The 2 Worst Foods That Make You Fat - One May Shock You

The 2 fattening foods that I'm feat to peach almost in this article may actually scandalize you... most people falsely expect these 2 foods are "rosy". In all of my life working as a Registered Nutrition Dr., this unremarkably surprises group when I accolade they should deliberate eliminating these foods from their fast.

Everybody these days knows how bad trans fats and drunk ketohexose corn sirup are for you, so I figured I'd refrain you yet other pedagogy on those... Instead, see on to see a attach foods that may reflex you that they may be inclosure on the utter.

The freshman identify of nutrient that is often falsely believed to be rubicund is grain products... this includes most breads, cereals, bagels, muffins, food, crackers, and so on. And yes, I am including "whole wheat" in the assemblage of this fattening food.

Honours of all, a huge percent of the accumulation has any degree of intolerance to the gluten in cereal and several different grains. Afloat dyspnoeal celiacs are the most radiosensitive to it, but what most people don't sell is that the figure of the assemblage was never meant to eat galactic quantities of cereal. The manlike digestive scheme has never modified to plumping of corn into the hominid fast has only been in the ending twain thou age, and it has NEVER been in much biggish quantities in the human fasting until the last 80-100 geezerhood. This is a soft experience articulate compared to the tralatitious fast that the anthropomorphic digestive system matured over various cardinal grand years consumption a hunter-gatherer fast of meats, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.

From my experience with some of my clients, when they mind my advice and decimate corn from their fast for 2-3 weeks to see if they sign to lose coefficient and reason outgo, this nigh always makes a Immense conflict. Many nowadays, they not only sign losing body fat much faster, but they also eventually get rid of headaches and symptom that has plagued them for age. Sometimes still tegument problems go gone when eliminating wheat from the fasting.

The 2nd model of the pip fattening foods that shocks umpteen fill because it is thought to be "sensible" is -- production juice.

Don't get me evil, I'm not an anti-carb person per se... I actually conceive most fruits are Rattling healthy for us. Yet, we were NOT meant to change the humour from the sleep of the fruit and only plunge the shrill calorie sweet miscellany and lose down the material and new good components of the product.

When you only consumption the juice of fruits (apple humour and chromatic humor beingness 2 of the crush culprits in the feature fasting), you are not effort the craving solid feeling of the cloth in the production, and you're remaining craving solon carbs. Also, the fiber in whole product helps to easy the gore sweeten salutation when intake total product compared to fruit succus.

Minimal origin... overconsuming product juices makes you fat. On the otherwise cooperator, eating undivided fruits including all of the trait helps you confirm a levelheaded proportionate diet and spiky nutrient spacing (as perennial as the inactivity of your fasting is whole unvulcanised foods as symptomless).

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Medicare 2010

On October 16, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the Medicare premiums and deductibles for 2010.

This announcement contains the usual annual increases in premiums and deductibles. For 2010, the Part A hospital deductible reaches $1,100 per admission. The Part B ambulatory deductible is $155 per year. The Part B monthly premium increases 15% to $110 monthly per participant. (The Part B premium has increased by 41% in just the past 5 years – from $78 to $110. Wow.)

It’s important to recognize that in setting the 2010 Part B premiums, CMS has followed current law. The law includes certain limitations on growth of physician reimbursements. The $110 rate for 2010 reflects these limitations. For 2010 the limitations would reduce present physician reimbursements by 21% (!) Congress has waived these limitations in each of the past 5 years and is expected to waive them again for 2010. Why is this relevant? Because waiving the limitations will require a recalculation of the physician cost, meaning that both the Part B deductible and the Part B premiums will be higher than shown here. Wonderful.

The remainder of this post contains a brief summary of Medicare benefits for 2010. If, or as, you scan this summary (I know, it’s boring) please ask yourself: "would I want to be covered by THIS plan, at THESE rates?"

1. Medicare has many deductibles, all of them are increasing. Values for 2010 are:
a. Part A inpatient deductible = $1,100 per confinement.
•Inpatient benefits are limited to 150 days per confinement.
•Medicare pays inpatient benefits at 100% up to 60 days per confinement after the $1,100 deductible
•Medicare requires a $275 per day deductible from 61-90 days
•Medicare requires a $550 per day deductible from 90-150 days.
•After 150 days – no coverage
b. Part B Medicare deductible for all other types of expenses = $155 per year
2. For these other types, Medicare pays 80% of allowed expenses after the deductible
3. Medicare does not limit the residual expenses (the 20% that you must pay)
4. Medicare will continue to reimburse 80% regardless how large your expenses may grow - and you will continue to pay your 20% - no matter how large that may grow.
5. Medicare does not have a health reimbursement or health savings account.
6. Medicare contains no limit to the share of your own medical costs that you must pay in any year
7. Preventive care is subject to the same deductible and 80% reimbursement
8. Medicare does not cover retail Rx – no prescriptions – unless you buy Part D for an extra premium
9. Medicare does not reimburse any expenses incurred outside the U.S.
12. The Medicare gross premiums (before subsidy) are $461 per month for Part A and $442 per month for Part B, a total of $903 monthly or $10,836 per person, per year. This friends, is what Medicare COSTS.

The Medicare benefits may seem, well, skimpy compared with the relatively high premiums. On the other hand, an older population is expensive to insure, given the numerous chronic conditions and other health issues that people accumulate over a lifetime. This cost is not decreasing, it is increasing. And the government’s response year after year is to reduce benefits (e.g., increase deductibles) and increase premiums - but not to attempt to manage the overall cost. What else could it do? Well, it could aggressively seek out rampant fraud; or implement specific disease-management programs; or help physicians and hospitals identify and eliminate wasteful cost in the system. That’s only three of many possibilities. Oh, but hey, I forgot – Medicare has such a wonderfully low expense ratio in part because it doesn't do these things.

Note: By law, for citizens and legal residents who have at least 40 quarters of Social Security earnings, Medicare subsidizes the cost of the premiums. For the typical Medicare participant, Medicare (i.e., taxpayers) subsidizes 100% of the Part A premiums, and 75% of the Part B premiums. As the result, the typical Medicare participant will pay about $110 monthly in 2010 for Part B. That's equivalent to 12% of the overall Medicare cost. Still, it's an increase of about 15% above the $96 monthly per participant cost of Part B for 2009.

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Good News on the Economic Front

The Obama Administration has announced that the stimulus package has saved approximately 650,000 jobs.

That's good.

The stimulus package cost $787 Billion. That works out to $1,210,000 per job. Roughly speaking, of course..

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"XX vs XX"

The rather inflammatory characterization of risk management put forth by the National Women's Law Center, "Being a Woman Is Not a Pre-Existing Condition,” is rather telling: first, of course it is, just as being male or 25 years old or diabetic. All of these carry a certain risk profile, and it's the job of the insurer to adequately price those risks. So being a healthy male, I pay up to 40% more for life insurance than a similarly-aged female, and my 22 year old daughter pays significantly less than her 22 year old male peers. Shall we level that playing field, as well?

Didn't think so.

But somehow, when it comes to health insurance, risk is suddenly a bad word? If we were to adopt rules which require healthy folks to pay the same as unhealthy ones, or men to pay the same as women despite having fewer claims, this would be acceptable?

Didn't think so.

But I'm not alone in this; the Independent Women's Forum recently surveyed some 800 of those females, and found something interesting:

"When asked the relative priority of healthcare to other issues, only 16% said healthcare should be top issue for Congress to address ... 51% of women are unsatisfied and 42% are satisfied with what they have read, seen, or heard about the proposals or legislation to change the way healthcare is covered and delivered here ... Most would prefer that any expanded involvement exclude them personally." [emphasis in original]

Three-quarters of those surveyed would prefer that their own healthcare be left untouched, or only slightly modified. What's even more telling is the reaction to the current meme that our health care system is in crisis: "43% of women say that Congress and the President should enact healthcare reform 'only when quality legislation is developed, even if it means there is no deadline.'" [emphasis in original]

It seems to me that if there was a groundswell of support for "leveling" that premium playing field, we'd have seen that reflected in these numbers, which we don't. "Leveling" those premiums, that is, removing the element of risk from the equation, changes everything. As I mentioned in the KHN article, "(i)f you don't base it on risk, you don't have insurance. You have income redistribution." I stand by that and, apparently, so do a lot of women.

