The magic keys to healthcare insurance reform are cost containment and coverage expansion. To a lesser extent, federal debt reduction might also be included in this equation. The latest bill to come out of the House of Representatives is getting pretty close. In my mind, expansion of coverage is both a moral issue and a […]
Roger Cohen of the Times has recently weighed in on the health insurance debate with a piece that dissects our American psyche as self-reliant individualists. He says "A public commitment to universal coverage is not character-sapping but character-affirming. Medicare did not make us less American. " Looking at the increasingly dizzying array of "options" that […]
I am 54 years old. I am slightly over 6 feet tall and weigh 183 lbs. My cholesterol level is ridiculously low and my blood pressure was 130/78 last time I measured it. I avoid red meat and eat an almost exclusively Mediterranean diet. My workouts at the gym would put many much younger men […]
"Obesity and with it diabetes are the only major health problems that are getting worse in this country, and they're getting worse rapidly," according to Dr. Thomas Frieden, speaking on Monday, July 27,2009 at the CDC's first major conference on the obesity crisis. "Two-thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese, and the average American […]
“Many seniors are unaware that they can be saving hundreds of dollars every year by choosing a different drug plan, because there are entirely too many choices for them to navigate,” says Yaniv Hanoch, lead author of a recently published survey on Medicare Part D and lecturer at the University of Plymouth, School of Psychology, […]
It's clear that President Obama has made healthcare reform a priority for this year's legislative agenda. While all the Democratic players, including Senators Kennedy, Baucus and Schumer, do not necessarily agree on the details, they are ready to deal. The Republicans seem to be stuck in an alternative universe that does not include anything close […]
Medicare Advantage plans were set up by private insurance companies ostensibly to give older Americans more benefits and a better plan than traditional Medicare. The problem is that these plans are subsidized by the federal government. Once those subsidies go away, believe me, the plans will too. It happened before in the late 1990s when […]
After almost 40 years in the wilderness, environmentalism has hit the mainstream, again, only this time it has more urgency. No longer is it a fringe concern. To underscore how mainstream it has become, most companies now have some kind of initiative to "go green." But the latest trend, according to JWT Intelligence, a trend spotting group […]