This is a scary story about massive invasions of privacy in the U.S. This is a travesty in my opinion and one that needs exposure. According to a story in Bloomberg, doctors and hospitals are watching what you eat, buy, wear and more. Why? To better manage your health, of course. If you buy a donut somewhere, whether for yourself or as a treat for a grandchild, a company like Acxiom or LexisNexis may be recording that buy and selling that information to your insurer but only for “marketing.” The Carolinas HealthCare System for one…”is placing its data, which include purchases a patient has made using a credit card or store loyalty card, into predictive models that give a risk score to patients.” “University of Pittsburgh, which operates more than 20 hospitals in Pennsylvania and a health insurance plan, is using demographic and household information to try to improve patients’ health.” Remember the Penn State wellness scandal? Is there something bad in the water in Pennsylvania? Okay let me get this straight.  If you buy one of the following, your doctor and your health system really should know about it, and it should become a part of your medical record?

• a dozen donuts
• a cigar for your grandfather
• a pack of condoms
• a burger at McDonalds
• a half pound of deli salami
• a steak dinner
• a milk shake
• a martini after work
• a case of diet soda

How about too many/much:

• pounds of coffee (even if it is for your club)?
•  packages of hot dogs (they won’t know you're feeding your kid's entire soccer team)?
• popcorn?

Or not enough:

• fresh fruit?
• veggies (even if you grow your own)?
• skim milk?

How about if your teenage son buys a package of condoms? That needs to be in his medical record for your health system/insurer to peruse? This is nuts…plain nuts, but, alas, the predicable result of the nation’s and employers’ obsession with collecting your personal heath information. I guess if your want privacy you’d best pay cash. But maybe face recognition tools will thwart that, too. For the record, I can’t think of anything I buy that should be kept secret, but the idea that my health systems can access my purchase is utterly repugnant to me. Here is the understatement of the week: Jorjanne Murry, an accountant in Charlotte, NC, who has Type 1 diabetes, says: ‘I think it is intrusive.’ “ BTW:  I’m not a privacy nut, but these kinds of data will create an abundance of “false positives” and rabbit trails.  I see no real value in this nonsense.

