Sat, 26 May 2012 06:44:02 -0800WeeblyWed, 16 May 2012 10:57:32 -0800http://www.bruceshutan.com/1/post/2012/05/a-courageous-confession-from-the-c-suite.htmlImagine a C-Suite superstar ever admitting to a 9-to-5 schedule, especially in this anemic economy. Blasphemy, right? The equivalent of career suicide, don’t you think?

Who would do such a thing?

Sheryl Sandberg – that’s who. She’s the chief operating officer of Internet darling Facebook, whose impending IPO is the talk of both Wall Street and Main Street. And before that, she worked for an equally formidable, if not downright superior, company.

She recently had this to say about her career in a video posted on Makers.com: 
 
“I walk out of this office every day at 5:30 so I’m home for dinner with my kids at 6, and interestingly, I’ve been doing that since I
had kids. I did that when I was at Google, I did that here, and I would say it’s not until the last year, two years that I’m brave enough to talk about it publicly. Now I certainly wouldn't lie, but I wasn’t running around giving speeches on it.”

Wow. What a game-changer. Might others follow suit? I highly doubt it, but I do applaud Sandberg for having the guts to tell the truth and apparently being able to juggle the enormity of such a high-profile gig with parenthood.

As a busy freelance writer who’s also a hands-on dad in a home office with virtually no demarcation point separating my work from life, I understand and appreciate how challenging it is to raise children – especially three of them across different age groups. Parenting is really hard work. It’s both physical demanding, and at times, mentally and emotionally exhausting. But the rewards are tremendous, just as they are when you’re able to earn a living doing something you truly love. 

My hope for Corporate America is that captains of industry, boards of directors and subordinate employees alike will give some
serious thought to what Sandberg confessed. Here’s why: The U.S. is losing ground to other developed countries in a world economy. We’re no longer the powerhouse of innovation and complete domination. 

One problem is that too many corporate cultures are overly rigid or staid and in need of refreshing, not to mention that most people just don’t know how to manage. It’s a skill set that doesn’t come natural for many of us. It requires incredibly hard work. 
 
I’ve seen attitudes about telecommuting loosen up quite a  bit over the past three decades, but I still believe we have a long way to go. The fact is that too many talented individuals get stuck on the so-called mommy track or daddy track. It’s especially hard on female executives who are rising stars, but have to worry what their colleagues will think if they dare show up to work pregnant. Their employment status may be protected under the law, but they cannot control the attitudes or prejudices around them.

This is 2012, and it’s time for Corporate America to grow up – opening its mind wide enough to a point where getting one’s work done trumps a corporate policy or culture that expects working parents to be tethered to their office space for a set number of hours each day. Don’t ever forget that without a healthy work-life balance, none of us will ever able to achieve our personal-best performance either at the office or at home. And companies won't be as profitable.
]]>Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:57:31 -0800http://www.bruceshutan.com/1/post/2012/02/a-pill-popping-problem.htmlHave a problem? Just pop a pill. That may well be a glib characterization of the nation’s favorite health care remedy, but there’s an alarming epidemic just beneath the surface.

More Americans die from prescription drug overdoses than all illegal drugs combined and the ones that are deemed accidental outnumber  highway traffic fatalities each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It all amounts to a senseless death every 19  minutes, or about 27,000 annually. That’s pretty shocking. 

Here’s another harsh wakeup call: The co-author of a CDC study in 2008 reported that most people who OD on prescription drugs don’t even have a prescription for the substance that eventually took their life. More than 12 million Americans popped a pill last year just for kicks, so it’s not surprising that sales of prescription drugs actually tripled between 2000 and 2009.

The recent death of pop-singer icon Whitney Houston at the age of 48 serves as a sobering reminder not only about how dangerous it is to take multiple prescription drugs, but also mix them with alcohol. While her exact cause of death is left to conjecture until a toxicology report is complete, much like it was when “Rehab” singer Amy Winehouse’s suddenly died last summer at just 27 years old, there’s no escaping the repeated telling of cautionary tales involving celebrities who numb their pain or feed an addiction. Fame and fortune often enables people to trade their problems for more complicated ones.
 
At the time of her death, Houston reportedly took several popular drugs: the anti-anxiety medication Xanax and antibiotic amoxicillin for an upper respiratory infection, both of which we know require a prescription, and Ibuprofen, an over-the-counter (OTC) pain medication. She also was seen drinking champagne and looking disheveled in the days leading up to her death. 
 
