The Five Biggest Problems In Health Care Today

http://www.forbes.com/sites/leahbinder/2013/02/21/the-five-biggest-problems-in-health-care-today/ 1) Too much unnecessary care: This is essentially people playing the system. People abusing health care accounts to 1/3 to 1/2 of the cost of total health care; which contributes to the debt our country is already in 2) Avoidable harm to patients: This is the most common health care problem. This is basically a 25% chance that, while at the hospital or doctors office, you will get injured in another way or have some other sort of problem caused at the actual treatment center 3)Billions of dollars are being wasted: According to the "American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology," about 1 billion dollars is wasted every year for unnecessary healthcare costs. 4) Perverse Incentives in How We Pay for Care: This is basically saying that the way we pay for our treatment with a middle man, the insurance company, and with this type of indirect paying type, money is wasted. 5) Lack of Transparency: We don't really have a wide selection of health care buildings as we do car dealers for example. To buy a car you look around and find the cheapest price. When it comes to health care, there is no transparency, referring to we can't exactly look around to find the cheapest hospital. Also, the prices for health care treatments are constantly rising without the public really knowing. I think the biggest problem is the lack of transparency. This article made a really good point in the fact that no one can really judge health care prices. If more knowledge was given out to the public about the constant rise of health care, then i believe that would slow down the rise. For example, if you go to look at a car and the price is constantly rising, you'll refuse to buy that car if it's overpriced. The dealer will have no other option but to lower his prices or stop rising prices if he wants business. This is an article i believe more people need to look at and realize how ridiculously high the amount of money wasted is. Not only that, but how ridiculous the price of health care is.

Obamacare News: Healthcare reform curbs full-time hiring

http://medcitynews.com/2013/12/obamacare-news-healthcare-reform-curbs-full-time-hiring/ According to Duke University,20% of businesses are less likely to hire new employees due to the pushiing costs of "Obamacare." They also state 10% of busninesses may actually lay off current employees due to Obamacare. Since the Affordable Health Care act requires most businesses to supply healthcare to full time workers, and the economy isn't at its best, its hurting smaller businesses alot. Part-time employees are now being hired over full time employees at most local busineses hence the Health Care law from 2010. In my opinion, I think the government should cut back on affordable health care. It's a huge addition to the enormous debt we already have. Most people play the system and end up having some type of affordable health care even when they're laid off. Pushing new healthcare reforms will not help anything in the current position the economy is in. Small local businesses are essentially the backbone to our economy and these health care reforms are mainly effecting these small local businesses negatively. I also don't really understand why new health care reforms are even coming out. To me it seems like the government is revamping Obamacare all over again. Who is this supposed to be helping and what's the goal to these new reforms?

Who's got the highest (and lowest) unemployment rates?

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/07/14/world.comparison.unemployment/ Qatar 0.5 December 2010 Thailand 0.5 May 2011 Singapore 1.9 March 2011 Vietnam 2.6 June 2011 Switzerland 2.8 June 2011 Malaysia 3 April 2011 South Korea 3.2 May 2011 Norway 3.3 March 2011 Hong Kong 3.5 May 2011 Denmark 3.8 April 2011 This is a graph showing the top lowest unemployment percents in the world by country. As you may notice, most of these countries are in south east Asia. According to George T. Haley "One reason why the unemployment rates in those countries are low is because they're starting to get a lot of investment that used to go to China." China is in a state of high inflation which is causing China to be out resourced. Accuracy, on exact percentages, are slightly off due to how each country defines their unemployment rate; each country defines it differently. You also have to take into consideration that not all countries that may be on this list are on the list. These statistics are from December 2010. I think part of the reason Asia has a low percentage is because of the type of government they have. Most are in the communist republic type of government. Most communistic governments have lower unemployment percentage rates since almost everyone is forced to work otherwise they would be living on the streets. Another reason for this would be their low pay. Most have an average income of around $800 which is extremely low. I believe the reason for our unemployment rate being so low is the laziness of our country. Sure the US overall efficiency may be the highest it's been in a long time; however i believe that's simply to the advances in technology we are taking advantage of. If we worked just as hard as the people in Asia we could have a much lower unemployment rate.