Navigating today’s complex legal and regulatory framework surrounding data breaches can be a daunting process for even the most sophisticated organization. In the United States, there is not currently a national uniform data breach notification law. Instead, organizations experiencing a data breach face a patchwork of 47 different potentially applicable state laws to-date, in addition to industry-specific federal laws such as Gramm-Leach-Bliley. Adding to the complexity, more data is being stored in the “cloud,” thereby allowing potentially sensitive information to move more seamlessly across country borders, and requiring organizations to be familiar and compliant with international laws and regulations. Understanding the various and changing state, federal and international laws and regulations will be increasingly important for organizations moving forward. In addition to keeping pace with evolving state, federal and international laws, organizations will need to ensure that effective data breach and cybersecurity incident response plans are in place to address breach incidents — whether they are local or global in nature. Federal and Foreign Standards — A Renewed Focus on Data Breach Regulation With the recent rise of highly publicized breaches top of mind, several efforts have been made by congressional committees aimed at forging a comprehensive federal data breach notification law. Although lack of consensus on specific issues related to the preemption of state laws has halted this progress in the past, federal legislation is once again a top priority for lawmakers. Legislators in several states are also considering expanding existing breach notification laws by being more prescriptive about what information must be included in a notice. This may include such information as the time of the breach and the type of data affected. On an international level, stricter data breach notification requirements are already underway. The European Union implemented new data breach requirements last August, requiring telecommunication operators and Internet service providers to notify national data protection authorities within 24 hours of detection of a theft, loss or unauthorized access to customer data, including emails, calling data and IP addresses. The EU is now also considering expanding this requirement to all commercial sectors. Data Breach Preparedness — Going Beyond the Regulatory Checklist The number of data breaches is anticipated to continue to increase throughout the year, both within the U.S. and across the globe. Between January and March of 2014 alone, nearly 200 million data records were stolen, the equivalent of approximately 93,000 records stolen every hour. This is an increase of 233 percent over the same period of time last year. These facts, together with the specter of more — and more stringent — laws and regulations present organizations with increasingly important and complex data breach response issues. Unfortunately, most U.S.-based organizations do not appear to be sufficiently prepared to deal with an impending data breach incident. Even after experiencing a breach, a surprising 39 percent of companies surveyed last year indicated they still have not developed a formal data breach response plan. And since 2001, the Federal Trade Commission has brought more than 50 cases alleging that organizations failed to protect consumers’ personal information. Generally, settlements with the FTC require companies to implement a comprehensive information security program and undergo evaluation every two years by a certified third-party. Facing increased regulatory scrutiny, organizations are advised to work closely with legal counsel to ensure that they are prepared to comply with state, federal and international laws and regulations and otherwise are best positioned to mitigate the fallout of a breach incident — both financial and reputational. 1. Develop a Diverse Response Plan According to research from the Ponemon Institute, having an up-to-date response plan can save a business nearly 25 percent per compromised record. The average cost of a breach in the U.S. last year was $188 per record, with each breach reportedly exposing an average of 23,647 records. At that rate, a 25 percent reduction could save a company $1.1 million per breach. Organizations are advised to have a diverse response plan in place that clearly outlines protocols and a response team for security incidents, with scenarios mapped out for both the U.S. and abroad. Just as data breach regulations evolve, so should a data breach response plan. It is important for an organization to regularly audit and adjust its preparedness plan in order to include new technologies and address changes in the legal, regulatory and security landscapes. 2. Engage Outside Legal Counsel Many law firms have attorneys that are dedicated to assisting organizations in developing effective breach incident response plans, including a protocol for who to call within the organization. Additionally the protocol should identify which law firm “breach coach” to notify, in addition to other responders (which are preapproved by the organization, its outside counsel, and preferably by the organization’s insurance carrier) that will undertake critical crisis management functions, such as notification to persons whose personally identifiable information or protected health information may have been compromised, credit monitoring, call center services, forensics, and public relations efforts. Effective incident response and crisis management planning can greatly mitigate an organization’s financial and reputational fallout following a data breach incident. In addition to formulating an effective breach response plan, the engagement of outside counsel first in the wake of a breach incident, before other breach responders, will preserve, to the extent possible, the attorney-client privilege and the work-product doctrine. 3. Communicate With Customers Part of an effective response plan is ensuring quick, clear communication with potentially impacted individuals and providing guidance and next steps on how they can protect themselves. Open communication following a breach can help maintain trust and preserve brand reputation — arguably an organization’s most valuable asset. It is also important to note cultural and language differences may impact a customer’s response to a data breach, and notification materials. When managing an international breach, it can be beneficial to seek counsel on how to mitigate any issues that may arise due to these different standards, and communicate effectively. Regardless of the legislative environment, data breaches present a substantial business risk to organizations both in the U.S. and across country borders. Creating a diverse security incident response plan and proactively engaging with legal counsel, local authorities and forensics experts will enable companies to better handle an incident when it occurs.

Insurance is about collectively managing risks of every person, place or thing. Yet, at best, insurance is the evil step sister of Finance, as the latter, while just as intangible, managed to penetrate mainstream via iconic symbols such as Wall Street and the American dollar, and isn’t that the best brand on earth! Anyhow, that’s all about to change. As the saying goes “If you can dream it, you can do it”. So we went on dreaming…What if insurance spread to the realms of America’s favorite publications because it finally received the attention it deserves?

