Diagnosing opportunities caused by health care funding issues

Long before any of this current economic turmoil began, the baby boom generation was already moving toward retirement like a pig through a python. As this group ages, common sense presumes their health care needs will increase… and that will put significant additional pressure on our health care infrastructure, as well as Social Security, Medicare and probably Medicaid.

Add to this mix the fact that in a world flush with layoffs, there are plenty of people who are at risk of losing access to their employer-paid (or subsidized) insurance or other health plans.

Now, pressure from other areas is being added to the mix. A recent story in USA Today suggests that local governments have not set aside enough funding to satisfy their commitments to retired civil servants. Meanwhile, a number of industries are making every effort to cut operating costs, and health care is an attractive target (for example, see this recent story in the NY Times about General Motors).

Implications: I don’t know enough about the topic to have a personal opinion about health care policy, and if I did, I would not share that opinion here. But I raise the health care issue because it has the capacity to impact so many different industry categories.

Retailers. If you sell sporting goods, should they be positioned as toys, or is there a fitness angle? If you’re a fitness center, can you partner with a local clinic to offer tips/expertise that might enhance the workout? If you are virtually any other company… could you benefit from providing a place where free screenings, advice, inoculations or other preventative care could be offered?

Food producers. Have you fully capitalized on any health benefits associated with the product you sell? Is your health benefit authentic? (Just as consumers familiar with true environmental issues introduced the term “green washing” to tarnish companies with unsubstantiated eco-claims, anticipate that consumers will be increasingly smart about health matters… and they’ll know a placebo—powered slogan when they see it.)

Health care providers. How will you compete with the infusion of minute-clinics now available at so many retail locations? There is obviously a demand for quicker, cheaper health care; do you supply any kind of options to meet that demand? Do you have a storefront? (That storefront might be a building, but it could also be a web site, publicity, or other outreach efforts.) If you have this “retail” presence, will the “docs in a box” image hamper your efforts to communicate professionalism and expertise?

Employers. If you’re in an industry where insurance has been an assumed benefit for decades, and now you’re being forced to reduce or eliminate those benefits, what will be the response from your current workforce? Your future workforce (will this impact your recruiting capabilities)? If you cut long-promised benefits to retirees, how will that impact your current employees (will they worry that you don’t keep your commitments)?

Employees. Realizing you will almost certainly bear a more significant share of your own medical expenses in the future, will you change your lifestyle? Will you begin to see the fitness club membership as an investment, capable of off-setting future medical costs? Will you read product packages more carefully, realizing that diet has a big impact on your well being?

Politicians. If you thought debate on matters of health care have been intense the past few years, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

At times like this, we are reminded that there are no good answers… until we ask really good questions.

Mike Anderson