PA High in Health Insurance Premiums

After talking with business owners from around the country at a recent event, I realized businesses inPA are getting a raw deal. Indeed, we're paying significantly more than average for health insurance, which makes our businesses less competitive.

Tom Knox is running for Governor of PA, and I'm very interested in this race and the candidates so I was perusing his site today and came across this article penned by Knox himself, a former owner of an insurance company (among other things; he made apparently made a lot of money on those high-interest pay-day loans, which are targetted at the working poor and cut into their earnings significantly. Not what I'd call a socially just business, but that's for another day).

Knox asserts rightly that PA businesses pay higher than other states. But he makes the argument that competition will right the ship. In no state does competition achieve the goals of

1. covering everyone with comprehensive healthcare regardless of employment
2. eliminating the high cost of defensive medicine
3. dramatically reduce costs for businesses, municipalities, nonprofits, and schools
4. attracting new businesses.

If Knox's article indicates his approach to the health and well being of the people and businesses of PA, then I'm still looking for the right candidate for Governor. Next?

Thanksgiving Prep

For the past eight years I've pretty much worked through Thanksgiving day, trying to build the business in some irrational way over yet another holiday. I'm a workaholic, which isn't good for me or the work.

This year is different for reasons I'll get into in a later post.

Last year I was turkey guy, and with substantial guidance from my wife in the kitchen and mom on the phone, turned out what I think was the perfect turkey. My pumpkin pies didn't quite make it beyond the classification of pumpkin tart, and I was the only one to try them. They were mad to mediocre, depending on the angle of the slice(yeah, that bad).

This year I'm the ice cream guy and grilled turkey guy. We bought an ice cream maker for a buck at a neighbor's yard sale last summer. Today will be the first attempt at ice cream, but we used to make it growing up and I have a decent idea of the nuances. The one improvement is the maker has an electric motor.

The grilled turkey is more of a risk--I've never done that, and the recipes call for 3 to 4 hours on the grill. It's pretty cold today (must be well under 30). Grilling turkey just sounds dicey. There's an episode on the West Wing where Bartlett says something like "there should be an 800 number anyone could call with questions on making a turkey" and his aide says "there is--it's the Butterball Turkey Hotline" (I'm significantly in the weeds with these quotes, mind you).

I'd better get to it--dinner's in less than 4 hours. What could possibly go wrong...

But first--thank you to all of my friends, family, and colleagues. You have all been so supportive and generous with your time and ears over the years (which rhymes so well I'm almost in tears), and I deeply appreciate some of you. Ok, all of you. :)

Now let's go make another mess this Thanksgiving Day.

I have a post on the way...

I'm going to think long and hard about posting about the CircleDog effort. We're making some changes, which is the understatement of my year. But I'm going to think about it for a few days. Until then, have a great holiday.