Office Visit: Random luck

By Stanley Hupfeld Dolan Media Newswires Apparently we are fast approaching the end of the world, as predicted by Nostradamus (16th-century author and philosopher). We are constantly bombarded by prophesies of future events by "experts or futurists" of all persuasions. Be wary. In his book Future Babble, Dan Gardner tracks the success rate of many well-known media prognosticators at accurately predicting the future. His conclusion: Any one of us could be equally as successful by throwing darts or by flipping a coin. Some people seem to have some success at predictions, but to Gardner it is all random luck. If we ask 1,000 people to flip a coin and select those who got heads, we know that chance would give us 500 successes. If those 500 successes again flipped, we would randomly get 250 successes. Repeated, the process leads to one ultimate winner. Believing in successful predictions would be the same as declaring our winner the very best at getting heads in a coin-flipping contest. As an alternative we could consult one of those black globes where the answer floats to the top when turned over. This is essentially how we get our experts--blind luck. Not to be dissuaded, I am going to make a prediction. I predict that, if the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is not overturned by the Supreme Court, we will see the death of employer-based insurance. If Gardner is right, I have just as much chance of being right if I had flipped a coin. My logic for this prediction? Simple. Once all employers are required (called the employer mandate) to provide health coverage or pay a fine, it becomes a matter of economics. If the fine is equal to or less than the cost of providing coverage, employers will opt to drop that coverage and send their employees to the state Internet exchange. They eliminate a human resource headache and achieve the same result for less money. It will not happen fast, but once a single employer moves in this direction, the rest of their competitors will quickly follow. I could be wrong. Since my prediction has only a 50-percent chance of coming through, you probably should pay little attention to me. Stanley Hupfeld's new book, Political Malpractice - How the Politicians Made a Mess of Health Reform, is available at http://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-61862-292-1 and will be available for order in bookstores on April 17. Entire contents copyrighted © 2012 by The Dolan Company. Published: Mon, Mar 12, 2012