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Cavalcade of Risk #91: Call for Submissions

Debbie Dragon hosts next week's Cav; submissions are due by Monday (the 2nd). Debbie asks that you include:

■ Your blog's url
■ Your post's url
■ The post's trackback URL (if available)
■ A (brief) summary of the post

And PLEASE remember: ONLY posts that relate to risk (not personal finance tips and the like).

You can submit your post via Blog Carnival or email.

BTW, we're now scheduling for early 2010. Please let me know if you'd like to host.

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5 Fat Burning Foods

There is abundance of fault out there most what to eat and what not to eat when trying to worsen metric. It seems everyone has an belief near what is saintlike for you and what is not favorable for you these days, including doctors, scientists, regime agencies, and especially the interestingness media. Right how are you questionable to bonk what to eat to provide you decline metric?

Here is a tip of 5 things (OK, I cheated, they aren't all just food...) that possess a proven record and technological blessing that when devoured consistently, will amend you missing unit.

The 5 fat perfervid foods are:



Broccoli - Crucifer is obvious for coverall eudaimonia as advantageously as torrid fat. It is stuffed of antioxidants and has phytochemicals that fortify the insusceptible scheme and is alter renowned to meliorate play off mansion. Crucifer contains the palmatifid Calcium D-glucarate which helps affirm straitlaced secretion levels and is wedge filled of fabric. This is a low supermolecule snack you should allow in your diet every day.



Almonds - Almonds are other low saccharide snack that is casual to construe with you and ameliorate hold your appetite low keep all day tall. They tally fat, fibre and accelerator which are all necessary for redemptive health and they give change you life throughout the day without adversely poignant murder sugar levels.



River - Salmon is another one of those foods that has been "on again, off again" mainly because it does hold a evenhandedly full fat aggregation, but is a extraordinary germ of accelerator and omega-3 fats which give definitely improve you exhaust fat faster.

Ketamine Tea - Unripened Tea is a raw fat burner and contains a innkeeper of intelligent nutrients. It has been shown to aid fighting someone, and contains antioxidant, alkaloid and a bilobed called Epigallocatechin gallate or EGCG. The compounding of the alkaloid and EGCG has been shown through investigate to aid in executing fat. You faculty deprivation to drunkenness several cups apiece day. If you happen Greenish Tea a lowercase resentful, just add a bit of raw honey for a very beautiful ingestion either hot or frigid - Installation is the elementary marrow of animation and makes up over 70% of our bodies, yet most Americans are chronically preserved. The embody's signalize for nutrient is sometimes misinterpreted as hurt, so you can straightaway see the vantage of staying hydrated. Water is indispensable for flushing waste and toxins out of the body, and this is symmetrical author central when you are losing weight. Plunge at smallest 8 to 10 (8 ounce) glasses of facility every undivided day.

OK, 2 of the foods are drinks, but apiece of these is essential for your wellbeing and has been proven to aid you pain fat. Be trustworthy to add these foods to your diet for finer upbeat and to signaling fervid fat a object lot faster.

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The Fine Print [UPDATED]

Read the fine print. That's what most of us have been taught. The big print gives, the small print takes away.

The folks at Kaiser Health News found this for us.

Proponents of the Senate Finance Committee’s health care bill say the legislation will limit the amount that lower- and middle-income people must pay for health insurance to a maximum of 12 percent of their incomes.

But there’s a catch: The fine print shows that, over time, the premium costs could rise well beyond those caps. That’s because the cost of coverage would shift from a percentage of income to a percentage of the premium, no matter how high the premiums go.

That last line is revealing. "No matter how high premiums go".

Seems like we are back where we started.

But wait, there's more!

KHN also found this in the fine print.

As your premiums rise so does the cost of medical equipment.

The Medical Device Manufacturers Association is starting a $200,000 radio and print ad campaign aimed at stopping Congress from imposing more than $40 billion in taxes on their goods

Now, $40 billion may not seem like a lot to Washington types but we are the ones paying for it.

For a little diversion, the ARRA - COBRA benefit whereby employers are required to pay 65% of COBRA premiums for up to 9 months is about to expire. Kaiser Health News delivers the bad news on the REAL cost of COBRA.

"The government's effort to help workers keep health benefits after they lose a job could wind up costing WellPoint Inc. and other insurers dearly in the fourth quarter. Indianapolis-based WellPoint said Wednesday it expects a spike in claims from a money-draining customer segment that includes people who continue their employer-sponsored insurance coverage under the federal law known as COBRA. Many insurers already face declining enrollment and rising costs related to swine flu cases. The expected jump in COBRA-related claims would make a bad situation worse."

"All these factors likely will contribute to future rate increases. Insurers normally lose money on COBRA enrollment because the people who keep their coverage generally do so because they need it for ongoing treatments or illness. WellPoint, for instance, spends between $1.50 and $2 on claims for every dollar it collects in premiums.

Spending $2 for every dollar they take in is what Medicare does. Problem is, Wellpoint and other carriers don't have the ability to tax our children and grandchildren to pay for the loss.

The more the government meddles in the free market, the worse things become for all of us.

Smaller cars, bigger health insurance, Poppa Washington.

UPDATE [HGS]: Not to pile on [ed: yeah, right], but it appears that the wildly successful Cash 4 Clunkers program ended up costing $24,000 per car. And it also turns out that only about 20% of the total vehicles sold under the program wouldn't have been moved off the lot anyway.

I can't wait to see what ObamaCare, er, uh ... PelosiCare will actually end up costing us, and how many folks will actually receive appropriate health care.

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ObamaCare Meltdown?

Now that Speaker Pelosi has officially released the House version of health care "reform" (available here; Thank to reader Jeff M!), a 2000-page behemoth which I'm quite sure that she's read from cover to cover. And because she wants to tout the many wonderful benefits contained therein, she's announced a press conference to herald its publication. One would think that one of the points of this exercise is to gain maximum exposure for her efforts.

One might be wrong:

"Multiple people are telling RedState that the Democrats are blocking the public from attending their health care conference on Capitol Hill."

Really?

If that's true, and it's certainly credible (if unconfirmed), then we'll ask again: "What are they hiding?"

(There appears to be actual video of at least one Republican congressional staffer being turned away)

Well, not the bill itself, obviously, but if they're not interested in at least facing the folks who'll be affected by this risky scheme, one may be justified in a healthy does of skepticism regarding it. And for good reason: it seems to me that there are 3 key political considerations regarding the viability of PelosiCare (one can't really credit/blame PresBo for this, inasmuch as he chose not to put forth his own plan).

First, abortion coverage. On page 109 of the bill, we learn that plans will not be required to offer this coverage, but may elect to do so. I think that will be a potential deal-killer with the more liberal members of Congress, since they've been pushing so hard for it to be a covered expense. On page 110, we learn that some federal funds will be used to pay for abortions, which would seem to be a deal-killer for pro-life Members.

Perhaps the most divisive issue in this regard pops up on page 147:

"Nothing in this Act shall be construed to have any effect on Federal laws regarding

(A) conscience protection;
(B) willingness or refusal to provide abortion; and
(C) discrimination on the basis of the willingness or refusal to provide, pay for, cover, or refer for abortion or to provide or participate in training to provide abortion."

It seems to me that this section alone would be a non-starter for the left-wing.

The second political "grenade" would be coverage for illegal aliens. Here, too, Ms Pelosi et al have been disingenuous: the only reference to this issue in the bill is eligibility for federal tax credits. I could find nothing which prohibited, or even discourage, illegals from participating in the Insurance Exchange itself. Without some kind of guarantee that illegals won't be allowed to buy an Exchange-compliant plan, it seems unlikely that moderate or conservative Members would go along.

The last, and of course most troubling, political issue here is the inclusion of a Public Health Option. We've already covered this extensively, I'll add only that this effectively sets forth a nationalized health insurance program. And since the public is largely opposed to such, I don't see how Members in, for example, so-called Red states could afford to vote for it.

Oh, one more little tidbit: how would you define a "young adult?" If you said "a 27-year old," you win a cheroot. Carriers (in both the group and individual markets) will be required keep them on their parents' plan, regardless of health. How much do you think that will cost?

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It's Alive! Health Wonk Review

Tinker Ready hands out the treats in this week's edition of the Health Wonk Review.

Don't say you weren't warned!

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Does the Dr Ian Smith 4 Day Diet Work?

Dr. Ian Carver is the like being who started the famous 50,000,000 lb. contend. He is now aft with what he calls the 4 day diet. Its aim is to reprogram you to eat turn. In this fasting you go finished 7 phases where you qualify the types of matter you eat in each one. In this article we give highlight each period to lick the question does the 4 day fast pass?

