OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)
Policy Brief
December 2008
The US economy is going through an exceptionally difficult period after having been hit by converging adverse developments, some in reaction to previous excesses during the upswing, others more exogenous. A sharp downturn in the housing market, a financial crisis and temporarily high commodity prices have caused activity to slow sharply during 2008. This happened at a time when the external position was persistently weak and the fiscal stance had become unsustainable in the long term making for a difficult challenge to steer policy between competing objectives. Policymakers have taken actions to support growth and stabilise the financial system, while keeping a careful eye on inflation expectations. It is nonetheless likely that activity will get worse before it gets better. In addition to these short-term severe difficulties, adverse social trends need to be addressed, including incomplete access to health care, the topic of a special chapter in this Survey.
Health-care reform is needed. Despite health spending being much higher in the United States than in any other OECD country, the US populations health status does not compare favourably on key indicators, in part because many people do not have adequate financial access to medical care. Starting from the present situation, a plan likely to be successful would replace the health insurance tax exclusion with subsidies for individual purchase of insurance and reform the insurance market as needed. There appears to be wide interest for such reform and numerous packages along these lines have been proposed.
(Omitted here are discussions of the financial crisis and the economic outlook, monetary and fiscal policies, markets for housing finance, and financial sector regulation and supervision.)
* How well does the health system perform?
Notwithstanding very high health spending (about 15% of GDP) and the use of cutting-edge technology, the health status of the US population does not appear to fare well by international comparison.
A particular source of concern is the large number of people who lack adequate health insurance.
Making progress towards health insurance coverage for all Americans should be given a high priority on the policy agenda.
* What could be done to encourage more efficient healthcare purchasing decisions?
The existing health tax exclusion should be terminated.
The tax revenues resulting from the elimination of the tax exclusion would be available to subsidise the purchase of insurance by individuals in a way that is independent of the choice of health plan.
Policy makers should consider means testing these subsidies.
* What could be done to promote health insurance coverage?
At present, the individual health insurance market is not attractive, in part because adverse selection risks have led to high premiums compared to their actuarial value, and because administrative costs are high. These problems could be addressed by increasing the size of risk pools and reforming individual and small-group insurance markets by requiring community-rated and guaranteed-issue policies, thus disconnecting the payments from individual health risks.
This approach would have a greater impact on coverage if accompanied by a requirement to be insured, as otherwise healthy people may choose to be uninsured rather than to pay community-rated premiums, which are higher than experience-rated premiums for healthy people.
Some hospitals seem prone to high-cost procedures without additional benefit to patients, while others seem able to provide lower-cost care that proves to be effective. The authorities should consider ways to enhance the dissemination of information on the effectiveness and cost of treatments and procedures. Savings could also be made by reducing payments to Medicare Advantage (MA) plans.
Currently, Medicare administrators are prohibited from harnessing competition or negotiating prices of medical equipment and supplies; instead, they must use fee schedules based on historical charges. On the basis of pilot programmes, it has been estimated that using a competitive bidding process instead of the fee schedules could reduce costs by 26% on average, based on strict criteria for product quality and security of suppliers, without significantly reducing access of beneficiaries to supplies. Generalisation of competitive bidding for medical equipment and supplies should not be delayed beyond the 18-month period stipulated in recent legislation.
Policy Brief:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/60/54/41812368.pdf
Economic Survey of the United States 2008:
http://www.oecd.org/document/32/0,3343,en_2649_33733_41803296_1_1_1_1,00.

All information >>> Read more...

When web designing a page, it is important for every Web Design Company and for every web designer to attract attention to the most important events, items and contents in the site you are making in behalf of a client. Fortunately, there are various ways by which you can attract the attention of online users. Most web designers will find it effective to simply change the font size of the content headline. Setting the font size reasonably bigger is a sure-fire yet simple way to draw in attention. Newspaper and media companies will know this for sure. A good and experienced web design company should know this as well.
Grabbing Attention through Typography
Using typography or varying font and font sizes to get the attention of online users is not really a new concept. However, before you go on and set your titles or headlines to 48px or even larger, you should know a few rules on typography that are best generally followed by a web design company. Here are some of them:
Web design tip #1: Highlight only what is important. Before setting a headline to a much bigger font, you should ask yourself: Is this particular part really that important? If you are announcing a 20% off sale on regular cosmetics, for example, this will surely arouse interest but making your font unreasonably huge will likely to turn your customers off. And this is something that you and your web design company should avoid at all times.
Web design tip #2: Consider the standard font size you use for the rest of the page. This is just plain common sense: if you type everything at 24pt, then creating a 30pt subject headline might not look all that different. However, a 16pt headline written on top of an 8pt text will look huge.
Web design tip #3: Set standards on the use of font sizes. You should have already decided with your client as to the type of events that should merit an increase in the title font size, and up to what extent it should be. You and your web design company will benefit from this. Once you have laid out the plan, even if your client comes running back to you and starts pleading you to announce the recent cosmetic sale at 54pt, you should strictly follow the standard pre-determined size for the particular level of content.
Remember though that changing the font size is not the only way that you can modify your web design to get as much attention. Playing around with your font will also prove useful. You can for example, use different fonts of the same family to highlight important events (using Sans-Serif and switching to Serif for added emphasis). You can also modify the color to instantaneously grab your viewers' attention. Similarly, you can change the weight and the style of your font by using the bold or italicized option to make certain parts of your site stand out.
Grabbing the attention of your online users is not just limited to fonts. There are still other ways to change your site's web design so that it gets the attention it deserves. Here are some of them:
Web design tip #4: Use images. Graphics and images have always been effective at catching attention. A picture says a thousand words, as they say.
Web design tip #5: Change your layout. Completely changing your layout is a very exciting way to get attention, for as long as you come up with an interesting new one.
Web design tip #6: Use animations. Flat images tend to attract attention. However, these days, your web design company may have to ask you to come up with animation-based splash page to show off the kind of pages you come up with. They generally make your site look more dynamic and interesting to the eyes of your visitors. Be careful though, as you will need to think about site loading times beyond the web design stage.
Catching the attention of online visitors may prove relatively easy to do as stated above. However, it is just as easy to go way overboard with these attention grabbing techniques. You have to remember that if each and every line in your page is set in red or bold face and has blinking effects; nothing in the content will stand out after ll. Also, if you announce your 20% off on cosmetic site at the same intensity as an ongoing war, your online visitors will surely notice how strange, business-centered or unrealistic your site seems to be. They will learn to quickly ignore all the designs you make and look for another site that is more even-handed - much to the frustration of your Web Design Company.

See more: >>> Read more...