health care plans obamacare

<div style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="health care plans obamacare" height="500" src="https://resources.ehealthinsurance.com/wp-content/uploads/Major-medical-and-QHP.png" title="health care plans obamacare" width="500" /> </div> <div align="justify"><p>obamacare alternative </p></div> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z8mWQ0Rv9vI?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

health care plans obamacare

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health care plans for 2016

<div style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="health care plans for 2016" height="500" src="https://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/8747-figure-1.png" title="health care plans for 2016" width="500" /> </div> <div align="justify"><p>bob: welcome. i’m bob burton, and i’mhere today with chris owen, marketing manager for the calpers health benefits program forpublic agencies and schools. we want to welcome everyone to the 2016 calpers health plan rateand benefit changes webinar. chris and i are here today to have a conversation about nextyear’s health plan rates and benefit changes. so chris, what can you tell us about the ratesand benefits for next year? chris: well thank you bob. let’s take alook at the overview we’ve got for the 2016 where we look at the overall health premiumchanges which will be a percentage of change for all the hmo, ppo, and association plans.next, we’re going to take a look at individual premium changes which will cover thestate of california as well as our five regional </p> <p>rates as well as association plans and ourout of state health plans. next, we are going to talk about 2016 health program changeswhich we will go over the plans that will be expanding their areas and offer differentservices for next year. next, we’re going to take a look at the health program benefitchanges which will cover a new benefit such as the new single payer supplement to medicareplan. then, we’re going to do a recap on the dev project. and lastly, we’ll coversome information and resources for open enrollment. bob: sounds similar to what we went over lastyear. before we dive into this, is there anything employers need to know about this webinarspecifically? like how they can ask questions or access supplemental information? </p> <p>chris: yes, based on feedback from last yearwe want to be clear that this is a pre-recorded webinar as it does save time and help to targetthe subjects for next year and it also gives us the time to research all the answers weare going to get from questions that have been submitted on the webinar, from variousprogram areas. that being said, we encourage questions and comments during this webinarusing the submission box on your screen and we also would direct you to some feedbackvia a short survey at the end of this webinar to help us improve future webinars. there’salso a dialogue box that’s located on your screen for a download of all supplementalinformation such as this script and slides as well as information about the health planchooser. </p> <p>bob: alright, beginning with the first topicof our overview, explain what you mean by “overall health premium changes for 2016”? chris: well, depending on upon what kind ofagency you are working for will determine the kinds of plans you’re going to takea look at and we are going to briefly go through each plan type and show average increasesfor next year. bob: so you mean all of the hmos, ppos, associationplans, medicare plans etc…? chris: that is correct. bob: so here we begin with the basic hmo’snow chris at 7.21%. this means that if i am currently in an hmo the average increase forall of the hmos went up 7.21%. </p> <p>chris: that is correct. it’s the same kindof idea when we are taking a look at the ppos, the basic association, then the medicare hmosupplement, medicare supplement ppo, as well as the medicare supplement association. bob: just so i understand you chris, for thosehealth benefit officers out there that are with the csu campuses or judges and legislators,you’ll probably pay more attention to the hmo and ppo percentage increases, while correctionalfacilities for example would interested in the basic association changes? chris: that’s correct. basically becauseyou know your california correctional peace officers have access to the basic associationplan, the ccpoa association plan, while the </p> <p>csu, and jlrs would look at hmo and ppo changessince those are the kinds of plans their employees would be more interested in. bob: so what plans your employees are moreconcerned with will depend on what kind of agency they work for. chris: that’s very accurate. just kind ofkeeping in mind it’s a picture of average premium changes for 2016 and is meant to givea general idea of those changes for next year based on plan type. as it is with every newcontract year some plans went down and others went up and calpers is always striving tokeep overall keep healthcare premiums in check. bob: alright, it seems most members and retireesare likely more interested in what their current </p> <p>health plan premium will be for 2016. what’sthe point of giving average increases? chris: well, the rates when they first comeout are kind of the first rung on the ladder that all members and employers take a lookat. because calpers is one of the largest purchasers of health insurance in the unitedstates, many sees us as an indicator of industry trends and lots of health benefit officerswould like to compare other regional prices to their own. that being said, we’re goingto take a look at individual plan changes by region once we first go over the statepremiums for all state and csu active employees. bob: is there really a reason for the statepremiums as a key to understanding regional premium rates? </p> <p>chris: well not exactly, it’s just simplythat the state premiums are first created for all of our state active employees andthen the regional rating is done to reflect the cost of health care for each of thoseareas. bob: so these premiums are for all of thestate of california and csu employees? chris: correct. now when we look at the bayarea, you can see how they differ from the state premiums. here is the sacramento region.health net added smartcare to several counties for northern california so you will note thatthere won’t be a percentage change for that health plan for next year. bob: do regions ever change? </p> <p>chris: not this year. last year, the regionalchange we had was the yolo county being grouped with the sacramento region instead of thebay area region. bob: why does calpers have regional ratingfor public agencies and schools, but not for the state of california? chris: regional rating was created in 2005to reflect the cost of all the five different regions in california. basically, becausesouthern california was disproportionately lower in cost than the more rural northerncalifornia areas. as you can see the los angeles region from that slide you can see it’sstill true today and it’s also the same with the other southern region. </p> <p>bob: so regional rating was created to chargepremiums that reflect the cost of care in that geographic area. can members choose theregion they would like to use? chris: members must select a region basedon their residential or work zip code. we have included the eligibility zip code linkon our materials in the download. as you can see the percentage changes for each plan canvary significantly between. again, this difference in pricing between regions reflects the marketcost of services in those areas. bob: just to clarify once again chris, regionalrates only apply to public agency and school members while state employees are not regionallyrated? chris: that is correct. the only exceptionis when we are talking about out of state </p> <p>or supplement to medicare plans. bob: from a quick glance at the rates it seemsthat there were pretty significant increases in the premiums. can you give us some insightto why that happened? chris: well, pharmacy costs accounted fornearly 45 percent of overall rate increases for both the hmo and ppo plans in 2016. additionallycalifornia is one of the more expensive states for health care costs. it’s just part ofthe case where every contract year some plans will go up and some plans will go down andcalpers is trying to mitigate the increases as much as we can. bob: now what about our retirees and membersthat may live out of state? what happens for </p> <p>those folks? chris: kaiser/out-of-state is available tomembers based on the eligibility zip code which is part of the download and we willalso cover a little bit later here, whereas pers choice and perscare are available nationwideand worldwide. all of these plans are not regionally rated. bob: how does medicare work with regionalpricing? chris: again, medicare is also not regionallyrated. given that most of our audience today is comprised of health benefit officers foractive employees, and contracting agencies and schools, there may not be as many inquiriesabout medicare plans. however we have included </p> <p>our understanding medicare publication inthe download in case there’s inquires on medicare. bob: there are a lot of plans chris, it’sa bit overwhelming. have we covered all of them? chris: well almost. we do have our associationplans and these are offered exclusively to our dues paying members of three associations:the california association of highway patrol, the california correctional peace officersassociation, and the peace officers research association of california. and for more informationon these benefit changes for next year, we encourage our members to contact the associationsdirectly for more information and at this </p> <p>point we have covered all of our calpers sponsoredhealth plans. bob: a ton of information, how would i findout if my doctor contracts with a plan? chris: included in the download are all ofthe calpers micro-sites for all of our plans and from there once you go to those micro-sitesyou can find all of the doctors that would be available if you select that plan as wellas the various medical groups that participate. bob: okay chris, that seems pretty straightforward.what’s going to be new or different for 2016? chris: well, now we’re taking a look atsome of the health program changes and the big change that we have is the unitedhealthcare'smedicare advantage preferred provider organization </p> <p>plan will be the prevailing medicare supplementfor anthem blue cross, blue shield of california, health net, and sharp. the kaiser permanente'smedicare advantage and the ppo medicare plans will remain the same for their supplementto medicare. public agency and schools will also be able, if you’re retired and havemedicare, have the option of a dental and vision plan as part of the unitedhealthcaresupplement to medicare bob: so now to get back to our active members,what should our actives be aware of regarding individual plan changes? chris: well the good news is we won’t haveany drastic changes such as office co-pays or deductibles for 2016. what we do have,let’s just run through a little bit of each </p> <p>plan, say for anthem blue cross for example,they’re going to expand their pers select into san diego county and they’ll be alsoextending their castlight pilot project which is basically the calpers compare functionwhich allows you to look at different kinds of, maybe hip replacement surgery or so forththrough different medical providers to see what costs would be more cost effective. there’salso going to be a standardization of acupuncture and chiropractic benefits for medicare witha $15.00 co-pay and 20 combined visits per year. bob: i remember when ann boynton and i dida calpers insight interview on the castlight or calpers compare function. </p> <p>chris: oh yes, it’s a great way for membersto do their own cost comparing between different medical groups and it’s hopefully goingto cause the industry to pay a little bit more attention to what the cost would be forvarious procedures. let’s see, let’s move on to blue shield is next. blue shield designchange will be enhancing their prescription benefit to include a 90-day supply option. bob: and what does that mean exactly? chris: well, it’s just that if the 90 daysupply is not available through the blue shield’s primemail service, the customer can go toa retail pharmacy and get the same amount for the same cost instead. </p> <p>bob: okay, sounds very convenient, good toknow. what else will be new for 2016? chris: well as mentioned in the basic premiumchanges earlier, health net will be expanding into alameda, contra costa, fresno, kern,essentially expanding into northern california for 21 counties completely serviced. bob: okay, health net smartcare doesn’thave a percent change since it will be new for 2016? chris: right, that’s what we kind of mentioneda little earlier because it is brand new and the premiums are just beginning for thosenew areas that they’re servicing. we don’t actually have a change to report yet. </p> <p>bob: more choices for next year is a goodthing, what else can we share with the folks out there for next year? chris: again this is more for retirees thanit is for actives but the kaiser is going to standardize their acupuncture and chiropracticbenefit providing the 20 combined visits with a $15 copay. bob: that’s good to know for our retireesthat have kaiser; who is the next carrier with changes for next year? chris: now we come to united healthcare, expandingtheir united alliance hmo into kings, marin and san diego. they’ll also standardizetheir 90-day supply of mail order similar </p> <p>where if you can’t get it through the mailservice you can go to a retail location as well as the option for the public agency andschools that have a medicare supplement plan the option of a dental and vision plan. bob: another expansion and easier access for90-day prescriptions, and now the public agencies and schools have dental and vision care thatoption that they enjoy using united healthcare as a supplement to medicare. chris: well that’s correct and with thepublic agency and school united healthcare medicare enrollees having this option as astraight supplement to medicare or a supplement to medicare that includes dental and visionis something that has been discussed for a </p> <p>long time and we’re very happy that we canhave this option for those public agency and school retirees. bob: really is great news. i know questionsabout dental and vision have come up in the past, so it is huge. do current medicare enrolleesneed to be aware of anything else? chris: there will be more information sentout to those that are going to be affected by anything but if someone is enrolled ina combination basic and medicare plan and it’s not kaiser, our ppos, or united healthcarefolks will be notified to decide to select a different plan. and folks that are affectedwill receive correspondence if they fall into a category with directions on what to do. </p> <p>bob: any other changes to go over for anyof the other carriers? chris: well, blue shield and anthem blue crossare going to be introducing welvie product to members which is an online tool to helpeducate folks about minimizing unnecessary surgeries. bob: okay, i believe that pretty well wrapsup the health plan changes for next year. our next item is the dependent eligibilityverification or dev project. i know we were into this last year. chris: right, we talked a little bit aboutthe dev project last year and the big news obviously is that the dev project is over.the reason why we’re bringing this up is </p> <p>to indicate to those that are listening thathaving proper documentation is still really important to minimize the cost as well asto protect your agency if you’re audited by calpers so to make sure you got those birthcertificates and marriage certificates and so forth all on file. bob: i know dev project was a huge undertakingand all the employers, i bet, are certainly glad it’s over with. now, we are gettingdown to our last bit about open enrollment information. chris: yes, this year, open enrollment willtake place from september 14th through october 9th. open enrollment packets will be mailedout to all enrolled members in two waves. </p> <p>the first wave is going to go out august 17thand the second will be mailed on august 24th. also important, these packets go to enrolledactive and retired members so if you know of active employees or if there’s retireesout there that are eligible but not enrolled, they’re not going to get a packet and itis up to these individuals to kind of seek out either through the health benefit officersor to contact calpers to ask how to get enrollment information if they’re interested. again,that number for calpers is 1-888-225-7377. another important point to mention about theopen enrollment circular letter which is scheduled to be sent out at the end of july so employersshould receive open enrollment information at that time and it’s also very importantto make sure that their contact information </p> <p>is up to date. bob: okay well, how does the employer keeptheir contact information current? chris: this, through the system access administratorfor the agency, they update contact information in the my|calpers systems under the businesspartner contacts and that’s essentially how calpers communicates with all of our agencies. bob: so if the contact information is missingor incorrect no communication? chris: that’s right. that is why it’sso important to update contacts periodically. if folks are listening out there and do notknow how to update the contact information or don’t know who their system access administratoris, again, contact calpers. our contact number </p> <p>888-225-7377.bob: well, we’ve covered a lot of information, as you mentioned, there more details providedin the download for this webinar. i know i’ve learned a few things and enjoyed our timetoday. chris: well, thank you bob, it’s alwaysa pleasure to talk with you, and share information with our employers and members. i know i mentionedthe survey at the end of this webinar so i am going to mention it again so please tellus what was useful to you or what you would like to find more useful in future webinars. bob: chris, you’re certainly welcome andthank you everybody out there for your participation. this concludes that 2016 calpers health planrate and changes webinar. we appreciate your </p> <p>time and attention. like us on facebook orfollow us on twitter and check out the calpers videos on youtube. have a great day. </p></div> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1LqDVpe2IsU?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