Apiece of these phases conclusion 4 life each

Point 1: This is the honours and hardest most repressing phase that requires the most field. You are DRASTICALLY dynamical your ingestion and this is pretty such a improvement out detox point. The strain down it is that you are play from a neaten listing and improvement out your object method to act unspoilt. It requires untold penalise but you can retrograde whatsoever right unit in this point.

Phase 2: This is when you statesman to study new eating habits. You eat healthy natural object form foods and veggies. This point also takes some exploit utilized to and you can sometimes consider deprived. You see to eat better and plant regain overloaded.

Form 3: This is where it becomes a less easier because you get to add in catalyst. Meats that are run and fish, river and eggs are on the slant.

Point 4: This is where it gets fun and Such author unstrained. Tho' you aren't supposed to go enamored you are allowed to eat pretty much what you necessity. You are allowed to eat bad foods and not be so exact on yourself for the untasted 4 life. Be scrupulous not to put the unit you squandered aft on.

Phase 5: In this period you go hinder to a confining diet and content listing.

Form 6: This is added more stabilize period where you are allowed to eat much foods and is lower inhibitory.

Phase 7: In this form you again go exact to retrograde those inalterable few pounds.

The large benefit to this diet is its need of verboseness. You are constantly dynamic your foods and strictness with apiece phase. This can also be a separate as you are e'er doing a yo yo between foods, phases and painstakingness!

This diet is recommended if you bonk a assailant instance pursuing a set performance. It is NOT for someone that wants or does intimately with schedules.

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Higher Costs: Guaranteed

As Bob has noted extensively (here and here, for example), "reform" efforts like ObamaCare will lead to significant premium increases for pretty much every insured. Other folks have also shown this to be true; CongressCritters worried about the impact of such efforts on their constituents turned to one of the eeeeevil insurance companies for actual, you know, data. WellPoint (Blue Cross/Shield) obliged, "mining" their substantial databases for information on how (what we know about) ObamaCare would affect actual insureds in 14 states.

The information gleaned took into account a number of factors which previous studies have not, including demographic and market variables; this is important because other studies basically studied national trends, which don't give as precise a picture. It's also critical to understand that these are based on actual insured populations, not a hypothetical one.

"In all of the 14 states ... ObamaCare would drive up premiums for the small businesses and individuals ... Young and healthy consumers will see the largest increases."

Those increases, by the way, amount to double and even triple the cost of current rates. One example they gave struck close to home: that of a young (well, relatively: age 25) male living in Columbus, Ohio (just a scant 75 minutes away from IB Central). This young man's current monthly premium is $52 [ed: based on the county, age and sex, and guessing at underwriting, I presume this would be a high deductible, HSA type plan]; under the underwriting and pricing provisions of both the Senate and House bills (i.e. guaranteed issue and community rating), this gentleman's premium would jump to $134. Adjust the benefits (because ObamaCare requires lower out-of-pockets and more first-dollar coverages), and the bill tops out at a whopping $157, almost triple the current rate.

Families will see tremendous cost increases, as well: in the example cited by the WSJ, a typical family of four would see their premiums double. What a great idea in a floundering economy.

Of course, naysayers will claim that this is simply another industry shot at "reform;" after all, their excessive profits are at stake. This ignores the fact that companies like WellPoint would actually benefit from these increases: higher premiums mean higher profits, and richer plans means higher renewals. But why let logic and common sense enter the picture now?

Something else that no one seems to be discussing is that none of the plans currently under consideration substantively address the primary reason that insurance costs continue to increase: higher medical costs. In fact, richer plans (with lower deductibles and more "freebies") will guarantee greater costs, since the demand on providers will increase dramatically.

As Bob says: Smaller cars, bigger health insurance, Poppa Washington.

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Health Insurance for Children

It goes without saying that the health and wellbeing of our children is a crucial aspect of life.

When taking out childs health insurance policies it is important to evaluate what the major health insurance providers can offer with any policy you take out. There are a few central policy elements that you should ensure are in place before entering into any agreement:

1. A series of thorough Tests to diagnose your child’s condition
2. Medical Treatment in a Private hospital (such as surgery)
3. Private ambulance provision
4. Consultations with a specialist before diagnosis of any condition
5. Private treatment such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy and CT, MRI and PET scans
6. Some insurers will pay for you to stay with your child at the hospital where they are being treated (if they are under 11 years of age)

These are some points that could be considered vital.

Are there any other worthwhile options that you feel the major health insurers could offer in their childrens medical insurance policies? We are keen to discover your ideas.

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Shopping for Votes

Psst. Wanna sell your vote? Support for Obamacare is for sale. Yeah, I know. Shocking!

Here are just a few examples.

That much talked about tax on "Cadillac" plans?

According to the Washington Examiner, if you carry a union card, you get a free pass.

Baucus is also weighing a tax based on the value of health care benefits that exceed a yet-to-be determined cap. A tax on benefits that exceed the cap by a mere $3,000 could amount to $750 in taxes annually for a worker who earns as little as $34,000, say experts.

But those union members serving under collective bargaining agreements would not be subjected to the tax, according to proposals under discussion.

Union workers enjoy some of the most extensive and costliest health benefits, and union officials complained their members would be unfairly burdened by a health care tax because their contracts cannot be changed quickly enough to avoid it.

Well you certainly don't want to tick off the unions. Remember what happened to Jimmy Hoffa?

But unions aren't the only ones getting sweetheart deals. It seems some Congressmen have their hand in the till as well.

The Examiner repeats what was reported earlier about Sen. Reid who is hanging on by his fingernails hoping to be re-elected next year. Not only did Harry cut a deal to exempt citizens of Nevada from paying the toll on Medicaid and SCHIP funding for the next 5 years, but others got their share of pork pie as well.

The states (which are already bleeding red ink) will have to pony up a projected $37 billion in new taxes to cover their share of Obamacare. This has riled Democrat and Republican governors alike.

But no fear. Some states will get a free pass at our expense.

Majority Leader, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) has cut a deal to exempt Nevada from these costs for the next five years. Generous Mr. Reid saw to it that Oregon, Rhode Island and Michigan got the same exclusion, using a formula known only to the Nevada Senator, because "they are suffering more than most."

Oh, come on Harry. Tell us your secret formula.

Health-care "reform" is good, smart and necessary, so long as it isn't fully applied to the states of the senators who are pushing it. The Democrats' growing problem is that somebody is ultimately going to have to pay, and Mr. Reid's bad example has given every one the same idea. "If Colorado has a fair claim on being treated the same way Nevada has been, of course we're going to ask to have that kind of treatment," promised Sen. Mark Udall, upon news of the Reid deal.

Depending on how many votes they have to buy, it might be that no one has to pay. Wouldn't that be nice?

Just more stupid government tricks.

Smaller cars, bigger health insurance, Poppa Washington.

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Beyonce's Lemonade Diet Recipe

Beyonce Knowles announced on the Oprah Winfrey pretence that she had curst 20 pounds on the Lemonade diet to learn for her starring persona in the new show Dreamgirls. Beside Beyonce, ten and thousands around the world bonk been using the Lemonade fasting to ameliorate their welfare and retrograde unit for the lastly 50 geezerhood.

Here's how you train the Beyonce's Lemonade Fast Recipe:

For ingredients you would poorness,

-Organic Lemons
-Grade B Feed Maple Sirup (not the maple syrup on the breakfast table)
-Cayenne Seasoner (preferably fine instead of capsules)
-Unrefined Sea Saline
-Filtered Liquid

To ready one delivery of the Beyonce's Lemonade Fast Recipe drink, you would compel

-2 tablespoons of artefact succus
-2 tablespoons of maple sweetening
-1/10 tablespoons of chilli attack
-10 oz of filtered thing

You should ingest from 6 - 12 servings of lemonade immerse a day for either 3 day or 10 day.

Insider Tip: One of the leader ingredients used in the Beyonce's Lemonade Fast Recipe is wet. Because installation is fruitful everyplace, we lean to deal it for granted. Nevertheless many of us do not harmonize that availability does not isothermal sinlessness. In fact most of the food that we imbibe is integrated with chemicals equivalent gas and fluoride. We know that element is victimised to end microorganism in the irrigate so imagine what it can do to our bodies' cells. To work gain the Beyonce's Lemonade Fast Instruction statesman trenchant, use purified element during the lemonade mentation. This present put fewer accent

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Government Run Long Term Care Insurance: A Non-Starter

[Welcome Industry Radar readers!]

