Phil Mercier was included in the September/October 2011 BizVoice® article, "Free Agents," about older employees seeking to re-enter the workforce (part of our Workforce Wise series). After reading the article, Jeff Maki, owner of Models Plus in Kingsford Heights (LaPorte County), reached out to Mercier and ultimately hired him.

"Without that article, Phil and I would have never connected," Maki says. "Phil and I share some common vision on business. He has tremendous background. We are leveraging his expertise and experience to grow our business."

Mercier is about to complete his first month at Models Plus, which provides models, prototypes, custom displays, packaging and engineering for dental and orthopaedic implant manufacturers, as well as patient education tools for health care providers.

"My skills and experience have been put to good use helping (Maki) expand his business in the orthopaedic industry," Mercier explains. "(Maki) started in the dental business over 20 years ago and began applying his capabilities to companies in Warsaw over the past three years. I will be helping him with the company’s rapid expansion into orthopaedics."

What a BizVoice success story! If you’d like to join our over 12,000 readers, just visit the web site.

With recognizable company names from Warsaw to Bloomington and spots in between, most people probably realize that Indiana is a player in the medical devices industry. A new study, though, reveals we might be a bigger player than many realized.

From Hearts to Hips: Indiana’s Leadership in Life Sciences was recently released by BioCrossroads. High economic output, exports and employee wages well above the state average are all part of the mix.

The medical devices industry is one of Indiana’s most valuable economic assets employing over 20,000 people and generating more than $10 billion of annual economic output. Today, the medical devices sector accounts for more than 40 percent of the jobs in the state’s life sciences industry, placing Indiana as the fifth largest state in percentage of medical technology industry employment.

And in 2010, Indiana’s medical device companies manufactured more than $2 billion worth of exports, or approximately $100,000 per employee. The industry provides high-paying jobs with the average employee earning $60,000 annually, more than 56 percent higher than the state’s average private sector worker.

“From small towns to larger cities, the economic impact of the medical devices industry is significant and is well-distributed throughout the state,” said David Johnson, president and CEO of BioCrossroads. Major companies such as Biomet, Boston Scientific, Cook Medical, DePuy, Medtronic, Roche Diagnostics and Zimmer are either headquartered or maintain major operations within the state and develop a wide variety of medical devices for from cardiovascular to urological to diagnostics and orthopedics.

“This report is proof that Indiana’s medical devices sector is robust and resides on a solid foundation that positions us well for future growth,” added Johnson. “There are still many external factors like the economic, regulatory and health care reform environment that pose real challenges for this industry.”

The report delves into external challenges the industry faces today. In addition to the current economic conditions that have lowered the demand for some medical devices, the industry faces even bigger challenges to overcome in the next decade including:

• A rapidly changing health care market

• Tax policies that discourage innovation

• Increasing regulatory uncertainty

• A shift to overseas production and expansion to overseas markets

• Technological changes requiring more worker education

• Increasingly competitive global market.

Ask the professionals in the middle of federal health care reform their opinions about the future impacts and the answers are downright scary. In a new survey, doctors fear both short-term and long-term declines in the quality of care, while costs will only continue to increase. The National Center for Policy Analysis concludes:

America’s doctors have conducted a full examination of the president’s health reform law, assessing it in a number of variables, and have concluded that it will fail to live up to many expectations and will aggregately hurt consumers in the short and long runs.  Few people know more about the health care system than doctors working on the frontlines.

Policymakers should pay heed to their indictment of the Affordable Care Act and revisit the disastrous law, says Sally Pipes, president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute.

• Nearly two-thirds of doctors expect the quality of care in this country to decline, according to a new survey from Deloitte.
• Nearly seven of every 10 doctors believe that medicine is no longer attractive to America’s "best and brightest."
• Seventy percent of doctors believe that long wait times will plague emergency rooms.
• Further, 83 percent of physicians foresee increased wait times for primary care appointments.

And doctors did not stop at criticizing the quality of care that health reform will deliver — they also addressed its likely impacts on the cost of health care.

• While Obama pledged $2,500 in health insurance savings for the typical American family, 90 percent of doctors believe that insurers will raise premiums for employers and individuals.
• This argument is supported by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which estimates that premiums will actually rise for families in the non-group market by about $2,100.
• Richard Foster, the Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, concluded that American spending on health care through 2019 will be $311 billion higher than if the law had never passed.

Many of these results stem from two large impacts of the law: shutting down health care facilities and sharply increasing demand as it extends coverage to millions of people.  Doctors respond to this latter "benefit" by pointing out that coverage counts for little if patients are unable to see doctors due to increased demand.