Other high-profile celebs whose deaths in recent years were traced to misuse of prescription drugs or alcohol include the so-called King of Pop Michael Jackson and Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith, as well as actors Heath Ledger and Brittany Murphy. Long ago, those casualties included everyone from sex symbol Marilyn Monroe to rock stars Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley and Keith Moon.
 
This topic hits close to home for me not only because I’ve been writing more about pharmacy benefits management in recent months, but also because a lifelong kinship with fellow musicians – some of whom I performed with who lost the battle with drugs or alcohol. I also have taken my fair share of prescriptions and OTC meds through the years. So I know how powerful these substances can be. One parting thought is that I hope the public becomes better educated about the seriousness of abusing or mixing pills and alcohol. We don’t need any more senseless deaths. ]]>Sun, 04 Dec 2011 14:51:01 -0800http://www.bruceshutan.com/1/post/2011/12/political-correctness-gone-awry.htmlI’m a big fan of the National Football League. I’m also appalled by political correctness.

Those two issues recently collided when ESPN felt pressured to dump singer Hank Williams Jr., who performed the rowdy Monday Night Football opening theme song, following controversial remarks he made about the current state of U.S. politics.

His crime? An analogy to describe Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner joining forces for a friendly golf game against Vice President Biden and Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich.

The gruff country rock icon didn’t like the idea, telling Fox News’ “Fox & Friends”: “It would be like Hitler playing golf with [Israeli leader] Benjamin Netanyahu.”

And just like that, a two-decades-long association came to an abrupt halt. What will the Thought Police think of next? Have we lost our minds? Our sense of humor? Our inalienable right to make political statements without fear of recrimination?

As a fan of analogies (and the game of golf), I thought his remarks were spot on. As a diehard football fan, I had to laugh. As a Jew who one might assume would take offense to Hitler being a part of any analogy, I still had to laugh. As someone who voted for the president and is sensitive to the plight of African Americans, ditto. But as a journalist who deeply cherishes our First Amendment rights, I almost had to cry.

The fact is that political correctness has gone awry, and I’m tired of people having to walk on eggshells all the time or fear the consequences of telling an off-color joke, regardless of whether the perceived offending party has a liberal or conservative view. Most Americans believe the country has become too politically correct, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey.

Another high-profile case of political correctness that comes to mind involves singer Tony Bennett, who cannot be more opposite Hank Williams, Jr. in political affiliation or musical style.

The pop-jazz crooner, who considers himself a pacifist, triggered public outrage for controversial remarks about 9/11. Appearing on “The Howard Stern Show” on Sirius XM Radio to promote his new album, Bennett said: “They flew the plane in, but we caused it, because we were bombing them and they told us to stop.” I remember comedian Bill Maher saying something similar (without the awkward sentence construction) shortly after the tragedy, which ironically, later cost him his TV show at that time, aptly entitled “Politically Incorrect.”

At the heart of these critiques is a belief that people from around the globe sometimes have an ax to grind with American foreign policy, which has had a spotty track record of success. What’s so wrong with saying that out loud? It’s a fact that people need to accept. Get over the hurt feelings, America, and let’s move on to more important matters. ]]>Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:43:41 -0800http://www.bruceshutan.com/1/post/2011/07/a-brave-journey-past-postpartum1.htmlAs the proud papa of two adorable babies born just 15 months apart, it never ceases to amaze me how much work goes into parenting. There’s lots of blocking and tackling, if I can use a sports metaphor, and by the end of each day and night, mom and dad often feel like they need to be carted off the playing field – or should I say playground?

Kids will wear you out. Why didn’t all my family friendly pals tell me these details before I took the plunge into parenthood?! I thought writing deadlines were brutal. They’re nothing compared to juggling a heavy workload with dual diaper duty, midnight bottle feedings, bath time, toddlers, tiaras and tantrums. Add to the mix two little ones who like to pinch their way to sleep for added comfort, and I literally sport the battle scars to show the sweat equity I have invested.

In short: I’m exhausted.

But I can only imagine what it must feel like for my wife, who also had to juggle breastfeeding with postpartum depression following the birth of our youngest child. It has been an eye-opening experience that mirrors some of the stories told by actress Brooke Shields in “Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression,” which gave me great comfort knowing we weren’t alone in dealing with this mysterious and frightening condition.

It got me wondering how women, who now slightly outnumber men in the U.S. workforce, must be coping not only at home, but also on the job. Talk about a harrowing work-life juggle. It’s hard enough dealing with all those moving parts without suffering from something like this, so the mere thought of another layer of complexity added to the employment equation can trigger some seriously high anxiety.