1. From Wired to Hired   

 

2. From GQ to IQ

   

3. From Vogue to Fraud

4. From Cosmopolitan Catmopolitan

* Miley Cyrus shoot for Cosmopolitan magazine

5. From Playboy to Playsafe

Employer and other plan sponsors should start working now with their insurers, administrators and advisors to understand the implications of and their options for addressing the "Transitional Reinsurance Program" and other new Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (ACA)-associated cost and plan design changes  so that they are prepared to finalize and implement their health plan design, contracts and arrangements in time to meet the accelerated deadlines for notifying participants of plan changes and otherwise implement their plan changes for the upcoming plan year. The impending imposition of  Transitional Reinsurance Program assessments are only one of a myriad of new and pre-existing federal health plan rules and associated market changes impacting the design of employer and union-sponsored health plans.  Since ACA now also requires 60 days advance written notice of material health plan changes, .  When making these decisions, employer and other health plan sponsors and their advisors, administrators and insurers  should not only focus on the technically new mandates but also the allocation of fiduciary and other responsibilities, liabilities and other plan and services agreements terms.  Plan sponsors and their fiduciaries historically have underappreciated the significance of these allocations or presumed that their vendor contracts allocate responsibility to the service providers and vendors to match the sales pitch.  Always rarely the case, the changes in the marketplace and the law make it even more likely that sponsoring employers and their leaders of even plans that carefully reviewed and negotiated these responsibilities in their past contracts need to carefully look at these plan and contractual terms carefully. The Transitional Reinsurance Program is one of a series of new ACA-imposed assessments that can impact the plan design and costs.    Proper understanding of these rules is critical for plan sponsors and their fiduciaries to ensure that they don't unintentionally assume significantly greater liability for their self-insured health plans in an attempt to design around a relatively small by comparison ACA assessment. Section 1341 of the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires the establishment of the reinsurance program to provide for stabilization of funding for exchanges.  Funding for the costs of the program is accomplished through amounts assessed upon insurers and self-insured plan third party administrators.  ACA § 1341 accomplishes this by providing for:

• The establishment for each State of a transitional reinsurance program stabilize premiums for coverage in the individual market from 2014 through 2016;
• Requiring all health insurance issuers and third party administrators on behalf of self-insured group health plans, to pay contributions to support reinsurance payments that cover high-cost individuals in non-grandfathered plans in the individual market.

Registration is now open for a series of webinars that the Department of Health & Human Services will host on "The Transitional Reinsurance Program: Contributing Entities and Counting Methods" on July 14, July 18 and July 23, 2014 from 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. EST.  The upcoming HHS webinars will cover the same information.  They will focus on reinsurance contributions including who is a contributing entity and how a contributing entity can calculate its annual enrollment count to determine reinsurance contribution amounts. The intended audience for this webinar is health insurance issuers, self-insured group health plans, third party administrators (TPAs) and administrative services-only (ASO) contractors.  To register for the HHS webinar and to obtain additional information see here. Understanding how the Transitional Reinsurance Program assessments will be calculated is one of many critical steps in making plan design changes.  When considering whether to take advantage of options for minimizing these assessments, however, employer, union and other plan sponsors need to consider whether the liability and other consequences of meeting requirements for avoidance of the assessments is warranted by the anticipated savings.  With superficially it might seem desirable to avoid the payment of a few dollars per covered lives associated with the assessment, employers and other sponsoring organizations and the officers or other leadership employees involved in plan design or administration should critically review the effect of meeting these requirements specifically, as well as their proposed vendor contracts and associated plan documents and communications on their personal and organizations' fiduciary and other liabilities.  To the extent that existing or expanded fiduciary liability cannot be avoided, it will be critical that the sponsor and its leadership ensure that proper steps are taken to select, credential, bond, and appoint the persons who will be or help carry out fiduciary or other plan-related responsibilities.  Additionally, most plan sponsors will want to consider exploring the availability of fiduciary liability insurance coverage to help mitigate the potential liability risks associated with plan sponsorship.

