Author: Staff (Page 156 of 157)

      Obesity accelerates as teens become young adults

      November 10, 2010 /

      This is bad news considering the obesity epidemic with kids today.

      Heavy teenagers are often destined for skyrocketing weight gain in their 20s, a new study shows.

      About half of obese teenage girls and about a third of obese teen boys become severely obese by the time they are 30 — meaning they are 80 to 100 pounds over a healthy weight, the new research says.

      We see a tremendous amount of weight gain during those years,” says Penny Gordon-Larsen, senior author of the study and an associate professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

      Other research has found that heavy children are more likely to become heavy adults. But this is one of the first studies to show what happens to teens who are obese — that is roughly 30 or more pounds over a healthy weight — as they reach adulthood.

      It’s critical that we find ways to address obesity in children. At some point they will be a lost cause.

      Research, Wellness

      Companies are shifting more health costs to higher earners

      November 10, 2010 /

      doctors on hospital floor

      With the costs of health insurance rising, companies are trying to find creative ways to ease the burden for lower wage workers who are getting crushed by higher premiums.

      With health care costs climbing even higher during this enrollment season, more employers are adopting a tiered system to pass on the bulk of those costs to their employees by assigning bigger contributions to workers in top salary brackets and offering some relief to workers who make less money.

      For years, employees have seen what they pay toward health care go up as companies ask them to contribute more to premiums and deductibles. But now, as people enroll in health plans for the coming year, the sticker shock is more jolting than ever because so many companies are passing on to their workers most, if not all, of the higher costs.

      A worker’s share of a family policy is approaching $4,000 a year on average, and is most certainly going to keep on rising through the next few years. For lower-salaried workers, those additional costs have only compounded their struggle in a brutal economy.

      More and more companies in the last year or so have begun signaling their recognition of the added burden shouldered by workers in low- and middle-income jobs by varying the premiums they pay based on salary. Consultants say the trend is likely to continue, as employers devise various ways of spreading increased health care costs among their staff and balancing that side of the ledger against fewer raises and other compensation.

      It will be interesting to see if the new health care law affects insurance rates over time.

      Health Care Policy, Health Insurance

      Lifetime caps on health insurance are now a thing of the past

      September 25, 2010 /

      The new health care law now prohibits lifetime caps. The result is that health insurance coverage will be extended to the 20,400 people that the government estimates may exceed their limits each year. The law also begins to restrict annual limits on benefits, eliminating them fully in 2014.

      The New York Times shares one example of a family who will benefit from this change.

      As a healthy couple in their mid-20s, Bill and Victoria Strong’s last concern when shopping for health insurance was a cap on lifetime benefits. Then Gwendolyn was born, and six months later was found to have spinal muscular atrophy Type I, a degenerative condition that typically kills its victims before age 2.

      Suddenly, it became vital that their family policy, with Health Net of California, had a generous $5 million limit on benefits. With the help of hugely expensive care at their home in Santa Barbara, Calif. — ventilators, nebulizers, feeding tubes, suction machines — Gwendolyn has defied the odds to survive to nearly 3. And she has already consumed $2 million in care, about half of it from three hospitalizations in her first eight months.

      “Anxiety was high,” said Mr. Strong, now 34, “because we were marching pretty quickly toward that $5 million cap. It was always in the back of my mind.”

      Now they don’t have to worry about the lifetime cap.

      This can happen to anybody. The idea behind health reform is that we should take some of the randomness out of the system. Any of us can experience this type of misfortune, so why not spread the risk?

      Health Care Policy, Health Insurance

      The chronically ill can now get health insurance coverage

      September 25, 2010 /

      Here’s a specific example of the new health care law changes things for the better:

      Joe and Mary Thompson had agreed to adopt Emily before her birth in 1999, and it never occurred to them to back out when she was born with spina bifida. But that same year, their residential remodeling business in Overland Park, Kan., went under, prompting job changes that left the family searching for health coverage with a child who was uninsurable.

      The insurers were willing to cover the Thompsons and their older daughter, but not Emily, who was later discovered to have mild autism as well, or her 13-year-old brother, who had a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder.

      Starting Thursday, the insurers will not be able to do that, as the new health care law prohibits them from denying coverage to children under 19 because of pre-existing health conditions. In 2014, the change will extend to people of all ages.

      This will change the lives of many people for the better.

      Health Care Policy, Health Insurance

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