I don’t know how these brave working women do it, but as a close observer of the human resources field for more than 20 years, I sure hope that they’re getting the support they need from their group medical insurance plans and employee assistance programs. For employers, it can help them move the needle on the talent wars, considering how demographic trends make recruiting and retaining female employees a necessary step toward attaining a competitive advantage.

Having been removed from the corporate world’s daily grind for nearly 12 years and counting, I have no sense how this issue is playing out by the water cooler, or in conference rooms or corner offices. All I know is what I read, which isn’t much.

On a hunch, I conducted a few Google searches about HR and postpartum depression and found virtually nothing written about any links between the two. But the first news item caught my eye. In it, an appeals court ruled that it was okay for (ironically) a medical center to deny an employee time off under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to care for her adult daughter, who had postpartum depression and, thus, needed help caring for her newborn. Her employer had what was described as “a no-fault attendance policy that assigned points to each employee based on the number of unexcused absences incurred. Approved absences such as FMLA leave were not included in the point total.” The woman, who also had suffered a back injury that would have been covered by the FMLA, was fired.

My wife is lucky in that as an independent contractor for two different creative career paths, she doesn’t have to deal with any corporate policy restrictions or office politics, nor is she beholden to short-sighted supervisors who don’t understand what it’s like to experience postpartum depression. But for other working women with this affliction whose careers and lives hang in the balance, there just may be no escaping these hassle or pressure to be a super mom, super wife and/or super worker. Let’s hope that their respective journeys through postpartum depression lead them out of the darkness and into the light for their sake, as well as the sake of their families and employers.
]]>Wed, 09 Feb 2011 13:29:28 -0800http://www.bruceshutan.com/1/post/2011/02/cost-of-insurance-hits-close-to-home.htmlAfter writing about insurance for nearly half my life, I have a pretty good understanding of underwriting and risk-management practices, as well as the supreme importance of income protection.

I believe in the power of most insurance products, particularly in the area of disability, which is wildly underestimated, but view others as unnecessary. Banks and credit card companies, for example, are now expected to deal with identity theft, despite the birth of a cottage industry to manage this fast-growing, white-collar crime wave, while cancer insurance pales in comparison to critical-illness products that cast a much wider safety net in the event of a serious illness.

But as a consumer of these services, I have encountered the same flaws and frustrations as people who know nothing about the industry’s inner-workings or angry Americans who describe insurance as legal extortion. And despite having some insurance companies as clients through the years, I sometimes wonder whether the industry gets too much of a free pass, especially since health insurance premiums are the equivalent of a mortgage payment for so many families trying to make ends meet in a sluggish economy.

Consider a few recent eye-opening incidents:

* When applying for life insurance following the birth of my 18-month-old son, I underwent the requisite medical exam to rule out any uninsurable risks. As part of that process, I was asked whether I was on any medication. I answered no, but had forgotten about a prescription for valium that one of my wife’s relatives wrote as a favor. The pills were an afterthought – popped every now and then to help take the edge off the extreme sleep deprivation I faced as a first-time parent. But not to the insurance company, which fired off a curt form letter that suggested I purposely hid this information when a certain ingredient associated with the medication was found in my bloodstream and abruptly cancelled the application. I had no recourse other than to seek coverage elsewhere, according to my very embarrassed insurance agent, who said she never encountered anything like that before and recommended that I write a letter of complaint to California’s insurance department about this mid-level industry player. I have since obtained excellent coverage from another source with a better balance sheet.

* It has taken more than two months – and still counting, as I type this blog – to get my son onto our family’s newest health insurance plan because of an underwriting department whose cautiousness in my estimation is either grounded in irrationality, tangled in bureaucratic red tape or both. The brief back story: An ointment for eczema failed to include on the insurance application the date it was prescribed as well as a diagnosis. Small potatoes, right? Not so fast. I tried in vain to obtain this information for an entire month from his doctor, whose office was so acutely mismanaged and offered subpar care that my wife and I decided to pull the plug on the dirt-cheap coverage he had qualified for under a state-run plan and move him to a fabulous pediatrician with rock-star qualities. The old adage is true: You do get what you pay for, and in this case, it wasn’t worth the much lower price tag. But now we’ve fallen through the cracks, and I’m still trying to straighten out the situation with a supervisor for the more costly health insurance plan from a once proud nonprofit entity that years ago splintered into for-profit plans in hopes of cashing in on a market where the balance of power shifted from kindly doctors to number-crunching insurance company executives with fat paychecks. The first supervisor I spoke to agreed with my first-blush assessment, which was that a toddler with itchy skin isn’t a red flag to underwriters. It’s not like he was diagnosed with any serious pre-existing conditions or a life-threatening condition.

