Obama blames insurers for health care reforms delays

In his speech on health care at Glenside, Pennsylvania, for promoting his health care plan , President Obama repeatedly said, “I am kind of fired up”, in the same tempo as he used to address the crowds during his presidential campaign.

President Barack Obama and his top health care officials recently stepped up attacks on US insurers on their arbitrary actions in increasing insurance premiums, as part of his efforts to mobilize public opinion and to persuade lawmakers to back US health care legislation that, among other things, stipulates that all Americans would be required to avail health insurance coverage.

Obama’s signature piece of legislation on health care is designed to cover 40 million Americans who lack health insurance coverage, while reducing medical costs, and to give the US government fresh powers to regulate insurance rate increases. The legislation is expected to bring in widespread changes to US health care in 45 years. But it still faces opposition from Republicans and some Democrats on various counts.

The White House has already spent a year trying to pass health care reforms and it has paid a heavy political price to the president and his party in terms of falling poll numbers and as the stalled health care reform bill has slowed down Obama's wider agenda.

Apart from insurance firms the health care reform also faces opposition from lobbies representing drug companies and health care industry. When health care legislation was drafted in 2009 the drug companies were asked to support the legislation in return for not allowing imports of drugs from foreign countries.

Pleading on behalf of the people, Obama recently said that lawmakers are oblivious to the suffering of ‘heartland Americans’, and he added, “Those of us in public office were not sent to Washington to do what’s easy.”

Obama accused insurance firms of making ‘a cynical calculation, that even if rate hikes cost them customers, they could rake in more cash through higher premiums on remaining plan holders.’

"The United States Congress owes the American people a final up-or-down vote on health care. It's time to make a decision," Obama said recently in Pennsylvania, the state that helped him claim presidency in 2008. “We can’t have a system that works better for the insurance companies than it does for the American people,” Obama said.

"Every year, they drop more people’s coverage when they’re sick and need it most. Every year, they raise premiums higher and higher," Obama said.

“They will keep on doing this for as long as they can get away with it,” Obama said. “So how much higher do premiums have to rise until we do something about it? How many more Americans have to lose their health insurance? When is the right time for health insurance reform?" Obama insisted that the right time to pass the legislation is ‘right now.’

Parodying the pitches made by insurance firm executives to investors in their companies, Obama quoted them as saying 'we are in the money; we are going to keep on making big profits.’

Also Obama cited the plan of WellPoint Inc. for a 39 per cent rate increase for some policyholders in California. Both he and Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services Secretary, also referred to the conference call held by ‘Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in which an executive from the London-based insurance broker Willis Group Holdings Plc said price competition has decreased and insurers are willing to “walk away” from clients.’

It may be noted, recently, Sebelius wrote to heads of insurance giants UnitedHealth Group Inc., WellPoint Inc., Aetna Inc., Health Care Service Corporation and CIGNA HealthCare Inc. reiterating a request that they disclose how much of premiums go towards customers’ medical care, as well as administrative costs, executive salaries and profit.

The insurance industry CEOs met with Sebelius on March 4 at the White House. Stephen Hemsley, CEO at Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth, said in an interview afterwards that the industry agreed on the need for transparency and was waiting for details from the administration.

Meanwhile Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of the trade association, said in remarks at the group’s national policy meeting recently, “Our industry strongly supports health-care reform because we recognize that the current system is unsustainable,” and added “Unfortunately, the path that has been followed is one of vilification rather than problem-solving.”

According to trade groups, Obama needs to find ways to reduce medical costs and rather than attacking insurers. But the meeting at a Ritz-Carlton hotel in Washington is being targeted by demonstrators pressing for passage of the healthcare legislation. The organizers said they will attempt citizens’ arrests of insurance company executives and Ignagni, who opposes the current bill.

One of the complaints of the Republicans is that Obama's health care plan would mean higher taxes and the costs would be partly paid for by cuts to government health care plans for elderly people. But President Obama maintains that his approach would cut costs, expand access, rein in abuses by health care insurance firms and help reduce the rolls of more than 40 million people in America who lack health coverage.

