My Strategic View: The Issue of Health Care

By Mary Mahoney

In this second book in the "My Strategic View" series, Mary Mahoney explores the many areas of health-care that affect us as individuals and as businesses. In recent years, her firm – J. Robinson Group – has evolved to focus more on health-care clients, and since 2013, Mahoney's blog posts have explored a variety of issues within the health-care industry. These blogs led to her second book, "My Strategic View – The Issue of Health-Care," which is structured to help educate and encourage discussion about this enormous industry that affects all of us.

J. Robinson Group specializes in management, marketing and social media, with a focus on the clients’ brands, operating culture and capacity to change. Her team works to gain a thorough understanding of the clients and their business challenges, and then offers honest, actionable and straightforward recommendations designed to help take their clients from where they are today to where they can be tomorrow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Mahoney
• Release date: Jun 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310447792

Mary Mahoney

Mary Mahoney is a dynamic, results-oriented executive, recognized as one of the most respected, innovative leaders across multiple industries. With over twenty years of senior executive experience, her career achievements are hallmarked by building strong corporate and executive board relationships, delivering consistent, high quality services and products, improving customer services and retention rates, and building a team of professionals dedicated to delivering measurable results. She has demonstrated visionary and effective leadership, resulting in increased profitability, quality growth and operational excellence.Prior business management experience includes: President, CEO and General Manager, of RCI North America- Wyndham Worldwide; Executive Vice President of Hospitality and Resort Operations – Wyndham Worldwide; and President and CEO - Howard Johnson International.Mary is the Principal and Managing Partner at J. Robinson Group, a business consulting firm that specializes in leading businesses from vision and strategy, through the execution of complex business challenges including brand management, image enhancement, marketing, product development, pricing, and market research.

Book preview

Acknowledgements

I am pleased to release my second book in the My Strategic View series, and am grateful to many wonderful people whose guidance and support helped to make this book possible.

I again thank my dear friend and colleague, Susan Beversluis, who continues to inspire me. I will always treasure our friendship.

It’s been a pleasure to work with my writing partner, Rich Roberts and his talented team of writers. From developing story ideas and blogs to creative design and presentations, Rich has always been there for me. I appreciate him so much.

Without my clients, I would not have the insight from their fears and concerns about the health-care industry today. Their questions and stories compelled me to finish this second book and share it with all of you.

Finally, again, I dedicate this book to my dear husband, John Robinson. This journey would never have been possible without his humor, love and support. May we always love each other until the end.

Introduction

My first book, My Strategic View, is a collection of my online blog posts from 2010 to 2013, which focused on developing a clear vision and strategy as essential elements to business success and profitability. Since 2007 my firm, J. Robinson Group, has been helping businesses grow, prosper and develop more meaningful relationships within their local communities.

In recent years, my firm has evolved to focus more on health-care clients, and since 2013, my blog posts have explored a variety of issues within the health-care industry. These blogs have led me to my second book, My Strategic View – The Issue of Health-Care, which I hope will help educate and encourage discussion about this enormous industry that affects all of us.

To give you a little background on me, I founded J. Robinson Group after two decades with a Fortune 100 corporation, Wyndham Worldwide (NYSE: WYN). The company’s portfolio included hospitality brands Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Worldmark by Wyndham, Wingate by Wyndham, Ramada Worldwide, Days Inn, Howard Johnson, Super 8 and Travelodge. My last corporate position was president and CEO of RCI North America, a Wyndham Worldwide business unit.

Earlier in my career with Wyndham Worldwide and its predecessor, Cendant Corporation, I was executive vice president of Hospitality and Resort Operations for Wyndham Vacation Ownership, president and CEO of Howard Johnson International, director of market development and director of marketing & international Sales for Days Inns of America.

During those years I was honored as one of The Top 75 Executives in Hospitality by Lodging magazine, One of the Most Powerful Women in Travel by Travel Agent magazine and one of the Next Generation of Hot New Marketers by Brandweek magazine.

My career also afforded me the opportunity to engage in corporate philanthropy, notably America’s Promise, an initiative championed by former Secretary of State Colin Powell. I was invited to the White House to be recognized by President George H.W. Bush for Howard Johnson’s youth mentoring programs in support of America’s Promise.

If I were to sum up my accomplishments, I would say that I succeeded in building strong corporate and executive board relationships, delivering consistent, high-quality services and products, improving customer services and retention rates and building a team of professionals who achieved profitability, growth and operational excellence.

Now that you know something about me, let me tell you more about J. Robinson Group. As specialists in management, marketing and social media, we focus on our clients’ brands, operating culture and capacity to change. Before we provide any advice, we work to gain a thorough understanding of our clients and their business challenges.

Our methodology leads to honest, actionable and straightforward recommendations that are designed to help take our clients from where they are today to where they can be tomorrow. Our unique portfolio of clients includes nonprofits, small businesses, start-ups, hospitality providers, travel specialists, educators and increasingly more health-care organizations.

In this book, I explore the many areas of health-care that affect us as individuals and as businesses. If you like what you read, I hope that you recommend this book to your friends, coworkers and industry colleagues, both directly and through the social media.

Please visit our website at www.jrobinsongroup.com to learn more about us.

