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New guidelines have been established for women 21-65 regarding PAP smears.
Tests need to be taken once every 3 years and only once in 5 years for those who also get tested for HPV.
Good news for women as these tests are highly effective in diagnosis and prevention.
The birth control debate wages on and the issues are just starting to come to the surface.
One of the concerns at the center of this discussion is the overall cost of birth control and who should pay?
According to the Guttmacher Institute, the average woman who has two children will spend three decades trying to avoid an unintended pregnancy. The Institute of Medicine says that’s one reason that women tend to incur higher out-of-pocket costs for preventive care than men.
Yes, there already are some options for more affordable contraception, such as public clinics or Planned Parenthood.
About 55 percent of local health departments offer some family planning services, according to the National Association of County & City Health Officials. Many of those receive federal Title X funding, which means they can offer contraception on a sliding fee scale. The poorest women may get it free, while others may pay full price or somewhere in between.
Availability, cost and education need to be considered in this debate, also, identifying where the real need lies.
Although no one wants to look at caring for an ill loved one as a burden, however, there is no denying the overwhelming financial cost involved.
Unpaid caregivers are a huge part of the economy which is growing every year with the increase in Alzheimer’s and dementia cases as baby boomers age.
There is an urgent need to address this national emergency.
Caring for a family member with the personality-draining disease can take a hefty financial and emotional toll. Nearly 15 million people fall into the role of unpaid caregiver for those sick with dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Add it all up, and it comes to about 17 billion hours of unpaid care valued at $202 billion in 2010 alone.
So to help with the staggering cost of care, the Obama Administration has included $26 million in the proposed 2013 budget. That money will go to education, outreach and support for families affected by the disease.
Dementia and Alzheimer’s among elderly inmates creates an interesting dynamic within the prison population.
Some of the most hardened criminals come to the aid of ailing inmates, helping them with the most intimate of care with compassion and patience.
Dementia in prison is an underreported but fast-growing phenomenon, one that many prisons are desperately unprepared to handle. It is an unforeseen consequence of get-tough-on-crime policies — long sentences that have created a large population of aging prisoners. About 10 percent of the 1.6 million inmates in America’s prisons are serving life sentences; another 11 percent are serving over 20 years.
The gauntlet has been thrown down as House Speaker, John Boehner R-Ohio, lets the president know that he is in for a fight over a bill that would allow for mandatory coverage of birth control by private insurance.
“If the president does not reverse the (Health and Human Services) department’s attack on religious freedom, then the Congress, acting on behalf of the American people, and the Constitution that we’re sworn to uphold and defend, must,” House Speaker John Boehner, R- Ohio, said in a speech on the House floor Wednesday.
In a society where Viagra is covered but not birth control one has to wonder about the priorities and the logic.
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