There are many ordinary people, especially the students’ community, who fear that Obama Administration plans to jam the Student Loan program through at the same time as the Health care bill, and put college students to hardships.

There are legislators who wants the House to ditch legislation it approved in November and pass the Senate's version, coupled with ‘fixes’ to that bill, but the approach is highly risky as some conservative Democrats oppose it.

According to the former US Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, only a ‘big, national, public option’ can force insurance companies to cooperate, share information, and reduce costs. He said that scattered, localized ‘insurance cooperatives’ are too small to do that and are ‘designed to fail’ because of opposition by the moneyed forces opposing the health care reform.

One of the major obstacles to implementing any US healthcare reform that does not benefit insurance companies and the private health care industry is the power of their lobbyists. In a June 2009 NBC News-Wall Street Journal survey, 76 per cent of the people said it was either ‘extremely’ or ‘quite’ important to ‘give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance.’

According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the United States is the only wealthy industrialized nation that does not provide health care coverage to all its citizens. Those in favor of universal health care argue that the large number of uninsured Americans creates direct and hidden costs shared by all, and that extending coverage to all would lower costs and improve quality.

Now Obama is mounting pressure on the House of Representatives to back his health care plan by March 18, when he leaves on a trip to Indonesia and Australia. Obama wants House Democrats to approve the bill that has already passed the Senate. Required changes then would be made to the legislation through reconciliation, which would require a simple majority of votes in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

President Obama talks on health care plan

This video shows US President Obama visiting Glenside, Pennsylvania for promoting his health care plan and points out that most people in DC are more worried about the political score instead of results.

Marketing a single product versus multiple products

There are hundreds of ways and marketing strategies to sell your products online. Though many experts may advise that you should continue promoting only one product at a time, inevitably, even they have many products being promoted at the same time. This is because when you start with an online business of the type of a multilevel marketing (MLM) or affiliate marketing program, or anything that is not your proprietary item, you simply do not know whether you will be successful with that product, or not. Only the process of active and practical marketing that takes time can determine whether you will be successful.

So, you do not want to be tied down by one product till it becomes clear that you are successful or not. Besides, even if you are successful with a particular product, it is no guarantee that the same product will keep on bringing wads of cash day after day and month after month for years. And, what happens, if the solitary product turns out to be a failure? You do not want to waste your time, energy and money till then. Do you?

Tastes and preferences of the buyers keep on changing day after day, as new technologies, better products and many more crucial aspects on customer preferences keep on changing. So, the best seller of today is bound to become the worst seller of tomorrow. If, and when, it happens, you do not want to be caught off-guards. So, the intelligent marketer or businessperson is always on the look out for new products, including intangible services, and when they find them, they just keep on adding them to their products lineup. That, in other words, means that the idea that you should concentrate only one product at a time for marketing is simply a fallacy. Or it can be safely said at any given time almost all successful online marketers are having an array of products and services on offer.

The benefit of promoting multiple choices of products at a time is that if your customer, or even a casual visitor to your site, does not like your main product or a set of your best sellers, they may even purchase the product that is of the lowest preference in your line of products. But, that too adds to your online income. So, why should you not promote it? Take that off your products list only when keeping it is no longer economical.

Now, let us agree that we may be promoting many items at a time, but there could be some products that make the most sales. Even out of them there will be one single product that makes the highest amount of revenue in comparison to all other products on offer. And that is the product centered on which all your marketing strategies are built upon. And as soon as this product become obsolete or another product takes up its place, the new best seller becomes the centerpiece of your marketing strategies.

So, instead of one product, always try marketing different products at the same time. It makes more sense, as products, their demand and the resultant sales-pulling power of products keep on changing.

Being focused on business targets is the key to making money!

At the times when I started looking for means of making some extra money on the Internet, I was not a newbie in money-making programs like multilevel marketing, affiliate programs, etc., but I was doing such business ventures either using the traditional means like newspaper advertising, ads in mail order business magazines and mailing out my own flyers containing my business offers. So, I was only a newbie to internet marketing, and not to the business itself.

