.
The case for repeal of ObamaCare grows stronger every year. The massive shift of health costs to taxpayers thanks to the disruption of employer-sponsored health insurance will add further to the burgeoning federal budget deficit. Congress can and must develop policies that allow the marketplace to evolve and not be forced into ObamaCare's regulatory straitjacket.
Ms. Turner is president of the Galen Institute and a co-author of "Why ObamaCare Is Wrong for America" (Broadside/HarperCollins, 2011).
*Ai Insurance does not endorse the content provided within this blog. Content is strictly for informational purposes only.
By Grace-Marie Turner
ObamaCare will lead to a dramatic decline in employer-provided health insurance—with as many as 78 million Americans forced to find other sources of coverage.
This disturbing finding is based on my calculations from a survey by McKinsey & Company. The survey, published this week in the McKinsey Quarterly, found that up to 50% of employers say they will definitely or probably pursue alternatives to their current health-insurance plan in the years after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act takes effect in 2014. An estimated 156 million non-elderly Americans get their coverage at work, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
Ai Insurance of North Carolina offers the best insurance rates on auto, home, life, commercial, and health insurance. http://www.aiins.us if you ou are looking for car insurance, health insurance, commercial insurance, life insurance, or boat insurance...they can help..offices in
Fayetteville, Wilson, Rocky Mount, Greenville, and Wilmington.
Before the health law passed, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that only nine million to 10 million people, or about 7% of employees who currently get health insurance at work, would switch to government-subsidized insurance. But the McKinsey survey of 1,300 employers across industries, geographies and employer sizes found "that reform will provoke a much greater response" and concludes that the health overhaul law will lead to a "radical restructuring" of job-based health coverage.
Getty Images/Stock Illustration RF
Another McKinsey analyst, Alissa Meade, told a meeting of health-insurance executives last November that "something in the range of 80 million to 100 million individuals are going to change coverage categories in the two years" after the insurance mandates take effect in 2014.
Many employees who will need to seek another source of coverage will take advantage of the health-insurance subsidies for families making as much as $88,000 a year. This will drive up the cost of ObamaCare.
In a study last year, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, estimated that an additional 35 million workers would be moved out of employer plans and into subsidized coverage, and that this would add about $1 trillion to the total cost of the president's health law over the next decade. McKinsey's survey implies that the cost to taxpayers could be significantly more.
The McKinsey study, "How US health care reform will affect employee benefits," predicts that employers will either drop coverage altogether, offer defined contributions for insurance, or offer coverage only to certain employees. The study concludes that 30% of employers overall will definitely or probably stop offering health insurance to their workers. However, among employers with a high awareness of the health-reform law, this proportion increases to more than 50%.
The employer incentives to alter or cease coverage under the health-reform law are strong. According to the study, at least 30% of employers would gain economically from dropping coverage, even if they completely compensated employees for the change through other benefit offerings or higher salaries. That's because they no longer would be tethered to health-insurance costs that consistently rise faster than inflation.
Employers should think twice if they believe the fine for not offering coverage will stay unchanged at $2,000 per worker. "If many companies drop health insurance coverage, the government could increase the employer penalty or raise taxes," according to the new study, authored by McKinsey consultants Shubham Singhal, Jeris Stueland and Drew Ungerman.
The case for repeal of ObamaCare grows stronger every year. The massive shift of health costs to taxpayers thanks to the disruption of employer-sponsored health insurance will add further to the burgeoning federal budget deficit. Congress can and must develop policies that allow the marketplace to evolve and not be forced into ObamaCare's regulatory straitjacket.
Ms. Turner is president of the Galen Institute and a co-author of "Why ObamaCare Is Wrong for America" (Broadside/HarperCollins, 2011).
*Ai Insurance does not endorse the content provided within this blog. Content is strictly for informational purposes only.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Single-Payer Health Care Systems, Multiple Health Care Disasters
Cheap North Carolina insurance rates. Home, Life, Car, Commercial, Health
http://www.aiins.us get a free rate quote today!
Democrats have recently seized on a novel way of reducing health care costs — threats.
The Obama Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced that any insurance company that wants to increase premiums more than 10% will have to get approval from the government. Congress didn’t pass a law mandating this draconian policy — HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius simply decreed it.
