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Why Less Choice is More in Health Insurance Exchanges

"[C]onsumers don't necessarily prefer more inclusive hospital networks.... [S]mall network with a high-quality system was far more coveted than other networks with a broader array of choices.... [C]onsumers care more about having a high-quality hospital system than having their own primary care physician (PCP) in their chosen network.... [T]he upper-tier brand of hospitals and health systems widely believed to be required in any network -- well-known facilities, academic medical centers, and/or flagship institutions -- are not always 'must-have' to consumers."

What the Insurance Industry Can Do to Fix Health Care

"[We] need someone to cut through the complexity of the current system, demand true value from providers, and create better options for consumers. Insurers increasingly look like the folks who can do the job and reinvent their business at the same time.... Here are some specific ideas ... Act as true partners to value-based providers.... Offer options for low-cost, convenient care.... Cover new wellness- and prevention-oriented treatments.... Explode the PPO model.... Sell convenience and personalized service.... Power healthy behavior change.... Serve as the bridge between new tools and consumers."

The Hobby Lobby Decision Could Affect a Majority of U.S. Employees

"[W]hile the ruling may seem limited in that it only speaks to closely held firms, it in fact applies to more than 90% of U.S. companies, and even to a narrow majority of workers.... [S]ome businesses ... plan to stop providing contraceptives as a result of the ruling. Such a trend could help reverse the steady increase in contraceptive coverage, which has risen from 68% to 84% since the passage of the ACA."

Why Retail Clinics Failed to Transform Health Care

"Retail clinics have demonstrated that they are a sustainable business model and clearly fit a patient need: Today, there are more than 1,600 clinics across the country, which have had a total of 20 million patient visits. Nonetheless, their performance has been disappointing: Their growth has been less than expected, they have not expanded care to underserved markets (namely, the poor), and their impact on health care spending -- helping to lower it -- remains unclear."

Who Has Paid Sick Leave, Who Doesn't, and What's Changing

"[A]ccording to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the jump in access to paid sick leave is at least in part due to more Americans working white-collar jobs.... [F]ull-time management workers [receive] the vast majority of sick leave benefits, leaving service workers and part-timers in the dust. The more you earn, the more likely you are to have paid sick leave.... The paradox is that although white-collar workers are more likely to have paid sick leave, they balk at using it; meanwhile, a whole host of people don't have it and thus couldn't use it even if they wanted to. In the end, all of this means that millions of people are going to work sick, albeit for different reasons and with different repercussions"

Flex Time Doesn't Need to Be an HR Policy

"While only 29% [of men surveyed] had regularly scheduled flextime/flexplace arrangements, 66% stated they can use flex when they need to. This 'as needed' flexibility is actually the preferred work schedule of a plurality of the respondents (as opposed to formal work-from-home days or full-time work from home). 73% were happy with the extent to which they were able to work from home. 78% stated that they were at least somewhat comfortable using flexibility. 62% said their employers encourage the use of flexibility to at least some extent."

CEOs Get Paid Too Much, According to Pretty Much Everyone in the World

"For the countries combined, the ideal pay ratio for CEOs to unskilled workers was 4.6 to 1; the estimated ratio was about double, at 10 to 1. But there were some differences country to country. People in Denmark, for example, estimated the ratio to be 3.7 to 1, with an ideal ratio being 2 to 1. In South Korea, the estimated gap was much larger at 41.7 to 1. The ideal gap in Taiwan was particularly high, at 20 to 1."

Flextime Is Declining, But 'Flex Around the Edges' Is Up

"[S]ome forms of flexibility -- mostly allowing workers more control over when they start and end their workdays and more opportunities to telecommute -- are on the rise. Since [a 2008 study], employers have continued to increase such options as control over breaks (from 84% to 92%), control over overtime hours (from 27% to 45%), and time off during the workday when important needs arise (from 73% to 82%).... [But] more substantial flexible work arrangements are being reduced. According to [a 2014] study, employers have slashed options that involve employees spending significant amounts of time away from full-time work, including sharing jobs (down from 29% to 18%), sabbaticals (from 38% to 28%), and career breaks for personal or family responsibilities (from 64% to 52%)."

Your Work-Life Balance Should Be Your Company's Problem

"This is the first study to offer evidence based on a randomized trial that workplace interventions, such as increased schedule control and supervisor support, can reduce employee work-life conflict.... [T]he research shows that there is a way to move away from ... individual accommodations that a person negotiates with his or her boss -- and toward systemic change in an organization that benefits all."

With Flextime, Bosses Prefer Early Birds to Night Owls

"Research shows that in general, flexible work practices lead to increased productivity, higher job satisfaction, and decreased turnover intentions.... Across 149 employee-supervisor dyads, even after statistically controlling for total work hours, employees who started work earlier in the day were rated by their supervisors as more conscientious, and thus received higher performance ratings.... [T]eam leaders must come to accept that the people who use flextime to start their day late are not necessarily lazier than their early-bird colleagues. Otherwise, flextime policies that could serve both employees and employers well will become known, and avoided, as routes to dead-end careers."