I believe strongly that health is enhanced by healthy behaviors, such as good nutrition, exercise, and healthy lifestyles. To some degree, we can mandate healthy behaviors by law and regulation, or by centralized controls.

However, just as I noted in a blog several months ago in which I described some of the findings in the book Mindless Eating, authored by Brian Wansink, the best behavior change drivers are those of which the individual is not conscious. Steve Victor’s Fit For Life blog provides a brief summary of the book’s key takeaways.

For example, in our World Headquarters at Pitney Bowes, we have created a healthy environment by the food we serve and the way we price it. We have an on-site clinic and on-site fitness center, and we have many outreach programs for preventive screenings and immunizations. (more…)

I strongly oppose the so-called single-payer health care model. I have previously articulated my reasons for doing so in this earlier post. One of those reasons is that cost-effective health care is highly-personalized and, by necessity, highly tailored and non-standardized in terms of processes and approaches, but highly-rigorous and standardized in the measurement of results.

Everywhere in the world in which government has operated or regulated health care, including this country, it has tended to create exactly the opposite: a highly-politicized and highly-rigid regulation of processes and approaches, and almost no standardization or regulation of results. The American College of Physicians recently released a relevant position paper “Achieving a High-Performance Health Care System with Universal Access”, which evaluates the condition of the US health care system in comparison to other countries. (more…)

The Sunday, January 6, New York Times Magazine cover story was about the disappointing results of the electronic voting technologies implemented by many states after the passage of the Help America Vote Act, which resulted from the problems identified in the 2000 Presidential and Congressional elections.

I have always believed that government officials and businesses get too enamored of the latest and greatest technology, without recognizing and trying to retain the benefits of older technologies. Pitney Bowes has strongly believed that the most secure system of all is voting by mail, which supplements traditional paper-based ballots with state-of-the-art address management software and ballot tracking and tracing systems.

The biggest problem identified in the article was the quirkiness and unpredictability of computer-based systems, which fail in unexpected ways on election days, because of the large number of people using them. The kinds of misuse possible when tens or hundreds of millions of people use a system are not all predictable, and, therefore, not preventable. This Freedom to Tinker blog post clarifies some points made in the article in reference to this topic. (more…)

I keep seeing influential groups, particularly here in Connecticut, advocate that we switch to a “single-payer” health care system. There are many variations on single-payer proposals, but they typically have the following characteristics:

• The Government takes over the administration of health care plans from insurance companies, private provider-based plans like the Kaiser Permanente plan, and employer-based plans;
• The Government would decide on coverage provisions, the reimbursement for physicians and other providers; and
• The Government would use its bulk purchasing power to decide on, and acquire, pharmaceuticals, lab tests, and preferred providers.

Single-payer systems are different from single-provider systems like the UK National Health Service because the single-payer system providers would not be Government employees, but would retain their ability to invest in, and own, parts of the health care system. (more…)

Recently, our mailing industry has spent a lot of time thinking further about the continued strength of “Do Not Mail” legislation. Our company also sponsored a survey conducted by the respected industry publication DM News.

The findings are quite interesting:

• To the degree that “Do Not Mail” proponents have cited environmental arguments, they have successfully left with the public a number of misimpressions about mail’s environmental impact, all of which grossly exaggerates mail’s negative environmental impact:

• While mail constitutes about 2% of solid waste in landfills, the public believes it constitutes over 33%.
• Similarly, the whole issue of the cutting of trees to produce pulp and paper has been wildly misunderstood. The practice of cutting and harvesting older trees and replacing them with new plantings, usually accounts for very little negative environmental impact.
• The public correctly understands that poorly addressed and poorly targeted mail is wasteful. As a Company, Pitney Bowes has been passionate about selling solutions to reduce the production and delivery of wasteful mail, so I could not agree more with this perception. (more…)