Hard as it is to believe, this edition of the Cavalcade marks our 3rd Anniversary. As has become our tradition, we're including posts only from those who submitted (hosts know that I spend the weekend before a Cav "hunting" for interesting risk-related posts). To see how far we've come, one has only to look at our premier issue.
The Traditional third anniversary gift is leather, but I'm kind of afraid to go there. The Modern gift is crystal or glass, but these pose substantial risk of breakage, so they're out. It turns out that the gemstone gift for third anniversaries is pearls, and I think that's just about right: each of these posts contain at least one pearl (of wisdom, natch):
■ If you're like a lot of folks, you've already broken the first rule of password protection: don't Post-It-Note it on your monitor (bet you never saw Post-It-Note conjugated before, have you?). An even better idea is to pick a password with some heft to it. Jim at Bargaineering has some tips on how to pick a strong, but easily recalled, password.
■ Five Cent Nickel's not afraid to ask the tough questions. With all the banking and finance problems in the news, have you ever considered the role of the SIPC (Securities Investor Protector Corporation)? FCN has, and offers some insights.
■ Ever heard of the ADA? No, not Jack McCoy, but the Americans with Disabilities Act. Nancy Germond asks you to consider if you're ready to help your injured workers return to productivity, because there's some new changes to the Act that could test your risk-assessment skills.
■ It never ceases to amaze me how EconBlogger Jason Shafrin effortlessly segues from economic principles to risk management, but he sure makes it look easy. Today, he takes a look at Medicare Part D (known around these parts as "D for Debacle") , and how it's affecting pharmacy insurance benefits. Jason reviews an article and makes some disturbing discoveries.
■ Talk about the horse's, um, mouth: Colorado Health Insurance Insider's Jay Norris offers up a guest-post from the President of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Colorado. John Martie has the insurer's perspective on some important, and potentially troublesome, aspects of guaranteed issue health insurance.
■ Rita Schwab (who hosts the next Cav) highlights the risk to patients, hospitals, and practitioners involved in a negligent credentialing case, and the potential risk to reporters and bloggers who may find themselves in the midst of controversy for writing about the case. And make sure you see the email received from the defendant's attorney at the bottom of the post. Scary stuff.
■ HWR founder (and all-around good guy) Joe Paduda cautions "Medicare for all? Not so fast..." Joe's been conversing with Jacob Hatcher and Jason Rosenbaum about the merits of using Medicare as the basis for a public health plan option. Joe's not convinced Medicare is the right answer, in fact he's pretty much convinced it isn't. But he thinks that another government offering may well be.
■ Self-proclaimed rookie blogger John Leppard thinks that when "Change" (vaguely defined) is the centerpiece of the national agenda, it is quite fitting to be a little apprehensive. Promises aren't the same as policies, but they can be just as dangerous. Such promises can be risky, at best.
■ An integral part of risk is "mitigation;" that is, trying to reduce the impact of something that may be unavoidable. Mikkal Travvis offers some timely tips on how to survive a possible flu pandemic.
■ One of our major bugaboos lately has been the influx of spam submissions from the personal finance folks. This post, submitted by BankMan, almost ended up in the JunkMail folder because of that, but luckily, I stopped to actually read it. It ties in quite nicely with Five Cent Nickel's SIPC piece (above): the FDIC was created to prevent people from making runs on their banks and causing banks to collapse when they were otherwise healthy. This was a HUGE problem in the Great Depression, and caused many banks to fail and people to lose their life's savings - all because people panicked. No one wants to risk that.
■ Longtime contributor Jaan Sidorov examines the hubbub around McAllen Texas' outlier status in the New Yorker magazine, which examined health care utilization rates. He's not impressed and thinks the commentary has failed to pay attention to a very simple concept from statistics 101 (and hence the risk factor).
■ The Norks' Nukes? The Iranians Uranium? The Chinese Chits? None of those infuriate me as much as the folks who insist on Dialing While Driving. WorkersComp Insider's Jon Coppleman looks at the liability risks posed to companies by workers who use cell phones while driving and offers examples of policies that various companies are implementing to mitigate that risk (unfortunately, none of these include the Death Penalty for offenders).
■ And, finally, our own submission examines whether reducing risky behavior really does result in better health (and lower insurance premiums). Apparently so, as we learn from this post based on recent studies.
Well, that does it for our 3rd Anniversary edition. Thanks again to all of our hosts this past year, and to everyone who's contributed to the Cav.
Next week's host is Rita Schwab. We have hosting slots available starting in September, and would encourage you to grab yours "while the gettin's good."
We're also looking for alternatives to Blog Carnival, so if you have any suggestions, please send 'em in.
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