As an insurance professional, working with objections can be difficult. The only way to grow is to show people that you’re a professional and offer suggestions to help them solve problems based on your products or services.We need to work through objections and not try to overcome them. When we try to overcome objections, someone wins and someone loses. Objections are not only a natural part of the sales process, they help you to clarify what is on the prospect's or customer's mind. For you to help the prospect or customer with a problem, it’s important to understand what and where are the roadblocks. In other words, what concerns do they have about what you are offering? Their perception is their reality. Asking questions is the way to learn where they are coming from, what their reality is. Who Consider the people you are going to contact. What is the best time to call them? Misunderstanding can cause a loss of rapport and potentially a sale. What Test yourself on all of the questions that could possibly come your way so you are fully prepared. Continue to learn regarding the offers and services you are providing. However, when you receive an objection, it’s common to start explaining all the reasons why the prospect or customer should choose your offers and services. We’ve been taught by the “professionals” to respond that way. Well, guess what? It doesn’t work. If you are patient and listen closely, an opportunity will present itself for you to begin to ask questions instead of explaining. Ask first, then tell. Why Let’s face it, most people do not like being approached by a salesperson. Why? Because they have probably had a bad experience. Prospects or customers might believe that if they needed your products or services they would have contacted you. The reason for a sales call is to remind potential or past customers of what you have to offer and how you can potentially solve their problems, even problems they might not be aware of. How The best way to work with objections when making sales calls is to attend sales training sessions, learn from other people and learn from your mistakes. You should also care for your customers and take their feelings and families into consideration. When you do these things, you’ll have more success. How many times have you heard the objection, "I'm working with someone else" or "I'm happy where I am"? It happens all the time, doesn't it? If you want to engage the prospect, you must begin by asking questions. Stay focused on the purpose of the call and be persistent. However, you always want to leave them better than you found them. When you state the purpose of your call, be sure to listen. If the prospect reveals something to you, capture it. Don’t be so focused on your script and saying what you want to say that you miss an opportunity to engage the customer. Formula for Success:

• Listen and don’t get defensive
• Begin to ask a series of questions
• Get of of the objections and focus back on the purpose of the call.

Examples of questions begin with:

• Who
  • Who are you currently working with?
• What
  • What type of strategies have you implemented that will ____?
• When
  • When was the last time you sat down with your adviser and reviewed your plan?
• Where
  • Where are you in the process?
• How
  • How long until you ____?

After you have asked a series of questions, ask for the appointment again. Say things such as: "I am not asking you to change anything, and I don’t want to duplicate anything you are doing. The purpose of the meeting would be to give you an opportunity to compare our unique approach with what you have done and see if it makes sense. Okay?" Always focus back on the purpose of the call. Refrain from getting defensive. Focus on asking questions and listening to responses. Re-engage the prospect, then restate the purpose, be persistent and ask for the meeting or sale. Remember, you must offer suggestions to help prospects solve problems based on your products or services. Work through objections without trying to overcome them, seek to leave the prospect better than you found him and focus on win-win results. This is the way to work with objections as a professional.

CHAPTER 3: Creating and Working With a Centralized Product Development Department There is no single corporate structure for developing a successful product development process. However, there are numerous advantages of creating some type of centralized function. The size and scope of the function depends not only on the size and scope of the corporation itself but also its product development goals. In general, the more robust the product development goals, the greater the need for some centralized unit. For companies that are not large enough to support a centralized division of any size, there is wisdom is creating a senior position that could help the CEO direct innovation within the company. This position has been called the chief innovation officer, the chief strategy officer or even the chief scientist. Mission Statement The mission of a centralized product development department is to assist in the creation of innovative and profitable products and services, contributing substantially to the bottom line. Usually working in partnership with the company’s profit centers and the brokerage and risk management communities, a centralized team of creative, experienced professionals can provide a full range of customer and results-driven solutions, including idea generation and validation, product design and implementation, and post-launch evaluation. Expertise and Services Expertise Product development as a process includes underwriting, actuarial, legal, compliance, marketing and, perhaps most importantly, project management. The larger the centralized department, the more of these services can be housed in the department. However, as mentioned above, there is no single solution. In many cases, some of these services are provided by a department outside of product development such as the office of general counsel. In my 30 year career, I have led large departments which housed centralized all the necessary product development functions as well as smaller departments which housed some of the function and then partnered with other departments for those services not found within the centralized department. At its most robust, the make-up of a centralized product development team is made up of seasoned professional with experience across all general insurance lines, including Specialty Lines, Personal Lines, General Liability, Property, Casualty, Small Business, Accident & Health, and Financial Lines. Together with these insurance SMEs are a team of dedicated “support staff” including legal, actuarial, marketing etc. An example of a robust centralized new product development team is included in the appendix. This team of professionals works closely with the profit centers, brokers, agents, and risk managers to provide total “end-to-end” services for all areas of product development. Services: The following is a comprehensive list of potential services that could be offered by a centralized product development department:

