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• CEO John Mackey speaks on Whole Foods Market’s Consumer-Driven Health Plan. Hear Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey explain why and how he shifted his company to a Consumer-Driver Health Plan. A special Powerframe presentation with accompanying data-rich slides.
  

  View John Mackey's presentation
  Transcript of John Mackey's presentation (PDF file).
  

• Consumers’ Union Launches Drug Evaluation Site. The Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs site (http://www.crbestbuydrugs.org/) goes live on December 9th. The nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, Consumers Unions describes its new site as “An innovative public education project that will help you find prescription drugs that fit your budget.” The site will include information about cost-effectiveness. Use of the site is free.


• In, "Docs Urged to Collect Fees Up Front," the Cincinnati Business Courier explores another aspect of consumer-driven health plans.
  Docs Urged to Collect Fees Up Front

• Health care dollars as investments: Read here how Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota has set up an arrangement with Schwab to allow the first Self-Managed Investing of Health Savings Accounts.
  Consumers Now Can 'Invest' in Health Care


• To learn more about HSAs and consumer driven health, visit the World Congress Leadership Summit on Next Generation Health Benefits.
  Click here to learn more.

• Kaiser/Hewitt survey finds employers cutting back retiree benefits, as costs go up. This press release [link: http://www.kff.org/medicare/med121404nr.cfm] describes the results of the latest Kaiser Family Foundation and Hewitt Associates survey, which included 333 large, private-sector employers. It also provides a link to the survey, which found that more than half of surveyed employers imposed financial caps on their firms’ contributions to at least one retiree health plan offered in 2004.
  
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  The Wall Street Journal is a sponsor of the World Health Care Congress