Health Care Priorities

I have heard that 65% of statistics are made up on the fly; but Bill Frist, Senator from Tennessee, said he thinks 1/3 of our health care spending is due to waste and fraud.  He goes on to say that the 3 major points of healthcare reform should be:

     1)  Get the uninsured into the system;
     2)  Lower the costs of healthcare; and
     3)  Eliminate fraud and waste.

Practical Dreaming

Sometimes financial planning conversations can go places one might not expect.  Take for example the following inspiring story of one business owner's dream to live in California.

I get an email asking if I would be willing to meet and discuss financial planning issues.  I replied by saying--"Don't you work with another CFP(r)?"  To which she replied--"I'm not working with her anymore and I have been working with another CFP(r) guy but they don't really do what you do." 

Anyway we agreed to meet and see where it goes.  Well in a little over an hour

Small Business Health Insurance Update

I just returned from a meeting sponsored by the OKC Chamber of Commerce regarding the health insurance plan with Blue Cross that our company has used for the past many years.  Here are a few points of significance which came up for me as an employer and a consumer:

1)  The Chamber Choice Plans as we have known them since 2001 are not available as of January 2014.
2)  Insure Oklahoma Plans are still in place through 2014 and not part of the general state budget.
3)  There were two large firm lawyers and a couple of Blue Cross people fielding questions.  The lawyers seemed to get the most action I am sorry to say. 
4)  EVERY EMPLOYER'S SITUATION IS VERY DETAIL SPECIFIC AND THERE IS NO RULE OF THUMB OR EASY ONE-OFF ANSWERS.

Nobel Prize in Economics

Here are pictures of the 3 guys who shared the Nobel Prize in Economics this year.  Just to remind us of how fuzzy economics is the two guys on the left and right disagree with one another and the guy in the middle has math programs to explain the theories but no one really talks about him much since he doesn't disagree with the others. 

Mother Natures Way

So I went to a conference last week in Dallas where financial advisors from around the region gathered to discuss strategies for "High Performing Firms".  I was NOT enthusiastic about being there until Ren Cheng, PhD gave a kooky professor presentation on Systemic Risk.