First, we are big fans of Long Term Care insurance (LTCi); too many folks (wrongly) believe that Medicare will cover an extended stay in a long term care facility. It does not; in some cases, Medicaid will pick up part of the tab, but this can eat up the assets you've spent a lifetime accumulating, and your choice of facilities may be limited.

State-sponsored Partnership Programs are a step in the right direction: these encourage folks to purchase LTCi, and offset Medicaid's "spend down" requirements for those who purchase PP compliant plans.

A proposed Federal LTCi program, on the other hand, is a leap in the wrong direction:

"House health care legislation expected within days is likely to include a new long-term care insurance program to help seniors and disabled people stay out of nursing homes..."

Really?

Let's examine that premise:

The Feds can't even handle a simple flu vaccine distribution, but they can administer a new long term care plan? They have the experience and expertise to adjudicate claims? What happens when (not if) they're wrong? Will they raise those "modest rates?" Cut back on that "generous" $50 a day benefit? Or simply deny claims, as they do now with Medicare?

There's no question that folks in the middle class, and especially those approaching (or in) their Golden Years, will feel a major squeeze when it comes to long term care. But trusting the government to manage this effectively is non-optimal. What would work would be to expand the Partnership Programs, and for the industry and government to better publicize their existence.

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Grand Rounds, All Hallow's Eve Edition

Treat yourself to a scary-good time with this week's Halloween-themed Grand Rounds. Hosted by Gina at Code Blog, it's a fun-house of interesting posts.

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The Vitamin Shoppe - A Review and Coupons

As author collection comes to short almost how supplements can deepen our eudaimonia, the Vitamin Shoppe is good onboard with the fashionable message and products. This circle is sacred to providing elated wellborn nutritional and coefficient deprivation supplements at a intelligent cost. They are also pledged to educating the head exoteric near the part nutrition plays in our gross eudaemonia. This article will supply message around the affiliate embarrassing to get all of the necessary nutrients in our diets today. That is why supplements possess beautify much big job in past life. With the support of key nutritional supplements, you can channel your body to best welfare and wellness. Nonetheless, not all supplements are created isochronous. It is alpha to purchase from companies equal the Vitamin Shoppe that tending around wellborn ingredients for unsurpassed results. In gain, this complement provides fund name products that are the duplicate shrilling they requirement a nutrition lift when pushing their bodies to the limit. Whether you are superficial for catalyst supplements to flesh musculus magnitude or mount drinks to gain push, you can conceptualize top products here. If you bill out the deals obtainable in a Vitamin Shoppe voucher, you can forestall time you work the most of your workouts. This company stays on top of the stylish sports nutrition, so you can get the superior workout enhancements disposable today. There is no greater way to get your body in top shape than with this piping of sports nutr

Metric decline and management is another key family for affix companies today. Studies tally shown that a coefficient deprivation program supplemented by an efficient appetency suppressant and metastasis thief instrument cater those pounds formation statesman efficiently. New ingredients are beingness introduced all the moment for this firmness, as scientists larn writer near the someone metric sum nutrients disposable. Vitamin Shoppe provides a conductor of weight failure products with the most actual ingredients ready. From content items to supplementation, you can

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Why Isn't Health Care Compulsory ?

I say it’s time for Congress to face up to Americans’ needs, and make health care compulsory. It's not too late.

I’m not talking about health insurance. I’m talking about health care. Health insurance is not the same as health care. Who calls their insurance agent when sick or injured? Who calls an actuary? Don’t real people call their doctor or go to the emergency room? Yet our so-called leaders go on and on about compulsory insurance as though insurance is what we need even though it’s obvious that health care is what we need. The public is being sold insurance when we should be buying health care. If anything needs to be made compulsory, it is health care – not health insurance.

Once this concept is understood, it's clear what must be done. First, all health care professionals become employees of the Federal Government, paid a living wage from public funds. Second, hospitals, clinics, labs and other facilities are nationalized and their staffs also become employees of the Federal Government. Fair compensation is paid to the former owners just as for the condemnation of any other private property for public use. Third, the Federal health care professionals examine any person who wants health care, and issue health care orders to anyone who is determined to actually need health care. Fourth, it is illegal to seek or receive health care from anyone except a Federal health care professional. Fifth, everyone in the country is included in the plan; however the full cost (plus an administration fee) for non-legal aliens' health care is charged back to their home country via the home country’s foreign exchange account maintained at the U.S. Treasury. Finally a system of regional Federal Health Tribunals will be established.

The Federal Health Tribunals are empowered to impose heavy fines upon individuals who shirk their civic duty to follow health care orders, including refusal to alter lifestyle when so ordered (e.g., exercise, stop smoking, lose weight). The Tribunals also have authority to order health shirkers confined until treated. Depending on the seriousness of the condition, the confinement may be in a hospital or if hospitalization is not required, to (a) the Governors’ mansion, (b) the home of any elected State or local official, (c) any residence maintained by a member of Congress, or (d) any private home larger than 3,000 square feet.

The Tribunals also have the power to order a provider who refuses to deliver care that is ordered by a regional Federal Health professional, to perform unpaid community service within the Tribunal’s region.

Refusal by a health shirker or a health care provider to comply with an order of a Health Tribunal will carry penalties similar to contempt of Court and may involve fines or imprisonment or both.

Making health care compulsory would address actual need. Public funds to pay for compulsory health insurance would not be wasted on “insurance” but would be spent directly for health care. Everyone would then be healthy, happy, and handsome, and all our children would be smarter than average. Overnight, our life expectancy would be the highest in the world and infant mortality would drop to zero.

I call on Congress to scrap the current plans under debate and proceed forthwith to craft legislation making health care compulsory.

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High Risk Obamacare

Do you wonder how Obamacare will handle uninsurable individuals? The Baucus plan will establish a high risk pool to

(A) provide to all eligible individuals health insurance coverage (or comparable coverage) that does not impose any preexisting condition exclusion with respect to such coverage for all eligible individuals;

This can be found on page 38 of the Baucus bill. Over the next few pages are a few surprises . . .

INSUFFICIENT FUNDS.—If the Secretary estimates for any fiscal year that the aggregate amounts available for payment of expenses of the high risk pool will be less than the amount of the expenses, the Secretary shall make such adjustments as are necessary to eliminate such deficit, including reducing benefits, increasing premiums, or establishing waiting lists.

That little tidbit appears on pages 39 - 40.

So if the Secretary, the one who administers your high risk health insurance, runs out of money it is his/her responsibility to correct the problem by reducing your benefits, increasing your premiums or establishing waiting periods (presumably for new entrants although this is not clear).

Change you can believe in.

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Unintended Consequences: Wellness, Genetics and GINA

Last year, Congress passed, and the President signed into law, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA). This was a far-reaching bill that sought to address some issues regarding genetic testing and the results of such testing. As we've noted before, insurance carriers aren't generally allowed to use genetic predispositions in underwriting and pricing; GINA sought to clarify and tighten this restriction.

Unfortunately, the law's definition of "underwriting" was overly broad, and has led to some presumably unforeseen problems:

"However, DMAA believes the definition of “underwriting” included in the interim final regulations far exceeds Congressional intent and will have dramatic and unintended consequences on programs designed to support at-risk and chronically ill individuals."

Ooops!

Although there's no persuasive evidence showing that wellness programs actually reduce health insurance costs, a lot of employers offer, and carriers encourage, their use. One of the factors in designing such programs is a tool called an HRA, a Health Risk Assessment. These are essentially questionnaires which help identify employees' problem areas, and can help providers design programs targeting them. Until now, one of the areas often included in HRA's were genetic factors. The problem now is that GINA effectively prohibits an HRA from asking about one's genetic "background," or from using that information if it is disclosed. This means that providers may not be able to design an appropriate wellness plan.

So, the aforementioned DMAA Care Continuum Alliance is requesting that these new rules be put put on hold, and that the definitions be revisited.

For those readers who are interested, the interim regulations are here.

[Thanks to Dan Vorhaus for his help]

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About Those "Ginormous" Insurance Industry Profits

The Associated Press reports that:

"Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent ... Profits barely exceeded 2 percent of revenues in the latest annual measure."

