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Californians, wondering if your health care provider has any violations? Examiner.com With Anthem Blue Cross, a subsidiary of WellPoint , in the news with their impending rate hikes in California, a story from Reuters confirmed some of ...

New York Daily News Kucinich Says He'll Switch Health-Bill Vote to 'Yes' BusinessWeek Insurers such as Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. would get millions of new policyholders and be required to accept all customers. ... TAKE-A-LOOK-US healthcare reform Reuters Health Bill Faces Delay as Democrats Tinker With Cost BusinessWeek Pelosi Signals Goal of Passing Health Measure Before Obama Trip BusinessWeek tutte le notizie (4.753) »

And a good HR manager recognizes that employees are assets, not liabilities, but we all know that the general perception of HR is not one of sunshine, sweetness, and light.

Perhaps that's because most people's experience (as you're seeing here), either direct or vicarious, is that if/once HR gets involved with *any* situation concerning you, things are *not* going to be resolved in your favor.

Do you have any suggestions for educating HR professionals to avoid the behaviors which reinforce this perception, perhaps even going so far as to spur HR into thinking of "mere" employees as people instead of replaceable cogs?

Aon Lawsuit Accuses Marsh of Stealing Clients, Trade Secrets Insurance News Net - 35 minutes ago Aon Risk Services Northeast Inc. has filed suit against Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. and several former employees, alleging they stole Aon clients, employees and trade secrets. The New York-based ...

You know the drill. Just about every buddy cop movie shows the two characters performing the good cop bad cop routine. Parents have even been known to use this same strategy when seeking a confession from their children when they suspect foul play.

With good cop bad cop, one person approaches the suspect with empathy; they play nice. The other, however, pushes all the buttons, comes across as angry — possibly even a loose cannon capable of abuse, or at least capable of enacting very harsh penalties upon the suspect.

Good cop bad cop is a strategy — it outlines HOW these two people will approach a third and gives us a good sense of how to measure the desired impact in an overall and incremental

But government regulators and investigators who have overseen the actions of Assurant and other health insurance companies say it is...

It’s getting close to April Fools Day but we’re told this is no joke: It seems that in a bid to cut down on the spread of infections, some British hospitals have taken to telling visitors and their medical staffs not to sit on the beds of patients.

“We are committed to doing all we can to prevent infection and as a result have very low rates” of infections like MRSA and Clostridium difficile, a spokesman for Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, one of the British hospitals enforcing a no-bed-sitting policy, told the BBC. An official of the Scotland Patients Association was quoted

Today is the one month anniversary of the HITECH compliance being mandatory for all size BA’s –  that means ANY and ALL brokers as well as any employers vendors.

Are you still non compliant? If you are you have brought “willful neglect” fines into

Unum Forcing Policy Holder to Take Early Social Security Lawyers and Settlements - 14 minutes ago San Diego, CA: Unum uses a number of creative methods to deny long-term disability policies and practice bad faith insurance. Case in point: Carolyn's disability policy stated that she would be ...

WellPoint sees slight drop in enrollment this year Reuters By Lewis Krauskopf NEW YORK, March 17 (Reuters) - Health insurer WellPoint Inc (WLP.N) projected membership would fall slightly this year and reiterated its ... WellPoint expects loss of 400000 insured members this year Indianapolis Business Journal Wellpoint expects 33.3 million enrollees by year's end ModernHealthcare.com WellPoint Sees $59 Billion in 2010 Revenue FOXBusiness RTT News - Inside INdiana Business (press release) - MSN Money tutte le notizie (92) »

Families with twins or triplets are more likely to separate due to the financial burdens involved, according to a survey on Wednesday.

©2010 Google IFAwebnews.com Health insurer: Pa. overstepping regulatory bound Forbes It said it is particularly troubled by the Insurance Department's effort to analyze Blue Cross and Blue Shield licensing agreements, which include exclusive ... Highmark sues Pennsylvania regulators over 'unlawful' Blues' review IFAwebnews.com Price hike hits Pa. adultBasic health plan | Philadelphia Inquirer | 03/16/2010 Philadelphia Inquirer County gets break on health insurance rates Altoona Mirror PennLive.com - Pittsburgh Post Gazette - Central Penn Business Journal all 38 news articles »

Catholic nuns urge passage of Obama's health bill The Associated Press WASHINGTON — Catholic nuns are urging Congress to pass President Barack Obama's health care plan, in an unusual public break with bishops who say it would ... INVESTIGATION: Fact-checking political ads on health care reform Fox 59 all 156 news articles »

I recently heard an economist on the radio talking about gift-giving, which he called an “inefficient” practice. People constantly buy gifts that have “low utility” for recipients. Conclusion: The most efficient solution is to just give money.