"Why young people are saying 'no' to the workforce"

http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/22/news/economy/young-workforce-delay/index.html?iid=SF_BN_River The Bureau of Labor Statistics is showing statistics of an all time low of people aged 20 to 34 in the work force. Less than 78% of people this age are working or looking for work. According to CNN that's "down from the peak of 83% in 2000, and the lowest since the 1970s." Many businesses have a "last-in first-out" policy for newer, younger workers. This is hard on young people who are looking for jobs. The generalized reason for this unfortunate all time low is obviously the current state of our economy. However, this isn't the only reason for the low percentage. It used to be hard to achieve middle class income level with a high school diploma, in today's world it's getting more difficult to achieve middle class with a 4 year bachelors degree. What this means is young adults are staying in school longer which is the other reason for the low percentage. I personally think this could be potentially a positive outcome. If you think about it, if more kids are spending more time in school, that would account for an overall long run benefit. I also like the idea that more people are going into college so colleges will be more competitive when accepting students which would make kids work harder to get into a decent school which one then lead to another long run benefit of an overall more proficient nation possibly? I know that sounds a little crazy but it adds up. I also read that colleges are constantly upping their tuition fees which i don't like. Colleges are making plenty of money to begin with and i don't see a major reason to raise tuition costs unless there's a legit reason.

What to Do If You Lose Your Job

http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2013/10/21/what-to-do-if-you-lose-your-job "The Bureau of Labor Statistics show that more than 11 million people are currently unemployed." Apparently, a shorter term lay off can actually be a benefit to some poeple. Sander Flaum, the CEO of global advertising and consulting company, wrote a book called "The Best Thing That Could Ever Happen to You: How a Career Reversal Can Reinvigorate Your Life." This is a book specificly on unemployment that explains how to turn being fired into a successful future in 5 steps. These five steps are as follows: 1) avoid self sabatoge; this is basically telling unemployed people to keep their heads high and to stay confident. 2)Bump up your brand; saying that no matter how tough the economy is, there are ways to stand out and apply yourself to other jobs. 3) Recruit recruters; IF you apply yourself and constantly pest job recruters, it will be obvious that you want to work making it easier to get a job. 4) revise your resume; add more personal things to your resume but be sure to make they're professinal qualities of yourself, this is a huge plus to job recruiters 5) remember references; fidning a job alone is kind of hard, if you have a ton of references, you will be more known which could also increase the chance at a job. First of all, I dont see how unemployment can really be looked at as a good thing but i do find it very appealing to see these steps that people could take to find a job. It's great motivation for those people who are currrently unemployed. This article isn't directly an unemployment article but i found it to be interesting and eye opening. If more people would look at motivation like this, and apply themselves, im sure our unemployment rate percentage could be lowered.

The government shutdown may be over, but the data about its economic impact are just starting to come in.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/17/news/economy/unemployment-benefits-shutdown/ The government shutdown lasted 16 days; starting on the 1st of October. This put most of the people working for the government out of a job. 16 days doesn't sound like a long time; however, it is much more difficult than it sounds to go without a paycheck. To help these unemployed people, the government set up unemployment benefits that temporarily payed these people while they were laid off. Those people that were unemployed are now getting reimbursed the money they should have been payed. So now the government is asking for the money, that was given to them when the shutdown start, back. There were "16,000 claims in Washington D.C., 7,600 claims in Pennsylvania and around 6,000 in Virginia during the 16-day shutdown." First of all I find it extremely obnoxious to have to "shutdown" our government over Obama-care. I completely acknowledge the fact that this was a last resort decision; but what did it do? Was shutting down the government the greater side of the opportunity cost? In my opinion, no. To be honest, i still don't see the generalized reason as to what a government shutdown is supposed to accomplish, so if someone could explain, that would be great. Anyways, i see it very contradictory to offer money to these laid off people, then ask for it back hence them getting reimbursed for their "lost" pay. It seems as if this shutdown only produced a negative overall outcome, in my opinion.

