Leaders who DON’T: Why there’s no leadership on one hand and bad leadership on the other
by Miki SaxonI ran into this statement in the comments area of a post on changing corporate culture at Dell’s IdeaStorm, “After all, if you don’t challenge yourselves, do you expect to grow? You certainly won’t LEAD.” I don’t know if it’s original, but it is short, sweet and very true.
It’s certainly a pithy explanation of why we have so few real leaders around—be it companies, business heads, but especially politicians.
If there’s one thing that challenging yourself does it’s to upset the status quo—that’s what forces growth.
But on Capitol Hill the status quo is safe and keeps the entrenched interests at bay.
Think about it. If Congress/Administration du jour every seriously tried to solve the healthcare crisis they’d have some of the most powerful lobbying groups—insurance companies, big pharma, the AMA, and now banking—come howling out of the woods looking for their blood.
Banking is the newest crowd to find a way to make money off the uninsured—
“In a lucrative new form of fiscal alchemy, a growing number of hospitals, working with a range of financial companies, are squeezing revenue from patients with little or no health insurance…
A host of nimble firms like CompleteCare in North Little Rock, Ark., began exploring this terrain years ago. Bigger players have jumped in more recently, although the market remains fragmented and reliable market share information isn’t available. U.S. Bank, a U.S. Bancorp unit, finances about $2 million in patient debt per month through a medical-benefit firm, charging most customers annual interest of 13.5%, and as much as 24% on late bills. General Electric’s powerful financial arm markets its CareCredit card to dentists, plastic surgeons, and some hospitals, with loan volume expected to hit $5 billion this year, up 40% from 2006. Citigroup and Capital One now offer similar cards. “Everybody is saying [medical finance] is the next horizon—whether it is lines of credit or credit cards,” says June St. John, a senior vice-president at Wachovia, which is exploring the business. Whetting all these appetites is the $250 billion consumers pay in medical expenses out of their pockets, an amount that doesn’t include insurance premiums. That’s an estimate for 2005 from the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. The figure could hit $420 billion by 2015. (Gee, the interest rates are almost high enough to attract Wal-Mart)
This isn’t about people who skip out or refuse to pay. It’s about the more than 42 million Americans, such as me, who either have no insurance or very little.
But, hey, it’s so exciting to realize that we can add another “First” to the US leadership of high healthcare costs. (Be still my heart:)
Just had another thought. Maybe the financial crowd will productize the bills and sell them to investors—kind of like subprime mortgages.
Reform any time soon? I don’t think so.
One more thing. Read the story yourself—then send it to everyone you know, especially politicians. This story needs to spread.
Your comments—priceless
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February 1st, 2008 at 10:12 am
Susan, Thanks for the kind words. It’s good to have you and I hope that you’ll be an active participant.
February 1st, 2008 at 10:20 am
Health care is a major concern and I feel you cannot talk enough about this issue, I agree there needs to be some changes and we need to keep doing what we can to see this happen.
February 1st, 2008 at 10:30 am
Changes, yes! But not changes such as this. I sincerely hope that people will give copies of the BW article to their entire mailing list and they to theirs. I hope it spreads far and wide and creates a firestorm that even the deaf ideologues in Washington can hear!
March 4th, 2008 at 12:15 am
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