Economic Issues Simulation

Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) have an important role to their patients and their health care providers. Castor Collins Health Care Plan was found in the year of 1999, in Pantome. This particular HMO service provide health care insurance and health care services to a variety of physicians and hospitals. This company used the capitation idea for compensation to pay its health care providers. Castor Collins is currently serving 100,000 members, throughout Pantome, and is looking for ways to increase the their numbers.I am a representative of Castor Insurance Organization. I am as well the Vice President, Strategy and Financial Planning here at Castor Collins. My responsibilities include but not limited to, interacting with new potential clients and conveying health care plans that will be benefit them. My job here is to try and maximize profit and also minimize the risk for the company. I will do an analysis that will include the demographics of the employees, the health care risk factors or potential areas of high utilization, and the premiums the company is willing to pay.I will give at least two reasons why I would either choose the Constructit or the E-editor plans. I will state the plan I would be willing to sell to my company, and provide the reasons for my choice, and why the other plans would not be beneficial to my company. In January of 2006, Castor Collins was approached by two organizations looking for health insurance. The two groups Castor Collins have to choose from are Constructit and the E-editor. Construcit have total of a 1000 people, and the E-editor consist of 1600.Neither company provide insurance for their employees at the present time. The Constructit group are willing to pay at least $4000 per person, and the E-editor is willing to pay the least possible $4500 per person. The Castor standard plan do not pre-existing medical concerns, and the Castor enhanced insurance to cover pre-existing medical concerns. The plan to be consider ed first is the Castor Standard Plan. This plan will offer prescriptions, emergency facilities, hospitalization, and ways to help for preventive health services.This pan as we stated earlier do not cover pre-existing medical concerns. The fee for this plan is at least $3,428 which is $572 less than what they were willing to pay for each employee. The second option to consider for the insurance would be the Castor Enhanced Plan. This plan do cover pre-existing medical conditions it will provide coverage to all its employees. It will still provide services to the obese employees. The cost for pre-existing conditions can be estimated at a total of $4, 428, which is slightly higher than the company was willing to pay per employee.It would only work if the company agreed to pay the higher premium in order to benefit all employees especially those with pre-existing medical conditions. The last and final option is the Castor Enhanced Minor plan. This is also a good plan because it will cov er pre-existing medical conditions as well. This plan is the only one that will allow certain services to be removed in order to make the premiums at a lower cost. By removing certain services, it will allow the total cost per employee to be under $4000. It will still cover the bare services like hearing and vision care.The Health care plan I feel would be more beneficial to the company and its employees is the last choice. The Castor Enhanced Minor plan. This plan will cover the employees with the pre-existing medical conditions, and will offer the amount they are willing to pay per employee. This plan can be accustomed to fit the needs of the company. If the company wanted to remove obesity medical services as an option they could. This will save the company money on problems that is related obesity such as hypertension and diabetes. Choosing this plan there will bea charge of $3,943, that is a slight less than $4000.Castor Hall will benefit from this. They will make 3. 9million f rom Construcit. The company have a total of 450 women and a total of 550 men. The woman ages range from 26 to 42 years of age, and the men 26 to 45. The company Constructit work duties have 32% of duties that involve heavy physical activities and 25% that will involve light to moderate physical activities. A main factor to consider when choosing which type of insurance to choose from is the level of high risk for the employees. Obesity is the main problem that is affecting their company.Obesity can cause problems such as hypertension, and heart disease. This will include more doctor visits and prescriptions that will increase the cost of health care for this company. The health problems the company will have to deal with are nearly half of the employees are obese. With total of 198 men and 192 women. That is 39% of the personnel. Blood pressure is another cause of major medical concerns at Constructit. The percentage is 19%, 88 men and 105 women. There are employees that suffer with allergy. It affects 85 women and 92 men that is 17% .Migraine are 16%, this include 93 women and 75 men. Only 13% of the personnel surprisingly suffer with Respiratory Disease. That number include 57 women and 78 men. The last medical condition the company should be concerned with since it has lower percentage of employees suffering with is digestive orders is the least at 8% with total of 32 women and 52 men. Knowing the demographics of the medical conditions of all the employees, this help to choose a plan to benefit the employees and be affordable to Constritit also, and not go over the budget of $4000 per employee.As vice President, Strategy and Financial Planning at Castor Collins, I would not choose either plan. The standard plan will not cover obesity. With the rate of 39%, that would be important to make sure my employees are in a situation to receive the medical attention they need. The Castor Enhance plan do cover pre-existing conditions, but it don’t give the poss ibility to add or remove the medical services that’s more beneficial to the employees. The services offered in this plan would increase would extend the amount the employees are willing to pay, it would not be profitable to Castor Hall.