health care plans for 2016

bob: welcome. i’m bob burton, and i’mhere today with chris owen, marketing manager for the calpers health benefits program forpublic agencies and schools. we want to welcome everyone to the 2016 …

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health care plans 2016

<div style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="health care plans 2016" height="500" src="https://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/8747-figure-1.png" title="health care plans 2016" width="500" /> </div> <div align="justify"><p>what i'm going to walk through today is a live 2016 application in one of our test environments. and i'm going to point out some of the new features that we've added this year and then i'll also kind of talk about some of the other things that we won't necessarily have time to walk through with everyone but we'll certainly be in training materials that we'll post on martketplace.cms.gov later this -- well i guess it's friday, [laughs] so probably this weekend or next week. and again, of course, if you have questions as i go please feel free to enter them into the chat window and then we'll try to go through the </p> <p>questions at the end after i finish walking through everything. i went ahead and pre-setup some accounts so i went ahead and did [unintelligible] to save a little bit of time and i'm going to start with a brand new consumer for 2016 applying for this year. i'm going to start with logging in. and one of the new things that we did add this year is a lot more tailored contents for consumers when they first log in depending on the phase that they're in. one of the other new things that we did is we actually updated the content of the major call to action on the welcome page for both new and </p> <p>re-enrolling consumers. this used to say "visit the marketplace for individuals and families" this year we re-labeled it "to start a new application or update an existing application." in some of the consumer testing that we were doing leading up to this open enrollment period we found that re-enrolling consumers were a little bit confused by this before with the prior content. they weren't sure it was actually for them so we actually tested some different pieces of content and this way we're hoping that it calls out to both new people as well as people that are coming back just to update their information to stay covered for </p> <p>2016 and it also is evergreen throughout the year if they're coming back to report a life change later in the year. this next page that says "need coverage for 2016" at the top is one of our new guiding pages. it has tailored content on it, depending on your consumer scenario. so a new consumer that logs in for the first time beginning on sunday, when open enrollment launches, will see a page that looks like this. that sets the framework for what are they going need to do. they're going to need to: (1) complete a 2016 application; (2) view their eligibility results; and then (3) choose a plan by december </p> <p>15th if they want coverage that begins january 1. and then we'll ask for the consumer's state. this content also changes as we get past different enrollment deadlines, so right now we're letting consumers know that december 15th is the deadline if they want their coverage to start by january 1st. this stage will have a minor content update, one for past december 15th to remind consumers that open enrollment will end on january 31st so that they know up front when they actually need to complete enrollment by. and then i will, at the very end, i'll come back and log in to a couple other accounts i pre-set up. this page is </p> <p>tailored for re-enrollees as well that recognizes the fact that they're coming back in and welcomes them and sets a slightly different frame for them about what their experience will be, such as updating their application, viewing their updated eligibility results, and then picking a plan, again, with the same deadline reminder messaging. i'm going to go ahead and start my application. and again, for brand new consumer they would actually go through i.d. proofing first, which i went ahead and set up so that we could save some time as we were walking through this. there aren't any changes to that process this year, so </p> <p>for those of you who might have been around for last year's open enrollment or our first launching year, it is the same screens that we walked through previously and i believe that we already have training materials out there on that as well if you have questions. so getting started, when you're a brand new consumer we have a quick couple of questions that we want to know what your situation is. i'm going to use the scenario for a parent with one child so that we can see some mixed eligibility when i get to the end so that we actually have a family that will receive qhp eligibility, appc eligibility, and then </p> <p>we'll have one family member that's also met -- eligible for medicaid or chip. and these couple of questions in the beginning help us figure out if the consumer scenario can go through our streamlined application user interface or will go for a classic application user interface. for this new scenario i'm going to use -- assess where we can actually go through the streamlined application so we can point out how that has changed this year. and then if we still have time left i'll do a quick run through of the classic application on a re-enrollee just so that you can kind of see the differences between the two and where we've added </p> <p>different help text and some new questions this year. and -- sorry i'm catching up on myself, answering my questions [laughs]. we summarize all of these questions at the end of the application for everybody and i'm just going to quickly go through these so i can get into the actual application. and on the first application screen, this is pretty populated with the information that john carson [spelled phonetically], who is our primary application contact provided when he actually went through identify proofing, so that's why the email address, the phone number, is already </p> <p>populated. and for sisters, this question right here underneath household contact information for another person that's helping me complete my application, this is an important checkbox to check because this is where you would actually put in your information if you're working with a consumer. i'm going to uncheck this box since i am working through this myself right now. and a mailing address, again, is already populated from my identity proofing questions. i'm going to go ahead and put in my test case social security number because i didn't do that originally when i i.d. proofed, but for most consumers you would </p> <p>have already put that in. and for race/ethnicity, these are completely optional questions. do make sure when you're going through with consumers that who's applying for coverage question is answered either yes or no. that helps us figure out who in the household leader needs coverage. so i'm going to start entering in john's spouse, who's suzanne carson [spelled] phonetically] and her date of birth, her social security number, and then i'll also enter in their child's information, which will be anna carson [spelled phonetically]. and i am asking for coverage for suzanne </p> <p>and anna, their youngest child who is 10. and anna's social security number. right after we do basic contact information when you're using the streamlined application in the back end we're verifying some of the information as we go. so then i have kind of a progress bar that anna makes on the application button just to let them know what's happening in the background before they get the next stage of questions. so as we're submitting household contact information, that -- that data that they entered in has been saved. next up is that we actually ask for income information. for the </p> <p>scenario i'm running through today, this is a pretty simple scenario that i've loaded up just so that we can make sure we get through everything today. but the one thing i will point out in one second is for folks that don't have a constant stream of income, there's a way to help the consumer estimate what that is. and i'll show you how to do that when i have suzanne's information and under yearly income i'm just verifying that that's in total what john thinks he's going to have for his income for the year. for suzanne, i'm going to enter in her job. and she's going to make about the same so that i can have a scenario </p> <p>that comes out with mixed household eligibility. just for purposes of running through. and if she makes about the same amount of money per year we should have a household that makes about $32,000. however, if you have consumers that don't necessarily earn a steady income, you would want to make sure you add each source of income that they do know about and the amounts for each one and how often they receive it, depending on the type. for those that don't have steady income, when you get to this yearly income for each person this hover will let you know what to do. it </p> <p>actually says "click no if your income for the year won't be the addition of everything that you've entered above." when you click "no," underneath that based on what you know today, you think suzanne's going to make about the $16,000, if you click on "i don't know, help me estimate my yearly income" this brings up a calendar view for those consumers that don't have steady month-to-months and i'll just type in numbers here so you can see it just starts to add up, so consumers that need help estimating it for unsteady income this is a quick and easy way that you can help them do that on-screen. but for this scenario i have </p> <p>suzanne as having $16,000 for the year. anna, their daughter, does not have any income so i don't need to add any sources and i'm going to say yes for her total income being zero. the next set of -- oops, sorry i missed one as i was talking. for suzanne, her hours worked. the next set of questions that loads helps up identify consumers that might be eligible for medicaid due to non-income based reasons. so there are three questions in the application that ask about physical disability and mental health. if people have additional assistance with daily living activities or if </p> <p>they need help paying for their medical bills for the prior three months. these questions help us flag consumers that may want to seek a determination or review with their state medicaid office to see if they may qualify for reasons other than income. our determinations are based on income at this point in time but we ask those questions so that hopefully we can get the most amount of consumers into the right program that best meets their needs given their situation. if any consumers do have other health coverage, if you say yes here, this is for consumers that have a family member that has medicaid or chip in particular in </p> <p>their particular state or any of these other health insurance programs is where they answer. otherwise you would say "no" if they don't have health coverage through any other programs. and under our additional coverage options, we also have this question, if anybody was recently denied eligibility for medicaid or chip. this is a question that would be important to answer here so that we don't send them back through the same door through this application process, and if they do select a person, they'll ask you the date and who. for my scenario i'm not going to say anybody was denied so that we can </p> <p>actually have eligibility come out with one person that's eligibility for medicaid. questions about life changes are commonly what we use to help figure out seps for common scenarios that are granted through the application for special enrollment periods. since we're in 2016 open enrollment, i'm not going to answer any of these, but there could be scenarios where somebody has experienced a special enrollment period event. in which case that would still grant a special enrollment period that could last longer than open enrollment, particularly if we get into january. so </p> <p>it's important to review this information with your clients as they come in. and for our renewal of coverage question, this just asks whether they're -- that they will allow the marketplace in a future year to tax data which helps with auto enrollment and re-enrollment each year. and whether we can automatically ping to try to see if their income has changed, know what they might be eligible for in the future year. this last question, the tax filer attestation is one the