* My Peruvian in-laws are faced with a heart-breaking dilemma. Because of the escalating cost associated with treating my mother in-law’s early stage Alzheimer’s disease, they will eventually outlive their savings or need to move from the house they called home in Los Angeles for almost 40 years back to Peru, where care is much cheaper. This issue is the most macro-economic of these vignettes, with a larger implication about the most cost-efficient and dignified way we as a society must manage the care of our senior citizens. Long-term care insurance, which is designed to protect one’s assets in the event that something like this happens, is unaffordable for most working Americans, while a key provision in the new landmark health care reform legislation that was signed into law offers people a low-cost alternative to mitigate this risk, but the benefits are so paltry they’re laughable. So is the answer socialized medicine? Critics charge that such a solution would be worse than the problem it seeks to fix.

Which brings me to a few parting thoughts. Regardless of  your politics on the contentious issue of health care for all Americans, we can  no longer operate under the status quo. 

On the one hand, I’m horrified that President Obama and the once-Democratic majority in the House and Senate passed such an important law that had been attempted for nearly a century with no bipartisan support. Shame on them! This issue is too important to kick around as a political football. 

On the other hand, I’m equally horrified that the Republican leadership has devoted too many of its resources to repealing this bill rather than passing alternative reforms that would extend access to care without bloating the cost of such coverage. 

That, my friends, is the chief dilemma. How in the world do we add about 30 million uninsured people to the nation’s health insurance rolls without insurance companies passing on any additional costs to the consumer? It’s a complex question with no easy answers, but hopefully the powers that be will figure out this equation before the public becomes even more restless and our insurance premiums keep rising. ]]>Fri, 15 Oct 2010 13:21:09 -0800http://www.bruceshutan.com/1/post/2010/10/knowledge-is-power.htmlPeople have a choice to be knowledgeable or ignorant about history and current events. But when it comes to my fellow journalists, I expect that they always will embrace the former and avoid the latter, as well as allow reason to trump emotion when expressing one’s view on a particular issue. Unfortunately, a few recent developments made me reconsider those expectations with regard to anti-Semitism.

Let me start with longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas, whose nearly 60-year career came crashing down in June when she resigned as a columnist for Hearst News Service at the age of 90. The (dare I say early) retirement came following controversial comments she made to a rabbi and independent filmmaker who videotaped her angrily saying that Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” and return to their land of origin – be it “Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else.”

What’s almost as startling to me, a proud Jewish journalist, is that Thomas, whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from Lebanon, noted in a recent radio interview that she said “exactly what I thought” at the time, and assuming a highly defensive posture, that people “cannot criticize Israel in this country and survive.” Her response to a question about whether she’s anti-Semitic: “Baloney!” I’m surprised she didn’t add: “And some of my best friends are Jewish.”

Anti-Semites, just like other types of bigots, can’t help but deny such charges because they refuse to take responsibility for their words or actions. They are among the truest cowards and truly ignorant, which is the premise of what I’m trying to say. We all know that when people prejudge something, it’s done out of ignorance – not knowledge.

Another fairly high-profile journalist whose foot recently was firmly implanted into his mouth is Rick Sanchez, who insinuated in a satellite radio interview that Jews controlled CNN, where his gig as a commentator was coming to an end, as well as other networks, and that Jewish comedian Jon Stewart, who also hosts the Daily Show, is a bigot. In another comment prompted by a
discussion of Stewart, who made many jokes at Sanchez’s expense prior to all the controversy, the Cuban-born broadcast journalist who’s on a book tour sarcastically challenged the notion that Jews are an oppressed minority.

The chief difference, though, is that Sanchez later acknowledged that he made offensive comments and had a chip on his shoulders before issuing what sounded like a sincere apology, including a reference to Stewart being “the classiest
guy” based on the comic’s reaction to the dust up.

Ironically, I encountered first-hand yet another example of the deep hostility reserved toward Jews soon after composing an e-mail message to Sanchez through Facebook scolding him for those comments (I might add prior to his public apology). In this case, I was reminded about the frustratingly uphill battle that so many of my fellow Jews feel when trying to defend Israel’s right
to exist as a Jewish state while attending the Society of Professional Journalists’ annual convention in Las Vegas where I happened to be speaking on a panel discussion about the nuts and bolts of freelance writing.

