About my blog
What I enjoy most about publishing Business District is the fact that I get to meet a lot of interesting people whom are active in the local business community. I get to hear about a lot of interesting initiatives that deserve media attention.
Many people ask me where we get our content from, and the simple answer is that we get it by paying attention when talking to these people. I also get it from interesting speakers that I hear, and I've trained enough people to consistently pitch ideas (but we can always use more!).
The purpose of my blog is to chronicle the events that happen during the course of building our publication and its community. I will address issues that I believe are pertinent to your business, showcase innovative business models, and help you gain greater exposure through advertising and public relations. |
Jason Myers - Publisher's Blog Behind the article: Answering the Call for Affordable Healthcare - March 08 issue n November of 2006, we conducted a roundtable on healthcare, where we had area leaders from Seton, St. David, Humana, the Hospital District and more.
I'm still referring people to that article a year and a half later because the content went a long way toward addressing Austin's biggest healthcare challenges.
Obviously, one of the most troubling issues facing business owners is the high cost of providing health insurance to employees, especially in service industry businesses.
I remember the owner of Chez Zee giving me an example of providing health insurance for a wait staff employee that would have cost over $10,000 per year. It doesn't make sense to provide it when you pay minimum wage or server wages (which is more than double paid out in wages).
It's not hard to see why many small businesses cannot afford to provide health insurance--many simply pay more in salary and leave the employee to pick it up on their own. According the the Code Red Report that came out in 2006, the uninsured rate in Texas is around 24 percent, and it's about 18 percent in Travis County (about 2 percentage points higher than the national average).
Dr. Kenneth Shine, Executive Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs at The University of Texas System and contributor to the Code Red report stated in the roundtable defined the makeup of the "working poor" as middle class individuals that work.
Recently, I met with Keith Carmichael of McQueary Henry Bowles & Troy, and he informed me about a program that they were working on with the Travis County Hospital District to address the issue of covering the working poor. In a nutshell, the program splits the burden in three ways: the individual, the employer and the state. But the individual pays lest than $100/month and the employer pays about the same amount.
I thought that this program was an innovative first step toward addressing a much larger problem and it warrants as much coverage as possible--and that's how it became March 2008's cover story.
Another aspect that I like about this program is that it still provides an incentive for the individual to take responsibility for their own healthcare, which I believe is absent from a government-based, universal health care system.
I think that most people would be willing to pay for health insurance if it was available at an affordable price (and this is comparable to car insurance).
I urge all local business owners that currently don't (or can't) provide health insurance to their employees to look into this new options. | | | |
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