So, this newbie status on the net lead me often to dating sites, marriage sites, and sites that I never wanted to be even visiting, and sites with sort of illegal or immoral businesses for the orthodox types of people. And the types of businesses that you find today were not much, and blogs and social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others were unheard of as they were not even born. But that was many years ago. But what all I came across offered me commissions varying from 35 per cent to 50 per cent. Then I thought, if they are not harmful, why not put up a few links in my web sites. So, I did exactly that. I lost nothing, but got a few bucks, and continued looking for genuine opportunities. And it paid off.

Let me confess to you first that I am not a hardcore money-maker or affiliate marketer. I just look for some extra money that I can earn by placing harmless links and ads and stuff of that sort in my sites and blogs and I try to use the traffic and interest of my visitors to make that extra dollar when I am already on my main objective of being on the internet that spans varied topics and pursuits. These are not essentially moneymaking ventures, but attract readers and money-minded folks into my sites. I just give them opportunities through my pages and I too earn something in that process. I have no regrets if I do not earn, but mostly, I earn nicely. So I keep on doing it and I get that extra buck for the extra mileage my car needs.

Then there is the determined, focused moneymaker or affiliate marketer who makes it big on the internet. They are always on the bull’s eye when any big-hitter in the money-making horizon appears, and they make it big. I always wondered initially about how they do it. But to my surprise, I understood that they do not have such a thing called big secrets but they follow a certain method that cannot fail. Most of them will tell you what to do to make money like them. It is simply because they too started like you and they now need people like you in their network. So, I tried that method and passed on the secrets to many of my friends. Funnily, while I did not make it good in affiliate programs, those who followed the leads that I provided made big bucks. Strange but true! Reason? I was not focused on what I advised, but those who followed my advice were focused and worked hard and it paid them well.

So being focused on your business targets is the key to making money!

Oscar-impact on box office of films like The Hurt Locker

In this video Hollywood.com's Paul Dergarabedian examines the Oscar Awards' impact on revenues for a movie like The Hurt Locker. Listen to the video and think of how a movie’s fortunes are changed by an Oscar nomination and a Best Picture Oscar Award.

The best way to explain how a Best Picture Oscar can change the box office fortunes of a film can be found from the experience of last year’s Oscar Best Picture winner Slumdog Millionaire that had a limited release in North America on 12 November 2008, followed by a nationwide release in the United States on 23 January 2009. The film grossed only $360,018 in 10 theatres in its first weekend. In the second weekend, it was released in 32 theatres and made $947,795. The film largely depended on strong word-of-mouth promotion by viewers as the promotional budget of the film was negligible. The film was widely released on 25 December 2008 at 614 theatres and earned $5,647,007.

But following its Best Picture Academy Award (and seven others), the film's takings increased by 43 per cent, which was the highest for any film since Titanic. In the weekend of 27 February to 1 March 2009, the film reached 2943 theatres grossing over $140 million at the North American box office alone. As of the time of this post the Slumdog Millionaire had worldwide gross revenue of $377,417,293 with domestic revenue of component of $141,319,928 (37.4%) plus foreign takings of $236,097,365 (62.6%). Additionally, the film was released on DVD by Blu-ray in the United States and as of 12 November 2009 an estimated 1,964,962 DVD units were sold earning $31.32 million in revenue.

At the time of the announcement of Oscar nominations on February 2, Avatar was the highest earner among the Best Picture nominees with $706 million in domestic box office receipts, but as of now, it has domestic earnings of $714,464,000 (28.0%) plus foreign revenue of $1,839,000,000 (72.0%) making the worldwide box office revenue $2,553,464,000. If Avatar wins the best picture award, watch for the rate at which it will gain at the box office. Even if it loses out to The Hurt Locker or any other film, Avatar is bound to garner some of the important Oscar trophies out of the 9 nominations, and it will still boost its box office takings.