Kerouac’s America: Jazz and Life on the Road Essay

Jack Kerouac’s On the Road portrays the entire spectrum of American experience- from the migrant worker to the deranged artist to the Midwestern farmer. All of these discordant figures he blends together into one tapestry, creating a picture of the United States that, even if sometimes bleak, is always sympathetic. Kerouac’s vision of America is best reflected through his observations on jazz and life on the road. Jazz has often been called the only truly American art form and its place in On the Road is appropriately significant. When Kerouac writes of be-bop jam sessions he describes these events as decidedly more violent, more passionate, and more alive than the typical concert. In one instance, a saxophonist’s solo drives Dean Moriarty into a trance, â€Å"clapping his hands, [and] pouring sweat on the man’s keys†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (198). Sal and Dean use jazz as a means of breaking through the staid conformity of 1950s America, feeding off its infectious energy. Having grown intolerant of dull, prosaic experience Sal proclaims, â€Å"the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (5). On the Road itself is the product of such a creative frenzy, full of wild run-on sentences and disjointed syntax. The urgency apparent in Jazz is also at the root of Sal and Dean’s travels across the country. They roam from coast to coast oftentimes without any concrete motivation besides the joy of the ride and an innate restlessness. They seek to somehow transcend the physical world through drugs or sex or non-stop conversation, but never quite reach the â€Å" ‘IT,’† of which Dean speaks to Sal. Jazz does allow them to approach something near this quasi-religious transcendence and thus, they enshrine jazz musicians as saints, or even gods. In one instance, Dean adamantly refers to the blind pianist George Shearing as â€Å" ‘Old God Shearing! ’† and to his empty piano seat as â€Å" ‘God’s empty chair† (128). The Jazz clubs operate as secular churches for Sal and his companions, places where spirituality can be revitalized and restored. The â€Å"Beat† figures portrayed in On the Road do not seek to destroy social and religious traditions, as many would suggest, but rather to restore some of their soulfulness, their purity. Jazz, at its best, serves as medium to help usher in this new paradigm. Kerouac asserts that, in a way, America’s true religion is its music. Nowhere in On the Road is the American scene painted as well as on Sal’s first experience with life on the road. That initial experience, as well as those that follow it, lends Sal a deeper insight into a set of truly American types. He meets with drifters, farm boys, and migrant workers hitching a ride on the back of a pickup truck. The feeling of easy camaraderie between the fellow hitchhikers is nowhere to be found in contemporary America- the farm boys’ call â€Å" ‘sroom for everybody’† recalls a much different time (22). Kerouac’s America moves not only at the break neck pace of a Charlie Parker saxophone solo, but also slows to the pace of characters like Mississippi Gene whose â€Å"language [is] melodious and slow† (23). Whereas life in the city is characterized by loud jazz played late into the night, life on the road is filled with slow, melodious voices like that of Mississippi Gene. Mississippi Gene also brings out the dark side of life on the road, telling Sal that he’ll â€Å" ‘folly a man down an alley’† if he ever needs money (23), though most of the characters Sal meets are described as â€Å"grateful and gracious† (28). By hitchhiking, Sal is able to form genuine bonds with folks just struggling to get by, and this sense of egalitarian fellowship pervades his journey. The road not only allows Sal to meet people he might not ordinarily come in contact with, but also to gain more knowledge of himself. When Dean cries out at the beginning of one journey that â€Å"we should realize what it would mean to us to understand  that we’re not really  worried about anything,† one senses that traveling, for Sal and Dean, is as much about letting go of yourself as it is about getting to your destination. Sal, however, never seems to achieve this letting go, weighed down by a cry of â€Å"What gloom! † (52). But there are moments in which he approaches that ecstatic state Dean refers to as â€Å"IT,† as in a conversation on one cross-country trip with Dean, where Sal describes â€Å"our final excited joy in talking and living† (209). But of course, On the Road portrays experience much more varied than pure wide-eyed ecstasy. The aforementioned dark side of life on the road looms everywhere in the novel and extends further than just the possibility of being mugged or assaulted. There is also the problem of too much freedom- the possibility that one will roam so much that one will permanently lose one’s center. Dean’s New York apartment contains â€Å"the same battered trunk stuck out from under the bed, ready to fly,† suggesting that no matter where he goes, his soul is always on the road (250). One begins to wonder if Sal and Dean’s journeys are motivated as much by an attempt to escape themselves as to see the country. But though the trials of the road leads Sal at a one point to lament that he’s â€Å"sick and tired of life† (106), he also â€Å"figures the gain† of traveling above its inevitable losses. Here, Kerouac subverts business terminology like â€Å"loss† and â€Å"gain,† and gives them a spiritual import, illuminating the central thrust of On the Road- Americans should start thinking about spiritual profit rather than just economic dominance. Accruing such spiritual profit involves taking risks and being able to embrace the freedom to travel uncharted physical, mental, and spiritual territory. This underlying principle of freedom is at the root of both jazz and life on the road, whether one is exploring a landscape or the nuances of a musical phrase. In On the Road, Jack Kerouac wrote of an America that celebrated these freedoms.