Included in my attendee bag was a 36-page booklet produced by an organization called American Muslims for Palestine called “Rising from the Ashes: Gaza’s Indestructible Spirit.” While I understand criticisms of the Israeli government and found the report interesting as a journalist, I can’t help but feel as both a journalist and Jew that the research represents just one side of a complex and emotional argument. It’s worth mentioning that this group had a booth in the exhibit hall, and I’m sure they spared no expense in disseminating this slick presentation.

But it troubled me that I had no choice but to be greeted with a document that many of my fellow Jews would consider to be Arab propaganda and that the views expressed by the American Muslims for Palestine would be aired to journalists in a vacuum without any counter argument. It made me feel helpless.

I can only hope that most, if not all, of my fellow scribes try their best to serve as conduits of tolerance and understanding with sincerity in their hearts and minds. To me, journalism is still a noble and beloved profession, albeit imperfect. I also have seen all too often how U.S. citizens so easily scapegoat the media and take a free press for granted at a time when journalists are being
killed all over the world in record numbers in pursuit of the truth. Maybe this is a pipe dream, but as I said earlier, I expect more from people who are in the business of gathering and disseminating facts. And maybe then the American public will once again respect and admire this great institution we all call the Fourth Estate. ]]>Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:16:43 -0800http://www.bruceshutan.com/1/post/2010/01/a-broader-view-of-success.htmlFrom an early age, I learned that the definition of success was linear.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines success as “the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence.” It’s the first part of this description – wealth, being the operative word – that caught my attention back in the 1960s, which is ironic considering that it was a time of mounting rebellion against money and material possessions. But while the times, no doubt, were a changing, as Bob Dylan noted, they were far simpler and average working Americans were much more innocent.

I grew up in provincial south-central Connecticut where my daily life with a mother, father and two older sisters was largely shielded from the counterculture movement, though the family’s first-born child provided a sense of what was happening beyond our unlocked front doors. Also, living in the suburbs meant that we were just as isolated from affluence and extreme poverty, which actually gifted us with a pretty even-handed view.

My parents taught us to embrace old-fashioned virtues and values above everything else in life. And while our successful businessman father instilled in his three kids the importance of having enough money, his point was that it’s a means to an end and it’s important to pursue a career for which you have talent and passion. We had one of the nicest homes in a nondescript, middle-class neighborhood, and my dad liked to drive nice cars, but we never worshipped the almighty dollar. That’s an important distinction that needs to be made.

As a child, I thought that people who earned a lot of money were the ones in life who made it to the top. But my view thankfully evolved as I gained knowledge and saw first hand how money could corrupt people.

I remember a friend from overnight camp around the age of 10 whose family had a boatload of money and lovely home in a tony part of my home state, but every time I visited him there was chaos in the air marked by many heated arguments. I suppose this was my introduction to the notion of family dysfunction. Those disturbing memories stayed with me for years and helped shape my thoughts about money – a powerful cautionary tale that I’m trying to teach my own kids.

Little did I realize that many years later, the topic of workplace compensation would be an area of focus for me as a journalist – an issue addressed at great length in a previous blog entry of mine. I never begrudge people for making lots of money, nor do I frown upon free markets. But I do have a serious problem with extreme wealth that fosters bourgeois tendencies at the expense of love, compassion and all the other things in life that truly matter.

One of my newest heroes in recent years is Bill Gates – not because he helped revolutionize our lives and ushered in the Information Age (truth be told: his product is subpar compared with the one his rival Steve Jobs eventually licensed). What makes America’s most famous computer geek so worthy of our respect is that after becoming filthy rich he decided to give away most of his money through a foundation whose chief cause holds unbelievable promise in helping make the world a better place.

To me, this is the ultimate model of success: an entrepreneurial spirit blended with philanthropy. The problem, of course, is that we can’t force rich people to open their hearts and wallets, nor should we even think about doing this other than mandating the occasional tax increase to help lift ourselves out of desperate times. But we certainly can attempt to instill in future generations the same sort of values I grew up with and shame the most fortunate souls into striking a better balance between selfishness and selflessness.

So what is success?

Annual income is only part of the equation. I think there are multiple layers of meaning that get lost in all the white noise of modern society.

One pillar or foundation involves human relationships. Anyone who’s seriously estranged from immediate family members or friends, or has a difficult time getting along with others or made his or her share of enemies through the years, has some major soul searching to do. As a corollary, it’s hard to muster any respect or sympathy for people who repeatedly play the victim card and cannot take responsibility for their own actions. I marvel at people who verbalize their love on a daily basis when it’s so easy to get caught up in the day’s events and lose sight of our connection to one another.