Chapter 1: Affordable Care Act Countdown: Time to Pay Attention

Do you remember the countdown to the year 2000 and the hype that surrounded Y2K? Speculation swirled that computers would crash, communication systems would fail and our economy would lose millions – maybe billions.

It was much the same with the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which took effect January 2011. The information swirled along with confusion and heavy-handed opinions, and the debate continues today. No matter your politics or whether you are an optimist or pessimist, you must understand the basics of health-care reform and educate yourself, especially if you’re an employer.

While some businesses still may feel uncertain, any attempt to understand health-care reform and the Affordable Care Act – tagged by opponents as Obamacare for its primary sponsor, President Barack Obama – must begin with an examination of rapidly rising health-care costs and their impact on employer health insurance.

To reign in health-care spending in this country, first it’s necessary to understand why health care costs so much. The United States spends $2.7 trillion on healthcare – nearly 20 percent of our gross domestic product – twice as much as most developed countries, but with outcomes no better. Despite the recession, Americans spent nearly $100 billion more on health care in 2009 than the previous year, before according to The Real Cost of Healthcare by The Rand Corporation.

TIME magazine’s bombshell March 4, 2012 article, Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us, focused on why Americans are paying so much for health care instead of who should pay. It revealed one of the reasons health insurance premiums more than doubled between 1999 and 2009, far outpacing workers’ earnings or overall inflation as documented by the Economic Policy Institute.

Dr. Susan Blumenthal, public health editor of the Huffington Post and former U.S. Assistant Surgeon General, sums it up: An inefficient health care system, escalating costs and 50 million uninsured Americans have led to a ‘perfect storm’ – an ineffective, inequitable health-care system for many Americans. This crisis demanded presidential, congressional and public leadership to heal our ailing health-care system.

Just one result of this perfect storm is that 12 million fewer people had employer-sponsored health insurance in 2011 than 2000, according to a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Higher costs naturally translate into fewer employers offering insurance coverage, and fewer employees accepting it, even when it is offered, said foundation President Risa Lavizzo-Mourey.

For now the good news is that unlike Y2K, for which there was little concrete information, there are seemingly endless sources of information on health-care reform. A wealth of independent think tanks and non-profit organizations has made themselves an epicenter of information to help businesses and consumers understand the Affordable Care Act and what may happen in the future.

Standout user-friendly sources include The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (which even has an animated YouToons movie), The Rand Corporation, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Consumers Report, and the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM). There is also the official website of the Department of Health and Human Services, www.healthcare.gov.

The Obama administration continues to face an enormous challenge educating the American people about the Affordable Care Act. Now is the time for employers and consumers to pay attention and begin learning more about the health-care challenges facing this country and what every citizen can do to make them more manageable.

Chapter 2: Unraveling the Confusion: Affordable Care Act Myths and Facts

Even before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law in March 2010, opponents predicted it would have a negative impact on businesses and the economy. Disinformation campaigns were launched soon thereafter, and the myths continue to circulate. As we approach the presidential election, experts are still arguing over many aspects of the law, and Republicans are still calling for Obamacare to be repealed.

Good luck trying to gain an understanding of this issue by reading news accounts. One headline can make it appear that the Affordable Care Act will solve the nation’s health-care crisis. Read another and you may feel like doomsday is approaching. Reuters news service said, If you like your 401(k) retirement savings account, you’re going to love what health-care reform does to your employer-provided health care plan. At the other end of the extreme, the Forbes magazine blog claimed to answer, How Small Businesses Can Handle Obamacare’s Suffocating Costs. Both articles have good information; it’s the spin that leaves people feeling confused.

So if you – either as an employer or employee – are confused about the mandates that the law has brought, you are not alone. A survey by private online health-insurance exchange eHealth, said 56 percent of 259 business owners surveyed misunderstood the employer mandate that requires business owners with more than 50 full-time employees – defined as working 30 hours or more – to provide health insurance. If an employer does not, it will be fined an annual penalty of $2,000 per employee after 30 employees. If a business has fewer than 50 full-time employees, the mandate does not apply. Moreover, a recent survey by The Workforce Institute at Kronos Inc., revealed that part-time employees are confused about the potential impact. Only 8 percent said they had received information about it from their employer.

One of the other rumors Obamacare naysayers were quick to repeat regarding the employer mandate was a claim that health care reform would force some employers to cut hours or pay and reduce hiring. Some said there was legitimate concern that the 30-hour bar set by the law would end up encouraging businesses to cut workers’ hours, exacerbating the post-recession growth of part-time, unreliable work.

According to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, as few as 10,000 U.S. businesses out of 6 million (less than 0.2 percent) are subject to the employer mandate. The vast majorities of businesses – 96 percent – have fewer than 50 employees and are exempt, according to the department. Of those firms with more than 50 employees, 96 percent already offer health insurance. Also, the law limits employers’ ability to hire part-time workers as a means of avoiding penalties. Employers must report part-time hours, which are totaled and equated to full-time employees. For example, if six part-time employees each worked 25 hours per week, they would be the equivalent of five full-time employees.

Another myth was that employers would choose to drop, or not offer coverage, opting instead to pay the mandated penalties because to do so would be less expensive. However, an independent RAND study on health-care reform and small businesses found that the Affordable Care