new questions that we've added this year. everybody will see it on all applications for 2016. we want to make sure that we don't miss anybody. it is only </p> <p>really relevant for those consumers that had marketplace coverage and received premium tax credits in 2014. if they did, we've wanting to know if they reconciled this premium tax credit on their 2014 tax return yet. if they haven't yet, then we have a lot of messaging we've been doing a lot of pushing before open enrollment and will continue to reach out to those folks during open enrollment to try to make sure that they reconcile their taxes with irs and come back to tell us that they've done that. this question helps us help them to stay covered for january with tax credits if they just filed but maybe the records at irs have </p> <p>not caught up with that yet. for most consumers that are brand new, this obviously wouldn't apply to them, so they have nothing to check or answer on this question. "review my application" is going to take us to a summary of all the information the consumer has put in so far. with the ability to edit any one of these sections, it'll take you back to the page where this information was entered and then you can actually correct any type-o's or adjust information as needed before submitting it for an eligibility determination. as we get into the bottom of these household questions </p> <p>some of these are the questions that we ask at the very, very front when we were working to figure out are they going to go through the streamlined application user interface, which this scenario is walking through. or if they went through classic application they see a different application review but it does the same thing where it puts together all the questions and the answers that the consumer provided so they can verify the information before submitting it for an eligibility determination. at the very end of the review our attestations again for agreeing and </p> <p>confirming if anybody ends up eligible and enrolls in medicaid, it's stating that they know they need to come back and contact the marketplace. there are other rules and regulations that govern how those two programs interact with each other, which is most of what the attestations and the help text here explain. and then at the very end before signing and submitting, we electronically type in our name. so for this scenario it's john carson. and as we submit the application, again, you can see that there's a progress bar on this application that lets the consumer know that it's processing and kind of what's going on </p> <p>behind the scenes before they get to their eligibility results. so as we get to the very end of our processing, you should see -- i'm sorry, i'm letting the webinar catch up -- a check mark saying it was submitted. and then we're going to land on our new eligibility results page. this is one of the improvements this year that we've internally been very excited about. this has high level on-screen eligibility results displayed for consumers. so for those of you who've been working in the field with us for a while, you're probably well aware our previous </p> <p>eligibility results screen just had a link to download their eligibility determination notice and then a button to continue to enrollment if they were eligible. what we've been able to add this year is an onscreen summary of their program level eligibility so we can see anna carson here is eligible for medicaid and then john and suzanne, since they share eligibility are grouped together in a box and we can see that the two of them are eligible to purchase a qhp, they both have $653 a month in premium tax credits that they can apply to their premiums. we can also see that these consumers are eligible for cautionary reductions on </p> <p>silver plans. so this is one thing that's really important to help highlight for those consumers that are going to be eligible for those cautionary reductions when they get into enrollment that this cautionary reductions apply to silver plan choices and not necessarily other metal levels. the other big new feature here is this red text for temporary eligibility. this is our onscreen flag to let the consumers know that there is an inconsistency or a data matching issue and that they have roughly three months to resolve it, in -- in the eligibility determination notice they </p> <p>have the exact number of days, for the onscreen summary we just summarized it to about three months. but we wanted to make sure that this was called out to consumers and was more visible on the screen, and to help them understand that they needed to do something else in order to stay covered. the next piece of information under step 2, "review your eligibility results," this part of the screen will have some dynamic content, depending on what the consumers are eligible for. so in this scenario we have consumers that are eligible for medicaid or chip but we also </p> <p>have qhp and appc eligible individuals. some consumers, if they're eligible for a special enrollment period, there will actually be text here onscreen that says "you're eligible for special enrollment period" and to read your notice for more details about what the timeline is to enroll during that window. if it's either during open enrollment or if the sep runs longer than open enrollment or for outside of open enrollment, it's just a highlight for consumers to let them know that, hey you do have a special enrollment period, make sure your read your notice to understand your next steps for that. </p> <p>the next thing we added was a split between viewing eligibility results and the third step for -- to continue to enrollment. for consumers that aren't eligible for qhp coverage, if the whole family was medicaid and chip eligible, they would not see a step 3 here because this "continue to enrollment" heads into our plan selection part of our process for choosing a plan and enrolling. so it is now dynamic so that they don't see the button or be confused by it if they have other eligibility and don't have qhp coverage. we've also disabled this button until consumers have downloaded and viewed their eligibility notice -- and </p> <p>bear with our quick technology check while i download the file, i know it probably looks white for a second. the pdf notices for eligibility determinations, the examples are posted out on marketplace.cms.gov, but they have a couple of improvements this year, one of which is some improved headings and we moved a lot of the static content that used to be higher up in the notice to the end so that consumers are seeing their next steps and really the dynamic portions that are relevant to them closer to the top of the notice. and then for those consumers that have questions or want to read further </p> <p>details, some of the other static information has been moved toward the end of that notice. the other key improvement, which we actually launched much earlier this year back in the springtime in the eligibility determination notice is that the notice does include the income amount that the consumer told us that their eligibility determination is based on, so that's just a good key reference to remember as you're walking consumer through applying and enrolling in coverage for 2016. now that i've downloaded by eligibility results, we actually have the ability to continue to enrollment. at this point i'm </p> <p>going to pause and jump into another scenario before i head into there so that i can make sure it covers some of the newer pieces and then i have a couple of screen shots at the end that just call out the few changes we made in the enrollment funnel. but for the most part that's pretty much been the same. the pause in eligibility results. we do have a couple of targeted content things that i wanted to show folks so as you guys are in the field you're not surprised when these things comes in. when we have consumers that start their application but don't finish, the next time </p> <p>they log back in they actually will see targeted content recognizing that they started their application but they didn't submit it for results. and that will help remind them of what steps they have left to do before they actually are completely done for enrollment. so this is an account i has started already where i had an application where i had started updating it but i hadn't actually submitted it so i hadn't gotten to eligibility results yet. and, again, we have tailored content for new and for re-enrollees. the messaging there is pretty much the same, which is, you have to finish and submit your application. that's </p> <p>your first next step. after that reaffirming you need to view your eligibility results and then choose a plan. so this is a dynamic page and it recognizes where they last left off in the process and we'll jump them back into it. and really quick, i'll show you a version where they had submitted their application but they had not enrolled yet. and another account that i had set up just ahead of time. and again, for re-enrollee's the messaging slightly tailored but the core concepts are exactly the same. so, on this page, where the last step is, they've already submitted their application. they've viewed </p> <p>their eligibility results. the last thing they need to do is choose a plan. our steps come down to just one thing, choose a plan. so that hopefully we can remind consumers that they're not done yet and they have one more step to go before they're ready. and with that, i'm going to switch over to a quick re-enrollee scenario. i'm going to go through this part of the application pretty quickly, so that we can still leave some time for questions at the end. for re-enrolling consumers, they -- some consumers will be able to use the streamline application. some consumers will be using the classic application interface. for this </p> <p>scenario i'm going to use classic app just so that we can see both sides so that you guys can see some of the differences that show up in both application flows. so for this re-enrollee, when i first logged in, it's recognizing the fact that, hey we already know you're enrolled from 2015, so welcome back. what you need to do now is review and update your 2016 application. submit it, and then you'll see updated eligibility results and then even if you want to stay in the same plan, you still need to choose a plan and enroll by december 15th so that there's not a gap in </p> <p>coverage. and this also helps us reinforce that updating your application isn't the only step, we want to make sure that this application updates you made get carried over into your enrollment with your plan. so the very last step for re-enrollees is still to actively choose a plan and enroll. even if they want to choose the same plan if it's still available to them. and the button text here changed for re-enrollees from new consumers. this page for new consumers asks them for their state because we didn't know what it was. and the button is called "action let's start my application" for re-enrollee's we're </p> <p>pre-populating all of their information from their 2015 application, so it's more of a review and update process so we'll see the information already in there and then we can just update and edit the information that may have changed year over year. particularly income, if that might be something that they expect to change for 2016. and for "review and update your application" we can see there's a quick pre-pop summary, pre-population summary of the persons that are on this application. and i'm going to say "update a person's information or add a new person." i want to skip over to our re-enrollment scenario in </p> <p>classic. so i'm going to go through this very, very fast and we'll catch questions at the end if i need to. so, kind of ignore the questions that i'm answering here because i'm just kind of getting myself out of this flow for demonstration purposes. so we are popping now into a classic application that's been pre-populated from 2015 into 2016. but, again, the consumer's address is already here. if they've moved in the same state, then here they could actually report a change in their address for 2016 coverage. consumers that have moved to a new state in the new year, back on that initial guiding blue page at the </p> <p>bottom there was a call out to say if you've moved a new state you'll need to start a new application. each application for each state is using eligibility logic rules for that particular state, which is dynamic from state to state. so when consumers move from one state to a new state, they'll actually need to fill out a new application and tell