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Chapter 13 Global Benefits
Filed Under Management and Beyond
Chapter 13 (Global Benefits)
This Post last revised August 5, 2010
Doing Business Globally
Doing business globally means business must consider employment and benefit practices in the host country and also the relevance of compensation and benefit costs among competing employers in various international venues.
At Table 13.1, page 419, there is a comparison of various European health care programs. Add to this Table the fact that the German government levies a payroll tax of 14.9% on employees to finance their health care plan. Currently, the plan is facing a $7 billion shortfall, and the government is looking for ways to bring financial balance to their plan. See: “The Stressed German Model,” WSJ, October 10-11, 2009, at A14.
The British National Health Service (NHS) will apparently undergo a major reorganization. The major emphasis of the effort will involve decentralizing the system to allow local decision making about treatments and other services. The intended effect will be to reduce the system’s national bureaucracy and expenses, and to improve the quality of clinical decision-making. See: Getz, I., “Decentralize the NHS in Britain,” Wall Street Journal, July 16, 2010. See: http://online.wsj.com/article.
Differences in Data Collection
At pages 422 and 423, there should be sentence after the reference to the “Source” of data contained in Table 13.2. There are significant differences in the way in which countries report infant mortality. For example, some do not include still born babies in their statistics, some do. Others do not include infants born at certain pre-mature intervals and weights, some do. For a review of the different reporting of infant mortality statistics, see: MacDonald,E., Health Care Myths, Fox Business News, June 23, 2009.
Health Care Systems - Comparative Efficacy
Also at pages 422 and 423 add: It is claimed that the U.S. has lower life expectancy and infant mortality than most OECD countries and this is the result of not having a universal health care system. An August 2009 study reported in the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), however, indicates that the differences in life expectancy are not a result of the U.S. health care system, but rather behavioral and social factors. They point to the high rates of obesity in the U.S. that are lowering life spans. They compare screening and survival rates for cancer, heart attack, stroke, and medications for hypertension and high cholesterol in the U.S to OECD countries, and the U.S. has better or equal ratings. They point out that breast cancer and prostate cancer mortality in the U.S. has shown a faster decline than in OECD countries. This study is consistent with a similar one comparing life expectancy and infant mortality in the U.S. to Canada which has a single payer, universal system. The almost identical conclusion was that the U.S. has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality but these are not the result of the differences in the respective health care systems, but rather behavioral differences. They point to higher rates of obesity in the U.S., lower birth weights which are most often the cause of infant deaths and attributable to poor health and drug addiction of the mother. Finally, and sadly, they show how the higher homicide and fatal accident rates in the U.S. significantly affect life expectancy results compared to Canada’s. See: Preston, S., and Hu, Jessica Y., “Low Life Expectancy in the U.S. - is the Health System at Fault?” NBER Working Paper No. 15213, August 2009. Also see: O’Neil, J., O’Neil D., NBER Working Paper 13429 (Fall 2007), “Health Status, Health Care, and Inequality: Canada v. U.S.” (http://www.nber.org/digest)
Last Update: August 5, 2010
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