Health care reform

When I started this blog in April, I knew it had an expiration date. I signed a short-term contract. I referred to myself as a guest blogger on Yahoo! Even the title, "Working the New Economy," suggested that this was a project of limited duration. After all, how long could this "new economy" last?

Now that it's time to wrap up, it's pretty clear that the new economy has become the new normal. And I can't say that I have figured out exactly how to work it. Unemployment has now topped 10%. Counting those who are underemployed, it's closer to 20%. Mass layoffs are still happening, including a round at BusinessWeek last week where several of my most respected colleagues were shown the door.

One defining feature of this not-so-new-anymore economy is that we will all need to flexible and nimble. I've worked independently for nearly a decade. And now it seems that my usual mix of contract work, freelance relationships, consulting and other kinds of affiliations has become standard in what Tina Brown so aptly dubbed the gig economy.

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We're closer than we've ever been to passing a health reform bill, but there is still a long way to go. Members of the House of Representatives worked over the weekend, passing a health care bill 220-215 on Saturday.

President Barack Obama called the vote "courageous," since no federal legislative body has gotten this far. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "No longer will being a woman be a pre-existing medical condition" because the bill would end insurance company practices of charging women more for coverage than men. And Senate Republicans were all over the Sunday news shows saying the House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate. Read More »