Healthcare

We talk a good game in the health care system. We say we want to empower patients, but how powerful do we really want them to be? We say we want to give them enough information so they can make informed choices, but how do we deliver that information so that patients truly understand what is being said? As health care reform continues and open enrollment periods occur, encourage your employees to know that they are the key to this empowerment that everyone's talking about. Thus, it's important that they be educated about, and encouraged to exercise, their medical freedoms - specifically, the freedom to request the surgeon of your preference.

After the Supreme Court upheld the so-called individual mandate and substantially all of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act following a legal challenge led by my home state of Florida, President Obama hadn't finished his victory lap before the political line was drawn in the sand. The battle is over, but war wages on until the American people take to the voting booth in November. I have a feeling this election year will be an interesting one, and with a front row seat in Florida, I'm going to be tuned in and transfixed.

Even under the best employment conditions, hiring the wrong employee can drag down a company's bottom line and dampen workforce productivity and morale. However, the national skills gap and ongoing economic concerns make finding the right candidate crucial the first time around.

"The current generation has stumbled on an incredibly powerful and important model for changing the world and the workplace: the network."

Half of all workers who receive paid vacation time in the nation’s top 10 largest cities would be willing to sacrifice a workplace benefit in exchange for more paid time off. However, despite their desire for more free time, most employees don’t even use the vacation time they already receive.

Sedentary office workers, including busy HR practitioners, may want to stand up to absorb some provocative news published in the online medical journal BMJ Open: Most Americans could live two years longer on average if they’d spend less than three hours a day sitting.

Target-date funds pulled in $13.9 billion in the second quarter despite the nearly 3% loss on average, according to Morningstar.

The Obama administration on Friday said it is on track to set up federal health insurance exchanges by 2014 in U.S. states that fail to establish their own regulated insurance markets as required by the U.S. health care reform law.

United Continental Holdings Inc’s quarterly profit slid 37%, hit by higher fuel bills and labor costs from its messy and long merger of United and Continental airlines.

Most employees don’t think they should be required to participate in wellness programs to qualify for employer-provided health insurance, according to a new survey released by the National Business Group on Health. Moreover, they don’t think employers should charge employees more for health coverage if they don’t meet specific health goals.