us about that up front rather than trying to change their address in the middle of an application for a different state. as we do address verification -- and again, so in classic application for sisters, you guys are probably well familiar with it, but depending </p> <p>on your entity type, this is where you'd actually enter in your information when you're helping with an application. and i'm going to flip through a couple of these screens really, really fast just confirming that john carson and his family members. we already have his wife and his daughter on here with their information entered when we get into family and household. again, these answers are already populated. the social security number, if it was already in there and it was clear and it didn't have any issues is hashed out, except for the last four digits. just a reminder, if folks do have an open data matching issue. </p> <p>particularly on social security number or integration document information, it's important to help those consumers re-enter it and make sure it's accurate this year. one of the new pieces of functionality i will show you that we added earlier this year is i'm going to delete john carson's ssn -- not that you should normally do that, but just to actually demonstrate one of these reminder pop-ups that we added earlier this year. this is relevant for both social security numbers and consumers that have reported eligible integration status. if they haven't entered in all of the information or they try to skip the </p> <p>question without entering in their social security number, we do have a reminder pop-up to ask if we're sure they want to do that. not providing a social security number if they have one will generate a data matching issue down the road. i will actually skip it for this one so that we can put in a data matching issue, but i just wanted to make sure that you guys could see one of those reminder pop-ups with a consumer tries to continue without that. one of the other new things on the application in the classic realm that i wanted to make sure we flag, this is kind of asked a little bit </p> <p>differently on the streamlined application but when you're in the classic one, in previous years we know that some consumers would get confused with this question, "does john carson plan to file federal income tax return in 2016 for the next year." for those consumers who don't normally file taxes, sometimes they get confused by this and not realize the impact of saying, "well no i don't normally file taxes so i wouldn't plan to file next year." and not realize that by saying that, that actually makes them ineligible for advanced payments of the premium tax credit. so we added help text on the question to basically help </p> <p>consumers understand that they don't have to file taxes to apply, but they would need to file if they want to be able to get aptc to help pay for coverage now. and if the consumer selects "no" on this question, this actually pops up additional help information to understand why we're asking this and the implications of that before they get all the to the point of having an eligibility determination that doesn't have qualifications for premium tax credits. so for this scenario i'm going to say yes because we do want the consumer to end up with an aptc determination. but that's just one of the -- the key places we added </p> <p>some help content to this year that we wanted to make sure folks were aware of. this we do know some consumers have been confused by that question in the past. and as we get into the rest of the family's household information, this is going to look familiar with suzanne and anna. i'm just going to breeze through these screens really fast. since everything's pre-populated already and at this point i don't need to edit any of this information for this year for our scenario. so we have anna's information very quickly. and then at the tail end of our household </p> <p>section we will have a quick review summary before we do income. and, again, this is just confirming their relationships again to see if any information has changed for this year from last year. and again, these first two questions when we're about this household, these are the same questions that might be able to help us flag for consumers that could be eligible for medicaid for reasons other than income. they are pre-populated from the 2015 application answers. this last question is the question about whether a consumer may have been denied medicaid or chip recently. this is not pre-populated since we're asking about the </p> <p>last 90 days. so we want to make sure that the answer here is fresh. but i'm going to say none of these people for the scenario we're walking through right now. at the tail end we've got our summary page of all the stuff that we answered in family and household before we go into income. and in our 2015 application we had put in 26 -- or $16,000 so for 2016 it's pre-populating the income that the consumer told us about last year. if a consumer has a different income source, they can add a new one. if they just want to adjust the amount that they expect to earn for 2016 </p> <p>they can select edit and then just update the amount. they can change how frequently they get that amount if they want to or they can add a new source if needed. and they can also remove it if they no longer work at that job or have that source of income they can physically click "remove." so it's more of an edit and update process when you're a re-enrollee coming back in for 2016. and the same thing we'll see for both suzanne and john once we get there -- sorry, suzanne and anna. and just confirming our last pieces, so same thing with suzanne's information i'm going to keep her income the same for this year as last </p> <p>year and say she doesn't have any new deductions and that it's steady throughout the year. anna didn't have any income and she still doesn't have any income this year. so then we get to our final income summary which just includes all the information that the household has put in for each person and what they earn on a yearly and monthly basis. and lastly in the additional information section, this is where we ask about other coverage if they have other enrollment and other healthcare programs. you can check the box for any one of these for each person we'll ask this. and if any consumer happens to have cobra or job </p> <p>coverage, there's additional help text here and if they say yes and whether it's to walk through to how to fill out this information if somebody falls into that scenario. in the interest of time i'm just going to breeze through this so that we can get to the end of the re-enrollee scenario so that we can see the updated eligibility results. and now my last coverage, these are our special enrollment period questions again that help us determine if they might be eligible for a special enrollment period based on a recent change such as losing coverage, about to lose coverage, having moved. if somebody recently </p> <p>gained eligible immigration status and if anybody was recently released from incarceration. at the very end this is the same failed to reconcile ftr attestation questions, which if a consumer had 2014 tax credits and they reconciled them on their federal tax return already, they would simply check this box. since this is a re-enrollee scenario i'm going to go ahead and check it and assume that this household actually had 2014 tax credits. and in our review and sign our classic application again we've got the full list of all of the information that the consumer entered as they were going through so that they can </p> <p>actually see it. make sure everything is accurate before they submit it for an eligibility determination. lastly we have our attestations these are the same this year as last year and our electronic signature where john is going to type in his name to indicate that he is signing this application. and for re-enrollment the eligibility results page is similar. some of the content is a tiny bit different for re-enrollees but not significantly so. all of the eligibility pieces of information are the same so again we have, since i skipped putting in john carson's social security number </p> <p>that generated a data matching issue on this application. so we have that flag here that they're going to need to provide more information. we have anna and medicaid, we have the summary for the premium tax credits for their household and the eligibility for cost sharing reductions if they enroll in a silver plan. and again their eligibility results notice would be available for download and until they download it they won't be able to continue to enrollment. so at this point i'm going to pause and pull up just a couple of screens in our plans and pair flow that we can highlight just a couple of the new pieces this </p> <p>year because we don't quite have time to walk through every piece of re-enrollment. let me switch applications. somewhat of a highlight this year is the updated enrolled to-do list. we have changed the wording on these tasks and the buttons and we also changed the button design here. previously for those of you -- might remember that this had some slightly confusing terminology that used to say "set" on the button and locked on the greet out tasks, which didn't quite resonate with [laughs] the resonate -- with consumers as to what that actually meant and what they'd be doing. so we updated each one to </p> <p>be clear about what you're going to do for that activity. so if the consumer has eligibility for tax credits in the enrolled to-do list we actually have that first task say "set tax credit." we updated the button design to look like a button to show up in the white bar rather than a whole green block at the end, which some consumers were confused by. they weren't quite sure where to click. and even for the tasks that aren't unlocked yet, that they haven't completed the prior one in order to get to the next one like answer questions here, it still has in the grayed out text what that step will be so they can actually see what </p> <p>will be coming up next. so this is an example of an un-started enrolled to-do list for a partly completed one. as you're moving through we've also updated the buttons for the edit and change features for each task so that consumers could actually go back. they can still change those but now they actually know what they're editing. and for choosing a health plan, again, we updated the language here so that it didn't just say "set" it actually said "choose a health plan." the last new piece of information in our plan compare enrollment fees for this year is re-enrolling messaging if </p> <p>their same or similar plan is available to them. so the rest of plan compare, the flow is pretty much the same. there isn't anything else new or special about it this year. the updated to-do list is certainly one of those improvements that we've been looking forward to for a long time. the other thing is for re-enrollees, last year if they wanted to enroll or compare their same plan they needed to have their issuer letter that they received before open enrollment in front of them and that included a 14-digit plan i.d. on it. and the consumer would have had to manually type that number into a search by plan i.d. box on the </p> <p>left side of the plan compare screen. this year for re-enrollees we have a pop-up message right before they see plan results that lets them know whether their plan is available or not. so this is an example of the one where if their plan is available we're letting them know it's up in a section called "saved plans" which is at the top of the screen. as soon as they hit continue they load as the plan results and then they can go up to the top, hit "saved plans" and check the compare box on that same plan so that -- if it's available. some consumers' plans may not be available to them. that </p> <p>could be due to the plan not offering the same or similar coverage this year, so there's no plan crosswalk. it's also possible that you may have some consumers where they're no longer eligible to enroll in the plan that they were enrolled in previously based on the enrollment groups that they've set up for this year or the information that's now in their application. in that case they'll actually see a message that says unfortunately your same plan or similar plan isn't available this year, so please take a look, compare, and shop around for coverage that you want for 2016. </p> <p></p></div> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1LqDVpe2IsU?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

