Fridau items
Item 1: Minimum wage increase
In case you missed it: the federal minimum wage rose to $6.55 beginning yesterday, July 24. So, for work performed on Thursday and going forward, this is the new minimum wage. Your state may have adjusted the rate also if it is higher than the federal minimum. Your payroll service should have advised you on this already. If you do it yourself, call your accountant. And get a payroll service (you will be happy that you do).
Item 2: Commonwealth Fund Press Release
New York, NY, July 17th, 2008—A new national scorecard from The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System finds that the U.S. health care system has failed to improve overall and that scores on access have declined significantly since the first national scorecard in 2006. Despite spending more on health care than any other industrialized nation, the U.S. overall continues to fall far short on key indicators of health outcomes and quality, with particularly low scores on efficiency.
In the report, Why Not The Best? Results From The National Scorecard on U.S. Health System Performance, 2008, the U.S. scored an average of 65 out of a possible 100 across 37 key indicators of health outcomes, quality, access, efficiency, and equity—slightly below the overall score in the 2006 scorecard. The scores compare U.S. average performance to rates achieved by top performers within the U.S. or internationally.
Even more troubling, the health system is on the wrong track when it comes to access and affordability. The number of uninsured and underinsured continues to rise. As of 2007, 42 percent of all working age adults were either uninsured or underinsured—up from 35 percent in the four years since 2003.
The U.S. also failed to keep up with improvements made in other countries, falling from 15th to last among 19 industrialized nations when it comes to premature deaths that could potentially have been prevented by timely access to effective health care. Comparing U.S. average national performance to benchmarks of achieved performance, the scorecard shows that the U.S. health care system could save 100,000 lives and up to $100 billion annually if it improved performance on key indicators.
Item 3: Randy Pausch
Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon professor whose “Last Lecture” has been downloaded millions of times and the resulting book is still on the best seller list, died this morning in a Virginia hospice. Pausch, 47, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer about a month before he was scheduled to give this “last lecture” – an academic tradition that took on a unique setting in his case.
His lecture is well worth the 75 minutes. Here is the report from CBS News, and here is the link to the lecture. Sit down and watch it with your kids – this one is worth it.
