Medicare Advantage plans were set up by private insurance companies ostensibly to give older Americans more benefits and a better plan than traditional Medicare. The problem is that these plans are subsidized by the federal government. Once those subsidies go away, believe me, the plans will too. It happened before in the late 1990s when […]
Erv Anderson, D-Money, Coach Duff, Paul Reiter, Dorvez Barnett, Ty Witherspoon, Tim Wilder, and Anton Haynes (sitting in front) Another Berkeley Late Night Championship brought to you by East Bay United this past Friday, November 21st. This season stood out for a new reason: our success brought out some new competitors, new teams that came into the league […]
After almost 40 years in the wilderness, environmentalism has hit the mainstream, again, only this time it has more urgency. No longer is it a fringe concern. To underscore how mainstream it has become, most companies now have some kind of initiative to "go green." But the latest trend, according to JWT Intelligence, a trend spotting group […]
It's our nature. We win basketball games. D Block came into the league expressly to knock us off our throne. They couldn't. Despite missing our lead scorer, Teion Conner, we dominated every aspect of the game. Our bigs, Paul, June, Erv and Tyrone, finally cleaned up the boards they way they should for every game. […]
Now that Sen. Obama has succeeded in his historic bid for the Presidency, we can look back on his campaign as a model of how to position and roll out a candidacy. Whether he realizes it or not, Obama ran a practically flawless marketing campaign, so successful that Ad Age named him Marketer of the […]
After a lackluster game two weeks ago and a nail-biter last week, East Bay United showed its true colors with a dominant game Halloween Night against People' s Park. Gone were the turnovers of the past several games, gone was the uncertainty on the offensive side. With a final score of 84-55, the team finally found its […]
Last night's debate between Senators Obama and McCain underscores the importance of branding in politics. One of the classic mistakes made by owners of brand names is to veer off the essence of the brand in trying to be all things to all people. McCain has dumped his brand in favor […]
Friday night, October 3rd, Berkeley Late Night Basketball kicked off its fall season with a new lineup of six teams rather than four. The idea is to add more competition to a league that East Bay United has dominated for the last several seasons. While there are a couple of intriguing new teams who have recruited some of […]
For the most part, our work is done for clients, however, we feel compelled to participate in public policy issues, from time to time. In this spirit we conduct original research, on our dime, to dig deeper into topics that interest us. One area where we have contributed is in our role as a bridge […]
A couple of years ago, my colleague Aaron Vance and I launched a national study of products and services for 65+ consumers in the shadow of the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act. This Act did much more than add a prescription drug benefit, it also changed reimbursement rates for many other services, creating […]