health care plans 2016

what i'm going to walk through today is a live 2016 application in one of our test environments. and i'm going to point out some of the new features that we've added this year and then i'll also kind…

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health care or healthcare

<div style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="health care or healthcare" height="500" src="http://www.albaconsul.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/big-data-healthcare.jpg" title="health care or healthcare" width="500" /> </div> <div align="justify"><p>[music] let's face it folks, the new health care reformlaw is com-plex. it runs about a 1,000 pages even in tiny print. so it's no surprise that very few americanshave actually read it. but it's about to affect all of us, and manyhave been wondering what it will mean for our health, our wallets and our country. let's say we take all 310 million americansand squish us down to just 25 people. yep, each of these folks would represent about12 million of us. and this is pretty much what we'd look like. </p> <p>polls show about three out of ten of us sayhealth care reform will make us better off, a similar number say worse off, and a similarnumber again say it won't make much difference at all. some of us don't know what to think. i guessyou could say we're kinda split on this one. but no matter where you stand on the issue,it's likely you're thinking, "hello? i got some basic questions still unanswered here." and you deserve real answers, not the partisanrhetoric and spin we've been flooded with. so let's break down what the reform law doesand doesn't do and what it will cost. if you want to read the whole law, go ahead. butwatching this video is the next best thing. </p> <p>ready to jump in? let's begin with the problems in our currenthealth care system. problem number one is, what problem number one usually is, money. most people agree that health insurance policiesare too expensive. for a family, the average premium is almost$14,000 dollars a year…and growing. premiums have doubled over the last nine years, ballooningway faster than inflation! plus, our population is aging, meaning morepeople with more health problems. so, health care costs are the fastest growing part ofthe federal budget. the second problem is that the system is fullof holes. like the fact that people buying </p> <p>insurance on their own can be turned downfor having a pre-existing health condition. small businesses may be charged extra if someof the workers are sick, making insurance unaffordable. and some insurance policieshave a lifetime limit on benefits. after that, you're out of luck. that means some of the people least likelyto have coverage are the ones who need it most. nice, huh? high costs and holes in the system mean morethan one in seven of us have no health insurance to protect us at all. many more struggle to pay their bills andcan only afford bare minimum policies that </p> <p>may not cover much. high costs to households, strain on the federalbudget and people with no protection. it's easy to see why many people were lookingfor something different. so here's what the health reform law plansto do in its first phase, between now and 2014. to start dealing with costs, insurers willbe limited in how they spend our premium dollars. if they use too much for administrative costsor profits, they'll be forced to give some of it back through rebates. this won't stoppremium increases, but it may help some. some services will become free in all newprivate insurance policies, and in medicare </p> <p> -- preventive care like screenings and vaccinations.[baby crying] people on medicare, because they're over 65or disabled, will get more help with their drug costs. young people can save money and stay insuredby remaining on their parents' policies up to age 26. and some small businesses will get tax breaksto help them pay for health insurance for their workers. and the holes? well, some will be closed startingnow too. lifetime limits on health coverage will be gone, whether you buy insurance onyour own or get it from your employer. </p> <p>and it will be illegal to turn kids down forhaving a pre-existing health condition, like asthma or diabetes. of course, some adults who buy insurance ontheir own will still be getting rejected between now and 2014. but those who do can enter somethingcalled a high-risk pool, run by the government. no, it's more like a policy that covers thesickest uninsured people, meaning it's riskier for insurance companies. that's why the governmentwill chip in some money to bring down the cost. some say these high-risk pools will help alot of people. others say these pools will still be too expensive, and may not have enoughgovernment money to stay in business until </p> <p>they're replaced by something better, in phaseii. on new year's day 2014, some big changes kickin. [cheers] first, let's look at how the law makes healthcare more affordable. medicaid will be expanded to cover all low-incomeindividuals and families in every state. and depending on what you make, if you loseyour job or your employer doesn't provide decent coverage, you may get a health insurancetax credit. and while most of us will continue to gethealth insurance at work just like now, if you don't have that option, you'll be ableto buy coverage in what's called an "exchange." you'll be hearing a lot about them, so let'sstop and look at how they work. </p> <p>an exchange is like a virtual insurance mega-mall.based on where you live, you'll get an easy-to-understand menu of options to compare plans in plainenglish. and the exchange makes sure insurance companies compete fairly under strict rules. the idea is that by giving consumers goodinformation, a fair playing field and access to lots of choices, competition among insurerswill keep rates competitive. now, onto plugging the holes. in 2014 insurerswill no longer be able to turn people down or charge them more if they're sick. you might say, hold on a minute, if i can'tbe turned down or charged more, why not just wait until i get sick or injured to buy insuranceat all? </p> <p>not so fast buddy. see, with few exceptions,people will be required to have insurance or pay a special tax. same with larger businesses,who will pay fines if they don't insure their workers. of course, nobody likes being told they haveto buy anything. but without this rule, experts say you can't require that everyone be eligiblefor coverage. imagine telling home insurers they have to cover people whose houses arealready on fire! so the government will provide credits, expandedprograms and new rules. they say that by 2019, 32 million of us who don't have health insurancewill have it. some of those who will still be uninsured: undocumented immigrants, whoaren't eligible for coverage under the law. </p> <p>no surprise, all this is going to cost money.938 billion dollars over the next ten years, according to the congressional budget office,the impartial referee when congress debates these kinds of things. it's a lot of money, sure, but if you lookat it another way, it's 2% of our federal budget, and 3% of what we'll be spending onhealth care overall. now, the president and congress insisted thesenew costs will be paid for so they don't push the budget deficit up any further. that meansmoney will come out of someone's pocket. that's where the tough politics come in. a lot of the savings will come from healthcare providers and insurers in the medicare </p> <p>program. the fees the government pays to hospitalsunder medicare won't be allowed to rise as fast as they have been. and, insurance companies that provide servicesto people on medicare will be paid less. medicare will also create a bunch of experimentsaround the country to test different ways of paying doctors, hospitals and other providersto make the health care system more efficient, and improve the quality of care. with luck some of these experiments will work,and then be adopted by the private sector and help lower costs for employers and familiestoo. </p> <p>plus, a new federal advisory board will makerecommendations about other ways to deal with increases in health care costs. some taxes will go up too. people with highearnings will pay higher medicare taxes. there will be new taxes on insurers and businesseswho offer high-end benefit plans, and on companies that make medical devices and drugs.and oh, anyone who visits a tanning salon now has to pay a new tax too. with these new cost-cutting measures and newtaxes, the congressional budget office says the whole package will actually reduce thefederal deficit over the next ten years. of course, the total federal deficit is expectedto run into the trillions, so the health reform </p> <p>law isn't going to solve that problem. well, that's the reform law. do you love it,hate it, still don't know? either way, there's still a lot of work ahead.you'll be hearing lots of different things about this law. some people support reform,and if anything want to expand it and increase government oversight of insurers and the healthcare industry. others oppose it, and think it creates toobig a role for the government. some states have even gone to court claimingthe requirement that everyone buy insurance is unconstitutional. politicians and pundits will be talking toyou as if you've got no idea what's in that </p> <p>thousand-page law. but by watching this, you're on your way togetting informed. and you can make sure your friends and familyare too, just by passing this little video around. </p></div> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V1ruNSzRtoA?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

health care or healthcare

[music] let's face it folks, the new health care reformlaw is com-plex. it runs about a 1,000 pages even in tiny print. so it's no surprise that very few americanshave actually read it. but it's abou…