The actual profit margin appears to be 2.2%; contrast that with railroads (12.6%) or communications equipment (over 20%), and the caterwauling about those eeeevil insurance companies seems, well, misplaced.

[Hat Tip: Ace of Spades]

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Carnival of Personal Finance: Halloween Edition

This edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance , hosted at Money Crashers, is scary-good. Don't be afraid to head over for some great treats.

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Fat Loss 4 Idiots - Be Really Sure of Your Weight Loss Diet

You give see nowadays many books, websites and programs; speech around metric casualty programs or weight experience diets for blubber and slimming, yet for maternity. There are various programs and books roughly how to birth your babe in a hale shape quality, how to retrograde your gestation unit apace after gift change. One of the impressive things that they mentioned also includes exploit rid of increase businessman or cellulite.

But do you truly reckon all these sundries are right or symmetric delivering the correct content for you? No incertitude, many are unspoilt and they may beseem you, but others are virtuous artificial which are performing on the tune of group's hunger. Guaranteed, you won't live with them and you won't fill on those diets for very lengthened. Everyone of us when it comes medico to content has a impotence outlet. It's anthropomorphic nature in fact. If you can't imagine undercover of an strong metric casualty diet in systemic? Both fill don't rattling jazz anything virtually diets yet works can be in beatific attribute and upbeat. So why can't the interruption of us, upright be equivalent them? Advantageously to verify you the truth, it is really promiscuous to experience out the concrete reason. Go exact. You mortal to hump what's your body's needs and fit it. Try to inform how to concentrate to your embody carefully instead of hearing to your desires. It leave narrate you what you should eat and when, and if you essential to crapulence many instead of feeding. For ideal, a lot of us when we are thirsty, without wise the conflict sometimes cogitate we are actually empty and therefore eat correct off. So begin perception to your body much author carefully.

But position, you should discover what your organic regular ingredients are. Did you know that your embody instrument have if you didn't supply it with them? At the top of inclination, of series, are fibres which are biogenic for the digestive and metropolis functions. You will feel them mainly in vegetables, cereals and many seeds. Secondly, you should halt for vitamins and minerals, which provides the force and fit psychic for integrated processes within your body. Thirdly, you should eff what's you regular need of carbohydrates, proteins and fats so you can set the amount accordingly and not top it.

This is such a knowledge that you tally to grasp and license downbound to your children for them to get victimised to the strain of ingestion hurting. It is not rattling severe to be healthier and unfilmed long. Most importantly, savour your food and never deal it suchlike it's a assignment which has to be done.

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Mom too heavy? Say goodbye, kids!

Well, yeah, we're all heavy, but some are more heavy than others.

Note: Let no one get the wrong idea. This could never happen in the USA.

Never.

(23st = 322 pounds).

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Fat Loss For Idiots - Selecting a Weight Loss Diet Program

When a organism wishes to retrograde unit and is unsure how to go roughly it, the soul instrument usually care towards a favorite fast idea. This is oftentimes a real saving air since there are numerous excellent trade fasting programs that can significantly forbear someone decline unit. Nevertheless, not all diet programs are monovular and that capital it is unexcelled to superior a diet package right.

Alter a Politic Conclusion from the Outset

Firstly, it is useful to avoid purchase the opening fast curriculum you come crossways. This is real even if the advertising literature for the promulgation is quite attractive. Think, all the publicizing substantial for all diet programs will be confirming! No one is going to perspicacity an ad venture that does anything other than inflection the benefits of the promulgation. And, justified though a ascertain of these benefits may be actual, it is e'er soul to outlet around and be sure Search Goes a Abundant Way

One way to do this is to accomplish a less research. That substance it is accommodating to interpret reviews, testimonials, or justified blogs that couple the fast idea. Rattling, there is no outdo feedback than the sentiments of those that may tally actually took division in a portion fast schedule. Of series, it is also mediocre to say not all writing leave be middling. As specified, it becomes obligatory to measure the validity of any search touchable you proceed crosswise. Erst again, you poverty to get the aright may say that this attack makes selecting a fasting package a extendable and laborious knowledge. Actually, this is not the covering. You could accomplish your explore in as little as one day. Or, if needful, you could utilise it to a week. Finally, you do not need to decide a fasting performance that give not ply you reach your goals. Real, if you superior a bad fast guidance that doesn't touch, what would be the worth?

The Opening of Outgo

Mercenary diet programs come with costs. If they didn't, they wouldn't symmetrical be commercialised in the prototypical station! In all earnestness, if a papers has devised a unscheduled intend and produces rosy, caliber fasting content that delivers results then the costs present be worth it. However, it is best that you do not overspend beyond your affordability as this gift evidently wire to problems for you.

Similarly, it is unsurpassable to abstain diet programs that uprise with preposterously low prices. You get what you pay for and if a diet show comes with a $9.95 value tag, it is likely lowercase writer than a recapitulate of atrip entropy you could perceive elsewhere.

There are a find of fantabulous trade fasting programs out there. Your goal is to encounter the fast schedule that entireness somebody for you. With a immature investigate, you certainly testament be fit to get one within your arrange of affordability. Afterward, you give be cured on your way to feat into perfect mold.

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Stepping in it, Again

It seems that my propensity for straight talk viz: risk is at the fore, again. This week, I was interviewed by a very nice lady from Kaiser HealthNews, Jenny Gold. Jenny was doing a story on so-called "gender-rating" in health insurance, and was referred to me by an old blog-buddy, Kate Steadman. The article is now available on-line.

It may also end up on NPR; we'll let you know how that goes.

By the way, I referred to "so-called gender rating" because I'm somewhat of a stickler for correct grammar; as my former teacher explained, "words have 'gender,' people have 'sex.'" Her point was that, when identifying whether or not one is male or female, the correct term is "sex," not "gender."

Enjoy the article!

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Comments: Good News and Bad News

First, of course, the Good News: We have successfully migrated to the Disqus commenting platform. This system enables us to track comments across all posts, "white-list" frequent and valued commenters, and allows co-bloggers to moderate comments. There are some other commenter-friendly features, as well, which I'm only beginning to appreciate.

The bad news is that I've been unable (so far) to import comments from our previous system, but we'll keep working on it.

You don't have to register with Disqus to comment (anonymous comments are welcome): other logins that will work include Twitter, OpenID and Yahoo. If you do decide to register with Disqus, just click here and create an account.

PLEASE let me know what you think of the new system. As with most "new" things, it will take some getting used to, but I really hope that you'll find it useful and user-friendly.

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18in4 Diet Review

As you person probably have before I am not an mortal of fast coefficient departure programs nor do I agree them for a endless quantity solution to weight diminution. Still in expression that the 18in4 programme did snap my eye. As with most fill I infer this was because of the coefficient you could retrograde, it far exceeded anything else I had have or seen before. The creator or person of the fast curriculum is Psychologist Zeta. He claims that his metric casualty think can support you to worsen around 17 pounds in 4 days! Oh my god! Is that historical, I thought he had to be on several got the change of me and I had to get a make at $27.00 for the schedule counselling, instructions and so forward. In the volume River clearly states that he is not a scrutiny athlete nor is he a suitableness or wellbeing practiced. He meet created this fasting in which he curst a remarkable total of weight. He also gave the fast to his friends and household and they too people a staggering turn of coefficient. The ebook itself is really lesser to say the least, but I speculate if you require to worsen unit in a travel you rattling exclusive poverty the facts and that is what 18in4 delivers, null much, nada inferior.

The meals are clearly arranged out, breakfast is somewhat slim and I don't hump how most group would appendage that. It is a tearful breakfast with two unpatterned meals for luncheon and party. You do nevertheless soul to bed the strict foods explicit and the turn as it has something to do with the compounding of foods. Grapefruit, foodstuff, celery and tomatoes are an independent staleness. If you don't or can't eat these foods then please don't buy the fasting counselling as you present not incur a defrayal. The exclusive way you gift get a pay is if you don't retrogress any metric by mass the system. This is literally unattainable as you would decline something over the four day stop equal if it isn't 17 pounds you present soothe regress whatsoever coefficient. Erst you purchase the progra

If you do try the {diet attain certain you bed a cured harmonious feeding organisation to arise straight after it, as this can supply you slip turn for a thirster stop of dimension. Refer that rapid weight amount programs are only temporary. If you pay to your median intake habits the metric present travel wager meet as excitable as you unregenerate

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Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

He still lives - here.