In the case of The Hurt Locker, at the time of announcing the Oscar Best picture nominations, the Iraq war film made at a budget of $11 million had taken in revenue of $12 million. Now it stands at domestic $12,671,105 (65.6%), and foreign $6,656,139 (34.4%), totaling worldwide revenue of $19,327,244. These are very small figures compared to what you have for Avatar till now, or Slumdog Millionaire after the Oscar Awards of 2009. But, if you watch for, definitely, The Hurt Locker’s fortune will make a quantum jump if it wins the Best Picture Oscar.

Also, compare the figures for Avatar and The Hurt Locker in terms of percentages worldwide out of their total revenue. Avatar earned only 28.0% from domestic market but The Hurt Locker earned as high as 65.6% of its revenue from domestic market, and it earned only 34.4% from the foreign market, against Avatar’s 72% from foreign market. Two reasons can be attributed to this vast difference: firstly, in the US, it being a war movie involving American forces and the terrorists or foreign forces, it will be acceptable to the audiences, but for the audiences outside the US, Iraq is a human tragedy, born out of miscalculations, and Avatar had a huge promotional budget and the theme was acceptable, especially for the younger generation and The Hurt Locker could not enjoy the luxury of such a huge budget and it had a limited foreign release.

Any way, if the Best Picture Oscar goes to The Hurt Locker or Precious (budget: $10 million, gross revenue: $50,867,591), these films are bound to have a big rerun and the revenues are going to jump many fold. The Academy Awards and all the run-up to the final award night is a big business in itself, including for the big fashion houses and designers that run all the way to dress up the celebrities out there for all the Oscar events.

Merkel allies advise Greece to sell islands to cut its debts

File Photo: Elias Beach on the Greek island of Mykonos. Click on the photo for the enlarged view - 1600 x 1197 pixels.

There is a suggestion from the political allies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the bankrupt Greeks should consider selling some of its uninhabited islands to cut its debt.

Josef Schlarmann, a senior member of Merkel's Christian Democrats and Frank Schaeffler, an MP of the Free Democrats, which is a junior partner in the centre-right coalition Government, told Germany's Bild daily that Greece should sell stakes in all its assets to raise more cash. ‘Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks - and the Acropolis too’, says the headline in the Bild newspaper.

Mr. Schlarmann said those who face insolvency must sell everything they have to pay their creditors. He advised Mrs. Merkel not to promise any financial aid when she meets Greek PM George Papandreou in Berlin, later this week for talks about the Greek debt crisis.

According to reports, the two senior politicians of Germany wanted to start a debate about what Greece could do to help itself and bolster the battered Euro. And according to a poll published on Thursday, 84 per cent of Germans think that the EU should not help Greece out of its debt crisis.

Mr. Papandreou has already announced harsh austerity measures to bring the Greek deficit under control, and for the Greeks to tide over the financial crisis, and this has resulted in widespread resentment from the Greek labor force totaling over 5 million, who launched protest strikes against the government’s austerity measures.

According to the International Monetary Fund Greece had an estimated average per capita income of US$30,661 for the year 2008, well comparable to that of Germany, France and Italy. But now the Greek economy faces significant problems, including rising unemployment levels. In 2009, Greece had the European Union’s second lowest Index of Economic freedom, after Poland, ranking 81st in the world.

Greek economic growth turned negative in 2009 for the first time since 1993, with the highest budget deficit, although close to those of Ireland and the UK, as well as the second highest debt to GDP ratio in the European Union.

An indication of the trend of over-lending in recent years is the fact that the ratio of loans to savings exceeded 100 per cent during the first half of the year.

According to a real estate website, Greek islands evoke images of sunglass-sporting shipping magnates sipping champagne on enormous yachts, but these islands cost as little as US$2m, relatively 'affordable' islands, the website says, ‘unless, of course, you're a Greek’.

The Greek Islands are a collection of over 6,000 islands and islets that belong to Greece, only 227 of the islands are inhabited, and only 78 of those have more than 100 inhabitants. Many of them are privately owned by the world's super rich people.

The largest Greek island by area is Crete in the Aegean Sea, and the second largest island is Euboea, separated from the mainland by the 60m-wide Euripus Strait. After the third largest island Lesbos and fourth largest island Rhodes, the rest of the islands are two-thirds of the area of Rhodes, or smaller than it.