Another point to consider is volunteerism. I think it’s so important to give back to the community – something that all parents should teach their children so that they can transcend the inherent narcissism of youth and develop early on a sense that there’s so much more to life than worldly possessions.

Other areas include being honest and doing our best at work. The sum of all these moving parts to modern life certainly spells success with a capital S. ]]>Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:12:26 -0800http://www.bruceshutan.com/1/post/2009/10/another-missed-opportunity.htmlLegend has it that Yogi Berra was fond of describing some situations as “déjà vu all over again.” The same can be said about efforts to reform the U.S. health care system – an issue that dates back much further than Bill Clinton’s failed effort in 1993.

President Barack Obama recently observed that “since Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform nearly a century ago, we have talked and we have tinkered. We have tried and fallen short, we’ve stalled for time, and again we have failed to act because of Washington politics or industry lobbying.”

Another Teddy (as in Kennedy, the late senator from Massachusetts), was said to have regretted not cutting a deal on universal health care with President Richard Nixon shortly after his re-election more than any other issue as a lifelong legislator. The Watergate scandal swiftly put the kibosh on national health care, which the Liberal Lion would later call the cause of his life.

Fast forward to 2009 when the nation’s first African-American president kicks the dust off this seemingly noble goal and tells lawmakers he wants a bill on his desk by the end of this year. What transpired over the summer during scores of town-hall-style meetings in congressional districts across the nation was nothing short of breathtaking. This is what makes democracy so awe-inspiring, regardless of one’s political affiliation.

But there’s a dark side to the so-called debate, which degenerated into a disrespectful shout down at several meetings from zealots armed with robotic talking points and lots of assumptions about what might happen– a shameful display of decorum that came full circle when U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) called his rude interruption of Obama’s speech on the subject a town-hall
moment.

It all happened to coincide with rapper KanyeWest grabbing the mic from Taylor Swift at the MTV Music Video Awards to praise one of her competitors and tennis sensation Serena Williams’ profanity-laced tirade at the U.S. Open, but of course I digress about the kind of hard-bitten society we’ve become. Still, whatever happened to Old Man Bush’s vision of a “kinder, gentler America?!” Guess we’re not there yet.

Now back to the point at hand: Failing to take action, even in the face of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, will result in much more personal misery and suffering, deplete critical national resources and undermine the U.S. standing on the world stage.

We’re paying far too much for health care services – a major investment that’s not producing meaningful outcomes relative to other nations or, put another way, dividends in the form of healthier and happier citizens.

The fact is that we need to do something about a national obesity epidemic that’s spiking the number of chronic illnesses such as heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and associated conditions in children, which is very alarming. We’re living longer, but our quality of life is declining. And our fast-food-nation culture promotes a pill for every ailment under the sun.

Let’s not be pennywise but dollar foolish about this issue, which I’ve been covering this year with great passion for a monthly business trade magazine. Nearly everyone has a health care horror story to tell, whether it’s a botched medical procedure, inability to afford rising out-of-pocket costs or lacking insurance, altogether.

Republicans are right when they complain that doctors are forced to practice defensive medicine and there’s a shortage of primary care physicians because they’re being paid based on volume and not quality of care measures. A factory mentality has taken hold across doctor offices and emergency rooms. It’s downright Dickensonian. Medical providers have every reason to feel frustrated. But Democrats say malpractice claims make up a mere fraction of the nation’s health care tab, which accounts for about 16% of Gross Domestic Product.

This tit-for-tat game is being played out on virtually every detail associated with health care reform. And it’s becoming mind-numbingly annoying to informed people like me who expect more for their tax dollars. We need for our elected leaders to transcend partisan bickering and do something about a looming crisis.

In spite of what ends up happening (if anything at all), we all have a moral responsibility to take much better care of ourselves. Government alone cannot solve whatever is ailing society. The key to success is a partnership between citizens and those in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. It’s such a simple formula.

Why aren’t we accomplishing anything? It’s like we’re all sick in the head. Which brings me to another issue: mental health. Stress is said to cause about 85% of all physical ailments. So we need to be sure that any reform efforts address the need for parity on this issue as part of a holistic approach.

