Government Shuts Down in Budget Impasse
WASHINGTON — A flurry of last-minute moves by the House, Senate and White House late Monday failed to break a bitter budget standoff over President Obama’s health care law, setting in motion the first government shutdown in nearly two decades.
The impasse meant that 800,000 federal workers were to be furloughed and more than a million others would be asked to work without pay. The Office of Management and Budget issued orders shortly before the midnight deadline that “agencies should now execute plans for an orderly shutdown due to the absence of appropriations” because Congress had failed to act to keep the federal government financed.
After a series of rapid-fire back and forth legislative maneuvers, the House and Senate ended the day with no resolution, and the Senate halted business until later Tuesday while the House took steps to open talks. But Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, dismissed as game-playing the House proposal to begin conference committee negotiations.
“We will not go to conference with a gun to our heads,” he said, demanding that the House accept the Senate’s six-week stopgap spending bill, which has no policy prescriptions, before negotiations begin.
The Obama administration and the Republican-controlled House had come close to failing to finance the government in the past but had always reached a last-minute agreement to head off a disruption in government services.
In the hours leading up to the deadline, House Republican leaders won approval,
in a vote of 228 to 201, of a new plan to tie further government spending to a one-year delay in a requirement that individuals buy health insurance. The House proposal would deny federal subsidies to members of Congress, Capitol Hill staff, executive branch political appointees, White House staff, and the president and vice president, who would be forced to buy their health coverage on the Affordable Care Act’s new insurance exchanges.
But 57 minutes later, and with almost no debate, the Senate killed the House health care provisions and sent the stopgap spending bill right back, free of policy prescriptions. Earlier in the day, the Senate had taken less than 25 minutes to convene and dispose of a weekend budget proposal by the House Republicans.
“They’ve lost their minds,” Mr. Reid said, before disposing of the House bill. “They keep trying to do the same thing over and over again.”
Conservatives With a Cause: ‘We’re Right’
WASHINGTON — Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, was the first to take to the Senate floor to publicly pose a question gnawing at an increasing number of lawmakers and ordinary citizens alike as the deadline for a government shutdown neared: Has Congress gone completely crazy?
“It’s very hard from a distance to figure out who has lost their minds,” said Ms. McCaskill immediately after the Senate on Monday rejected a Republican plan to not finance the government unless Democrats agreed to delay the new health law. “One party, the other party, all of us, the president.”
Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and majority leader, had his own colorful, if somewhat skewed, metaphor about why much of the government was about to grind to halt in a take-no-political-prisoners fight over what is essentially a simple six-week funding bill, attributing it to the emergence of a “banana Republican mind-set.”
Mr. Reid’s language was evocative, and the implication was serious. With Democrats controlling the White House and Senate and with millions of dollars spent getting the
health care law to the starting line, what gives House Republicans the idea that they can triumph in their push to repeal, or at least delay, the Affordable Care Act when so many veteran voices in their party see it as an unwinnable fight?
“Because we’re right, simply because we’re right,” said Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, one of the most conservative of House lawmakers. “We can recover from a political squabble, but we can never recover from Obamacare.”
Representative Raúl Labrador, Republican of Idaho and one of the original proponents of the so-called Defund Obamacare movement, was similarly sanguine. “We can always win,” he said Monday afternoon, as he jogged up the stairs to a closed-door conference meeting, where House Republicans gathered to plot their next move.
Representative Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Rules Committee, hinted that Republicans were unlikely to give up without at least another round since they see their campaign against the health care law as something of a higher quest. And many, if not most, people they talk to — colleagues, friendly constituents, activists, members of advocacy groups — reinforce that opinion, bolstering their belief that they are on the right side not just ideologically, but morally as well.
“This isn’t the end of the road, guys,” Mr. Sessions said with a grin. “This is halftime.”
The distance between the House and the White House has never seemed greater.
ACA Countdown: Expect Low Pay for Docs in Exchange Plans
WASHINGTON -- Provider payments under health plans sold through the Affordable Care Act's health insurance marketplaces may be "significantly" lower than reimbursements from commercial plans, initial indications suggest.
National physician groups are concerned the rates are so low that their members won't sign on to participate in ACA marketplace plans, and there will be no doctors to treat those newly covered patients.
A representative of one primary care provider organization, speaking to MedPage Today on background, said some rates were 70% lower than traditional preferred provider network plans, adding that plans were trying to make provider rates as low as possible to keep premiums equally low.