PayPal could have avoided confusion on suspension of withdrawals to India

Following the suspension of personal payments to and from India and transfers to local banks in India by PayPal, there have been a lot of inconveniences for people using PayPal for collecting payments and using their services for transactions, including withdrawals. The problem was posted in this blog as PayPal suspends personal payments and local bank transfers in India on Feb 8, 2010. Now it seems the problems are sorted out by PayPal, as it involved questions of complying with the regulations of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The final outcome was notified to users by PayPal by email, and it is in the PayPal Blog titled "New Bank Withdrawal Instructions for Our Customers in India".

At the time of suspension of accounts, many question came up like how to cancel the withdrawal request that is already made and money was on the pipeline, the fees that PayPal deduct on reversal of payment, the difference in exchange rates when money is credited back by PayPal, how long will the suspension of withdrawals remain in force, what are the real problems with the regulators (RBI) and many more questions. Unfortunately most of these were not answered, and those who tried to contact the customer service either got ready-to-mail generic replies that had no relevance to the current problem or did not get any reply at all.

One pertinent question that was being asked by PayPal users through the PayPal Blog is why bank transfers to India were allowed by them even after the problem arose, and when PayPal knew that user is NOT going to receive the money? And interestingly, PayPal accounts showed the transactions as “completed” even when NO transaction was possible, or allowed by RBI. I transferred some money on Feb 8, and my account showed the transaction as completed, and now it is credited back to my account on March 3, 2010, but only a reduced amount on account of the exchange rate at the rate of ‘1 Indian Rupee = 0.0210343 U.S. Dollars’, as indicated in my account. Looks funny, as the money has not been received in my account and hence there was no transfer-back and there cannot be an applicable exchange rate on a transaction that never happened.

Now there are two main questions involved in the above transaction. Firstly, there was no transfer at all, and the money was with PayPal (if not with PayPal, where was it?), and what happens to the interest on the money? Though the money I transferred is nominal, there were people who had substantial amounts involved in stuck up PayPal transactions and the total sum that was held in suspension by PayPal must be huge. Therefore, at least they should have transferred the same amounts in terms of US$, as this loss to the customers is NOT because of them, but because of PayPal.

The next important question is why was the users not at least told where the money was, or at least the accounts should have shown the amount as ‘incomplete’ transaction, with some kind of indication that the money could not be transferred and it is safe. Yes, most people were concerned about the safety of their money, as there was no authentic answer on this at the PayPal blog. Most people who tried to contact PayPal were not answered.

One user rightfully commented in PayPal blog, “And wouldn’t it be wise for PayPal to add a message/announcement to PayPal (Indian) account to warn us on bank withdrawal?” Another user asked, “When PayPal have got instructions from RBI, PayPal team have immediately reversed all the money which have been transferred to or from India. Then in this case, why r u waiting for?? You can immediately stop of make reversal to our PayPal account. At least we can be trusted that our money is safe.”

Another user also asked, “Why the transfer was initiated, when PayPal knew that the payment is just going to be debited to the users’ account and the user will not receive the amount at all? There could have been some error message but it didn’t happened and then started the whole thing…!”

When he contacted PayPal, he was assured, ‘We are doing everything we can to process your withdrawal as soon a possible.’ And the source at PayPal said, “If you are unable to locate the deposit at your bank, and the status of the transaction is still listed as completed, we can initiate a trace on these funds once 14 business days have passed. In this case, please contact us and our Customer Service will provide all the information to initiate the trace procedure.” He writes, ‘so we have to wait for 14 business days from the day withdrawal is initiated, and then after they will initiate the trace and funds will come back to PayPal account. And then you can request a cheque or transfer to your credit card.’

PayPal is no doubt one of the best means of money transactions, especially for small businessmen, professionals and the small gal or guy with a blog. What we feel is that PayPal could have certainly avoided all the confusion by posting the updates and by showing the status of the payments that remained incomplete.

Any way, it is very nice to note that PayPal has resumed their services to India and posted the ‘New Bank Withdrawal Instructions for Our Customers in India’ in the PayPal Blog.