Taxachusetts? Not this time!

As you know, Scott Brown, a Republican, defeated the Democratic candidate to fill Sen. Ted Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat, a stunning reversal of Massachusetts trends of the last 50 years, for a seat that the Dems thought they couldn’t lose.
While there is certain to be a lot of political fallout and spin doctors massaging the [...]

Health Care Costs – Cut? Not!

For those of you attempting to follow the meandering health care reform debate … gold stars if you have any idea where this sits today … you might be interested in the recent Business Week article, Radical Surgery, about a hospital that slashes costs AND delivers high quality with innovative flair.
One parenthetical observation in this [...]

White House Jabbing about Jobs

As I’ve said here before, I don’t think our elected servants in D.C. know much about creating jobs. Let’s remember that the stimulus program was always “too little, too late” and we harped here that the length of time over which those funds would be deployed was way too long … witness today that jobs [...]

Small business still swimming upstream

Like big bears hovering over the waterline picking off salmon swimming upstream, the economy is not  much of a friend to small business. As you probably realize, small businesses generated 65% of the job growth between 1993 and 2008, and represent about half of the private-sector employment in the U.S., according to the Small Business [...]

Get after health care costs NOW!

My last newspaper column, Can Small Companies lead in consumer-directed health care?, focused on certain health care ideas and the success that companies like Whole Foods have had focusing on individual responsibility for some of these basic costs.
According to a new report, over $700 million is wasted each year in the medical system, equal to [...]

Buried in a 2,000 page bill …

Like I’ve said, I certainly didn’t intend to wade into this health care reform quicksand but just the thought of a 2,000 page bill that legislators haven’t read conjures a paperwork morass that, like a stealth bomber, sneaks in under the radar and does incredible damage before you wake up in the morning …
… not [...]

The Devil you know ….

Like I said, I really didn’t intend to wade into this health care reform mess … but just the appearance of a 2,000 page bill that purports to have figured out the entire health care system … is ludicrous! That alone makes me flatly opposed to this bill … and to those who say something [...]

Solve the World’s Greatest Puzzle

I didn’t really intend to wade into the morass of health care reform but the appearance of a 2,000 page bill pushed me over the edge.
So, my breathless health care reform lapdogs … and you know who you are … here’s your assignment.
Pick up a copy of War & Peace and the King James version [...]

What else is in that 2,000 page bill?

Here’s just the tip of the iceberg in the record-breaking 2,000 page health care bill … nutrition labeling for vending machines, new costs for virtually every restaurant chain to spell out nutrition guidelines, in-home counseling for pregnant mothers, priority to Indian health clinics in certain states, adult coaching on “parenting practices”, etc.
Are some of these [...]

Looking beneath the headlines … more danger?

In my last few posts, I’ve discussed the job creation efforts of the Obama Administration, which have had abysmal results.
There are a lot of voices coming to the same conclusion. An editorial in today’s NY Times chimed in about not only “underemployment”, which takes the 10.2% unemployment figures to 17.5% … but about long term [...]