The conversation next turned to how I define happiness and what purpose I strive for in life. I responded by saying that I believed my purpose was to always help other people help themselves. I want to be the wind beneath the wings of others. Nueterra, the company I am chairman of, is also built around a similar purpose. The employees of Nueterra work to enrich the existence of all stakeholders through business acumen, entrepreneurial spirit and innovation resulting in sustainable healthcare enterprises. Notice anything in common among these purposes?  People. Specifically, people helping other people achieve their greatest aspirations in one way or another.

In his book, Be Great, Peter Thomas also talks about happiness. He says that prioritizing your time around what you value most will result in a happy life. Spending time on what you value is by definition living your purpose. So if you haven’t already defined your purpose, begin by identifying what you value most. Write it down. Say it every day. Live it every hour.

You might want to shake me and say, “What are you talking about; the government has restricted a big part of your business.” You’d be right to a certain extent; the new “health care reform” law does contain language that limits physician-owned hospitals. However, I’m still optimistic about the prospects of physicians in the new world of health care.

During the past few months, we at Nueterra have been evaluating how our current role in health care can be applied toward new opportunities in the future. Nueterra’s strength comes from our ability to partner with physicians and health systems. Whatever laws the government may pass will not change Nueterra’s mission nor its commitment to physicians. That’s why Nueterra, which has long been known as one of the country’s leading developers and managers of surgical facilities, is expanding to provide our partners with even more services.

Nueterra has launched new companies that provide pathology, insurance and human resources services. The company is also exploring international opportunities. Nueterra is committed to promoting physician involvement in all areas of health care, not just surgical facilities. We are poised to help physicians navigate the waters of change.

The physician-owned industry is health care reform, and has been for years. Physician-owned hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers provide quality, efficient and cost-effective health care services in a setting that both patients and physicians prefer. Nueterra plans to build on this track record of success and to continue to be a leader in the health care industry. For us, the new health care environment is not reform, it is how we do business every day.

For example, on June 11 the Associated Press reported that an early draft of an administration regulation estimates that many employers will be forced to make changes to their health plans under the new law. “In just three years, a majority of workers – 51 percent – will be in plans subject to new federal requirements,” the AP quotes from the draft. “Employers say it’s more evidence that the law will drive up costs.”

Sounds to me like President Obama broke his promise.

The types of changes that employers would be forced to make include offering preventive care without co-payments and instituting an appeals process for disputed claims that follows new federal guidelines. The law already requires all health plans to extend coverage to young adult children until they turn 26.  “But such changes also nudge costs up,” the AP reports.

“What we are getting here is a clear indication that most plans will have to change,” said James Gelfand, health policy director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “From an employer’s point of view that’s a bad thing. These changes, whether or not they’re good for consumers, are most certainly accompanied by a cost.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said it showed that Obama’s assurance that Americans would be able to keep the plans they currently have was “a myth” all along.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal on June 3, Karl Rove points out the April 22 analysis by Medicare’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, which blasted to smithereens many of Mr. Obama’s claims for the bill.

“For starters, Mr. Foster estimated Americans would pay $120 billion in fines for not having adequate insurance coverage and that 14 million people would lose their coverage as rising costs led companies to dump it,” Rove maintains. “Those effects are not in keeping with Mr. Obama’s promises that if people liked the health insurance they had they could keep it, and that the reforms would provide universal coverage.”

“Then in May,” Rove continues, “the Congressional Budget Office updated its cost projections. It found that the new health legislation would cost $115 billion more than estimated when it was enacted.

“Then there are employers and their workers. According to a survey by Towers Watson, a human resources consulting firm, 88 percent of companies plan to pass on increased health-care benefit costs to employees, 74 percent plan to reduce benefits, and up to 12 percent will drop all coverage for employees. Retirees won’t fare well either: 43 percent of employers that now provide retiree medical benefits are likely to reduce or eliminate them thanks to the new health legislation,” Rove states.

Word is getting out. Voters will be well informed of the myths of health care reform by the time the November mid-term elections roll around next year.

The new taxes are a negative for investors. The legislation imposes a new 3.8% tax on investment income. In addition it adds a 0.9% tax on wages for those earning more than $250,000, set to take effect in 2013.

That’s bad enough to stifle investment, but the story gets worse.

Proponents of the law like to state that the $950 billion price tag will work to lower the national budget deficit by $130 billion while actually creating two new huge entitlements – health insurance subsidies and long-term health care benefits. How can we believe that?

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office, puts things into perspective in an Op-Ed essay published in the New York Times on March 20 of this year.  Far from reducing the deficit, he states that the new law will actually raise the deficit by $562 billion.

“The answer, unfortunately, is that the budget office is required to take written legislation at face value and not second-guess the plausibility of what it is handed. So fantasy in, fantasy out,” Holtz-Eakin writes.

The federal deficit is already expected to exceed at least $700 billion every year over the next decade, doubling the national debt to more than $20 trillion. By 2020, the federal deficit – the amount the government must borrow to meet its expenses – is projected to be $1.2 trillion, $900 billion of which represents interest on previous debt.

The health care legislation would only increase this crushing debt. It is a clear indication that Congress does not realize the urgency of putting America’s fiscal house in order.

Honest arithmetic tells the real story. To bad Congress has forgotten how to add. One of these days even the Chinese will no longer finance our debt. Who do we turn to then?

Look in your children’s beds.

