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Contents: Google and Microsoft Look to Change Health Care Employers Underestimate Health Care Costs In Lost Productivity Healthcare is priority among low-income workers choosing their own benefits IRS Issues Final Regulations on Dependent Care Expenses Cafeteria Plan Regulations Revised More Generics Slow Rise in Drug Prices Google and Microsoft Look to Change Health Care From NEW YORK TIMES ● August 14, 2007 Google and Microsoft are working up their plans to improve the nation’s health care. Both companies are betting they can enable people to make smarter choices about their health habits and medical care. Microsoft’s software animates more than 90 percent of all personal computers, while Google is the default starting point for most health searches. And people are increasingly turning to their computers and the Web for health information and advice. A Harris poll, published last month, found that 52 percent of adults sometimes or frequently go to the Web for health information, up from 29 percent in 2001. Employers Underestimate Health Care Costs In Lost Productivity From CCH® INTERNET RESEARCH NETWORK™ ● July 27, 2007 According to a study in the July issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (JOEM), U.S. employers may be underestimating the overall costs of poor employee health, while failing to fully assess the diseases and health conditions that drive these costs.

Accounting for medical costs plus both absenteeism and presenteeism represents a truer picture of the full cost that companies bear because of poor employee health. For example, using traditional "siloed" measures, the annual medical and drug costs of back and neck pain per 1,000 employees in studied companies is nearly $170,000. But when using a full-cost methodology that includes productivity measures, the figure rises to well in excess of $500,000. Researchers found that the four companies spent $2.375 million on medical and pharmacy claims for the conditions measured in...