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health care obama care

<div style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="health care obama care" height="500" src="http://obamacarefacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/healthcare-costs.jpg" title="health care obama care" width="500" /> </div> <div align="justify"><p>hey, everybody. it's me, ben. and today's question isspecific to the united states. how does the affordable careact work, and what does it do? although its full nameis the patient protection and affordable careact, you've probably heard it just calledthe affordable care act, or obamacare, or the aca. it's called obamacare becausepresident barack obama signed </p> <p>it into law on march 23, 2010. but what does it actually do? let's look at the basics. health care in the united stateshas some serious long term issues. first, there are millionsof uninsured people. second, people whodo have insurance tend to pay morefor it than they would in othercomparable countries. </p> <p>the aca aims to fix these issuesby making affordable health care available tomore americans. i mean, that's agood idea, right? to do this, the act makessome pretty big changes. but although the act makesome big changes to insurance, these changes phasein over time instead of happening all at once. a lot of things willalso stay the same. for example, if you already havehealth insurance that you're </p> <p>happy with, you cankeep it under this law. and children under the age of 26can stay on their parents plan. if you already havemedicaid coverage, then you're goingto stay on that too. or you can if you wish. in fact, manystates are expanding medicaid to cover more people. so now, let's talkabout what's changing. there are several things. </p> <p>first there's this thingcalled the individual mandate. most americans willbe required to have some form of health insurance. this is a sweeping change fora country with an estimated 30 million uninsured residents. but how do you enforcesomething like that? by 2014, everyonewithout health insurance will need to pay a small fee. during that year, for instance,the fee is going to be $95 per </p> <p>adult, $47.50 per child. the maximum a familywill pay in 2014 is $285. now, those numbers are over thewhole year, not month by month. to make sure that people canfind affordable insurance, the aca creates what are calledhealth insurance marketplaces. these are virtual spaces runby the federal government, or by your state,where customers can see different plansand prices offered by insurance providers. </p> <p>so ultimately, thismight allow you to qualify for lowerpremiums, depending on your income andyour family size. and regardless of whatkind of insurance you have, insurers will no longerbe able to deny or revoke coverage forpreexisting conditions. and women won't have to pay morethan men for insurance either. finally, right? insurance will alsocover preventative care. </p> <p>so this would bestuff like mammograms, and checkups, andscreenings, and so on. then there's the 80/20 rule. insurers will generally berequired to spend at least 80% of the money theyget from premiums on-- wait for it--actual health care. if your insurer spendstoo much on overhead, then you're goingto receive a rebate. finally, the laws also requirecompanies to publicly justify </p> <p>rate increases of over 10%. and they are banned fromimposing lifetime dollar limits on benefits. this act also affectsyour employer, whether you work for a largecompany or a smaller company. a smaller business, onewith less than 50 employees, can visit the small businesshealth options program, or-- get this-- shop. right? </p> <p>a government loves an acronym--to compare and purchase affordable health plans. additionally, someof these businesses might be eligiblefor tax credits if they get coveragethrough shop. the rules are a littlebit different for bigger businesses. in 2015, they haveto make what's called an employer sharedresponsibility payment if they </p> <p>don't provide insurance meetinga minimum value standard, or if one of theiremployees gets a better deal in the individualmarketplace. since states are implementingthe act in different ways, it's very importantfor you to check on the specific plansof your home state. so that's it. if you'd like to learn morespecifics about the affordable care act, check outwww.healthcare.gov </p> <p>for more information. and hey, while you're online? you can always like this videoif you're into liking stuff. if you want to learn more abouteverything from light sabers to the speed of light, youcan subscribe to our videos. and if you want to see somemore videos like right now, and you're just thinking, iwant to see some more videos. then, we've got threeon the side over here. and we'll see you next time. </p> <p></p></div> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hyMJYhe3GCc?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

health care obama care

hey, everybody. it's me, ben. and today's question isspecific to the united states. how does the affordable careact work, and what does it do? although its full nameis the patient protection and affo…

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health care law repeal

<div style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="health care law repeal" height="500" src="http://media.salon.com/2016/09/congress-coal-miners.jpeg-1280x960.jpg" title="health care law repeal" width="500" /> </div> <div align="justify"><p>so far this week there's been lot of discussionabout obamacare. the democrats have met, and they're tryingto come up with ways to protect their signature achievement during the obama years. meanwhile, republicans are meeting tryingto figure out exactly how they're going to repeal this entire law. well, there are some things that republicanscan and cannot do in order to kill obamacare. there's a few things democrats can do to saveit. let's start with the easiest. a full repeal of obamacare. </p> <p>is it possible? yes. is it probable? no. because democrats in the senate, though theyare the minority, they can absolutely filibusterer a full repeal. therefore, a full repeal will not happen. the republicans are going a little bit sneakierroute right now. they're trying to tie-in anything in obamacarerelated to budgetary issues, which include </p> <p>the tax subsidies for people who cannot affordhealth insurance, they're tying those to budget bills through a process known as reconciliationwhere the budget bills cannot be filibustered. they're simple up and down, yes or no, vote. goes to the president, he signs it, thosecan be repealed. typically, those pieces of legislation shouldnot and cannot be included in a budget bill. it has to go through something known as thebyrd law, b-y-r-d, and then that has to be decided by a senate parliamentarian. if the parliamentarian actually says, "no. you can't include those," the republicansthen have the option to fire the senate parliamentarian, </p> <p>hire a new guy who's going to give them approval,so then they'll be able to do that. here's the thing, the best part of the affordablecare act is the condition, or the preexisting conditions, stipulation that says you cannotbe denied health insurance if you have a preexisting medical condition. republicans can't touch that because a democraticfilibuster will keep it in place. they can, however, make health insurance unaffordablefor millions of people by repealing all of those tax subsidies, and in effect, thosetax subsidies are paid for increased taxes on the wealthy which is going to give thewealthy a tax break of $346 billion over the next 10 years. </p> <p>that's what this is all of about. this has nothing to do with health insuranceor wanting a better plan. republicans are simply trying to give thewealthy another tax break. that's what the whole repeal of obamacareis about. that's why they're only wanting to touch thesesubsidies issues and the tax issues, because that's all they care about. what's going to happen is that's going tomake people unable to afford this health insurance. here's another side product of what couldhappen if they repeal the subsidies but leave in the preexisting condition requirement,healthy people will simply not buy insurance. </p> <p>they won't need it. if they get sick, they then can buy healthinsurance. they can't be denied. then the insurance company has to pay. it's going to result in higher premiums foreverybody else. huge financial losses for the insurance industrywhich is going to result in ever higher premiums. bottom line is that there's no way to do thisguys. we have a law in place. is it perfect? </p> <p>god no. why not just improve it? the answer is because republicans don't wantto. again, it's for two reasons. one, they want to give the wealthy that massivetax break. two, this was created by democrats, so itneeds to go away. it's spite and loyalty to the 1%. that is 100% what is behind the republicanspush to repeal obamacare. they do have a couple tools to do this with. </p> <p>unfortunately, when 20 million people areno longer able to afford health insurance, the republicans are going to have to own that. they're going to have to answer for that inthe midterm elections. that's not going to end well for them. even worse, it's not going to end well forthe 20 million americans who find themselves without health insurance because the republicanswanted to give a tax break to their wealthy donors. </p></div> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FYaZeQohuhg?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

health care law repeal

so far this week there's been lot of discussionabout obamacare. the democrats have met, and they're tryingto come up with ways to protect their signature achievement during the obama years. meanwhile…

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health care alternatives

<div style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="health care alternatives" height="500" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y_j7RycjGYY/maxresdefault.jpg" title="health care alternatives" width="500" /> </div> <div align="justify"><p>dr janet beilby: how do you prepare health students to work in demanding, complex and often emotional situations? the best way is to place them in real-life clinical situations, or at least simulatethese as closely as possible. voice over: unfortunately, clinical placements are limited and very costly. alternatively, such as using trained actors to role-play are also expensive and limited to training small numbers of students. student: “hello jim, what brings you here today?” jim: “my memory isn’t what it used to be.” </p> <p>student: "okay well we can help with some..." voice over: the solution is the empathy simulator; a world-first avatar-based patient simulator designed to train students in clinical empathy. it’s the result of decades of collaborative research by curtin and george washington universities,now brought to life by citrine technologies in america, a world leader in computer simulation. meet jim, a digital avatar, looking very much like an elderly retired farmer. student: "...your communication or your memory." the avatar has around 50 verbal and non-verbal </p> <p>responses that are currently, controlledby a trainer. the trainee’s interaction can be recordedfor self-reflection and feedback. the empathy simulator is a cost-effective way of providing comparable standards from trainee to trainee. application of this compelling marriage of scientific rigour and cutting edge technology, has applications beyond the health care sector. jim: "goodbye now." student: "seeya." voice over: future developmentswill include voice recognition software, and a range of avatars, so the practice is portable and tailored to a variety of contexts for real life learning. </p> <p>currently there are few commercial competitors in this software space which has an estimated market value of morethan $400 million in the next few years. dr janet beilby: every year, there are more students and yet less resources to train them to the standard the community expects and deserves. our avatar may be ‘virtual' but the learning is very real. </p></div> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FF-hMWrpmfw?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

health care alternatives

dr janet beilby: how do you prepare health students to work in demanding, complex and often emotional situations? the best way is to place them in real-life clinical situations, or at least simulate…

