Bruce is a trained economist with extensive expertise in creating databases on companies, beginning with Dun & Bradstreet in the 1980s, and using the data to research business demographics, including startups, failures, growth and job creation. He has taught small business finance at Georgetown University and worked on proposed small business regulations concerning health care, OSHA and other labor-related issues.
Expert Answers
Re: Can we lower our healthcare costs by offering gym memberships?
Tuesday Dec 15, 2009Unfortunately, the simple answer is no--at least in the short run. If every employee joined a gym and missed fewer days of work due to becoming healthier, the health insurance premium could go down--or increase more slowly-- if the insurance pool were
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As Obama Attacks Insurers, Small Business Owners Yawn
by Bruce Phillips Friday Mar 12, 2010President Obama is jetting around the nation this week, turning up the heat on opponents of his proposal to overhaul the nation's health care system. Obama's strategy is to force legislation to a final vote before Congress recesses at the end of the month.
Key Issues Where Bipartisan Health Care Deal Is Possible
by Bruce Phillips Thursday Mar 4, 2010One week after the health care summit of the week and what do we have? Stalemate. This is just as I predicted in a previous post, "Why Obama's Health Care Push Is DOA."
Many Small Businesses Won't Survive the Health Care Fix
by Bruce Phillips Tuesday Dec 1, 2009Will health care reform alone solve the small business budget squeeze? The simple answer is no. Unless they can improve productivity, outsource or lower costs or lower health care expenditures. One of the three must happen before a small company can hire more people, creating jobs, and continue to offer health insurance.
Health Care Showdown: The Small Business Perspective
by Bruce Phillips Wednesday Feb 24, 2010Some good things for small business owners might actually emerge from Thursday's bipartisan health summit. These include: the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines; forbidding insurance companies — within reason — from rejecting individuals with preexisting conditions; tax credits for small firms insuring a worker and/or hiring a worker; and, limits on medical malpractice lawsuits. Let’s handicap the odds of each of the above actually making it into a new federal health care law:
Why Obama's Health Care Push is DOA
by Bruce Phillips Wednesday Feb 24, 2010President Obama's bid to salvage one of his top legislative proposals — and overhaul of our nation's health care system — is doomed to fail. Why? Because it's just another $950 billion package that requires individuals to buy health insurance or face penalties starting in 2018, forces employers with 50 or more employees to offer medical coverage or be fined and increases federal grants to state Medicaid programs.
The Overseas Cure for Health Care's Woes
by Bruce Phillips Tuesday Feb 16, 2010If broad health care reform fails — which looks more and more likely — what options will small businesses and their employees have to lower medical costs? Not many, unfortunately. But there is one increasingly popular option worth serious consideration: medical tourism.
Are Mergers to Blame for Soaring Health Care Costs?
by Bruce Phillips Tuesday Feb 9, 2010Luckily for small business owners, a sweeping federal law may not be the only way to slow the rise in health care costs for small businesses. The Federal Trade Commission is looking into allegations that one of the country's biggest prescription drug managers, CVS Caremark, illegally increased prices for medication. If nothing else, the investigation could help check rising drug prices which, of course, is great news for small business owners facing skyrocketing premiums.
Health Care Reform: Too Little, Too Slow
by Bruce Phillips Monday Feb 8, 2010Where does President Obama's call for a bipartisan meeting to jump-start stalled health care legislation leave small business owners? Still twisting in the wind.
A $5K Tax Credit Doesn't Work Without Health Care Reform
by Bruce Phillips Thursday Feb 4, 2010President Obama wants to give a $5,000 tax credit to every small business that creates a new job. Meanwhile, health care reform or no, medical insurance premiums are rising. What kind of incentive is that for an already-struggling business to expand its payrolls? Therein lies the small business conundrum amid the great jobs creation debate. What good is $5,000 when health care costs are sucking away at any savings?
Listen Up, Small Business Owner: It's Time to Grow or Die
by Bruce Phillips Tuesday Feb 2, 2010The recession is officially over: two quarters of positive GDP growth, including 5.7% in last year's fourth quarter. So why aren’t small business owners feeling more optimistic, according to the widely-respected NFIB Index of Small Business Optimism? Because they know that in order to survive, they have to grow. Grow or die. And it has been very difficult to expand in an increasingly consolidated, credit-scarce and tax-burdened environment.