Responding online dissciocuion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Responding online dissciocuion - Essay Example The instructions on how to prepare Miso Soup were ineffective. The author should have provided an image illustrating how to wrap the tofu block in two layers and how to lay it on as required. The author of the post is wrong in generalizing that all adults can get by without images. The author should understand that people have different levels of understanding. Assuming that the intended message will be conveyed adequately without visual aids is an unwarranted assumption. It would require considerable effort to teach an individual with significant knowledge of the language how to tie a bow-tie without the direction of visual images (Laskowski 1). The terminologies to use when explaining how to perform a body building exercise will be difficult to choose. The use of a video guide simplifies the task. In conclusion, the writer of the post succeeds to show the relevance of visual aids in instructions. The careless inclusion of images is pointless, but skillful use of the same is of significant importance (Laskowski

Tragic Dramas of Oedipus Rex and Antigone Essay

Tragic Dramas of Oedipus Rex and Antigone - Essay Example It was up to the playwrights to teach the people how to behave and the rules of society within the metropolis. While many of the plays were comedies, demonstrating the more ridiculous consequences that could be experienced if individuals did not abide by the established codes of conduct, others were dramas, revealing much more serious potentialities that could affect more than just the average citizen. As they were presented, these dramas demonstrated the degree to which the entire culture could be disrupted if someone in power chose to break the rules. Some of these dramas have survived into the modern day because they had such a profound effect on their audiences and told stories about mythological or legendary characters and events. Dramas such as Oedipus Rex and Antigone are good examples of this kind of tragic drama. To qualify as a tragic drama, Aristotle identified three main factors that were present in every tragic drama and which were essential to the plot development. Thes e factors were referred to as hamartia, anagnorisis and peripeteia. The term hamartia commonly refers the idea of a tragic flaw (Aristotle, 1282). It is the concept that a noble person will fail due to some inherent flawed portion of his character which causes him to engage in a specific behavior pattern or make an error in judgment rather than due to the manipulations of a vengeful god or as a result of violating the gods' laws. Although the audience might see it, even they are not necessarily supposed to recognize the hero's mistake or misbehavior at the time he commits it, but it will eventually become clear through the action of the play that without this mistake, the tragedy would not have happened. This eventual realization of the initial mistake on the part of the character is what is referred to as anagnorisis (Aristotle, 1283). In Aristotelian terms, this word essentially means recognition. In most cases, this realization occurs suddenly for the character in a kind of epiph any moment when the hero finally understands that they brought this fate on themselves. This epiphany can also shed light on the true nature of all the characters within the play, sometimes something much different than what was expected or assumed. The anagnorisis leads naturally into the third element, that of peripeteia. This term refers to a sudden reversal in action or position based upon logic and intellect (Aristotle, 1283). In tragic drama, it refers to the reversal of the character's fortunes - everything they had is lost. This reversal of fortunes flows naturally as a part of the story, but it usually takes the audience, and the character, by surprise. Although this idea can be traced as a part of the hero’s character, it was more typically used to refer to the external circumstances surrounding the event and the character. Understanding these key elements of a tragic drama helps modern day students characterize these plays simply by looking to see if they adhere to the concepts. In Oedipus the King, for example, the action opens as Oedipus addresses his people, who have come to him hoping he will cure their city of a plague. Rather than encourage them to pray to the gods, Oedipus ridicules them for their prayers and tells them they should have come to him first: â€Å"What means this reek of incense everywhere, / From others, and am hither come, myself, / I

Theory evolution Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Theory evolution - Research Paper Example They emerged with a goal of strengthening the already existing methods. The original ideas had some weaknesses in their area of scope, field of coverage and failed to pinpoint in some of the most sensitive aspects that indeed can improve the process of understanding the adult theory. The alternative methods added some knowledge on adult learning, like, for example; they came up with other principles of adult education that got neglected by the original theories. These included the assumptions of self-concept, adult education experience, readiness to learn, orientation to learn and motivation to learn. These new assumptions that got added to the alternative theories brought an insight and knowledge on how to approach adult education (Jarvis & Jarvis, 2004). The alternative methods contributed other principles of Andragogy. The new laws gave other means through which the process of adult learning can get well comprehended (Flannery, 1993). These methods have brought in some insights towards understanding of the adult education. Scholars have gotten in a position to get awareness on the flexibility and dynamism that Andragogy exhibits over time (Merriam, 2008). Andragogy has further gotten understood as a process that has extreme differences in pedagogy, due to the different assumptions and principles that are parallel to those of