• Innovation Education and Culture Creation
• Idea Generation
• Total Project Management
• Comprehensive Research
• Product Demand Analysis
• Underwriting Assessment Analysis
• Distribution Assessment Analysis
• Legal Drafting
• Actuarial and Rating Plan Creation
• Reinsurance
• Financial Analysis and Proforma P&L Creation
• Marketing Strategies and Communications Implementation
• Claims Analysis
• Sales and Business Development
• Technology, Operations, and Systems
• Liaison with Risk Managers/Brokers

Each corporate profit center should be encouraged to use as many of the services as their new product development requires. This may mean total end-to-end project management or an a la carte selection of services. This team leads the process of new product development as described in the father chapters of this Guide which include: Innovation: The process of creating a “culture of creativity” (Chapter 4). Trend Identification (Generating the idea): Early awareness of societal changes, creating new or increased risk that could be the subject of an insurance product (Chapter 5). Preliminary Analysis (Evaluating the idea): The new product idea is reviewed to determine viability through an analysis of product Demand, Underwriting, and Distribution (Chapter 6). Scope and Definition (Developing the idea): Partnering with a profit center, the new product idea is sufficiently assessed to determine a final go/no-go decision on the product idea (Chapter 7). Design: Partnering with a profit center to create all the components of an insurance policy are created – policy form, rater, application, marketing plan, etc .(Chapter 8). Implementation (Launching the product): Underwriting and broker training sessions are completed and a “launch event’’ for the product is scheduled. (Chapter 10 -13) Product Performance Review (Monitoring the product): Three-, six-, and twelvemonth reviews of the product’s performance are done with the profit center to determine if the product needs to be adjusted (Chapter 14). All of the detailed tasks, research, and analysis that are performed at each stage of the product development process are outlined in this Guide. Tracking and Managing Innovation It is a good idea to have a database which tracks the submission and progress of innovative ideas that come to the company. This can be done as simply as a spreadsheet with internal protocol that all ideas are eventually submitted to the holder of the spreadsheet, or could be done by way of a more sophiscated web based data base specially designed for this purpose. Regardless of method, it is advantageous to have all new product ideas entered into the database. In addition, at the time of final product resolution either through product launch or termination of development, it is recommended the database be updated as to the new product status. If terminated a reason should be given (e.g., insufficient demand). As discussed in chapter 3.5 below, best practices to have a dedicated new product web page and intranet site which would allow the easy submission (via a simple to use form) to the centralized department for tracking, and assistance if desired. This will also prevent duplication of effort and the sharing of information across the enterprise. New Product Web site It is advantageous to have a dedicated intranet new product web site which is linked to the company’s intranet home page. This site can offer a comprehensive overview of the activities of the centralized department, encouraging executives and employees as well as (if there is an internet site version) brokers and risk managers to participate more fully in the product development process, while providing business unit partners with a convenient, centralized means of promoting their new product activities. The site offers descriptions of recently developed products as well as some of those currently in development; provides news items of relevant interest; offers easy access to idea submission; and familiarizes the reader with the product development process. Anyone seeking information about new product initiatives will find a centralized source of information on the site. Employees, brokers, and risk managers who are interested in submitting a new product idea may do so easily and quickly through the portal. Business units that are engaged in new product development or have recently launched a new product can reach interested audiences worldwide by posting information, knowing that readers who access this central repository of new product knowledge have already demonstrated interest in product development, creating a robust marketing opportunity.

