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Displaying posts tagged "starting your business" (Clear Search) Friday, March 26th, 2010
Health Care Reform - What's in it for EntrepreneursBy Paul Zane Pilzer
Future articles will continue to examine the opportunity for entrepreneurs, and explain what employers and employees should do now. Visit me on Facebook On Thursday, March 25, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the H.R. 4872 (the "Reconciliation Bill"). This bill modified the Health Care Reform bill signed by President Obama on March 23 as noted in my previous blog posts. Regardless of my or your political opinion on Health Care Reform, it is now the law of the land. The U.S. federal government effectively now: (1) Mandates that everyone get health insurance; and (2) Defines what is health insurance--what specific procedures, drugs, and treatments must be included in every health insurance policy. If you are a medical provider today, or are considering becoming a medical or wellness provider, this could be the greatest entrepreneurial opportunity of your lifetime. Here's just one example. Beginning September 23, 2010, health insurance policies must cover with No Deductibles and No Copays (i.e. 100% free to the patient) preventative and wellness care. Just think what this one provision could mean to a manufacturer of breast cancer screening devices, or to a chain of medically-supervised weight loss clinics. You now have 300 million potential customers, at hundreds or thousands of dollars each, and each customer has 100% of their services paid for by their private or federal health insurance carrier. The final details of what is, and is not, included in the list of mandatory free preventative services will be issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). But, just to whet your appetite, here is a list of thousands of preventative treatments ranging from obesity screening to smoking cessation programs that HHS could include on what must be covered. I'll be writing more on this in the coming weeks. My next blog posting on Health Care Reform will be what employers and employees should do now regarding employer-sponsored health benefits. Friday, February 12th, 2010
U.S. Health Care Reform Update: The Coming Opportunity for EntrepreneursBy Paul Zane Pilzer
Reducing the cost of health care is the greatest short-term entrepreneurial opportunity of this century What Employers and Employees Should Do Now Instead of listening to the majority of working, taxpaying Americans, our legislators listened mostly to lobbyists for medical providers and special interests. By December 25, 2009, the House and Senate had passed bills that would have dramatically changed health care for every American citizen, whether the citizen wanted it changed or not. But then, just as a final, reconciled bill was being finished for the signature of the President, the majority of Americans spoke. And they spoke loudest in Massachusetts in a special election called to replace the seat of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, the original architect of U.S. health care reform. On January 19, 2010, in a Boston Tea Party heard all the way to Washington, Massachusetts elected Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate, ending the supermajority the Democrats needed to pass reform without any Republican support. Thanks to the people of Massachusetts, our legislators are now listening. The election stopped U.S. health care reform dead in its tracks. Every senator and every congressman now realizes that their seat, too, could soon be lost, unless they listen to the majority of their working constituents who don't want any changes in their health care except for lower cost and/or increased portability. The Coming Opportunity for Entrepreneurs This is because: (2) The cost of U.S. health care has been growing several times faster than the overall economy--from less than 5% of GDP in the 1960s to an expected 20% of GDP in 2010. If this rate of growth were to continue, the U.S. economy would be bankrupt by 2020. (3) There is an enormous backlog of unimplemented RITs (Ready-to-be-Implemented-Technological Advances), simply "better methods", in every area of U.S. health care. These range from the byzantine paper-based way doctors currently schedule their appointments, to their bazaar-like billing system where five different patients are charged five different wildly-varying prices with no disclosure to anyone (i.e. no transparency). However, over the long term the greatest opportunity to reduce the cost of medical care is to implement wellness programs that prevent illness from developing in the first place. Walk into any hospital, medical provider's office or pharmacy and you can see immediate opportunities screaming for improvement. Just implementing a patient EMR (electronic medical record), which would give a doctor instant access to a patient's prior medical history, could increase a doctor's bottom line by 50%, improve the quality of care for the patient, and save our nation hundreds of billions of dollars. This great opportunity to reduce medical cost already exists for social entrepreneurs outside the United States. The most popular operation in the United