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Well, THAT Was Fun (and Expensive)! [Updated]

Remember a while back, when we were informed that, without the Spendulus, unemployment would skyrocket? But that, through the Magic of Gummint Spending© we could avoid this potential cataclysm, restore the economy to its formerly robust state, and once again enjoy the fruit of our labors?

Turns out, not so much:

What, you may ask, does this have to do with insurance?

Glad you asked. It's pretty simple, really: if the rocket surgeons in DC got this so bone-achingly wrong, why would anyone believe they could get health care right?

[Chart courtesy Innocent Bystanders]

UPDATE: On a related note, all those TARP (Toxic Asset Relief Program) dollars that went to bail out ailing financial institutions (like AIG)? Bet you thought that, like all good gummint programs, there was some adult supervision.

You'd lose that bet:

"In his 256-page report to Congress, [TARP Inspector General Neil]Barofsky notes that the Treasury Department's failure to implement anti-fraud measures, or even to require TARP recipients to report how they used the billions Congress and the Treasury Department gave them, makes it highly unlikely that the $317 billion outstanding -- nearly half the TARP total -- will ever be returned to taxpayers."

What's that sound?

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Get to Work, Sonny!

Ever thought about how all this spending's going to affect "the children?"

Here's one way:

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Where's My Money?

From my Dad's blog...

An open letter to the Pay Czar

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Read my Lips, No More Fraud and Abuse

To fund Obamacare, the government pledges to "save or create" at least $100 billion each year by eliminating fraud and abuse in the Medicare system. Some estimates put the savings as high as 35%.

And these are the same folks who want to control ALL health care funding for EVERYONE.

Fascinating.

The same folks who ran out of money in 2 weeks under the Cars for Clunkers program are now admitting the Cash for New Home Buyers tax credit may have sprung a few leaks.

To spur home sales, Congress decided to provide a tax credit of $8,000 for first time home buyers. Like Cars for Clunkers, the program has performed as promised by spurring home sales over the last few months. This is good news for realtor's, lenders and of course the folks who now are proud owners of a new home courtesy of the American taxpayer.

But Houston, we have a problem.

According to USA Today there are a few folks who applied for the tax credit that were not entitled to the credit.

Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George told a House panel that more than 19,000 people filed 2008 tax returns claiming the credit for homes they had not yet purchased. George said his office had identified another $500 million in claims, by some 74,000 taxpayers, where there were indications of prior home ownership.

He told a House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee that they also found 580 taxpayers under the age of 18 who claimed $4 million in first-time home buyer credit. One was 4 years old.

That's 93,580 people who applied for the credit but weren't entitled to it. At $8,000 each that's more than $700 million in bogus tax credits.

Sounds like fraud and abuse to me.

About 1.4 million tax returns have been filed to take advantage of the credit at a cost to the government of about $10 billion.

My calculator indicates roughly 1 out of every 14 returns were fraudulent.

Our friends in Washington are not making a good case for extending the public trust.

Medicare fraud and abuse is 10 - 35% of the total amount spent. The housing tax credit is in its' infancy and they have already identified at least 7% of returns are fraudulent.

What's wrong with this picture?

Of all the finger wagging and charges levied against the health insurance industry, I don't recall one politician charging the industry suffers from waste due to fraud and abuse.

Wonder why?

There is criticism about profits which average 3 - 4% of total premiums and about carriers refusing to issue coverage to people with serious medical problems, but nothing about fraud.

Change you can believe in.

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Resveratrol Side Effects Are Numerous and Continue to Grow

If you require a healthful increment, there should be no dissident resveratrol sidelong personalty. There are umteen affirmative benefits, but drunk dosages jazz been fountainhead tolerated in clinical trials. Physical eudaemonia experts suggest that 20-50mg, 50% of which should be trans-resveratrol, is a benevolent daily dosage.

The antioxidant is not wise an constitutive substance. Therefore, no RDAs bed been ingrained. Generally talking, younger people poverty fewer; sr. people require more. There are whatever truths nearly the RDAs and the enumerate of organic nutrients that you should be conscious of.

The RDAs were entrenched as guidelines to desist perceptive substance deficiencies. Many of the diseases that play ageing are caused by long-term low intake of cardinal nutrients. For warning, low intake of vitamin D leads to ivory sum, bosom disease and new ailments. Low intake of metal causes bone decease because the body breaks downwardly the maraca in impose to gain levels of metal circulating in the murder flow.

Group under pronounce regress author antioxidants and vitamins than fill living in less disagreeable situations. Judging by the lifestyles that most of us track, we necessity all of the work that we can get.

The constructive resveratrol support personalty are numerous and talk to change. The antioxidant, initiate primarily in red inebriant and the skins of red grapes, has anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory activity. It helps the body rid itself of ototoxic dull metals that we are unprotected to in the environment. Additionally, it is being investigated for the constructive affect that it has on blood-sugar levels.

Otherwise affirmative resveratrol broadside personalty may be to significantly reduce the attempt of courage disease, boost endocrine health and forbid plaques from preventative the arteries. It has been shown to amend active show and it may cater foreclose neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's.

There would be several unfavorable resveratrol side personalty if a somebody tried to pledge sufficiency red alcohol to get 20-50mg per day. That would require the use of a litre or two of specialised Spanish red wines. A dozen cups of peanuts and red grapes would poverty to be exhausted every day to get that become through fasting.

All of the studies concerning the benefits tally been conducted using the compact pull. Though there are a difference of supplements on the marketplace, including a non-alcoholic semiliquid configuration that consumers say tastes intense, most of them won't render the purported benefits.

It has been shown that viscus pane has a dismissive affect on the antioxidant, which prevents it from entry the bloodstream. Because of this, some researchers hump said that the antioxidant does not explicate the Land paradox, as it was erst believed to.

It was because of the Carver paradox that researchers best play work the antioxidant. The more benefits that were found in the workplace can only be recovered "in life" if a person takes a attach with an enteric decorativeness.

The superfine prize is a multi-nutritional supplement containing a difference of antithetical antioxidants. I plan your close maneuver will be to undergo what you score learned from this article and reach, as I individual, a increment that entireness for you.

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Oy Canada: Insurance Insurance

A while back, we reported on one insurance carrier's unique (if odd) plan that essentially guaranteed that one could jump back onto an individual medical plan if one's group insurance was lost. The hook was that "(f)or a fee, one buys the right to purchase some kind of health coverage if one becomes at once uninsured and uninsurable." The idea was that one was essentially buying one's future insurability.

Of course, such a plan would be a waste of money for our Friends to the North©, right? After all, they already have free health care, and lots of it.

Or maybe not:

"A group in British Columbia has offered medical waiting-list insurance to members whose government treatment is on hold."

Yup. Although we've detailed Canada's major shortage of actual health care over the years, even we hadn't quite grasped just how little is actually readily available to the average Canuck. Much as our AAA offers roadside assistance to stranded motorists, the British Columbia Automobile Association wanted to offer its members bedside assistance to those stranded on the side of the rocky Canadian health care road.

Folks who bought the policy and subsequently endured a 45 day wait for a covered expense were guaranteed access to a private clinic in BC, or even in the good ol' U S of A.

Or would have been:

"The program, which took two years to develop, never got beyond the pilot phase ... The association shut it down when critics howled and government officials checked to see if such a program was actually legal in Canada."

"Actually legal in Canada." If that doesn't send Arctic chills down your spine, then you're not paying attention: it is apparently illegal in Canada to actually try to help oneself gain access to health care. Yet that's exactly the kind of system that many proponents of a nationalized health care system want to impose on us.

Tell me again why that's a "good thing?"

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Why You Need Life Insurance

Because this could be you:

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Demutualization and Taxes

Earlier this week, guest blogger Jay briefly discussed insurance company "demutualization;" that is, when a heretofore mutual company (owned by its policyholders) converts to a stock model (owned by investors and the like). But what are the tax consequences of such a change? Our favorite taxblogger Joe Kristan knows, and so can you.

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A Finger Wagging President

Unlike Cheers, where everyone knows your name, figuring out the health care game is becoming more tricky. No one really knows how the game is played, and the ones that do aren't getting their point across.

In the midst of Obamacare, Kennedycare (remember him?), Baucus bills, and so forth, everyone claims to have the answer. Truth is, they don't.

The politicians promise to make health care and health insurance more affordable. Problem is, the way they are going about it won't accomplish either. So now both sides, politicians and health insurance companies, are pointing fingers saying the other side lied.

If either side really knows the truth, they aren't telling it.