Meanwhile, at the state level, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin just signed a bill that will create a public insurance option within his borders. Advocates hope that the end result will be a “single-payer” system, in which the state pays for the health care of its residents directly.
Both Sebelius and Shumlin declared that they were only trying to rein in health costs and limit wasteful spending on insurance company profits. But cost control by fiat — whether through rate regulation or a state-run health care system — will fail not only to restrain spending but also to improve Americans’ health.
The facts suggest that most of the waste and inefficiency in our health care system is in the sectors dominated by government. The federal government loses as much as $60 billion a year in Medicare fraud alone. That’s five times more than the combined profits of the top ten health insurance companies in the Fortune 500.
And the price controls the federal government plans to impose on insurers will simply result in the disappearance of private insurance options. For evidence, take a look at what happened after Massachusetts instituted heavy-handed price controls under its state health reform law — considered by the White House to be a model for ObamaCare.
Bay State officials initially denied 235 of 274 rate increases proposed by insurers last year. So insurers temporarily stopped offering new coverage.
The state government and insurers later compromised, but the state’s attempts to set insurance rates have resulted in a serious shortage of medical care. More than half of the state’s primary care practices are closed to new patients, and wait times for specialists range from 24 to 48 days, according to a survey by the Massachusetts Medical Society.
In Vermont, things will likely turn out much worse. The Green Mountain State’s new health care law creates a five-member board appointed by the governor with the power to set prices for all aspects of the state’s medical system — from routine tests to drugs.
The funding mechanism for the whole mess has not yet been set. But the law’s framers envisioned a 14% payroll tax paid by almost all workers and employers in the state. That’s on top of the Social Security, Medicare, and other taxes that Vermont’s residents and businesses already pay.
Again, we know how this scheme will play out. Vermont is just across the border from Quebec — which features a government-funded single-payer system of its own that relies heavily on price controls.
The francophone province’s health care system was implemented in the 1960s at the behest of a commission led by Dr. Claude Castonguay, the so-called “father of Quebec Medicare.”
Forty years later, in 2008, Castonguay was asked to review Quebec’s health care system again. He concluded that Canadian health care was in crisis. “We thought we could resolve the system’s problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it,” he said.
His prescription for Canadian health care? “We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice.”
So just as Canada is running away from single-payer after decades of experience, Vermont is embracing it.
In 2010, residents of Quebec faced a median wait time of 18.8 weeks for surgical and other therapeutic treatments. According to The Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank, average hospital wait times increased 96% in Canada between 1993 to 2010.
Not the sort of system most Americans would want to emulate.
Here in America, federal and state officials have promised to lower health care costs — and right quick. But forcibly regulating prices won’t do the trick. Americans — and Vermonters in particular — should hope that these experiments in health care reform are mercifully short.
Sally C. Pipes is President, CEO, and Taube Fellow in Health Care Studies at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is The Truth About Obamacare (Regnery 2010).
http://www.aiins.us get a free rate quote today!
Democrats have recently seized on a novel way of reducing health care costs — threats.
The Obama Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced that any insurance company that wants to increase premiums more than 10% will have to get approval from the government. Congress didn’t pass a law mandating this draconian policy — HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius simply decreed it.
Meanwhile, at the state level, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin just signed a bill that will create a public insurance option within his borders. Advocates hope that the end result will be a “single-payer” system, in which the state pays for the health care of its residents directly.
Both Sebelius and Shumlin declared that they were only trying to rein in health costs and limit wasteful spending on insurance company profits. But cost control by fiat — whether through rate regulation or a state-run health care system — will fail not only to restrain spending but also to improve Americans’ health.
The facts suggest that most of the waste and inefficiency in our health care system is in the sectors dominated by government. The federal government loses as much as $60 billion a year in Medicare fraud alone. That’s five times more than the combined profits of the top ten health insurance companies in the Fortune 500.
And the price controls the federal government plans to impose on insurers will simply result in the disappearance of private insurance options. For evidence, take a look at what happened after Massachusetts instituted heavy-handed price controls under its state health reform law — considered by the White House to be a model for ObamaCare.
Bay State officials initially denied 235 of 274 rate increases proposed by insurers last year. So insurers temporarily stopped offering new coverage.