States is a simple lens replacement for a cataract. In the U.S., this operation costs about $3,500 per eye including $875 for the lens. Outside of the U.S., the world's 63 million blind people with cataracts don't have $35, let alone $3,500, to spend on lens replacements. To serve them and eliminate preventable blindness, Dr. Geoff Tabin and his associates profitably deliver cataract operations in Africa and Asia for $20 per eye including the $8 cost of his own lens that he manufactures in China. Read closely how he does this here in my book, and in the January 2010 National Geographic Adventure Magazine, and your mind should start churning with social and profit-making entrepreneurial opportunities to reduce medical costs. Currently, in the U.S., there is no great immediate opportunity to reduce actual medical costs because the current U.S. health insurance system provides the opposite ("perverse") incentives to medical providers, and has no system of transparency to even monitor costs. Thanks to the people of Massachusetts, I'm now optimistic that this will change when Congress returns to the issue of health care later this year. The cost of health care is the elephant in the room when it comes to balancing our budget and reducing our enormous deficit. Everyone should be loudly telling their elected officials to stop pursuing their personal social agendas or caving in to lobbyists for Big Pharma and other medical providers. Washington should simply focus on what most Americans want out of U.S. health care reform: There is today an immediate opportunity for most employers and employees to significantly reduce their cost of health care, and even obtain portability--by focusing on their health insurance program and taking advantage of several tax and insurance reforms that were quietly passed in 2005-2007 but are first taking effect in 2009-2010. This is especially true because during the past year many employers and employees delayed making important decisions on their health benefits. The implementation of these reforms answers one of the most frequent questions I'm getting today from employers: "Now that U.S. health care reform has stopped, what should we do for health benefits at our company, or for our family?" If this subject is of interest to you, read my companion article to this blog post at ClarifyingHealth.com by clicking on the link below. Friday, January 29th, 2010
How I Got My First Book PublishedBy Paul Zane Pilzer
Entrepreneurs must be on the "cutting edge" (black ink) versus the "bleeding edge" (red ink) of new products, ideas, and trends. In October 1985 I was introduced in the United States Congress by then-Vice President George H. Bush. I testified about the coming S&L Crisis, saying that if the scandal was left unchecked it would cost the U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars and cause millions of U.S. citizens to lose their life savings. My written prepared remarks were titled: "Taking Uncle Sam for a $200 Billion Ride." I was ridiculed for using such a enormous figure, $200 billion, to describe the magnitude of the situation--no government scandal prior to then had cost more than a few billion dollars. The same week in 1985 I met with an editor at Simon & Schuster (S&S) about writing a book, called Other People's Money, to expose the scandal. S&S stalled me for three years (1986-1988) while I kept writing articles and op-ed pieces about the S&L Crisis. I became a media darling on the subject on CNN, NPR and national news and talk shows. In December 1988, when the S&L Crisis was already a household word, I appeared on The Larry King Live! Television Show. The next morning I got a call from the same editor at S&S saying they wanted to publish Other People's Money right away. I was furious! I exclaimed to the editor: "You could have published this book three years ago when it was new information, now everyone knows all about it." The editor calmed me down and explained. "Paul," he said, "three years ago when you came to me with this story I presented it to my colleagues and they thought you were a nut. If we had published your book back then, it would have sat on the shelf. Now that we have five different book proposals from prominent people on this same subject, we can see that this story is finally ready for a popular book. We are a business, not a charity. We want to hear about new things when they are on the bleeding edge (red ink), but we don't want to publish a major book on new things until they are on the cutting edge (black ink), and the public is ready for the information." The editor added that if I would stop screaming at him he would outline the business terms of their offer to publish my book. S&S published Other People's Money in 1989 and it was an instant success--being featured on the cover of The New York Times Book Review and paving the way for my future life as an author.
Monday, November 9th, 2009
U.S. Healthcare Reform Will Create Major Opportunities for EntrepreneursBy Paul Zane Pilzer
The House of Representatives passed its version of health care reform this past weekend. The bill now moves to the Senate where the final outcome is unclear. Below is my article today in ClarifyingHealth about U.S. healthcare reform.
