Health Care Shouldn’t Be This Expensive: How to Find Answers and Low-Cost Options

December 23, 2022 Vera

This story is part of Priced Out, CNET’s coverage of how real people are coping with the high cost of living in the US.

Evan Stewart has epilepsy, so going a day without health insurance isn’t an option. When he left his job in the medical field to tour with his musical band, he was able to keep his benefits through COBRA. That meant a large part of his income — $800 a month — went toward keeping that coverage until he qualified for another insurance plan with his new employer.

Brandon Douglas/CNET

The cost wasn’t bad considering the alternative. “If a seizure lasts me more than five minutes, an ambulance has to come to my house, and then I’ll probably go to the emergency room,” said Stewart, who lives in Seattle. “Without insurance, the ambulance ride would bankrupt me, and the hospital stay would keep me in medical debt for the rest of my life.”

Stewart was nervous about switching his job because he didn’t want to give up his health care benefits. That’s fairly common in the US: One out of every six adult workers who get medical insurance through an employer stay in their jobs out of fear of losing coverage, according to a recent Gallup poll. While the majority of larger employers offer health benefits, annual premiums have soared in the last decade, reaching a yearly average of $7,911 for single coverage and $22,463 for family coverage. Many of these plans also have costly copays and high deductibles, requiring employees to pay even more.

Even with a good insurance policy like Stewart’s, Americans often find themselves paying insurmountable out-of-pocket medical expenses.

“We have an incredibly complex health care system,” said Amy Niles of the PAN Foundation, a nonprofit that helps underinsured patients in need. “And unfortunately, at the end of the day, a lot of the cost gets shifted onto the patients.”

That’s why, according to Niles, it’s important to understand the price tag when considering your own health needs. Getting affordable medical care isn’t impossible, but it means sifting through an array of options: from private short-term plans to the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace tiers to government- or state-based insurance, all with different rules, requirements, enrollment dates, premiums and deductibles. It also means becoming a strong self-advocate. If a household can’t afford health insurance, there are other resources that provide

6 superfoods for faster muscle recovery | Health

December 20, 2022 Vera

While it is essential to keep your body moving and following consistency in your workout routines. It is also important to take required rest periods to allow your body to heal itself and regain its composure. When you are regularly engaging in physical activity, muscle injury and recovery come as a part and parcel, however, they should never pose a long-standing excuse to cut yourself off from living a healthy lifestyle. Lucky for you, there are food items you can include in your diet to promote faster muscle recovery so you can get back to your workout routine swiftly yet smoothly. The beauty of these food items is that they can all be easily procured from your local market without burning a major hole in your pocket. (Also read: 5 muscle-building red flags you must know )

In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Abhinav Mahajan, Certified Personal Trainer and Sports Nutritionist, suggested six superfoods to add to your diet for faster muscle recovery.

1. Spinach

Spinach is loaded with health benefits and a must-have post-workout food
(Unsplash)

There’s a reason why Popeye the Sailor was obsessed with this superfood. Spinach contains approximately of 5 grams protein in a cup-sized quantity. It is also packed with anti-inflammatory vitamins like A, B and C. Making it a must-have post-workout food. And there’s a variety of ways in which you can consume spinach. From pesto pasta to good old sabzi, you can also include this superfood in vegetable smoothies for easy digestion.

2. Watermelon

Watermelon with its 92% water composition, makes for the perfect post-workout snack or drink as it is great for hydration.
(Unsplash)

Watermelon is one of the favourite post-workout food that countless fitness experts swear by. When you work out, if you’re doing it right, you will sweat, which is why you need to rehydrate later on. And, Watermelon with its 92% water composition, makes for the perfect post-workout snack or drink as it is great for hydration. It also contains vitamin which helps with inflammation as well as other essential vitamins and minerals which aid muscle recovery.

3. Bananas

Bananas are anyway one of the favourites among fitness freaks as it is packed with iron and vitamins.
(Pixabay)

Bananas are anyway one of the favourites among fitness freaks as it is packed with iron, and contain fibre,

To prevent medical debt, the U.S. could learn from Germany’s health care system : Shots

December 20, 2022 Vera

Dr. Eckart Rolshoven examines a patient at his clinic in Püttlingen, a small town in Germany’s Saarland region. Although Germany has a largely private health care system, patients pay nothing out-of-pocket when they come to see him.

Pasquale D’Angiolillo for KHN

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Pasquale D’Angiolillo for KHN

PÜTTLINGEN, Germany — Almost every day, Dr. Eckart Rolshoven sees the long shadow of coal mining in his clinic near the big brownstone church that dominates this small town in Germany’s Saarland.

The region’s last-operating coal shaft, just a few miles away, closed a decade ago, ending centuries of mining in the Saarland, a mostly rural state tucked between the Rhine River and the French border. But the mines left a difficult legacy, as they have in coal regions in the United States, including West Virginia.

Many of Rolshoven’s patients battle lung diseases and chronic pain from years of work underground. “We had an industry with a lot of illnesses,” said Rolshoven, a genial primary care physician who at 71 is nearing the end of a long career.

The Saarland’s residents are sicker than elsewhere in Germany. And like West Virginia, the region faces economic hurdles. For decades, German politicians, business leaders and unions have labored to adjust to the mining industry’s slow demise.