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health care act

<div style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="health care act" height="500" src="https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/image/acacbonumbers_1.jpg" title="health care act" width="500" /> </div> <div align="justify"><p>good morning hank, it's tuesday- what is thisweird, non-airport background? anyway, yesterday was the five year anniversary of the signingof the affordable care act, widely known as obamacare, which made me wonder if it's, ya'know,like, uh... worked. so here's the summary of what i found. inthe united states in 2009 more of my tax dollars went to healthcare than would if i lived injapan, or the united kingdom, or australia, and in exchange for all of that money we didnot get the universal health care that people in all of those countries enjoy. five years later, in 2014, we spent aboutthe same percentage of our gdp on health care, and we still don't have universal health carebut we do have less un-universal health care. </p> <p>by the way, i'm going to oversimplify herea lot. for better information, you should check out "healthcare triage". so here's how it worked in the halcyon, pre-obamacaredays of 2009: the government provided insurance to elderly people, through medicare, and alsoto some poor people, through medicaid. many other people got insurance through their jobsor paid for it themselves, but this still left a lot of people out: like there were44 million people without insurance. this was obviously a problem for those 44million people, but it was also a problem for the rest of us because we did have a kindof universal healthcare in the united states: like when uninsured people got sick and wentto the hospital, they did receive care and, </p> <p>if later, they couldn't pay for that care,those costs would be absorbed, either by the rest of us paying higher prices for healthcare,or else by taxes, because the government had to subsidize public hospitals. but it wasn't really universal healthcare,because you can't, like, go into an emergency department and get your week's supply of insulinif you're diabetic. so in the us we didn't, and still don't, have real universal healthcare,we have, like, if-you-get-shot,-we-will-try-to-patch-that-up-for-you universal healthcare. and this system was astonishingly inefficient.like, we spent more than 17% of our total gross domestic product on healthcare. in countrieslike canada and france and australia and the </p> <p>netherlands, they spend less than 10% of theirgdp on healthcare, and they get similar, or in many cases better, health outcomes. also, back in 2009, insurers could deny youaccess to healthcare insurance if you had a "pre-existing condition": a phrase intentionallyso broad that it encompassed, like, everything. for instance, henry reich of "minute physics"was once denied insurance because he had the pre-existing condition of tinnitus, or ringingin his ear. the only way to get around the pre-existingcondition clause was if you worked for a big company, you could get insurance through them.and that, of course, incentivized people to work for big companies when they might otherwisebe doing different kinds of work, like...i </p> <p>don't know, making "minute physics" videos. so, the affordable care act sought to makethe labor market less bananas; decrease health related bankruptcies, the number one causeof bankruptcy in the united states; and, ultimately, to insure those 44 million people withoutinsurance, while, at the same time, over time decreasing the amount of money we spend onhealthcare. it was going to solve the access problem bycreating these healthcare exchanges where private companies could compete for people'sbusiness, but they couldn't discriminate based on gender or pre-existing conditions. the law also would expand medicaid, whichwould get insurance to more poor people, and </p> <p>it required companies with more than 50 employeesto provide affordable insurance to their employees, or else pay a gigantic penalty. this would all be paid for, more than paidfor, hopefully, by cost control measures. these range from getting tougher on medicarefraud, to incentivizing hospitals to keep elderly patients healthy so they don't getreadmitted to the hospital. there's also a new tax on, like, tanning salons,and an increase in the medicare payroll tax for income over $250,000 a year. but has it worked? yes - insofar as things are better than before.and also...no - insofar as we are nowhere </p> <p>close to a path to sustainable healthcarespending. so the aca was phased in slowly, and the realmeat of it didn't get going until 2014. you'll recall the roll-out of the healthcare exchangesin late 2013 was...a complete disaster. the website, healthcare.gov, was plagued withglitches and really just...didn't work. admittedly, buying private insurance in theus before the obamacare exchanges was arguably even worse than healthcare.gov. but it wasjust terrible. i remember trying to sign up in those early months and it was truly awful.what has not been widely reported is that, now, it's really easy. in general, the exchanges now work very welland more than 12 million americans, including </p> <p>me, have signed up for insurance through them.insurance premiums are going up, on average, more slowly than they did before the exchanges,and more insurers are participating, which means there will be more competition in themarket. plus, the law is costing less than expectedbecause fewer employers than expected have dropped fewer people than expected off theirinsurance. and, it doesn't seem to be negatively affecting the job market. it certainly led to more freedom in the labormarket. for instance, sarah green could leave her insurance-providing museum job to startan art show with pbs digital. and certainly for people who can get insurancenow who couldn't before, either because of </p> <p>pre-existing conditions or because they couldn'tafford without the government subsidies, the aca is a really big deal. and none of thecollapse of the healthcare system or "death panel" predictions have come to pass. instead, uninsurance rates in the u.s. havedropped dramatically, and early signs indicate that at least in some sectors the law is improvinghealth. by the way, sources for all this stuff in the doobly-doo. on the other hand, many millions of peoplestill don't have insurance and under-insurance, where people technically have insurance butstill end up with medical bills they can't afford is a huge problem. </p> <p>and while the growth of our healthcare costshas slowed, we still spend over 17 percent of our gdp on healthcare. most other developedcountries spend far less than that and still have citizens who live longer and healthierlives than americans. and before you say that's because americanseat or drink or smoke or whatever more than british people: no, that's simply not true!have you ever met an actual british person? i don't mean like jack or finn or charlie,i mean a real one. so yeah, if nothing changes, healthcare costsare still going to crush us in the long run, because the thing about the aca is that it'snot particularly radical. like, the 12 million people who got insurance through the exchanges,that's less than 4% of americans. </p> <p>for the vast majority of people, very littlehas changed, and that means that the underlying problems haven't really changed. we spendway too much on healthcare, and we get too little in return. to take that seriously would require radicalchange: government interventions like price controls, for instance. or a single-payerhealthcare system, or a truly free market system where if you show up to the hospitalwith a gunshot wound and you can't pay for treatment, you don't get treatment. so hank, the old system definitely wasn'tworking, and the aca is working, in so far as its job is to get health insurance to peoplewho don't have it without disturbing the health </p> <p>insurance ecosystem for most people. but the aca didn't really replace an existingsystem so much as it grew on top of it. now the fact that so many insurers are bringingmore plans to the exchanges indicates that probably the aca will continue to work, unlessthe supreme court eviscerates it in a few months. but the aca has not and will not solve thelong-term healthcare spending challenge that we face. neither, of course, would repealingthe law, if anything the the healthcare spending problem was worse before obamacare. ratherthan the endless discussions of repeal or defend we should be frank about the choicesbefore us. </p> <p>as healthcare economist and healthcare triagehost aaron carroll told me, trade-offs are messy. you can get reform more easily andmore cleanly, but not necessarily while preserving the private market. you can make healthcarecheaper, but not without imposing even more regulation. you can insure more people and make it costless for everyone, but not without spending more tax dollars. hank, healthcare policyexperts across the political spectrum seem to acknowledge this complex reality. it'sour job now to make our politicians acknowledge it too. again, for more information and lots of othervideos about healthcare, please check out </p> <p>healthcare triage. hank, thanks for reminding me last week aboutthe many pleasures of being in a crowd, i will see you on friday. </p></div> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JZkk6ueZt-U?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

health care act

good morning hank, it's tuesday- what is thisweird, non-airport background? anyway, yesterday was the five year anniversary of the signingof the affordable care act, widely known as obamacare, which …