"Initial hearsay information is that payment rates being offered by [marketplace] plans are quite low in at least some of the states," a federal affairs representative for a second primary care provider group said. "What that means is that fewer providers will sign up."
Health insurers are approaching community providers, hospitals, and clinics with Medicaid rates and starting negotiations with providers at that level,
Lon Sprecher, chief executive of
Dean Health Plan in Madison, Wis., told
MedPage Today. Dean Health Plan and its owner SSM Health Care in St. Louis operate health plans, clinics, and hospitals in Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin.
"The theory that they use is, 'Well, you're seeing these patients already. They're probably Medicaid or uninsured, so Medicaid reimbursement-plus would either be status quo or better than what the provider is receiving,' " Sprecher said.
US employers slashing worker hours to avoid Obamacare insurance mandate
Guardian readers shared their experiences of retailers announcing they would no longer provide healthcare for part-time employees. Photograph: Getty
Avita Samuels has worked at the Mall of America in Minneapolis for the last four years, juggling a sales job with her studies in political science and law at the University of Minnesota. The 24-year-old has been the top sales associate for the last three years and works between 29 and 35 hours a week. But over the past few months, she said, she has watched as friends working in stores around her have their hours and benefits slashed – and she's worried that she will be next.
Forever 21, the clothing store, told staff last month in a memo leaked to the press that it planned to cut hours and reclassify some full-time workers as part- time. The move, which the company denied had anything to do with President Barack Obama's health reforms, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), will nevertheless help it avoid a mandate under the legislation requiring companies with 50 or more employees to offer those working 30 hours a week or more
health insurance. Earlier this month, Seaworld, which operates 11 entertainment parks across the US, capped hours for part time workers at 28, down from 32,
according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Other retailers, such as Trader Joe's and Home Depot have said they will no longer provide medical coverage for part-time employees, and will shift them instead to the public healthcare exchanges which open Tuesday, 1 October. Some employers have said their health costs will rise as a result of various provisions of the ACA, which takes full effect in 2015, when larger companies have to provide health benefits to full time workers or pay a $2,000 per-person fine.
The trend has caused fears among low-paid workers living on the breadline that they will be hit twice – by having their hours and thus earnings cut and by having to pay more for healthcare. Based on what she said is happening in the stores around her, Samuels is concerned she too will have her hours cut and with it her eligibility for company healthcare under the ACA.
"It's a really scary situation," said Samuels, who earns $9.25 an hour and is trying to reduce a student loan debt of close to $50,000. She currently receives subsidised healthcare through her university, but it runs out next year, when she had hoped her employer healthcare would kick in.
"Technically, I should be eligible," she said. "But at least 20 stores around me have cut hours. I live paycheck to paycheck. I have credit card debts. It's a balancing act. I'm afraid I won't be able to afford healthcare."
As one of the nation's lowest-paid workers, with little job security, Samuels is not alone in her fears that she may be worse off when the ACA takes full effect.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/30/us-employers-slash-hours-avoid-obamacare
The insurance exchanges at the core of President Obama’s health care law began operation Tuesday, with federal, state and insurance industry officials watching closely, unsure of what to expect from the rollout.
Most predictions have been for a trickle of new customers at first, with polls showing that many Americans remain uncertain about the purpose of the exchanges and unconvinced that the law will help them. The exchanges are online markets where people can shop for health plans and see if they qualify for federal subsidies.
Despite months of feverish preparation, few officials are sure the exchanges have overcome a range of problems that have plagued the system in many states, including with Spanish-language versions, subsidy calculators and programs to enroll small businesses.
Monday morning, healthcare.gov, the federally run exchange, posted an error message saying high volume had slowed the system. “Please wait here until we send you to the login page. Thanks for your patience!” the message read. A state-run exchange in Maryland also posted a message saying it was “experiencing connectivity issues” and asking visitors to return at noon.
Nor can officials do more than guess how many of the tens of millions of people who are supposed to buy private coverage through the exchanges will do so in time to meet the law’s Jan. 1 deadline for obtaining insurance.
The stakes are immense for Mr. Obama, whose signature achievement is the 2010 law that is supposed to push the United States closer to universal health care. Defending the law in the 2012 campaign, he defeated a Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, who vowed to repeal it.