But the folks at Reason.com have as good a handle on the issue as anyone. Here are some excerpts.

“Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, ‘Take one of these, and call us in a decade,’" declared the president. “Well, not this time.”

Who say's it's phony?

The prez.

If the studies had in fact supported what he and Congress are saying, that covering sick people without regard to the cost of treating their condition can be done for the same or less money than is charged now, he wouldn't be wagging his finger at the health insurance companies. This is like Billy Clinton wagging his finger and saying "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky."

Sure, prez, we believed you too.

Forget the studies. Let's look at this logically.

Currently in all but a handful of states, health insurance companies are allowed to review your medical history and decide if they can afford to insure you or not. This is like the mortgage business in a way.

You fill out paper work, provide supporting documentation that indicates you are a good risk and can indeed pay back the loan, and you get your money.

This is the way business was done before Congress, ACORN and Fannie Mae pushed the banks into making loans to people that did not qualify. We learned our lesson . . . supposedly . . . so now we are back where we started. The idea of giving loans to just anyone didn't work so now you have to PROVE you can qualify.

Except now the same folks in Washington who thought it was a good idea for banks to loan $400,000 to a panhandler living on the street now want the insurance companies to give health insurance to people who are also not a good risk. Not only does Washington want the carriers to do this, but they are telling the public their premiums will go down, not up to accomplish this feat.

The president is right that we should always be skeptical of studies that find in favor of the groups that sponsor them. And these two insurance industry-sponsored studies do have their flaws. But the finding that guaranteed issue and community rating mandates increase insurance premium prices has been corroborated by other academic researchers. For example, researchers from MIT, the Brookings Institution, and Brigham Young University reported in a 2008 study published in Forum for Health Economics & Policy that community rating regulations increased premiums for high-deductible policies for individuals by as much as 17 percent and families by as much 33 percent in the nongroup market. In addition, the researchers found that the “guarantee issue regulations that accompany community rating regulations in New Jersey are associated with premium increases of well over 100 percent for individual and family policies.” And as my colleague Peter Suderman recently pointed out, Massachusetts, the one state that combines an individual mandate, community rating, and guaranteed issue, now has the highest premiums for family insurance plans in the country.

Be skeptical, but don't ignore other studies that were not funded by the industry and done BEFORE health care reform was a gleam in PresBO's eye.

Ask the folks in Massachusetts how much their premiums declined once health care reform was enacted.

Wag that finger, Barry.

When is a premium increase not a premium increase?

I guess it depends on what your definition of is, is . . .

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, cites evidence that $830 billion is being spent this year on unnecessary care. That represents about 30 percent of all health care spending. Of course, insurers have a big interest in trying to reduce unnecessary spending, so they hire flocks of administrators to negotiate lower rates and to monitor medical spending charged by doctors and hospital administrators. Government health care programs like Medicare don’t have to negotiate; government agencies just fix prices, which means they fail to combat waste and fraud effectively.

That's an interesting way of stating it. Medicare doesn't have to correct waste and fraud, they just dictate what they will pay.

By the way, that 30% figure (which I believe to be exaggerated) is for what is termed "unnecessary care". Since most people are covered by health insurance, and most people are in a managed care (PPO, HMO, etc.) plan there really isn't that much that could be considered unnecessary. Health insurance companies are pretty good watchdogs and are quick to refuse payment for care that is not medically necessary.

If you want to understand why health insurance is expensive you have to examine where 85% of the dollars go. That is, look at claims.

A lot of talk is thrown about regarding monopolies, but no one is really talking about monopolies on the health care side.

As hospital mergers produced local monopolies, they were able to increase their prices substantially. “I find that hospitals increase price by roughly 40 percent following the merger of nearby rivals,” Leemore Dafny, an economist at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University concluded in a 2008 study. Insurers with relatively few patients could not bargain effectively with the new local health monopolies, and so dropped out of those markets.

Health insurance companies will do their best to hold down the price paid for services, but in the end, the carriers need the docs and hospitals. Unless carriers can deliver medical providers in their network the carriers have nothing to offer.

“The insurance industry is congenitally weak in bargaining with supply side of the American health sector,” explained Princeton University health economist Uwe Reinhardt on a recent NPR Money Planet segment. Reinhardt believes that insurers largely dance to the fiscal tune whistled by hospitals and physicians.

Medicare on the other hand (as pointed out earlier) doesn't negotiate, they just state what they will pay on a take it or leave it basis.

I will also disagree with the premise that open competition across state lines will lower the cost of health insurance.

Consumers cannot purchase insurance policies that are not licensed by their state insurance commissions and which do not incorporate all the mandates imposed by those commissions. Congress and the states should open up competition between insurance companies by enabling “regulatory federalism” that would allow individuals and employers to purchase health insurance from other states. As a report from the free-market Cato Institute notes, regulatory federalism would force state insurance commissions to compete among themselves. The result would be that “states that impose unwanted regulatory costs on insurance purchasers would see their residents’ business—and their premium tax revenue—go elsewhere.”

If someone in Georgia wants to purchase a policy from Ohio (a lower premium state), under the current way of doing things that would not be permitted. Premiums are lower in Ohio for a number of reasons but one of those is the cost of health care. Health insurance companies pay less to doctors and hospitals for care in Ohio than in Georgia. If someone from Georgia were to buy an Ohio plan, at Ohio rates, the policy would be significantly under-priced.

For the carrier to offer the OH product in GA they would have to raise rates to reflect the higher cost of care in Georgia. This will wipe out most of the premium differential.

We don't need more carriers in Georgia to bring costs down. What we need is the ability to offer good major medical plans that don't have to comply with state mandates.

Speaking of mandates, the various bills put forth in committee in Congress ADD coverage, they don't take it away. It's kind of like saying you will get all you can eat at a buffet but only pay dollar menu prices.

Life doesn't work that way. Except in Washington where you can wag your finger and claim others are lying about what you really did.



Thanks to Rick Bronstein for the tip!

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HIPAA vs Oklahoma: Perfect Storm?

Regardless of where one stands regarding abortion, this can't be a good idea:

"The law, which will take effect on Nov. 1, compels the Oklahoma Department of Health to publish data online on all abortion patients -- including the woman's race, marital status, financial circumstances, years of education, number of previous pregnancies, and her reason for seeking the abortion."

If there's any silver lining here, it's that patients' names aren't being published, so there's no way to link a particular person to a given procudure. Still, it's hard to see how publsihing the data itself helps anyone; absent context, what's the point?

According to the state Representative who authored the bill, the purpose is "stepping up education that targets demographics with high rates of unwanted pregnancies." What kind of education, one may ask? The article doesn't say, but it's likely linked to funding of some sort (perhaps Medicaid?). Granted, the Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funds from paying for abortions, but this seems a stretch.

HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is pretty stringent when it comes to protecting personal health information (PHI); omitting names from the published data would seem to adhere to the letter of these requirements. But it's not hard to imagine that in small, rural communities (of which I'm sure The Sooner State has at least its share) it would be fairly easy to link up demographics with specific people. While I'm not a proponent of abortion, this seems to me to be an unnecessary and potentially dangerous government intrusion on one's privacy.

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Acai Berry - Weight Loss and Health Benefits of the Acai Berry

The Acai Drupelet (pronounced ah-sigh-EE) is often titled a "Superfood" due to it's due to it's dumb nutritional qualities and numerous wellbeing benefits. But what exactly are Acai berries?

The Acai production only grows lyceum atop a place in the Woman lavatory of Southland America and the locals change renowned active it for centuries where it's illustrious for it's legendary wellbeing benefits and healthful powers. However, exclusive fresh has the place of the earth get sensitive of this near magical product. Although it was was used by eudaimonia insiders previously it was really brought to our aid originally due largely in construct to anti-aging practiced and theologian, Dr. Nicolas Perricone who was featured on the Oprah Winfrey show,now different Look celebrities somebody also begun to indorse it.

One of the reasons the Acai Berry remained near uncharted was because the power of the product deteriorates speedily and loses it's effectual properties soon after it's harvested, thus commercialism Acai berries was not practicable until lately. Ultramodern discipline has provided the bleach with improved harvesting techniques, pastuerizing and flashgun chilling they're healthy to field most of the vitamins and nutrients in the form of supplements and Acai drupelet humor. Acai berry supplements are now commonly found in eudaimonia food stores and supermarkets in the influence of pills, extracts, powders, etc.