My wife would see that as a total cop-out, proof that I don’t care enough to find her a meaningful gift. Spousal gift-giving clearly isn’t about efficiency.

But what about employee recognition? Surely you can’t go wrong giving employees money for a job well done, right? Actually, if your goal is to motivate your people, most employee recognition experts agree that the high-efficiency reward of cash is not the best way. You’ll get more mileage from nonmonetary rewards.

Check out the Compliance & Management

Many congratulations to Cynthia Estlund (NYU) on the publication by Yale University Press of her new book Regoverning the Workplace. Those of us with gray hair will recognize the title as a take-off on Paul Weiler's book Governing the Workplace....

A day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she is considering a maneuver to bypass an actual vote to approve comprehensive health care reform, Republicans came out firing. Republicans attack ‘scheme and deem’ approach to health reform originally reported at IFAwebnews

We all love to whinge about our commute - personally, I like to reminiscence about the year I spent in Vienna, where my journey to the office involved a leisurely 20 minute wander through the Imperial Palace. But finally, it seems some of us are doing something about the daily trek.

reallymoving.com has found that proximity to work is the top priority for house hunters, with 58% giving this as the key factor in choosing where they live.

Oddly - as we don't subscribe to gender stereotyping on Work Clinic - the survey also found that men are more likely than women to say an easy commute is the most important factor when house-hunting. Make of that what you will.

Last fall, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee reported that 57 laptops were stolen. This compromised thousands of phone calls and about 300000 screenshots of personal information viewed during the calls, according to a report in ...

Maria Palacios, 55, has reached a point in her life strong and has entered its 50s with a shift in priorities.

Democratic Caucus of the House listed the provisions of the health reform bill that will take effect “as soon as health care passes,”

 The legislation would:

When it comes to romance, the advice to "be yourself" might be right on, according to new research.

on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the state Insurance Department, claiming that its seven-month long review of competition in the insurance market and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans was “...

Insurance Executives: A Big Part of Our Health Care Problem Huffington Post (blog) The table below shows the average total pay for the five highest paid executives at UnitedHealth, Wellpoint , and Aetna for 2000 through 2008, ...

I have two alternatives: Stop reading the newspapers, or learn to manage my anger. It’s clear the world is not going to get any better. In fact, what’s bad remains bad and what was once sort of okay seems to be getting worse. I’m going to do a rundown of things that pissed me off this morning. You probably have your own, but I don’t care about yours.

• Matthew Lee, the guy who alerted Lehman Brother’s accounting firm Ernst & Young to the fact that the firm was stashing billions of debt off their balance sheet, was fired when he did so. The firm disguised it as a garden variety layoff. The Ernst & Young auditor told the people who did the

Blue Cross CEO steps down. BYLINE: The Lowell Sun. BOSTON (AP) -- The chief executive of Massachusetts' largest private health insurer has resigned just weeks after the company announced a $149 million loss. ...

You're stuck in a cramped metal tube with hundreds of strangers for hours, when it invariably happens: A baby starts screaming and the passengers' collective blood pressure seems to rise along with the decibel level.

PR Web (press release) Announcing PEOcompare.com, Unbiased Comparison of PEO Companies & Services ... PR Web (press release) This site will provide you with easy-to-compare information on national and local PEOs to help you find the one that best suits your HR outsourcing needs. ... ...

. . . today. 

I spent the entire day yesterday working on salary surveys and have more to do this morning. I did give salary surveys away but, for now, these are mine to do. It can be fun to know the rules, the nuances, the data, the determinations and the market. And yes, there are spreadsheets involved and you know I have this right brain/left brain thing going on and I tend to enjoy

Yesterday's news that US industrial production continued to improve was a welcome sign of good news for a work comp industry that has been hammered by declining claims frequency, increased severity, horrible investment returns, and a recession that prolonged what was already one of the longer soft markets in memory.

Notably, manufacturing, long a weakening sector, has shown solid strength of late, particularly in New York, where new orders were up substantially over February's figures. Employment in the sector was also up significantly to its highest point in two years.

As NCCI has

Democrats assailed health insurers for hiking rates in recent weeks to gain popular momentum for their health overhaul, but health economists say insurers did not cause high health costs, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. The economists "contend that insurance companies, while often meriting criticism for their practices, aren't to blame for high health care costs...

ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 15 (UPI) -- Many elderly people treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms are given one or more potentially inappropriate medications, researchers estimate. ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 15 (UPI) -- Many elderly people treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms are given one or more potentially inappropriate medications, researchers estimate.