Far-Eastern medicine is gaining credence in Western culture, and it’s high time we step beyond our borders for lasting solutions to our health and well-being. There’s already a trend afoot called “medical tourism” in which cash-strapped Americans are seeking lower-cost surgeries and better outcomes abroad. I also realize that Canadians, British and other citizens of socialized
medicine wait in frustratingly long lines and gripe that the quality of their care is not up to par.

I have already professed in a previous blog that the health care reform issue is highly complex. There’s no magic bullet, and I can’t say with certainty which approach is best. But let’s use our collective common sense, listen more carefully to one another and be willing to take some chances to reverse our downward spiral. ]]>Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:06:56 -0800http://www.bruceshutan.com/1/post/2009/06/larger-than-life-in-death.htmlEvery so often there’s a superstar in our midst who’s so deeply paradoxical and polarizing that they generate nearly equal parts of admiration and disgust.

Such was the case with Michael Jackson, the self-proclaimed King of Pop who died unexpectedly at the age of 50.

He was larger than life – a pop-culture icon and brilliant entertainer on par with Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and countless others who never had a chance to grow old in the public eye. His body of work speaks for itself. There’s no question he was a genius in music and dance. Sadly, he only felt comfortable on the stage performing in front of thousands of crazed fans or in the company of children, which is where his life took a disturbing and bizarre turn down a dark tunnel from which he never escaped.

There were stories of abuse he allegedly suffered as a child under an iron-fisted rule by his father, Joe, followed by a series of cosmetic surgeries that transformed a once dashing African-American boy into a disfigured man-child with Caucasian features whose child-molestation accusations, short-lived marriages, financial ruin and legal problems left him frail and reclusive. This
dark side made Michael the object of both public curiosity and ridicule.

I was transfixed by the Jackson Five’s songs as a youth and felt a kinship to Michael because we were nearly the same age. It was shocking to see such a little boy with a big voice singing and performing with passion and maturity that were well beyond his years. His music played a prominent part on the soundtrack of my life. “I’ll be There” is one of my all-time favorite songs – one I love so much that I went out and bought a spectacular cover of that tune by Mariah Carey from her MTV Unplugged performance, even though I wasn’t much into her music at the time.

But I’ll never forget when he moonwalked his way into our hearts on March 25, 1983 during a rendition of  “Billie Jean” for a TV special celebrating Motown’s first 25 years, which some have said unofficially marked his transition from child star to an adult sensation. His performance was jaw-dropping. I never saw anything like it and thought he was gliding across the stage with the help of a hidden prop – not the power of his feet.

Just five days before his death, “Don’t Stop ‘til You Get Enough” immediately lured me onto the dance floor at a friend’s birthday party. I thought to myself afterward, ‘wow… what an amazing piece of music. In spite of all his troubles, this guy really knew how to write, sing and perform some unbelievable songs.’

Say what you will about Michael Jackson now that he’s gone. He was never convicted of child molestation, though he settled out of court the first time such charges became public and was acquitted following a legal circus on a second try to put him behind bars. The circumstantial evidence was damning, and for all I know, he could very well have been the monster that was portrayed by the prosecution in his trial. But at the end of the day, I wasn’t 100% sure what happened. It seemed there was enough reasonable doubt between his impassioned plea of innocence and childlike qualities that made many of us wonder whether he was simply guilty of naivete, poor judgment, asexuality or all of the above,

Love him or despise him, apparently, there’s no shortage of others who were as deeply moved by Michael Jackson’s talent as me.

What happened online around the time rumors were rampant across the Internet appears to have been unprecedented. Soon after TMZ broke the scoop, several “outages” were reported on the gossip Web site – a pattern that also occurred with Perez Hilton’s blog, Twitter and the Los Angeles Times, which was the first mainstream media outlet to confirm his death.

And there’s much more to report. Nearly 500 edits were made to Jackson’s Wikipedia profile in less than 24 hours, while CNN reported a fivefold rise in traffic involving an astounding 20 million page views within an hour of the news pulsing across cyberspace. AOL’s instant messenger service, which was down for about 40 minutes, issued a provocative statement which read: “Today was a seminal moment in Internet history. We’ve never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth.”

The King of Pop was planning a comeback and rehearsed the night before his death for 50 London concerts that were to kick off July 13. It’s a shame we’ll never get to see and hear what he had up his infamous white-gloved sleeve, but at least we’re left with a lasting legacy of pure musical genius that will continue to brighten our lives. ]]>Sun, 24 May 2009 13:03:21 -0800http://www.bruceshutan.com/1/post/2009/05/how-much-is-enough.htmlThe furor over insurance giant AIG’s $165 million in employee bonuses runs deep and is understandable to most average Americans. As someone who has been covering that industry for more than two decades, it’ll be fascinating to see if the company can survive the constant drumbeat of criticism and public outrage, which has become so intense that officials decided to remove the American International Group name from the building where the firm is headquartered.