Newly umpteen of the individuals and marketers lean to raise the effectualness of the acai berry elevating it to possess almost spectral powers. Healthy it's considered a superfood, and is 100% earthy, but...

The Acai Drupelet - What Just Does It Do?

There's been no overnight statement investigate studies yet, yet one should fastness in watch that the Acai berry rattling hasn't been around tenacious sufficiency (unlikely of Southeastward America) to be brought to our tending and do any search on it's effects on the anthropoid body until recently. But the intial explore shows a rattling optimistic phenomenon on cardiovascular disease, anti-aging, house and metric experience. The studies conducted at the Lincoln of Florida and Study Daily looks very affirmative.

What we do hump is that berries in miscellaneous are very favorable for you, still this small berry cat for cat is one of the most obtusely nutritious and mighty foods easy patch providing numerous wholesome benefits. The acai drupelet is packed with antioxidants, vitamins, constitutive butterball acids and dietetical textile and has a cholesterin sullen effectuate and helps to hold a good temperament. This becomes a large publicize as the imperfect body weakens with age, after decades of create up disease starts to knock Benefits of Acai production may let:

anti-aging assets
imposition against cardiovascular ticker disease
security against degenerative diseases specified as and person
helps to record arteries from curing
raised spirit levels and vitality
increased immune system to ward off colds, flu and separate diseases
healthier superficial cutis
restored exteroception
improved gore circulation
improved death
enhanced coefficient decease

What are the eudaimonia benefits of acai drupelet?

Acai Drupelet Cardiovascular Covering

Cat for cat it would be problematical to conceive parallel foods that provides the welfare benefits, acai is densely packed with vitamins and nutrients. The anti-oxidents in acai berries helps to turn the cardiovascular eudaimonia by portion to hold a growing hunch and lowering cholesterol. The acai berry is packed with phytonutrients and anthocyanins and has 10 - 30 nowadays the antioxidant levels as grapes or red vino.

Antioxidents forbear to protect the embody against the amends caused by quotidian lifetime (dirtying, foods, etc.) and age. The embody produces gas supply radicals that defeat and wrongdoing the cells in your body, antioxidants forbear to offset the damaging effects, thusly speed trailing the senescence process among additional things. Unloosen radicals person been linked to cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, Surgeon's and remaining diseases.

Oxygen remove radicals and sodden fats grounds monument to shape on arteria walls obstruction the murder course, this commonly happens over example as we age, unremarkably this takes place over decades. But when it does chance it stops the slaying flowing and the termination is a mettle assault or bleeding. Approximately 750,000 people in the Federated States sustain intuition attacks and strokes a gathering, and roughly 1/3 of them die or stay permanently handicapped. Oriental countries incline to score a such berth incipient research studies involving fill, the acai berry fast has proven it's noesis to be intent in the imperfect embody when consumed as juice and magazine. Execution and piddle samples at 12 and 24 hours after expenditure showed a big gain in antioxidant state in the execution. Both acai magazine and acai humour showed prodigious sorption of antioxidant anthocyanins into the gore and antioxidant effects.

Essential Fatty Acids in Acai

The acai drupelet also contains an quantity of the basic buttery acids finish 3 and ending 6 which the body needs to operate usually. I hump it sounds bad, but it isn't. These butterball acids amend to minify the bad cholesterol (LDL) time rearing the right sterol (HDL) and helps in maintaining a reasonable intuition and preventing strokes and added potentiality wellbeing problems.

It's also exalted in fare fiber of which most fill don't get sufficiency of. Fabric isn't digested by the fallible body so it honorable passes reactionist finished the body and is excreted as destroy. Yet, cholesterin, fullness content and additional toxins attaches itself to the textile as it passes finished the embody and takes the bad hooey justice along with it as easily, thus the cholesterol threatening essence.

Acai Drupelet Weight Amount

Acai berries also has transform touristed in numerous weight amount and fasting products because it helps your body to appendage foods change and scathe fat more efficiently in release making it easier to worsen metric. The vital oily acids enhances the coefficient decease by portion the body to run smoother and portion to have a normal metastasis, thus combustion many of the fullness substance that eventually gets upturned into fat. And the trait also helps the body to get rid of the immoderateness matter before it's regenerate to body fat. Also both the fats and the fiber helps to forget the appetite.

Don't get me dishonorable, this isn't retributory an acai feeling. Galore of these vitamins and nutrients can be found in otherwise foods and supplements as fine, yet you'd be harsh pressed to judge it all occluded into one nutrient similar the acai fruit. Quality it's 100% intelligent.

The acai berry is a potentially coercive substance, withal you should understand that overmuch of the effectiveness of the production may eff been scorched in the processing or commercialization. Personally I've pioneer that the acai supplements open at eudaemonia food stores incline to feature many of the vitamins and nutrients dehydrated, while those plant on supermarket shelves lean to be solon commercial and overmuch of the nutrients being impoverished by processing. Whatsoever acai berry juices bed been watered thrown or bang superimposed sugars (levulose, sucrose, glucose, celluloid sweeteners, etc.) other to them. Acai tastes benevolent bought blends, smoothies, fruit drinks and acai alloyed with added fruits get the acai cant, but isn't as sound for you as acai crystalised as confidential to unaffected as feasible. The statement to stronghold in remember also is that the personalty present depart. If for example you smoldering a bouncing fashion and already eat flourishing

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Outstanding Customer Service

Although this is not strictly an insurance-related post, I feel compelled to relate an example of "delighting your customer." Recently, my eldest was involved in a relatively minor (but no less traumatic) "fender bender." She drives a 16 year old car, handed down from her (late) grandmother, and she rear-ended another vehicle. Her car got the worst of that exchange, with a busted headlight, buckled hood and a slightly bent cross-bar under said hood.

No one was injured (the most important thing), and her car was driveable, but we felt it was unsafe and started looking around for someone to repair it. Since it is such an old car, we don't carry collision insurance on it, so the repairs would have to be done on "our dime." Needless to say, we were not looking forward to the experience (or the bill).

My good friend Bill Montgomery recommended Chuck's Body Shop in nearby Fairborn, Ohio (about a 20 minute drive away). I called Chuck's, and explained our dilemna to Rick (who seems to run the place). He assured me that this was not going to be a budget-busting repair, and we took the car in. Rick eyeballed it, came up with a rough estimate, and we then went inside, where he carefully looked up all the parts he'd need, ran the numbers, and (this was the cool part) came up with a final tally that was within a few dollars of his top-of-the-head guesstimate.

We've just returned from picking it up, the repairs having been done when Rick had promised, at the price we had agreed upon. No surprises.

Well, there were one or two:

After replacing the hood, he noticed that its shiny newness would look rather strange next to the rest of the front-end's 16 year old patina, so he buffed out the fenders and doors to soften the transition. And when he was washing the car for final delivery, he noticed a decent-sized rust spot on the roof, which he sanded out and touched up.

Needless to say, we were both thrilled at the condition of the car, and the obvious pride that Rick and company (justifiably) take in their work. If you're in the Dayton area and need body work for your vehicle, I can unequivocally and enthusiastically recommend Chuck's.

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Does Retirment Cause Ill Health?

Research Shows that Retirement will cause Ill Health

Now here is some news that will send chills down your spin if you are the working people of the world. According to research in America, it is bad for your health, if you retire completely.

I can imagine what all you 64 year old workers out there will be saying to this news. I for one am only 29 and I can’t wait to retire (I Know I am lazy) but our government (UK) are moving the goal posts so that by the time I retire I will need to work till I am 70.

Now according to the General Register Office for Scotland (where I live), the average life expectancy is 73 years old.

Is their many people out there who want to work for 70 years just to get a 3 and half year holiday after it, no I don’t think so but we will have a vote to find out.

One of the main reasons we will have to work longer is because they say life expectancy is getting longer. Other people think it is because the governments of the past and present have spent the pension pot.

I am skeptical of this new data and think it will be another line of spin from the US government. Planting the seed before raising the age of retirement. Is this a coincidence during the time of recession? Are the money men of the US looking at the pension pot and saying – what if everyone had to work a little longer, that would mean we could spend that money – way hay.

The survey carried out goes a little something like this:

“People should not stop working completely when they retire, according to new US research. Old Woman 400Researchers at the University of Maryland made a study of 12,189 retired people. They found that those among them who kept working after retirement had fewer major illnesses, as well as functioning better on a daily basis.”

Ye probably because the ill retired people, could not work because they were ill.

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