Nueterra Healthcare has been proud to support the work of One5 through financial assistance, access to Nueterra’s physicians and suppliers, and volunteers. Since the Haiti earthquake, One5’s response has garnered extensive media coverage and raised the organizations visibility among potential donors. This exposure comes at a great time for One5 as the organization has taken steps to move from a private to a public foundation in the near future. This move will affect the governance of the foundation, to wit, it will have a larger board of directors that can bring more resources to bear and to build more partnerships with businesses and other not-for-profits.

We’ve already seen the beginnings of this synergy as the staff of One5 garnered support for the Haiti earthquake. Call it organizational networking. So, by bringing in board members from the larger community we will be able to leverage their own partnerships and affiliations to an even greater degree.

We’ll keep you informed as this process evolves. And thanks for all the support that you’ve provided to the One5 Foundation to date.

In very sketchy terms good planning involves everyone, because involvement engenders commitment. Once a plan is established, put it in writing so everyone knows what’s expected.

The foundation of good planning is to be able to express a purpose behind what your company is doing and why. Everyone needs to know the vision for the future so that they can assist in developing the strategies that will drive the organization closer to the vision.

All areas of the company should be involved – sales and marketing, operations and production, research and development, organization and administration – and a budget can be developed.  Keep communicating the strategy and the vision and you’ll eventually be able to measure results and hold people accountable for them.

My purpose here is not to teach a business planning seminar, but to simply draw an analogy from planning your business to planning your personal life.

Have you ever had a vision of what you would like to be doing five years from now? Ten years from now?  What are the driving issues in your life? How do they help or impede achievement of your vision?

We all can use some specific initiatives, action items if you will, that will help us get closer to our personal visions.  These could have an affect on many aspects of your life – your mental self, physical self, spiritual self, your spouse and children, extended family, career and financial goals, social life and leisure time.

Tell the people you are closest to about your vision. Work on your initiatives. Then measure your results. Finally, the hardest part: hold yourself accountable. If you’re honest with yourself, life can begin to be more fulfilling simply by having an overarching goal that brings meaning to your actions.

It is, at least, heartening to see how the nations of the developed world have jumped into Haiti’s earthquake relief efforts without hesitation.

I am especially proud of the medical team of the One5 Foundation, led by Brad Gautney, who have been on the ground in Haiti since Friday, providing medical care. Brad and One5 Foundation volunteers have already established a presence in Haiti, where they have worked closely with several orphanages over the past year. In the current crisis, the One5 medical team is working with other NGOs to set up emergency operating rooms and first aid clinics, Brad told the Kansas City Star on Sunday.

He sends an urgent appeal for donations of money and medical supplies necessary to perform even the most basic medical procedures. You can make a donation that will go directly to Haitian earthquake relief by going to the One5 Foundation Web site.

To donate $10 instantly, text One5 to 85944. Your donation will be processed through your telephone carrier’s monthly bill.

Our One5 representatives have been busy here in Kansas City as well by getting the word out on the foundation’s ongoing work in Haiti.

Please give. Haiti can’t wait any longer.

Along the way he developed a following that included many of America’s corporate chieftains and managers. Most of his management teachings focused on making people in general more effective, not just better workers.

His advice followed one basic theme, that successful enterprises create conditions that allow employees to do their best work. It’s hard to point to a successful business today that doesn’t utilize some form of management by objective.

In addition, way back in 1959 before the advent of computers in the workplace he foresaw the rise of “knowledge workers,” or those who are motivated more by personal pride than a paycheck. Peter Drucker’s influence is huge.

As an immigrant from Nazi Europe he developed a lifelong distrust of charismatic leaders. He was skeptical of any leader who was able to influence people to follow him despite lack of experience, knowledge, proven character or the people he entrusted.

I do not mean to compare our current president with the evil state from which Drucker and his family fled. However, many of the characteristics of a charismatic leadership are ensconced in Washington, D.C. right now. Rhetoric has surpassed reality.

From my perspective, I would take George W. Bush any day, complete with his inability to deliver a moving speech, over Barack Obama, who speaks wonderfully, but can’t deliver on his promises.

What I’m going to say is NOTHING!  That’s exactly what everyone else should be saying too. The over-abundance of coverage and commentary is simply appalling.

We love our heroes and we love to tear them down even more. His situation is regrettable, but it shouldn’t be news.

Here are some real news stories that are under-reported:

• One person dies every second as a result of hunger; that’s 4,000 every hour, 100,000 every day, 36 million every year!
• Since 2003, approximately 1.2 million people have died because of the conflict in Iraq.
• About 3.5 million Americans, 1.35 million of them children, are estimated to experience homelessness each year.
• In Kansas City one soup kitchen alone feeds 500 people every day!

Note to news media: Get real!

We heard President Obama say specifically in his speech to the joint session of Congress on Sept. 9, “No federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.”

Yet, almost all the bills before Congress include public funding for abortions, actually mandating public subsidies to cover them.

At the risk of sounding radical, President Obama should veto the health care reform bill because it runs exactly counter to the statements he made before Congress in September.

Additionally, both Senate and House bills call for as much as $500 billion to be struck from the Medicare budget. That’s half a trillion dollars that will not be available for the elderly. That fact has spawned all kinds of reaction about end of life care and rationing of medical care for senior citizens.  Just one example:  Newsweek on Sept. 21 published an article titled “The Case for Killing Granny: Rethinking End of Life Care.”

President Obama is an excellent orator. I just want him to live up to the content of his speeches rather than build political equity on style alone. I’m trying to encourage people to vote with their heads, not their hearts.  Do research on the candidates and vote according to facts and real information, and not the rhetoric you hear on TV, especially the way they look and talk on TV.