Organization Policy and Stategy Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Organization Policy and Stategy - Case Study Example Retail sales, which were important in developing countries such as those in Asia, were less cyclical (Ghemawat 3). Asia was the growing market and its buyer power was weak because it had few cement manufacturers, high population densities and less cyclical demand. The industry was characterized by high barriers to entry in the form of high capital and energy-intensity requirements, cyclic demand and the maturity of the industry i.e. no major innovations had been recorded in the last 20 years (Ghemawat 2). About the competition within the industry we are informed that though there were six major international players, given their geographic diversification, they tended to be outperformed in any given year by competitors focused solely on local markets that happened to be "booming" (Ghemawat 3). Industry rivalry was not that intense. As for threat of substitutes, this only applies for the developed markets (Western Europe and North America) where due to the weather they prefer using wood or steel. But this would not be a big factor considering that the projected growth in these regions is at the lowest, close to 1% which is why the international players were eyeing the emerging markets. By the year 2000, CEMEX had become the third largest cement company in the world being led by the scion of the founder, Lorenzo Zambrano (Ghemawat 5). Initially, to reduce risk related to the cyclic core business, the firm began diversifying horizontally but after much thought they returned to their core competency area to seek growth through strategic acquisitions. This strategy saw the company grow to have the largest market share in Mexico before it began to spread globally. With this growth strategy, CEMEX moved from the United States to Spain to Latin America then to Asia and other regions. By December 1999 the firm had a presence in 15 countries. Still seeking greater international presence CEMEX dedicated US$1.175 billion

Property Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Property Law - Essay Example 4. On this account, Leo gave Sonya a cheque of ? 100,000 on his own current account and a note saying that his share of the house was hers. He gave Sharon the key to a tin box under his bed saying that the contents were for her. He gave Ben his accounts business card telling him to contact the accountant who had his entire share certificate so that he should get ownership of them, selling them and thereafter give the proceeds in equal shares to Sharon and Sonya. 5. Leos tin contained a cheque for winnings from national lotto, a set of keys to his villa in Argentina, s set of keys to his car and a bag of Argentinian money. 6. Leo recovered from his illness, however on leaving the door for his first walk, part of the roof fell on him and killed him. 7. Ben sold the shares and used the proceeds for a holiday. The Law: In particular, I rely upon the following laws and case laws. 1. Re Craven Estates (No 1) (1937) I Ch 423, HC 2. Re Beaumont (1902) 1 CH 889 3. Cain vs. Moon (1896) 2QB 283 4. Wilkes vs. Allington (1931) 2 CH 104 5. Birch vs. Treasury Solicitor (1950) 2 All ER 1198 6. Re Lilingstone Deceased (1952) All ER 184 7. Woodard vs. Woodard (1991) The Times, 18th March CA. 8. Sen vs. Headley, (1991) CH 425 9. Stock Transfer Act of 1963 10. The Wills Act of 1837 11. Agnew vs. Belfast Banking Co. (1896) 2 IR 204 12. Re Dudman (1925) 1 CH 553 Donatio Mortis Causa: 1. The gifts under this case are known as donation mortis causa. These gifts are conditional and possession take place after the death of the donor.The Wills Act of 1837 allows the issuance of such gifts.Farley (2002) notes that in the case of Re Craven Estates, the court held that a person is not allowed to dispose of his property after death under British laws but an exemption is provided for by the Wills Act of 1837 (p.45). But this principle of donation mortis causa is an exemption as provided by the same act of 1837. 2. In Re Beaumont, the court held that Donatio Mortis Causa is a singular form of gift and is amphibious nature. It is neither inter vivos nor testamentary and the recipient is entitled to the gift after the donor dies (Jackson, 1972). 3. Keeton (1968) by using the case of Cain v Moon observes that for a gift under donation mortis causa to be valid it must satisfy the following conditions, the gifts must be made in contemplation of death and not necessarily expectation (p.61). The recipient must receive the subject matter of the gift and there must be a condition that the gift reverts back to the donor in case he recovers. 4. The validity of donation mortis causa does not depend on whether the donor died of the anticipated cause, but on whether the donor actually died. In Wilkes vs. Allington, it was held that the most important issue in DMC is whether the donor actually died (Fitzgerald and Muncie, 1983). 5. Harrison (1965) observes that if a title does not pass by delivery, a DMC can be valid if there is evidence of possession of title or property which entitle s the possessor to the property given, and he cites the case of Birch v treasury solicitor, where the court held that if the gift in question is bulky, the handling to the recipient a means of accessing the gift, i.e. the key is symbolic enough to constitute delivery (p.36). THE CASE: 1. The first issue noted in the gifts given to Sonya, Sharon