kimberlya6ot: personal finance programs

Republicans Were For Prevention Before They Were Against It

Sarah Kliff previews the GOP’s big box of ideas for how to force Democrats to vote against their own health care law come January. Last week, House Republicans wanted to attach repeal to next month’s doc fix, now they’re considering taking a page from Sen. Mike Johanns’ (R-NE) original 1099 repeal proposal and using prevention dollars to pay for the impending reimbursement cuts:

Republican Senate aides familiar with the issue told POLITICO they are seriously looking at the new law’s $15 billion public health commitment to finance a one-year doc fix in the next session of Congress. [...]

One aide said health reform’s preventive health spending is one of the “top three” offsets in the law that congressional Republican staffers are eyeing, with the idea that a few moderate Democrats facing tough races in 2012 could eventually be brought on board.

As for which part of the health reform law to pull funds from, Republicans have long derided the multibillion Prevention and Public Health Fund as wasteful spending, scoffing at its investment in bike paths and farmers’ markets. One Republican Senate aide quipped that it was a “slush fund for jungle gyms.”

The fund, which began this year with $500 million, will grow to a $2 billion per year allocation by 2015. Totaling $15 billion over the next 10 years, the fund would be nearly enough to offset an entire, yearlong doc fix.

This is fairly galling, not only because a long-term investment in prevention is exactly the kind of thing that might save dollars over the long term, but also because Republicans themselves encourage Americans to take personal responsibility for their health and catch diseases before they turn into costly, chronic conditions. The “slush” fund aspect they’re referring to — as far as I can tell — is a recent HHS decision to use $250 million to expand the primary work force — the very kind of investment that would help build the infrastructure and make sure there were people to help with screenings, immunizations and other needs.

And this, is something Republicans presumably support. In July, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) tried to take credit for the prevention funds in the Affordable Care Act, something Republicans had long advocated for:

- Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said the law’s emphasis on preventive care is good “because it costs less to keep people well than to treat them when they’re sick.” [10/18/2010]

- Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY): “Congress should be able to work together on our practical ideas that the American people support, such as reforming our medical liability laws to discourage junk lawsuits…encouraging wellness and prevention programs that have proved to be effective in cutting costs and improving care.” [8/26/2010]

- Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA): “I am an original cosponsor of S. 1099, the “Patients’ Choice Act,” …. The legislation would make health care coverage accessible and affordable for all Americans through private insurance coverage, while also promoting prevention and wellness which can improve lives and lower long-term medical costs. [7/19/2009]

Kliff reports that “the idea of tying the doc fix to a partial health reform repeal has legs because it comes with a clear rhetorical message: Congress should not start creating new entitlements without the necessary funding to uphold existing ones.” I would argue that that the opposite argument can be even more persuasive — pulling money out of prevention should be dead in the water since it’s one of the handful of ideas Republicans presented as consensus areas when they urged Democrats to scrap the big bill and rally around just a few popular policies.

Mesoloan

Now, as for today's entrepreneurs, first up today was Hardika Shah presenting Mesoloan, a small enterprise loan program for Indian entrepreneurs in the $2,000-$20,000 loan size bracket. This is a segment that is well beyond traditional micro-finance, but also somewhat below the scope of the regular financial institutions. Hardika intends to build a financial institution focused on this segment with financing from social entrepreneurship oriented venture funds like Unitus.

It turns out that in my Vision India 2020 book, I have a similar project called FDBI. My personal analysis is that to make a financial institution successful by catering to the said segment will require a tight control of the types of businesses that are financed. This is why I have focused on micro-franchise oriented businesses where a tightly controlled structure is replicated across a large number of small businesses. My recommendation to Hardika is to study the FDBI project

DaisyClip

Next Annette McClellan presented DaisyClip, a non-surgical contraception device for women that she is in the process of syndicating a $1.8 million financing round for. Her market penetration plan is to start with India, and she wanted to know what kinds of options/connections we could provide. Well, there are some government and NGO contacts that I have in mind for her to explore. However, she will, of course, need to clear the clinical trials and get the proper regulatory approvals.

Voices.com

Our next presenter was David Ciccarelli discussing Voices.com, an interesting niche marketplace for freelance voice talent used by businesses and entertainment companies. David has 25,000 freelancers of which about 20% are paying subscribers (a very good number). He also has 120,000 companies using the talent from his marketplace.

David asked how to convert more of his users to paying users. I pointed him to the oDesk case study in which I have discussed the strategy for a marketplace in great detail. David is also struggling with the notion of his community taking the transactions offline.

Well, eLance has experienced similar problems, and I asked David to concentrate on communicating to his user base of service providers the value of building a reputation through references and reviews/customer feedback. Taking the transaction offline would mean the service provider would not get any feedback from the transaction. Nor will she or he get any assistance with dispute resolution, for example. Overall, I felt that making the reputation-building features available only to the premium members would be a good way to convert more free users to paying customers.

Marketing Green Products and Services to Indian Consumers

Then Tarini Kinkar discussed a media concept for marketing green products and services to Indian consumers. The business idea was not very well fleshed out, and needs a lot of work still. One of my key concerns is that the level of awareness about green and environmentally conscious issues is very, very low in India. Also, the business model for the business is unclear.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

personal finance programs

Republicans Were For Prevention Before They Were Against It

Mesoloan

DaisyClip

Voices.com

Marketing Green Products and Services to Indian Consumers

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