Is $84,000 too much to pay to save a life? That's a question worth asking now that the insurance industry has declared war on what it has deemed outrageous prices for new specialty drugs. In this case, the complaints focus on Sovaldi, a breakthrough treatment that gives three million people suffering from hepatitis C hope for a cure. That cure isn't cheap -- each of the 84 pills needed to complete a course of treatment costs $1,000. The drug's manufacturer "is asking for a blank check," complains Karen Ignagni, president of the insurer trade group America's Health Insurance Plans. "It will blow up family budgets, state Medicaid budgets, employer costs and wreak havoc on the federal debt." Such short-sighted attacks on the price of life-saving drugs threaten patients' ability to access them -- and discourage companies from investing the billions required to develop new cures. They also invite more government intrusion into our health care -- without doing anything to actually reduce health costs. The idea that $84,000 is somehow too much to spend saving a life doesn't make economic sense. That sum can buy many additional years of productive work -- the economic value of which far exceeds the cost of the drug. The Environmental Protection Agency puts a statistical value of $9.1 million on a human life when considering the benefits of government environmental policies. Vanderbilt University professor W. Kip Viscusi, one of the world's leading experts on the statistical value of life, estimates it at $8.7 million. Second, by fixating on drug prices, the insurance industry ignores the long-term savings that pharmaceutical treatments and cures can engender throughout the healthcare system. The treatment options currently available to hepatitis C patients, for instance, don't cure the disease. They can have terrible side effects -- and lead to liver transplants and premature death. A recent analysis published in the journal Hepatology notes that the cost of treating these side effects can run more than $270,000. If the patient ends up requiring a liver transplant, the cost can jump by $577,000. Suddenly, $84,000 looks like a tremendous bargain. The economic impact of treating or curing other diseases can be even greater. A 1% reduction in cancer-related deaths yields $500 billion in economic and quality of life gains, according to a paper published in the Journal of Political Economy. Further, in the aggregate, drug costs are simply not the issue the insurance industry is trying to make them. Spending on prescription drugs has increased at a far slower rate than overall spending on healthcare in five of the past six years. Prescription drugs accounted for 9.4% of the nation's total health bill in 2012. That's down from 10.4% in 2006, and less than the share way back in 1960, data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services show. New drug therapies also generated savings elsewhere in the healthcare system. The Congressional Budget Office has concluded that increased access to drugs for seniors through the Medicare Part D drug benefit has reduced other costs in the program. But the real harm from the insurance industry's war on drugs is the risk it poses to pharmaceutical innovation, which is in the midst of a virtual renaissance. Right now, some 5,000 new drugs are within the approval pipeline, many of them first-in-class drugs aimed at once untreatable diseases, "orphan" drugs for rare conditions, or diseases that haven't had a new treatment option in decades. The cost of this innovation is staggering, including more than a decade's worth of research and development, a high risk of failure and expenses that can reach $5.9 billion for each new drug that actually makes it to market. But the result is breakthrough drugs that have turned the likes of HIV/AIDS into a manageable chronic disease, have increased the life expectancy of those with cancer and have provided more choices to patients looking for precisely the right therapies for their ailments. Pharmaceutical companies charge the prices they do to recoup their multibillion-dollar investments. Efforts to limit those prices can bring drug research and development to a halt. For evidence, just look at Europe, where governments have forcibly limited drug prices for years. Three decades ago, the continent produced more than half the intellectual property around new medical innovations. "Europe now represents less than 25%," notes Robert Hugin, CEO of U.S. drug maker Celgene. Insurance industry executives trying to deflect blame for rising premiums -- or worried about meeting their quarterly earnings targets -- may not care about declines in medical innovation. But their single-minded focus on price doesn't just hurt patients desperate for cures today -- it hurts the patients of tomorrow, too.