Fifth Third Bank and the Fifth Third Foundation have donated $5 million to the Eskenazi Health Foundation — formerly the Wishard Foundation – and the new Eskenazi Health project. The company says the gift is the largest such donation by an Indiana financial institution to date. A release from Fifth Third explains:

Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County will honor the gift from Fifth Third in naming the faculty office building on the new Eskenazi Health campus the Fifth Third Faculty Office Building.

“We are extremely grateful to receive this record gift from Fifth Third in support of the health of our community and health education throughout Indiana and around the world,” said Ernest Vargo II, CFRE, president and CEO of the Eskenazi Health Foundation. “Fifth Third is a leading corporate citizen in Indianapolis and around the country, and their tremendous support for the health of our community is truly unique among financial institutions. We are deeply appreciative of their support and honored to reflect their generosity in the name of the faculty office building on the Eskenazi Health campus.”

Fifth Third Foundation and Fifth Third Bank will contribute $2 million and $3 million, respectively, to create the gift. The $5 million is among the largest gifts the Eskenazi Health Foundation – formerly the Wishard Foundation – has received and will support construction of the new Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Hospital and Eskenazi Health campus, which will replace the current Wishard Memorial Hospital facilities.

“Fifth Third is proud to continue our long history of philanthropy and commitment to building a better tomorrow in the communities we serve with this gift in the name of health care and medical education,” said Nancy Huber, President & CEO, Fifth Third Bank, Central Indiana. “Eskenazi Health will play a unique role in Central Indiana, and the new hospital campus will be among the most advanced and efficient in the nation. For this unprecedented development, we are proud to provide a record gift.”

Fifth Third Bank was the first financial institution in the United States to establish a charitable foundation, opening the Fifth Third Foundation in 1948. The gift also marks the beginning of a partnership that will continue Fifth Third’s focus on financial literacy in the Central Indiana community and the financial health and vitality of individuals from all walks of life.

“We are committed to providing an extraordinary level of support in the communities we serve, and very few opportunities match the scope and capacity to influence positive change than that of a contribution to Eskenazi Health,” said Heidi Jark, vice president and managing director of the Fifth Third Foundation. “For a one-of-a-kind organization in the midst of once-in-a-century transformation, we are pleased to provide this gift for the people of Indiana.”

The Fifth Third Faculty Office Building will be a modern, campus-integrated facility that will house workspace for support functions of the hospital’s mission to advocate, care, teach and serve as well as house workspace for the Indiana University School of Medicine, Purdue University School of Pharmacy and various other academic support programs. Health and Hospital Corporation is working with developers Duke Realty and Browning Investments to develop the 295,000-sq. ft. building with a research-based workplace strategy to enhance productivity, workflow, efficiency and comfort while encouraging teamwork, innovation and collaboration among the partners that will utilize its workspace, which also includes the Regenstrief Institute.

“This is an extraordinary legacy gift supporting the health of our community,” said Dr. Lisa Harris, CEO and medical director at Wishard. “The gift will, first and foremost, support care for our patients, addressing the needs of the most vulnerable in our community and will enable highly specialized care to individuals facing life-changing trauma. It will also contribute to medical education for students of the IU School of Medicine, Purdue School of Pharmacy and many other academic institutions with which we partner.”

The Fifth Third Foundation is Fifth Third Bancorp’s charitable foundation. Its mission is to make strategic grants in the communities where Fifth Third Bank operates.

Wishard is one of America’s largest safety-net health care systems, with nearly 1.4 million outpatient visits last year, and is among the highest-quality, lowest-cost health care systems in the United States. Philanthropic contributions enhance Wishard’s ability to provide excellent quality care.

When the federal health care reform law of 2010 began winding its way through various lower courts, it was not clear whether the ultimate destination would be the Supreme Court. The justices, after all, weigh many factors in determining their caseload.

But some conflicting rulings along the way made it less of a surprise when the "Supremes" recently indicated they would indeed consider various issues surrounding the far-reaching law. Now, even more information has come out about the unprecedented level of attention coming in early 2012. The Washington Post reports:

The high court scheduled arguments for March 26th, 27th and 28th over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which aims to provide health insurance to more than 30 million previously uninsured Americans. The arguments fill the entire court calendar that week with nothing but debate over President Obama’s signature domestic health care achievement.

With the March dates set, that means a final decision on the massive health care overhaul will likely come before Independence Day in the middle of Obama’s re-election campaign. The new law has been vigorously opposed by all of Obama’s prospective GOP opponents.

The justices will start the week of arguments that Monday with one hour on whether court action is premature because no one yet has paid a fine for not participating in the overhaul. Tuesday’s arguments will take two hours, with lawyers debating the central issue of whether Congress overstepped its authority by requiring Americans to purchase health care insurance or pay a fine. Finally, Wednesday’s arguments will be split into two parts, with justices hearing 90 minutes of debate over whether the rest of the law can take effect even if the health insurance mandate is unconstitutional and an extra hour of arguments over whether the law goes too far in coercing states to participate in the health care overhaul by threatening a cutoff of federal money. 