Unemployment and the Shutdown

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/30/politics/government-shutdown-up-to-speed/index.html As everyone knows, the government is currenrtly "shutdown." What exactly is this and why? Our current shutdown started this past month due to the Republicans and Democrats disagreeing on what to do with Obamacare. Shutdowns cut all non-essential services out of the system until it ends. There's an exception to military, police, etc. So what does this mean for unemployment? Any federal employee is currently jobless. According to CNN, 800,000 "non-essential" government workers are sitting at home right now. However; congress is still getting paid and jobless benefits are still being offered to the government workers that are effected from the shutdown. What i really dont understand about a shutdown is what it accomplishes. CNN says it just puts us in more debt. I see no point in shutting down the government. I dont know much about politics but this seems completey unnecessary. Putting 800,000 people out of work, for technically no reason, is going to really hurt the economy more which would then lead to an even greater unemployment percent. A main concern i have as well is, if this shutdown lasts long enough, could our country be in another recession?

Unemplyment 9/25

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/charts/united-states-unemployment-rate.png?s=usurtot&d1=19480101&d2=20131231 From the Website above, there is a link to an unemployment chart that goes back to as far as 1948. This is a great representation of our economy in the past 65 years. You can clearly see that the economy is constantly rising and sinking. The unemployment rates from 1948-1975 were averaged out to be right around 5%. If you look right past 1975 into 1976, you can see that unemployment rates dramatically increased to average out at about 7%. This is probably due to the stock market losing 40% in an 18 month period which led to the great inflation of the 70's. The economy/unemployment rate didn't get any better until about the late 80's entering the early 90's as you can see in the graph. Up until 2007, the unemployment rate was staying decently consistent at right around a 5% unemployment rate. As soon as 2007 hit, the unemployment rate skyrocketed to 10%. This was caused mainly from the hundreds of thousands of jobs that were lost. I believe these jobs were lost because our government is trying to get out of debt and to do so there needs to be cuts in order to make up the money that was lost in recent years. Soon enough the unemployment rate will drop and eventually spike right back up again.

http://www.edd.ca.gov/unemployment/Federal_Unemployment_Insurance_Extensions.htm New Developments on Federal Unemployment Extensions and Benefit Cuts (Updated September 17, 2013) The percent of unemployment is slightly rising over 7.6% as of last month (http\://rt.com/usa/may-jobs-unemployment-report-381/. Several new benfits for workers that are currently unemployed have been created. To be exact, 10 new benefits have been created according to The California Employment Development Department(EDD). Most of these benefits are however extensions to previous unemployment policies. There has also been a 17.69% sequation cut. What this means is the government is spending more money on lets say healthcare benefits and to do this they are cutting the sequation to use the money in other places. I personally think cutting sequation for more important benefits is a deent idea. I dont agree with the 10 new benefits that are being created; even though they're mainly just extensions. THis is just causing the government to throw more money into the public that we dont have. Could this cause more national debt?

Unemployment 9/09

http://www.ibtimes.com/us-august-jobs-report-2013-169k-nonfarm-payroll-growth-unemployment-rate-drops-73-1403102

I really don't understand why so many jobs are being created  or how they're being created. Every month there are maybe 150k jobs created in the united states, BUT the unemployment rate is till decreasing. If jobs are being created, how is the unemployment rate rising? In July there were supposed to be 180k jobs created in the US; however, there were only 169k created. If our country is in such economic debt, where is the money for these 169k jobs coming from?

The article informs you on how "The labor market is stagnant." As in it keeps fluctuating up and down. If the debt of the US needs to start being fixed, I believe all these jobs cant continuously keep being created and if they are it needs to be at a slower pace. The jobs are being created but yet people are losing their jobs everyday therefore the employment rate needs to be brought up on a l