This fiasco begs many larger questions about our comfortable, albeit often misguided, way of life.

The sub-headline in a BusinessWeek article by Jack Welch, who used to run General Electric, and his wife, Suzy, summed up what defenders of capitalism usually have to say about this issue: “The free market may at times overcompensate. But there’s not a better system.” They acknowledged that “underperforming CEOs sometimes end up getting huge sums of money just to go
home.”

Then the couple went on to explain that some folks like Carly Fiorina, HP’s former head honcho, have generous severance deals (also known as “golden parachutes”) built into their employment contract as an incentive to sign on, while Chuck Prince and Stan O’Neal left Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, respectively, with stock grants and compensation earned during happier times. “Such endings look wrong and quite understandably give critics a platform,” they wrote before launching their defense, lamenting the rising tide of political correctness on this issue and decrying the mere thought of government involvement.

Give me a break!

The business imperative associated with executive compensation means there’s a certain price to pay for attracting and retaining a superstar in the corner office. Fair enough. I don’t have a problem with CEOs being paid well for exemplary performance, though God forbid they should be allowed to fly away in a golden parachute after not meeting earnings targets or burnishing shareholder value. It’s the American way and cornerstone of a free-market economy, which, in theory, is a smart and noble way to work, but when put into practice, it can be a messy proposition.

To me, there’s clearly a moral imperative that trumps this thinking, especially during the nation’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The question is, how much pay is enough to live on comfortably without arrogance and disregard for one’s underlings? Is it $3 million? Is it $50 million? Is it $1.5 billion? I have a close friend in Portland, Oregon, who can stretch a greenback like nobody’s business and manages to live fully and happily on just dollars a day.

So-called variable pay packages that reward performance and encourage employee ownership once held great promise but were overshadowed by questionable executive comp packages and golden parachutes. Other factors have included stock-option backdating scandals, as well as so-called underwater pricing following the dot-com bubble burst and lopsided 401(k) plans that were overloaded with company stock (Enron and WorldCom produced two of the most frightening cautionary tales).

The trouble is that a growing concentration of wealth means a greater gulf between occupants of the corner office and average working Americans. There has been a sixfold increase in CEO pay among the Fortune 500 since 1980, and depending on the source, chief executives are said to have earned anywhere from 179 to 369 times the pay of an average worker.

Even if the most conservative estimate were accepted as the gospel on this issue, you’d be hard pressed to find many, if any, true believers who could argue that this disturbing phenomenon stands for anything more than greed and an embarrassing concentration of wealth.

One economist suggested that the earnings gap between the elite and middle class in the U.S. is twice as much as in the U.K. and three times France, which is a whole other argument. It’s no wonder so many of us have to deal with the “ugly” American stereotype abroad.

As a result of this hot-button issue, Uncle Sam and corporate-governance proponents have kept a much more watchful eye on incentive pay packages to help keep executives in line and save employees from themselves. Although well-intentioned, the danger is that too much oversight can serve to choke off business innovation. So we have to be careful about the delicate balancing act between preserving capitalism and creeping too far afield toward socialism, as conservative commentators fear.

I’d like to see a return to the days when hope was in the air about employees being able to share in the spoils in an increasingly competitive global economy. I’d also like to see more corporate chieftains willing to make sacrifices for the good of team and lead by example. Some of the more notable cases in recent years include:

* Robert Shillman of Cognex, who stopped taking a salary in April 2001 and bonus in 2004.

* Robert Miller of Delphi Corp., who cut his annual salary to just $1 after asking for cuts of up to 40% from hourly workers.

* Doug Parker of US Airways, who declined a $770,000 bonus in deference to employees who endured their share of painful cutbacks.

* Susan Lyne of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, who asked her board to salt away $200,000 of a $625,500 cash bonus in 2005 as seed money for an employee bonus pool.

* John Mackey of Whole Foods, who despite his recent troubles, has presided over a culture that sought to cap the executive pay ratio at 14 times the average worker’s pay.

I’m not suggesting a Marxist-inspired redistribution of wealth nor begrudging CEOs for banking well-earned dollars – just a rethinking of Capitalist zeal to ease the system’s extremes, correct any perceived imbalances and aspire to true pay-for-performance packages. There’s just no escaping this moral imperative and the time to act is now. ]]>