Word: problem
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...have been so mired in conflict." As telephone operators, the students themselves will be easy punching bags. They are drilled on how to diffuse angry callers without losing their own cool. "How would I handle a customer who starts off angry?" asks a student. "I'd HEAR. Hear the problem. Empathize. Act on the problem. Resolve the problem...
...idea, well, it began with a man. Stephen Arterburn, who owns 10% of New Life Clinics and is paid a salary of $160,000 plus stock options, had offered a program of New Life seminars, which failed dismally. "Those were seminars where you had to admit you had a problem before you came," he says. "I thought we could reach more people if we could ask, What can we do for you?" That psychotherapy-under-another-name worked, and the movement collected a roster of upbeat dispensers of inspiration, such as Sheila Walsh, author of Never Give...
...thought her previous insurance was inadequate, had trouble finding a managed-care plan that would treat her daughter's "pre-existing condition." So she was pleased to discover a local HMO that would, her insurance agent assured her, cover all her child's pre-existing conditions, including the heart problem. But two months later, when doctors determined that Cassie did indeed need surgery, the HMO announced it had a two-year minimum on pre-existing conditions and would not pay for the treatment. The toddler eventually received the care she needed, thanks to a special state program for the indigent...
...similar political ad five years ago. As they sat at their kitchen table, Harry and Louise fretted that the choices being promised by the government were really no choice at all. "They choose," Harry said, to which Louise countered, "We lose." Voters might say that's precisely the problem with managed care...
Alas, that is not so different from the conundrum facing the government's newly announced bank-rescue agency. The announcement prompted a rare surge in the stock market last week because it indicated a willingness to let insolvent banks fail. The problem is that bureaucrats are already arguing over which banks should be allowed to go and which should be propped up. That sort of dispute speaks volumes about why the country seems to be dithering while the world screams for action. As last week's measures demonstrate, outside pressure still gets results when Japan senses it needs...