An extremely well written article from David Langham graces our Blogwire pages today. In it he recounts for us the looming financial collapse of the Social Security Disability Income program, or SSDI. Langham is the Deputy Chief Judge of Compensation Claims for the Florida Office of Judges of Compensation Claims and Division of Administrative Hearings. Within this jurist’s missive he provides one of the best breakdowns that I have ever read concerning the financial issues that program faces. Bottom line? SSDI now supports over 11,000,000 people, and is projected to be broke within two years. Each and every full time worker in this country needs to cough up $750 a year just to maintain this entitlement program at its current levels (and it has grown 73% since 2000, so good luck with that). Langham goes into excellent detail as to the causes of this unprecedented growth. There are a good number of contributing factors, including population growth, aging population, more working women eligible for the program, and expanded qualifications for disability. However, there is one postulation he did not make. That is the possibility that intentionally overworked Social Security Disability Administrative Law Judges find it much easier to approve cases than to deny them. I once heard of one judge indicating as much, saying that when he approves an application, it simply takes his signature. When he denies one, it requires many written pages of justification. Approval in the face of an overwhelming workload, it would seem, is the path of least resistance. One other very interesting tidbit that Langham provides: at one point during the economic downturn, an estimated 117,000 Americans "double dipped", drawing simultaneous payments from both unemployment and SSDI. With one program dedicated to assisting people who cannot find work, and the other designed to support those who cannot work, how can that possibly be? So we find ourselves with another bloated and overwhelmed government program screaming towards financial crisis, and a generally oblivious public will soon awaken (once again) to the fact that there is no such thing as a "lock box" or "government trust fund". The money is gone. We've spent it all on underwear for the illegals streaming across our southern border. Not to fear, however, for I have a solution for this mess. SSDI should hold a fundraising bake sale. The pivotal bake sale has for decades been the go to solution for those programs in need of a cash infusion. Schools and churches have used them. Rush Limbaugh once famously orchestrated one in the 1990's for a listener named Dan who couldn't afford his subscription newsletter. Limbaugh told him to hold a bake sale, and over 100,000 people ultimately flooded downtown Fort Collins, CO the day of "Dan's Bake Sale". I believe some misguided people have even used them in some perverted "guns for cookies" exchange program. That endeavor failed miserably when they were robbed at gunpoint and someone stole their cookies. Seems they should have also traded for some ammo. So why not an SSDI bake sale? Think of the pure numbers. There are 11,000,000 people in the program, presumably with a great deal of free time on their hands. If they all fire up their ovens and contribute to the effort, we're talking one crapload of cookies and other baked goods available for sale. Granted, there are people receiving SSDI that are completely disabled, and would not be able to contribute to the effort, but many would still be able to do so. There was the woman who once blasted me in my blog for using the word "entitlement". She told me how difficult it was for her to get SSDI, and explained how she was entitled to it - without using the word entitled, of course. Her blog and Facebook page told us she was an active real estate agent, and owned a tax preparation service as well as a legal documents preparation firm. She could probably cough up some cookies, if she can get enough time away from her day jobs and cashing her disability checks. And of course, we have the 117,000 people who collected unemployment while on disability. We can safely presume if they are able to work, they are able to bake. And since they are on unemployment, they have the time. So for sake of conjecture, let’s say that one half of the people on SSDI would have the ability for a short duration to make cookies or baked goods for one mammoth SSDI “Going Out of Business” Bake Sale. That means with 5.5 million people, baking, say 6 dozen cookies each, and selling them for $5 a dozen (this is a fundraiser, after all), we could raise $165,000,000 in a single afternoon, less location and promotion expenses. As far as location, I figure we could use Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, where the Tampa Bay Ray’s baseball team plays. There is ample parking, and the seats are almost always empty. Plenty of room for a ginormous bake sale. Now, with the current SSDI burn rate of $12.4 billion a month, or $413,333,333.33 a day, the bake sale would only raise enough to fund the program for an additional 9 ½ hours. But hey, it’s a start, and I haven’t even yet broached my idea of the SSDI “Going Out of Business Car Wash”.