A quick Google search Monday evening of the four words of the day — "Supreme Court" and "health care" — revealed more than 1,800 news articles. I glanced at a handful to gain some perspective on what follows the not-too-surprising announcement that the Court will listen to arguments (likely next March) and issue a ruling (likely in June) on the constitutionality of the individual mandate portion (among other things) of the federal health care reform law.

Here are a few different facts and notes:

• It’s been more than 600 days since President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. It’s only 215 days until the expected end of the Supreme Court’s spring term.
• Stuart Taylor, Jr. of the Brookings Institution writes that the Court’s allocation of five hours of time for arguments is "extraordinary" and the "most time in many decades for related challenges to a single new law."
• Taylor also notes that none of the justices recused themselves from hearing the case. There had been suggestions that Justice Elena Kagan (Obama’s former solicitor general) or Justice Clarence Thomas (whose wife has been politically active in opposing the law) might take that step.
• Andrew Cohen, chief legal analyst for CBS News, offers 1-9 odds that Justice Anthony Kennedy "will be in the majority no matter which way the Court rules … and that both supporters and detractors of the Act likely can’t win without his vote."

Congressional Quarterly, in the business of interpreting what goes on in Washington each day, offered this analysis of the political implications and the possibility that a ruling may not be a decision after all:

A ruling, four months before Election Day, that the mandate is constitutional would provide a significant and perfectly timed boost to Obama and congressional Democrats — because it would enshrine for the ages their top shared domestic policy achievement. A ruling that strikes it down would grant the GOP nominee-in-waiting, and congressional Republican candidates, their No. 1 campaign season wish — because it would validate all of their vituperative derisions of “Obamacare” as an unconstitutional overreach.

The main reason the justices would take one side or the other is that the regional federal appeals courts have been split on the core question of whether the mandate is within Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce. (Two have upheld the law, a third has found it unconstitutional and a fourth has ruled it’s too soon to say.) And a main function of the Supreme Court is to make consistent judicial policy when the lower courts disagree. But it’s also true (Bush v. Gore aside) that (Chief Justice John) Roberts and the other conservatives who are the majority on the court have said over and over again that the judicial branch should generally look for ways to stay out of white-hot political disputes — and also should defer, if at all possible, to the will of the elected branches of government when it comes to policy disputes.

And so the easiest way to find five votes between now and June might be for one of those conservatives (the chief justice, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and that big maybe, Kennedy) to shop the view among his colleagues that it’s too soon to decide the constitutional question yet — because the mandate hasn’t actually taken effect and so no one has been “harmed” by having to pay a penalty for not obeying.

What does it all mean? The analysis will be sure to continue over the next 200-plus days until a decision has been made. Then a new round will begin on the implications of that decision. I’ll guess it’s a 5-4 ruling in favor of … how do I know? No one has ever confused me with a Supreme Court justice.

Nyhart, Indiana’s largest independent actuarial and employee benefits consulting firm, released the results of the 2011 Indiana Healthcare Benefit Survey Tuesday at the Indiana Chamber’s 2011 Indiana Employee Benefits Seminar. The survey reached 215 employers across the state reflecting the benefit plans of 170,000+ Hoosier workers.

Findings include:

• Healthcare benefit costs increased 6.9% (single coverage) and 8% (family coverage) in 2011.
• The typical Hoosier is paying $105/mo. for single coverage and $417/mo. for family coverage. Indiana employers provide an average subsidy of $364/mo. for single coverage and $915/mo. for employees with family coverage.
• For 2011, nearly one in five employers increased their deductible. Employees of those companies saw their deductible rise by 49 on average%.
• Healthcare benefit costs are higher costs for Hoosiers than the national average.
• When faced with a choice of cutting back benefits or shifting costs to employees, 44% of employers favor reducing benefits to maintaining cost levels while 18% favor passing cost increases on to employees.

“The survey reinforced what we’ve been observing in our practice – that employers are shifting to high deductible plans and looking for ways to put more of the healthcare costs on the shoulders of their employees as costs continue to escalate,” said healthcare actuary and lead researcher Randy Gomez, FSA. “The study of the survey confirms that in the future healthcare benefits will be treated as a commodity.”
 
The study was conducted in partnership with First Person Benefit Advisors, Gregory & Appel Insurance and Old National Insurance. The executive summary of the survey is available to all businesses for download online at www.nyhart.com/research/. Companies seeking to receive the entire 80+ page report including benchmarks by industry, geographic region and employee-count may do so if they commit to participating in the 2012 survey.