The state government and insurers later compromised, but the state’s attempts to set insurance rates have resulted in a serious shortage of medical care. More than half of the state’s primary care practices are closed to new patients, and wait times for specialists range from 24 to 48 days, according to a survey by the Massachusetts Medical Society.
In Vermont, things will likely turn out much worse. The Green Mountain State’s new health care law creates a five-member board appointed by the governor with the power to set prices for all aspects of the state’s medical system — from routine tests to drugs.
The funding mechanism for the whole mess has not yet been set. But the law’s framers envisioned a 14% payroll tax paid by almost all workers and employers in the state. That’s on top of the Social Security, Medicare, and other taxes that Vermont’s residents and businesses already pay.
Again, we know how this scheme will play out. Vermont is just across the border from Quebec — which features a government-funded single-payer system of its own that relies heavily on price controls.
The francophone province’s health care system was implemented in the 1960s at the behest of a commission led by Dr. Claude Castonguay, the so-called “father of Quebec Medicare.”
Forty years later, in 2008, Castonguay was asked to review Quebec’s health care system again. He concluded that Canadian health care was in crisis. “We thought we could resolve the system’s problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it,” he said.
His prescription for Canadian health care? “We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice.”
So just as Canada is running away from single-payer after decades of experience, Vermont is embracing it.
In 2010, residents of Quebec faced a median wait time of 18.8 weeks for surgical and other therapeutic treatments. According to The Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank, average hospital wait times increased 96% in Canada between 1993 to 2010.
Not the sort of system most Americans would want to emulate.
Here in America, federal and state officials have promised to lower health care costs — and right quick. But forcibly regulating prices won’t do the trick. Americans — and Vermonters in particular — should hope that these experiments in health care reform are mercifully short.
Sally C. Pipes is President, CEO, and Taube Fellow in Health Care Studies at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is The Truth About Obamacare (Regnery 2010).
Is Dental Insurance A Valuable Benefit?
By Carol Harnett
Get the health insurance coverage you need at prices you can afford.
http://www.aiins.us Ai Insurance
The cost of twice-yearly dental care may be less than the cost of a dental-benefits plan, but HR leaders may want to consider carefully before changing their employees' coverage. It's a highly valued benefit -- plus it may drive down some healthcare costs as well.
As a small business owner, I wear many hats. One of my responsibilities includes making decisions about my benefits.
In theory, this should be an easy task for me. But, since I now pay the entire premium instead of receiving contributions from my employer, I find myself being more thoughtful about how I structure my benefits package.
Medical insurance was a no-brainer, as was setting up my retirement plan and making certain I provided for my survivors via a life insurance policy. Given my background working in and around rehabilitation medicine and disability insurance, I knew that updating my disability-insurance coverage was critical.
I found myself pausing, however, when I looked at dental insurance. You see, in the back alleys of the benefits world, experts often quietly discuss dental coverage as an overpriced benefit.
I started my analysis by looking at my plan design, my dental-coverage utilization and how much I paid in premiums, co-pays and deductibles.
My last group plan was a standard benefits design. After a $100 deductible, it paid 100 percent, 80 percent and 50 percent, respectively, for preventive, basic and major dental services. There was a maximum annual benefit of $1,500 and a lifetime plan maximum of $1,000 for orthodontic services. The insurance company had also negotiated discounts with the providers in its network.
The plan allowed me to seek preventive care twice every 12 months as long as I separated my appointments by 150 days. My annual premium was $600.
But, here's where my analysis got interesting. Historically, I sought preventive care twice a year like clockwork. My dentist and I worked out an intervention plan that included x-rays once a year.
When I reviewed my billing history, I noticed that the discount the dental carrier provided was only a few dollars less than my dentist's regular charges. And, when I looked at the total charges for the year, they were, on average, about $400.
Simple math led me to the conclusion that I "lost" approximately $300 annually.
Maybe my dental experience was atypical. But, it turns out that I'm not unusual. According to the American Dental Association, most people who seek treatment incur annual costs just below $300.
As a person who knows my way around insurance, I considered the risk I was insuring against. While I have never experienced a dental emergency, I was protecting myself, in theory, against unplanned dental issues.
But, if I ever had a dental emergency or needed major dental services, how much would my dental coverage help me? The answer: up to $1,500 per year.
