House Fire Insurance Jobs

Pull the plug on health system

It wasn't a retreat. Nor was it a compromise. It was an "accommodation."

That's how the White House spun President Obama's attempt last week to tamp down the political brush fire that had erupted over requiring all health insurance plans — including those offered by Roman Catholic universities and hospitals — to include free birth control for women.

Even though birth control is perfectly legal, and this is therefore a decision that is a woman's alone to make, religious leaders and their Republican friends professed bewilderment that Obama would launch an assault on freedom of faith.

As House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, put it, the contraception requirement "constitutes an unambiguous attack on religious freedom in our country."

Actually, what it did was highlight, yet again, the pitfalls of tying health insurance to one's job.

Our employer-based health-care system — a historical anomaly — is more trouble than it's worth. Yes, it provides coverage for about 55 percent of the population, according to the Census Bureau, and polls show that most of those with employer-provided insurance are happy with their plans.

But the number of people with employer-based coverage is steadily shrinking. In 2000, 64 percent of Americans were insured through their jobs.

Meanwhile, the number of people in this country without health insurance keeps rising. At last count, about 50 million people had no coverage.

Fifty million. That's more than twice the combined populations of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego and Dallas.

"The employer-based health-care system is the reason we don't have universal coverage in this country," said Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. "It does a halfway decent job of insuring people. But with 50 million uninsured, it obviously doesn't do a complete job.

The Downward Spiral: Travelers Insurance Cut 1400 Jobs During ...

“We continually evaluate our business requirements and the proper staffing levels needed to serve our customers and maintain our efficiency and competitive edge,” said Shane Boyd, a spokesman for the insurer. “The changes in staffing levels over time reflect these adjustments across our organization.” He had no immediate comment on which units or regions had the most job cuts.

House

02

House

Tracy Kidder takes readers to the heart of the American Dream: the building of a family's first house with all its day-to-day frustrations, crises, tensions, challenges, and triumphs.

Fire

In this suspenseful prequel to Graceling, Fire, a beautiful girl with the power to control the minds of others, must do all she can to stay alive during the deadly times facing her land in the Dells with impending war upon them.

Insurance for Dummies

Explains how to buy and save on every kind of insurance, including life, health, auto and home insurance, and offers tips on how to get the best coverage for one's money and how to receive a fair and timely claim for losses.

The new life insurance investment advisor

"For anyone who needs to understand different types of life insurance, as well as considerations forpurchasing and managing policies, this book should be on your nearby reference shelf.