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health and care

<div style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="health and care" height="500" src="https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/health-care-tags-cloud-26761643.jpg" title="health and care" width="500" /> </div> <div align="justify"><p>hi, i'm katrina szish for howdini. today we're going to find outhow to get a healthy mouth in just three steps. to do that, i'm joined by dr. briankantor, cosmetic dentist. nice to see you, brian. nice to see you. how are you? i'm great. now, i want to dive right in, though. </p> <p>what are some of the keys to maintaininga healthy mouth? you know, today, having a healthy mouthis more important than ever. actually having a healthy mouth canlead to having a healthier body. it's more important than ever totake good care of your mouth. so what i tell all of my patientsis to have three easy steps-- a good diet, see your dentist twicea year regularly for cleanings and checkups, and to havegood oral hygiene. ok, now let's focus a littlebit on good oral hygiene-- brushing, flossing, mouthwash. </p> <p>is there an order? well, the most important thing, yes,is brushing twice a day, flossing twice a day, and rinsingwith mouthwash. i say brushing and flossing, you canpick whichever one you want to do. and then you should end with rinsingwith mouthwash because it washes it away and actually leaves youwith fresh minty breath. i love fresh minty breath. ok, toothbrushes. some people swear by their electrictoothbrush, and they say it does a </p> <p>better job than a manual toothbrush. is that true? well, actually, whateverworks for you. i say to the patient, whateverworks for you, you can use, manual or electric. the beauty of the electric toothbrushis it does some of the work for you. there's a timer. it makes sure you brush each quadrant--there are four quadrants-- for 30 seconds each. </p> <p>so it times you, and at two minutes, itbeeps, so it knows you've actually done a thorough job. the manual toothbrush you actually haveto do manually with no timer. oh no! it requires a little more effort, butif you feel comfortable with it, that's great. but the most important thing, no matterif it's manual, electric, battery powered, is the bristles. it has to have soft bristles. </p> <p>there's soft, medium, and hard. so when you're shopping,you should look for-- i guess it says soft bristles? soft, yes, absolutely. it's imperative. speaking of shopping for tooth-brushingproducts, toothpaste. there are so many out there. does it really matterwhich one i choose? yes. </p> <p>the most important ingredient intoothpaste is it has fluoride. fluoride will actually-- it helpsremineralize the enamel, so it makes the teeth healthier. so the most important ingredientin the toothpaste is fluoride. most toothpastes have fluoride,but make sure it has it. there are a lot of other ingredientsthat some toothpastes have, and you have to pick and choose whatworks best for you. there are some that a minty fresh. for people with bad breath, theyget more of a minty taste. </p> <p>there are some that hasantisensitivity. for people with sensitive teeth or gumsthat have receded, they want a toothpaste that actually helpsdecrease the sensitivity. there's also whitening toothpastes,which help remove surface stain a little better than theother toothpastes. so you really have to seewhat works best for you. so shop around a little bit. try them out. i would say buy a few. </p> <p>see what works best for you, what tastesbest, what you like to use, and go with that toothpaste. ok, now when it comes to taste, i thinkof mouthwash, and we love the residual effect, thatfresh minty breath. but sometimes, mouthwashes burn. now, why do they burn, anddo they need to burn? does that mean they'redoing a good job? no, the burning does not meanit's doing a good job. the burning is the alcoholin the mouthwash. </p> <p>it's not an active ingredient. all it does is it's a bindingagent for the mouthwash. ok, fantastic. now, flossing, of course, isone of those key things. and it goes way beyond just removingthose food particles from between the teeth. flossing is imperative. the teeth have a lot of surface area, alot of hard-to-get places, and food gets trapped all over. </p> <p>and you have to really get all the foodout, because the food accumulates bacteria, and the bacteria causebad breath and decay. so flossing actually gets in between theteeth and gets the food particles out, and it also getsunderneath the gums. now, there's different types of floss,and you can use what's best for you. there's a waxed floss. people with very tight contacts, so inthe back of your mouth, the posterior, some of those molars are really tighttogether, and it's hard to get regular floss in there. </p> <p>so that person should use waxedfalse because the wax actually gets in there easier. it slips in there, and it'seasier to get through. so again, you should try differenttypes of floss and see what works best for you. ok, now flossing, though, of course,some people think, eh, i can do it once a week. but you say twice a day for flossing. the three most important parts ofyour oral hygiene is having-- </p> <p>brushing twice a day-- minimum-- flossing twice a day, and rinsing withmouth rinse twice a day as well. ok, now, of course, one of the mostimportant parts is coming to see the dentist. how often shouldwe come see you? twice a year. if you have the best oral hygiene in theworld, you still have to come see a dentist. it's important to have aprofessional cleaning and to get examined by a dentist. there are a lotof infections and diseases that actually show signs in the oral cavitybefore it spreads elsewhere-- </p> <p>oral cancer, leukemia, hiv. these allshows signs and symptoms in the mouth. so the dentist is almost like adetective and can detect some of these symptoms before it becomes a problem. ok, well, thanks so much forjoining us, dr. kantor. i think i'm ready to go floss. how about you? thanks. thank you. to recap, you need to get a goodtoothbrush, an electric, like this </p> <p>one, or there's lower-cost options, likethis battery powered or manual one, and change them outevery three months. toothpaste. the must-haves are cavityfighting with fluoride. but today you can also get toothpaste towhiten, to fight gingivitis, or for sensitive teeth. so talk to your dentist about yourneeds and spend a little time in-store or online. try a few out and see whatworks best for you. </p> <p>the floss. remember to floss below the gumline where the bacteria live. mouthwash. it can do more than justfreshen your breath. it can help kill germs that causeplaque, gingivitis, and bad breath. use it twice a day, morning and night. on behalf of crest, i'm katrinaszish for howdini. for more information, checkout the website. </p></div> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aOmd00dE6mI?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

health and care

hi, i'm katrina szish for howdini. today we're going to find outhow to get a healthy mouth in just three steps. to do that, i'm joined by dr. briankantor, cosmetic dentist. nice to see you, brian. ni…

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health & care

<div style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="health & care" height="500" src="http://manicapost.co.zw/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/health-at-work.jpg" title="health & care" width="500" /> </div> <div align="justify"><p>10 health myths people still believe 10) myth: microwaves kill the nutrients infoods cooking food in the microwave can actuallybe one of the best ways to retain the vitamins and minerals in food. this is because microwaving exposes fruitand vegetables to heat for a small amount of time. it also requires very little water,which allows the food to gently steam from the inside, preventing overcooking. microwaving can even enhance the nutritionof some foods. it makes the antioxidants in tomatoes and carrots more available to ourbodies, for example, while making the biotin </p> <p>in eggs more digestible. source: cnn 9) myth: the five second rule the five second rule states that food droppedon the floor is safe from harmful germs if picked up within 5 seconds. in a scientific study by jillian clarke, gummybears were dropped on surfaces that were covered with bacterium e. coli. the study found thatthe e. coli contaminated the gummy bears within five seconds. it has also been discoveredthat just 10 cells or less of some strains of e. coli are enough to cause severe illness- or even death - in people with low immune </p> <p>systems. source: discover magazine, the guardian 8) myth: carrots help you see in the dark the vitamin a present in carrots is good foreye health, but the myth that eating carrots can improve vision gained popularity duringww2. during the war, the british government developedsecret radar technology, which allowed royal air force planes to pinpoint and thereforeshoot down german planes before they reached england. to keep the radar technology under wraps,propaganda was released stating that eating </p> <p>carrots enabled pilots and civilians to seein the dark. source: smithsonian mag 7) myth: orange juice is healthy nutritionally, store bought orange juice isn’tmuch better than soda. despite orange juice being advertised as fresh,healthy, and packed with vitamins, it is in fact heavily processed, in order to maintainits shelf life. orange juice brands such as tropicana preservetheir juice by removing all of the oxygen from the freshly squeezed juice. however,this process also removes all of the natural flavor of the juice, which is then replacedwith flavor packs engineered by perfumers. </p> <p>to further enhance this flavor, many popularfruit juice brands add more sugar than a serving of coca-cola, and studies have found thatfruit juice is associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. source: the atlantic, the guardian 6) myth: muscles turn into fat when you don’texercise the idea that unused muscles turn into fatis impossible, as muscle and fat are two distinct tissues that never convert into each other. when people stop exercising, muscles beginto shrink, creating more space for the body’s fat to grow into. </p> <p>usually when people stop exercising, theycontinue to consume the same amount of calories as when they were training. this means thatrather than using up the excess stored energy, the body transforms energy into fat, givingthe illusion that a six-pack has literally turned into a flabby belly. source: ny times 5) myth: sugar makes children hyperactive after eating sugary foods, children are thoughtto experience a ‘sugar rush’, which makes them hyperactive. however, psychologists believe that the ‘sugarrush’ is in fact just the natural high spirits </p> <p>of children when they get together. it ismerely a coincidence that many events in which children are hyperactive happen to includecakes and sweets. because of the ‘sugar rush’ myth, manyparents interpret their children’s behavior as being hyperactive after eating sugar, becausethey believe the myth to be fact. source: new scientist 4) myth: we should eat like cavemen the palaeolithic [pay-lee-oh-lith-ick] dietis based on the idea that the human digestive system is unable to cope with a modern diet,and therefore we should only eat the meat, fish, nuts, and berries that were availableto our hunter-gatherer ancestors. </p> <p>however, biologists argue that humans areconstantly evolving. one such relatively recent genetic change found in humans is the developmentof lactase persistence, which has enabled modern adults to tolerate milk. meanwhile, studies have found that those whofollow the palaeolithic diet struggle to reach the recommended daily amounts of calcium,iron and fiber. source: bbc 3) myth: carbs make you fat when people cut out carbs from their dietand lose weight, this can be attributed to the high-calorie ingredients that are oftenmixed in or eaten with the carbs that have </p> <p>also been cut out, such as butter, cheese,cream, sugar, and oil. gram for gram, carbohydrates contain fewerthan half the calories of fat. weight gain is determined not by having a diet high infat or carbs, but by consuming too many calories. in reality, eating carbs can actually helppeople lose weight, as the high fiber found in carb foods help to bulk out a meal andmake you feel full. source: nhs 2) myth: fasting rids the body of toxins there is no medical basis to support the ideathat prolonged fasting and detoxing diets can cleanse our bodies of environmental toxins. </p> <p>our liver, kidneys, skin, and lungs are constantlyworking to eliminate environmental toxins from our body on their own. there is currentlyno known way to improve these bodily functions in an already healthy body. studies have shown that prolonged fastingis actually damaging to the body, leading to vitamin deficiency and weight loss. source: huffington post, the guardian 1) myth: multivitamins help you live longer almost half of the us population take vitaminsupplements, with multivitamins being the most popular. </p> <p>however, research has shown that if you arehealthy, taking multivitamins and high dose antioxidants may actually be killing you. taking vitamins and minerals as supplementscan essentially cause our cells to overdose and prevent them from absorbing the mineralsthey actually need. for example, an excess amount of vitamin ais linked to increasing lung cancer in smokers, while excess zinc is linked to reduced immunesystem function. source: bbc, forbes </p></div> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F8dvQxFSiUY?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

health & care

10 health myths people still believe 10) myth: microwaves kill the nutrients infoods cooking food in the microwave can actuallybe one of the best ways to retain the vitamins and minerals in food. thi…

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