Community Health Purchasing Alliances (CHPAs): how Florida CHPAs are affecting employers. A case study

Florida's health insurance reforms for small employers can be viewed as two distinct initiatives: insurance reform and the community health purchasing alliances (CHPAs). While small employer insurance reform legislation appears to have expanded access to coverage, the administrative structure of the CHPA still has a long way to go to capture the confidence of the marketplace.     

Does the income tax affect marital decisions?

"This paper discusses new empirical evidence on the role of income tax incentives in marital decisions [in the United States]. Time-series evidence suggests that taxes have a small but statistically significant effect on the aggregate marriage rate; however, this evidence is sensitive to the time period and the measure of marriage. Additional evidence, based on household longitudinal data, indicates that the probability of marriage falls and that of divorce rises with an increase in the so-called marriage tax, and that the timing of marriage (though not of divorce) is also affected by taxes. In short, there is strong evidence that taxes affect some marital decisions."     

Health care purchasing alliances--a Michigan multiemployer trust funds' approach

A group of multiemployer trust funds in Michigan has formed a coalition that eventually will offer its members an integrated managed health care program. As the first step toward this goal, the coalition recently implemented a managed pharmaceutical program.     

Teaching accountants to learn and "building blocks" for accounting education

Conclusions Accounting professionals and academicians have expressed significant interest and are pursuing a variety of changes in accounting curricula. There is a broad range of opinions regarding the nature of the changes needed in accounting education, which range from dramatic redesign to little or no change. There is a need to develop a framework for accounting education that is consistent but flexible to accommodate the majority of the accounting educational needs. The "building blocks" of accounting education presented in this paper provide educators with a basic pedagogical framework for an appropriate learning process. The framework of accounting education specifically focuses on the accounting component of the educational process and identifies the nature of courses and appropriate teaching strategies based upon their goals and objectives. Most educators recognize that only "one" accounting curriculum is insufficient to meet the needs of a variety of constituents. Therefore, it is essential to adopt an appropriate general framework for coursework is adopted to address the development of many diverse accounting programs.