How banks and hospitals are cashing in when patients can't pay for health care

But this is a healthier place than West Virginia in many respects. The region’s residents are less likely to die prematurely, data shows. And on average, they live four years longer than West Virginians.

There is another important difference between this former coal territory and its Appalachian counterpart: West Virginia’s economic struggles have been compounded by medical debt, a burden that affects about 100 million people in the U.S. — in no state more than West Virginia.

In the Saarland, medical debt is practically nonexistent. It’s so rare in Germany that the federal government’s statistical office doesn’t even track it.

The reason isn’t government health care. Germany, like the U.S., has a largely private health care system that relies on private doctors and private insurers. Like Americans, many Germans enroll in a health plan through work, splitting the cost with their employer.

But Germany has

‘A ticking time bomb’: healthcare under threat across western Europe | Health

December 17, 2022 Vera

For decades, western Europe’s national healthcare systems have been widely touted as among the best in the world.

But an ageing population, more long-term illnesses, a continuing recruitment and retainment crisis plus post-Covid exhaustion have combined, this winter, to create a perfect healthcare storm that is likely to get worse before it gets better.

“All countries of the region face severe problems related to their health and care workforce,” the World Health Organization’s Europe region said in a report earlier this year, warning of potentially dire consequences without urgent government action.

In France, there are fewer doctors now than in 2012. More than 6 million people, including 600,000 with chronic illnesses, do not have a regular GP and 30% of the population does not have adequate access to health services.

In Germany, 35,000 care sector posts were vacant last year, 40% more than a decade ago, while a report this summer said that by 2035 more than a third of all health jobs could be unfilled. Facing unprecedented hospital overcrowding due to “a severe shortage of nurses”, even Finland will need 200,000 new workers by 2030.

In Spain, the health ministry announced in May that more than 700,000 people were waiting for surgery, and 5,000 frontline GPs and paediatricians in Madrid have been on strike for nearly a month in protest at years of underfunding and overwork.

Efforts to replace retiring workers were already “suboptimal”, the WHO Europe report said, but had to now be urgently extended to “improve retention and tackle an expected increase in younger people leaving the workforce due to burnout, ill health and general dissatisfaction”.

In a third of countries in the region, at least 40% of doctors were aged 55 or over, the report said. Even when younger practitioners stayed despite stress, long hours and often low pay, their reluctance to work in remote rural areas or deprived inner cities had created “medical deserts” that were proving almost impossible to fill.

“All of these threats represent a ticking time bomb … likely to lead to poor health outcomes, long waiting times, many preventable deaths and potentially even health system collapse,” warned Hans Kluge, the WHO regional director for Europe.

In some countries the worst shortages are among GPs, with France in particular paying the price for previous planning errors. Back in 1971, it capped the number of second-year medical students through a so-called

Which supplements are good for heart health, which are not?

December 14, 2022 Vera

With a substantial rise in several cardio-metabolic diseases over the years, questions regarding which food supplements to take and which to avoid have become relevant, diet and nutrition being two of the most important factors in causing and preventing several long-term ailments. And it all begins with demolishing the devil called cholesterol.

Cardiometabolic diseases are a variety of common yet preventable ailments, including cardiovascular events like heart attack, stroke and metabolic disorders like diabetes, insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease among others. These present some of the most serious health challenges for the global healthcare system in the 21st century with cases rising rapidly every year. But research, technology and treatment modules have also evolved at a brisk pace over the years, making the conditions not only curable but also preventable.

Several studies have suggested that diets rich in antioxidants, minerals and vitamins lower the risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and Type-2 diabetes. On the contrary, diets rich in saturated fat and sodium up the threat quotient. Micronutrients consist of various vitamins and minerals like Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids, which tend to reduce the risk of CVD mortality, heart attacks and other heart diseases due to their anti-inflammatory effect while folic acid decreases the risk of strokes by lowering the blood total homocysteine (tHcy) concentrations. Being a key family of polyunsaturated fats, Omega-3 fats not only prevent heart diseases and strokes but also help in controlling lupus, eczema and rheumatoid arthritis while playing a major role in cancer and other conditions.

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Polyphenols like curcumin, genistein and quercetin have shown health benefits for preventing cardiovascular diseases as well as reducing HbA1c (a measure of longer-term blood sugar levels) and fasting blood insulin levels. And although several micronutrients have various health benefits, others like vitamin C, E and selenium have a neutral effect on cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. It is also worth noting that Vitamin D reduces oxidative stress and improves cardiometabolic outcomes but still studies have been inconclusive about whether it can prevent heart disease.

In fact, Johns Hopkins researchers say that consuming too much of certain vitamins can be harmful. Too much calcium and vitamin D are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Nutrients like magnesium play a major role in muscle and nerve functioning. The heart is a muscle which requires a large amount of magnesium to keep

Tuesday, November 22, 2022 | Kaiser Health News

December 12, 2022 Vera

Health Systems, Patient Care Impacted By Rising Claim Denial Rates

Modern Healthcare draws attention to a “significant” rise in denied insurance claims over the past year, which has increased administrative work, reduced hospital cash flow, and delayed patient care. Separately, Axios reports on how medical inflation is affecting big employers.

Modern Healthcare:
Insurance Claim Denial Rates Rising As Health Systems Struggle

Health systems across the country have experienced a significant rise in denied claims over the past year, leading to more administrative work for providers, less cash flow for hospitals and, in some cases, postponed patient care. (Devereaux, 11/21)