Office of Civil Rights confirmed it expects to release proposed rules regarding privacy and security provisions of HITECH, but still has not said when. For the past couple of weeks, industry insiders have talked about an enforcement delay in HITECH provisions effective February 17 until OCR formally publishes rules regarding the provisions.

Eddie Slovik. We predicted it. It had to happen. And it looks like it has.

A major insurance broker based here in Atlanta, Beecher Carlson Holdings, had  two laptops stolen from employees attending an off-site company meeting last January.

Someone always has to be #1 and Beecher who is #29 on the 2009 BI Top 100 broker list is now a true industry leader – in the

Your benefits package is a key component to attracting and retaining the best talent for your company, no matter what industry you’re in. In this market, with high unemployment, health care costs, and tight budgets, it takes a little creativity to make your benefits stand out.

When you look at Fortune Magazine’s Top 100 Companies to Work For, the list of unusual perks offered by the top companies is idealistic at best. Most companies just don’t have the resources to offer things like concierge services and a 15% match in employee 401(k)s.

So that got me to thinking – what kind of unusual benefits do companies offer that don’t cost a lot? Do you allow your employees to bring pets to

AIG Sale of Life Units to Enrich US Federal Coffers Insurance News Net - 1 hour ago With American International Group Inc.'s sales of AIA Group to Prudential plc and American Life Insurance Co. to MetLife, AIG says it is on track to potentially be able to pay back more than $50 ...

Tales of the Tooth Fairy Marietta Times The 2009 results of an annual poll conducted by Securian Dental company reports a decrease in the current average "gift" US children receive from the Tooth ...

Let’s be honest, our kids didn’t do this to themselves. Our kids don’t decide what’s served in the school cafeteria or whether there’s time for gym class or recess. We, the adults, do.

Couple of posts that I caught over the weekend that made me go hmmmmm: She Said: Heather Hamilton at Microsoft has a great post over at One Louder about the insanity of style over service at the Apple retail store: "Apple does a lot of things right and I really respect their design discipline and marketing. Their ability to build a loyal following is impressive, even if that following has cartoon-style swirly eyeballs and walks all zombie-like to the beat of anything that Steve Jobs says. Ah, I joke, fanboys. I absolutely appreciated my iPod for many of the years I owned one and before I got a Zune. And there's a place for both in the market. Anyhoo. I was in an Apple store to buy a gift card for my friends' kid. And for some reason I cannot even begin to fathom, all of the Apple employees were on the sales floor doing all of their business. So the person that wanted to buy a gift card (me) had to wait in the same line as the people that had questions...lots of questions. ...

I don't know if anyone else saw this, but my favorite HR organization, SHRM, decided it was time to start selling upgrades!  That's right, for the low, extremely value conscience amount of $295 you to can get a special ribbon on your badge at the 2010 SHRM National Convention as part of your "New Annual Conference Premium Package."  But wait, it doesn't stop there, here's what else you get: 24/7 Virtual Access to all sessions of the conference- PLUS - you can earn all of your re-certification credits through your virtual access! (Does that mean that I pay the extra $295 and I get like 100+ Recert Credits for every single session I can't attend? Really, I want to know this - because if that's the case I'll take this entire post back, and sign the praises of what a great bargain this is! - I will also write another post on what a sham re-certification will now become - but I digress!) Free Time- Yes, this is a feature of the Premium Package. Now, ...

I’m not sure how many of you noticed the NYT article a few months ago on MIT student bloggers.

M.I.T.’s bloggers, who are paid $10 an hour for up to four hours a week, offer thoughts on anything that might interest a prospective student. Some offer advice on the application process and the institute’s intense workload; others write about quirkier topics, like warm apple pie topped with bacon and hot caramel sauce, falling down the stairs or trying to set a world record in the game of Mattress Dominos.

Posting untouched student writing — and comments reacting to that writing — does carry some risks. Boring, sloppily written posts do nothing to burnish an institutional image, college admissions officials say, and there is always the possibility of an inflammatory or wildly negative posting. 

MetLife records, including health data, found in trash American Medical News The Illinois Dept. of Insurance has been working with insurance company MetLife to notify dozens of people whose records were found disposed of behind a ...

The Federal Communications Commission will submit to Congress on Tuesday a 10-year plan that aims to make high-speed Internet the dominant communication medium in the U.S.:

The blueprint reflects the government’s view that broadband Internet is becoming the common medium of the United States, gradually displacing the telephone and broadcast television industries.