With commoditization and disintermediation being the talk of the town, we'd like to remind folks that it's summer. And summer times are meant for easy breezy romances and page-turner thrillers. So drop a few syllables and pick up a few books; we can promise heated affairs, insurance scams, murder mysteries and exotic dancing. 1. Double Indemnity Author: James M. Cain Published Date: 1943 Plot: Walter Huff is an insurance agent who falls for the married Phyllis Nirdlinger, who is in need of consultation regarding accident insurance for her husband. In spite of his basic decent and good-old nature, Walter allows himself to be seduced into helping the femme fatale kill her husband for the insurance money. Hashtag: #InsuranceFraud #LoveAffair #Murder 2. Double Shuffle Author: James Hadley Chase Published Date: 1954 Plot: Why would an obscure blonde dancer who performed in a G-string - with a deadly snake for a partner - be insured for a million dollars? That’s the million-dollar question on Steve Harmas’ mind. As the special investigator assigned to this obscure case, the only thing he knows fro sure is that this isn’t another publicity stunt; someone stood to gain an awful lot of money if she died. Hashtag: #InsuranceFraud, #ExoticDancing #Blondes 3. The Rainmaker Author: John Grisham Published Date: 1995 Plot: Rudy Baylor, a young man barely out of law school, is required to provide free legal advice to a group of senior citizens, and it is there that he meets his first “clients,” Dot and Buddy Black. Their son, Donny Ray, is dying of leukemia, and their insurance company has flatly refused to pay for his medical treatments. While Rudy is at first skeptical, he soon realizes that the Blacks really have been shockingly mistreated by their insurance company, and that he just may have stumbled on one of the largest insurance frauds anyone’s ever seen. Hashtag: #Corruption, #Power, #Greed 4. Death Benefits Author: Thomas Perry Published Date: 2012 Plot: A careful, methodical young data analyst for a California insurance company, John Walker, knows when people will marry, at what age they will most likely have children and when they will die. All signs point to a long successful career, until Max Stillman, a gruff security consultant, appears without warning at the office. It seems a colleague with whom Walker once had an affair has disappeared after paying a very large death benefit to an impostor. Stillman wants to find and convict her; Walker is convinced the woman is innocent. Now Walker teams up with Stillman on an urgent race relentlessly leading to a payoff that just might shock the life out of him Hashtag: #Chase #Affair 5. Dead Anyway Author: Kris Knopf Published Date: 2012 Plot: The hit man who invades the Cathcarts’ upscale home in Stamford, Conn., tells Florencia Cathcart that, if she doesn’t write down the answers to five questions, he’ll kill her husband. When she complies, he shoots them both anyway. Florencia dies, but Arthur merely hovers in a coma for months. Convinced upon his return to life that his killer’s been monitoring his progress with a view to finishing him off, he persuades his neurologist sister, Evelyn, to have him declared dead. She agrees, although she’s signing on to a long list of potential charges for conspiracy and insurance fraud, and Arthur, once he’s erased from the grid, is free to assume the identity of one Alex Rimes and go after the hit man and his employer. He tires easily, he limps badly, and his vision is poor, but his skills as a freelance researcher turn out to be surprisingly useful, though he can’t imagine why anyone would order the execution of either himself or Florencia, who owned a successful insurance agency. The trail to the killers leads through a wary arrangement with a retired FBI agent, an elaborate precious-metals scam and a society party to die for before Arthur finally confronts his quarry in a sequence that manages both to satisfy readers’ bloodlust and to point toward a sequel. Hashtag: #InsuranceFraud #DataBreach The End

HR and benefits managers need to wake up: As a Reuters report by Will Boggs says in the headline, "One-third of knee replacements in the U.S. may be inappropriate." Ouch. But, by today’s surgery standards, the story should come as a surprise to no one. The article says, “Judging by the symptoms of people with knee arthritis, one-third of knee replacement surgeries may be inappropriate, according to a new study.” The lead author of that study, Daniel L. Riddle from Virginia Commonwealth University, said, “We found that some patients undergo total knee replacement when they have very low grade symptoms or minor knee arthritis….” That is the point I’ve been making all along: The ethics around surgery in the U.S. are declining rapidly. It’s time for HR and benefit managers to wake up. Bad surgeons will get worse and worse until you take their patients away.