One thing, however, is clear. Any bill that passes will cause a major shakeup in the delivery of U.S. healthcare--creating enormous dislocations for existing providers, and enormous opportunities for new entrepreneurs to serve new customers. I'll be examining these dislocations and opportunities if, and when, a final health care reform bill is headed to the desk of the President. Stay tuned. __________________________________________ The Real Reason We Need U.S. Health Care Reform - Cost
by Paul Zane Pilzer Every U.S. entrepreneur is challenged getting affordable health insurance for themselves and their families. Congress and The White House seem completely out of touch with the real issue since most elected officials receive free lifetime care for themselves and their families. Note: If and when Congress passes a major health care reform bill, I will be posting an article on what entrepreneurs and small businesses should do to maintain affordable health care for themselves and their employees. The single most important problem with U.S. health care is that it costs too much. The U.S. spends much more per person than any developed nation and our population is the unhealthiest of any developed nation. There are hundreds of reasons U.S. health care costs so much relative to how little we get for our money. Some of these reasons include: 1. We pay medical providers for each procedure (even if the procedure is fatal) rather than pay medical providers based on the outcome of each procedure or on the health of the patient. 2. We have no caps on legal liability for medical mistakes--this causes medical providers to waste billions on tests and procedures of dubious value, some of them dangerous, just to limit court settlements. 3. We have very limited competition--incredibly, it is still illegal for a health insurance company to sell coverage across a state line. 4. We pay virtually anything for sickness industry costs once a patient is ill, but virtually nothing for wellness industry costs to keep patients healthy in the first place. 5. Medical providers immorally charge different patients wildly different rates--from $10 to $100 for the exact same procedure or treatment, based on the network in which the patient is a member. These different rates are hidden from the public and, generally, the poorer you are the more you pay. Yet, incredibly, almost all the proposals now being considered in Washington do nothing to reduce or even slow the growth in health care costs. The reason is pork--more pork than we may have ever seen in our lifetimes. When the debate began earlier this year on how to reform U.S. health care, each medical provider special interest group lined up their favorite legislators to buy their support. Quiet backroom deals were made one-by-one. 1. The AMA (doctors) was promised that nothing would be done to cut payments to physicians or tie doctor payments to performance. 2. Trial lawyers were promised that no caps would be put on legal liability for medical mistakes. 3. Big Pharma was promised that nothing would be done to their net revenues--even obvious fixes like giving Medicaid patients generic vs brand-name drugs were taken off the table. 4. Inefficient, bloated local insurance companies were promised that they would not have to compete with larger, more efficient national insurers over state lines. 5. Medical network providers were promised that there would not be "transparency"--the wildly-varying charges medical providers immorally charge each patient would never be disclosed to the public or to the patient. U.S health care reform started out with a noble goal--get health insurance coverage for the millions of Americans who want coverage and are currently slipping through the cracks for two primary reasons: (1) They have a pre-existing medical condition and reside in a state with poor state-guaranteed coverage; or (2) They cannot afford coverage but are either not poor enough to join the 45 million Americans receiving Medicaid or not old enough to join the 47 million Americans receiving Medicare. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, just after the House has passed its version of health care reform. we have been sold out. We, the American people, deserve better. Friday, October 23rd, 2009
Employment Update: Why Things are About to Get Much WorseBy Paul Zane Pilzer
While the U.S. economy is getting better on Wall Street, things are getting worse on Main Street. Unemployment benefits are running out and small businesses are just now dealing with their prior losses. This has created an immediate opportunity for those in the business of offering a business opportunity to the unemployed—an opportunity that could grow exponentially when Congress better understands the true nature of current unemployment. U.S. home foreclosures, personal bankruptcies, and debt defaults are rising. This is creating enormous pain for many but also opportunity for those in the business of purchasing and reselling assets (houses, cars) from those in distress, or offering the unemployed a business opportunity. "Dad," I asked my father when I was 12 years old, "What the difference between a recession and a depression?" "That's easy," he replied. "In a recession your neighbor loses his job. In a depression you lose your job." While my father's description was not technically accurate, it