Costhelper.com estimates that root canals and dental crowns range from $350 to $3,000 per tooth depending upon complexity, materials, location and the dentist's training and experience. Insurance would certainly help offset those expenses.
I would have to hope, of course, that my dentist's treatment and charges lined up with what my dental coverage established as "usual, customary and reasonable."
I decided to turn to my dentist, Robert Antmann, DDS, regarding his experience with dental care and insurance. Convery Dental, of which he is an owner, has been established for 99 years, so he has access to an unusual depth of history and perspective.
Dental insurance began sometime in the 1960s, Dr. Antmann says, and the benefit, at that time, had an annual maximum of about $1,000. The majority of his patients today have an annual maximum benefit of $1000 to $1,500. Not much has changed in 50 years.
Dr. Antmann's experience is not unusual, according to other sources -- which also project that the typical annual maximum, which was $1,500 in the 1970s, should have increased, via inflation, to $10,000.
So, there are some questions about the botton-line value of dental insurance. Why would employers offer it? A few reasons.
Most employee-benefits surveys find that dental insurance is the third most employee-requested benefit after medical and retirement benefits. The theory among industry experts is that employees believe this coverage is a tangible benefit they could potentially use every year -- unlike disability or long-term-care insurance.
A 2005 study published in the Journal of the American Dental Association reported that 63 percent of adults with dental insurance visited dentists regularly, compared to 40 percent of adults without coverage.
That may not be true, however, for the 12 percent of adults who have high dental anxiety. HR executives should consider a unique finding of the JADA study: Those employees with dental anxiety who have dental insurance were significantly less likely to visit dentists regularly than uninsured adults.
Overall, employed adults lose more than 164 million hours of work each year due to dental disease or dentist visits, according to the U.S. Surgeon General's 2011 report on Oral Health in America. The theory put forward by the National Association of Dental Plans is that employees without dental insurance are more likely to lose work due to untreated dental problems.
Dental treatment may also affect medical care, according to a recent longitudinal study by CIGNA (full disclosure: a client of mine), which sought to determine whether periodontal treatment affects the cost of medical care in diabetics. (Experts suggest there is a relationship between diabetes and periodontal disease -- and that both conditions may worsen if either is not properly care for.)
The results of the study indicate that ongoing periodontal treatment of diabetics lowered medical costs in 2008 by an average of almost $2,500. The effect was more pronounced in men than women ($3,200 vs. $735, respectively).
For HR leaders, the issue of whether dental insurance is a benefit that has kept up with the times may be a moot point. Dental coverage is a benefit that employees desire.
Added to that perceived value is the potential impact dental care may have on the healthcare costs of employees who are diabetic and, potentially, pregnant.
And, you can consider, too, that dental insurance is expanding its reach and services.
Gary Ballman, staff vice president at Anthem-owned Wellpoint Dental, says new enhancements in group dental insurance include international emergency treatment as well as dental analytics, which score providers by utilization and long-term economic value.
The American Dental Association offers some benefit-plan design alternatives to consider, such as a direct reimbursement plan, which may give your employees more coverage flexibility and maintain dental-benefit costs.
As for me, I've elected to forgo dental coverage this year. But, I'll keep my eye on how dental benefits evolve.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Windows 8 heavily focused on mobile devices; will it affect the desktop experience?
We all know that Windows 8 will be designed to run on tablets and according to some recent reports, the next version of Windows will put a heavy focus on mobile devices. Windows 8 will supposedly feature a welcome/unlock screen similar to the one found in Windows Phone 7, a new Ribbon UI for Windows Explorer and a document reader that uses a new packaged application model that “closely resembles Windows Phone 7 application packages.” These new features suggest that the operating system will be headed towards a more mobile-friendly interface than the previous versions of Windows. While this may be a good sign for users who want Windows on their mobile devices, it makes one wonder if the desktop version of the operating system will be streamlined similarly as well. After all, the desktop version of the Windows 7 is what makes it a great operating system and optimizing a desktop OS for the tablet/smartphone could have pretty drastic results.
Ai Insurance http://www.aiins.us recently made available a mobile (web-based) app to it's web users this weekend. Shortcuts includes "get a quote, locations, find an agent, and of course the Facebook link out. Try it out on your Droid or iPhone.
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