As health care costs continue to rise and talk of some sort of reform remains a large part of the upcoming presidential elections, some companies and businesses are taking matters into their own hands. The latest idea is to charge higher health insurance fees to people with less-than-stellar health. Here’s how it works: all plan participants start with the lower costs and are then screened medically. If their scores are found to be lacking, they are assigned to a health coach to help them improve. If the participant decides he doesn’t want to bother, he’s charged more. The details:
health
Insurer Says, "Turn Medical Costs Into Holiday Gifts!"
By 11.5.07
Nothing says “I love you, Mom,” like some more medicine for her diabetes, or “You’re the best, Dad,” like a refill of nitro tablets. That’s why the health insurance company Highmark is offering new Healthcare Visa Gift Cards—for about $5 plus an unspecified shipping and handling fee, you can load it with anywhere from $25 to $5,000 to be used exclusively on medical expenses. After the first 9 months, the card emerges from the womb of “I already paid for this!” and starts charging you a monthly $1.50 maintenance fee. Won’t your kid be excited come Christmas morning when she finds out her staph infection is going to get treated?!
DermaRite Will Distribute 10,000 Hand Sanitizer Pens To NYC Kids
By 11.2.07
Maybe this whole MRSA thing has gone too far: Brooklyn state assemblyman Dov Hikind has arranged for the DermaRite corporation, based in New Jersey, to distribute ten thousand units of its gel-based hand sanitizer in a “compact and easy to use” pen-shaped dispenser to city schoolchildren.
FDA: Consumers Are Buying Expensive Foreign Drugs Instead Of $4 Generics At Home
By 11.1.07
Everyone knows that people buy Viagra over the internet, but the FDA says that people are buying commonly prescribed drugs with cheap generic equivalents from foreign pharmacies.
Get Cheap Plastic Surgery In Buenos Aires
By 10.31.07
Why not permanently alter your face? People on TV do it all the time. Besides, you’re a grown up, you can do whatever you want! If you’re in the market for a chin tuck, an eyebrow scoot, or a face-pulling-back thing—hey, we’re not the experts here—but you don’t have a lot of disposable vanity cash, then head down to Argentina, which is filled with “reputable doctors who are highly skilled due to a local rage for cosmetic surgery” and where common procedures can cost a third of what they cost in the U.S. Plus, you get airlines miles.
Children's Place Store Closes Again After Another Scabies Outbreak
By 10.30.07
Scabies! The Children’s Place store at Brookfield Square Mall, in Brookfield, WI has closed again after employees again became infected with the scabies.
USDA Says Defunct Canadian Meatpacker Was Source Of Recent E.coli Beef Contaminations
By 10.30.07
The U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service has used “DNA fingerprints” to trace the source of recent U.S. outbreaks of contaminated beef back to one shoddy supplier in Alberta, Canada. The company most likely responsible is Rancher’s Beef, Ltd, which went out of business on August 15th, but not before helping sink Topps and contributing to nearly 100 illnesses in the U.S. and Canada.
Obesity: We're Too Big For Disneyland's "It's A Small World"
By 10.29.07
Back in 1963, when the boats that carry customers through Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World” ride were designed, the average male weighed 175lbs and the average female 135lbs.
Coke Expands Nutrition Label To Actually Make Sense
By 10.29.07
I hate it when I’m eating a bunch of crackers and I look on the box and the serving size is like “3 crackers” and all the calories and nutrition info are based on this absurdly small number. So I was glad to turn over my bottle of Coke and see that they were including both a “Standard Serving” and a “This Package” label. On the left it shows how many calories and such are in a regular can. On the right it shows how much is in the bottle. It’s nice that there’s a comparison. It’s also nice that they’re not giving the nutrition info as if someone was going to drink from the bottle at two and a half different meals. Let’s see this spirit of packaging transparency leveraged across the entire food industry.
Should Soda Makers Stop Marketing To Kids Under 16?
By 10.29.07
The Center For Science In The Public Interest (CSPI), and the International Association of Consumer Food Organizations (IACFO). have joined together to start the “Global Dump Soda” campaign.
California Police Seize 375 Pounds Of Bathtub Cheese
By 10.27.07
Meet Floribel Hernandez Cuenca and Manuel Martin. California police arrested the pair on “felony cheese making charges” after they tried to sell 375 pounds of bathtub cheese at an open-air market in San Bernardino. Bathtub cheese, otherwise known as “illegal soft cheese,” can cause a range of maladies including listeria, salmonella, and everybody’s favorite gut goblin, E. coli.
The 375 pounds of seized illegal cheese included panela, queso fresco and queso oxaca varieties, the [California Department of Food and Agriculture] says. It was a significant find, the department says.
Should You Give Your Kids Probiotic Pills?
By 10.27.07
Consumer Reports asked an expert’s opinion on probiotic supplements and live culture yogurt products geared especially toward kids. There’s preliminary evidence out there that says it can help relieve infants and toddlers suffering from diarrhea caused by antibiotics or gastrointestinal illnesses. But there’s also a chance the bacteria can cause illness in infants or those with weakened immune systems.
How To Avoid Staph
By 10.26.07
Now that MSRA, or methicillin-resistant staph, has taken the lead as America’s Worst Infection, killing more people annually than AIDS, it’s a good time to learn a little more about how to avoid it, how to identify it, and what to do if you suspect you have it. The New York Times offers a brief, helpful article about the topic, answering questions like “What can I do to lower my risk of catching it?” and “Where does it lurk?”
Unlicensed Dentist Dumps Ill Patient On Brooklyn Street
By 10.26.07
The New York Daily News is reporting that a phony dentist dumped an ill patient on the curb after botched oral surgery. The patient, Colette Villemin, is on life support after suffering what may have been an allergic reaction during surgery. She’s suffered heart and brain damage and may not survive.
Top 10 Trans Fattiest Foods
By 10.26.07
A Calorie Counter went through a ton of restaurants and came up with the places that serve up the highest doses of trans fats. Here’s the top 10 of the 88:
By 10.24.07
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Here’s a frequently updated list of the top 100 blogs focusing on health and medicine. The site uses rankings from Google, Bloglines, and Technorati, along with its own editorial ranking, to create the list, and it makes a good starting point if you want to fatten up your RSS reader with some…
7 Things You Need To Know About Health Savings Accounts
By 10.23.07
As health care costs continue to soar (medical insurance premiums alone are expected to rise an average of 8.7 percent this year), Americans continue to look for ways to afford medical insurance and to pay the increasing costs of medical treatment.
HMOs Fail To Screen For Cancer, Major Diseases
By 10.21.07
12 million Californians are at a greater risk for cancer and other major diseases thanks to HMOs that fail to provide adequate preventive care, according to a Health Care Quality Report Card produced by the California Patient’s Advocate.