is very relevant for us today. Other than a few economist types like me, people generally care only about "their economy" vs "the economy." How many people do you personally know who have lost their home or their car during the past 12 months due to the economy? Your answer probably is “no one” or "not as many as I would have expected." Unfortunately, this may soon change. The Great Crash of 2008-2009 began on September 15, 2008 with the fall of Lehman Brothers—causing an immediate widespread panic in the banking system. But people didn't start getting laid off in large numbers until months later. Reported U.S. unemployment rose from 6.2% in September to 7% by December 2008, but then steadily climbed to about 10% today (about 16 million people). This is a level the U.S. has not seen since 1982, and before that not since the Great Depression. These dates are important because unemployment benefits (including extensions granted by federal stimulus money) typically last between 46 and 79 weeks. The majority of people laid off since September 2008 are still receiving unemployment benefits—benefits which begin terminating this month. As these benefits run out, the number of home foreclosures, debt defaults, and personal bankruptcy filings will increase. Moreover, the actual unemployment figures are much worse due to the way our government tracks and reports unemployment. The popular figure reported by the press is for U-3 unemployment—this is the number released each month by the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics). U-3 unemployment is basically the percent of the civilian labor force who are actively looking for work. U-3 understates the true unemployment picture because it excludes people the BLS artificially decides are not actively looking for a job, and people who are working part-time but want to work full-time. The more accurate number to watch is U-6 employment, which is basically the number of unemployed people who are ready, willing and able to work but can't find a full-time job. This figure rose from 10.6% (16 million people) of the labor force in September 2008 to 17% (26 million people) in September 2009. Thus, 26 million Americans, not 16 million, are currently unemployed, and their unemployment benefits are about to run out. Congress is now considering a second extension of the time period for unemployment benefits. While this seems fair and just, it is actually doing a great disservice to most of the currently unemployed who are never going to get their former job back. Their former job doesn't exist—it has been replaced by a new method or machine to accomplish their task, the product they used to make is no longer produced at all, or the product is no longer produced in the U.S. What Congress should be considering is tying extensions of unemployment benefits to mandatory education and retraining programs. To receive unemployment benefits past a certain time period, an unemployed person should be required to enroll in courses or internships where they learn new skills or improve themselves in areas in which they are vocationally deficient. When our government does this, whole industries will emerge offering training and development programs, and employers of all sizes will offer internships giving unemployed people a chance to try out new vocations. Separately from unemployment benefits running out, another area of grave concern today on Main Street is trade credit. Many small businesses stopped fully paying their suppliers around December 2008 when their sales declined. Normally, when a customer doesn't pay a supplier’s bill on time, the supplier stops shipping them new product until the customer brings their account current. But, over the past year, a majority of customers in some industries such as sporting goods, automobiles, and restaurants fell behind on their payables. Suppliers were unable to get tough since they themselves would have gone out of business if they had cut off supplying all customers who couldn't fully pay for their supplies. This de facto extension of trade credit has led to an enormous number of small businesses that simply cannot now pay their suppliers, and an enormous number of suppliers who don't have either the management or financial capability to deal with their growing accounts receivable. In my anecdotal survey of local suppliers and friends who own small businesses, I find that businesspeople who typically earn only $100,000-$200,000 a year are behind on up to $1 million or more in trade credit that they have no idea how they will pay off. If you, or a friend, own a small business, you must carefully watch your accounts receivable everyday and be prepared for the most creditworthy of your customers to stop paying you at any moment. Congress and individual states may soon need bailout programs for small businesses, just as they provided such programs to our largest banks and automobile manufacturers. As more small businesses fail, even as the overall economy recovers, unemployment will grow beyond the 26 million Americans currently without a job. As I'll discuss in future articles, our largest industry may soon be the retraining of workers and the offering of pre-packaged business opportunities to those who can’t, or who no longer want to, work for someone else. |
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