A trouble-plagued launching, accompanied by the complaints of frustrated consumers, could undermine political support for the law, while tepid participation by the uninsured could weaken its financial underpinnings, which depend on the largest possible number of people paying into the system. The logistics of the new online system are daunting, relying on links to government records to verify citizenship and eligibility for subsidies, and to thousands of different coverage combinations offered by insurers.
MILLIONS FLEE OBAMACARE
UNITED STATES (
The Borowitz Report)—Millions of Tea Party loyalists fled the United States in the early morning hours today, seeking what one of them called “the American dream of liberty from health care.”
Harland Dorrinson, 47, a tire salesman from Lexington, Kentucky, packed up his family and whatever belongings he could fit into his Chevy Suburban just hours before the health-insurance exchanges opened, joining the Tea Party’s Freedom Caravan with one goal in mind: escape from Obamacare.
“My father didn’t have health care and neither did my father’s father before him,” he said. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to let my children have it.”
But after driving over ten hours to the Canadian border, Mr. Dorrinson was dismayed to learn that America’s northern neighbor had been in the iron grip of health care for decades.
“The border guard was so calm when he told me, as if it was the most normal thing in the world,” he said. “It’s like he was brainwashed by health care.”
Turning away from Canada, Mr. Dorrinson joined a procession of Tea Party cars heading south to Mexico, noting, “They may have drug cartels and narcoterrorism down there, but at least they’ve kept health care out.”
Mr. Dorrinson was halfway to the southern border before he heard through the Tea Party grapevine that Mexico, too, has public health care, as do Great Britain, Japan, Turkey, Spain, Belgium, New Zealand, Slovenia, and dozens of other countries to which he had considered fleeing.
Undaunted, Mr. Dorrinson said he had begun looking into additional countries, like Chad and North Korea, but he expressed astonishment at a world seemingly overrun by health care.
“It turns out that the United States is one of the last countries on earth to get it,” he said. “It makes me proud to be an American.”
Only the Beginning — What's Next at the Health Insurance Exchanges?
On October 1, the health insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will open for business. Administrators must complete myriad tasks if they are to serve the millions of individuals — many of whom will be eligible for subsidies — and employees of small businesses who are ready to buy insurance. Initial glitches are likely. Some may be serious. But with good will and persistence, they can be corrected, as Massachusetts' experience with a law similar to the ACA has shown. That is not the end of the story, however. After the exchanges are up and running, they will be in a position to make decisions that will help shape the organization, quality, and financing of all U.S. health care.
Seventeen states and the District of Columbia are setting up exchanges to enroll individuals, families, and small businesses in health insurance plans, while 33 states will rely on the federal government to do so (Utah is establishing a state-based small-business exchange but will rely on the federal government to operate its individual exchange The tasks confronting the exchanges fall into four broad functional areas: eligibility determination and enrollment, consumer assistance and outreach, plan management, and financial management.
1
The ACA establishes income-based categories of eligibility for coverage and financial assistance. People with very low incomes are covered by Medicaid. Others earning up to four times the federal poverty thresholds will be eligible for premium tax credits if they purchase coverage through an exchange and if they do not have an offer of affordable, qualifying employer-sponsored health insurance. Subsidies to reduce cost-sharing obligations will also be made available to some consumers who qualify for premium assistance.
This system is complex and may be confusing to consumers who are largely inexperienced in insurance matters. Different members of a given family may be eligible for insurance coverage through different channels. Eligibility may change as family composition evolves and as income varies. Exchanges need to develop, debug, and maintain software used to enroll people and compute their premium subsidies. They must educate the public about the basic language of insurance (deductibles, coinsurance, copayments, and so forth), as well as the benefits for which they are and are not eligible. They must train people to answer applicants' questions, staff call centers, and help applicants complete required forms.
-SPC
I am massively unimpressed by Henry Aarons' technocratic analysis of the exchange process!
Opening Rush to Insurance Markets Runs Into Snags
Millions of Americans visited new online health insurance exchanges as enrollment opened on Tuesday, suggesting a broad national appetite for the affordable coverage that President Obama has promised with his health care law. But many people quickly encountered technological problems that prevented them from getting rates, comparing health plans or signing up.
Federal and state officials said that while they knew there was pent-up demand for health coverage, the number of visits to their exchanges was greater than anticipated. Federal officials said more than 2.8 million people had visited HealthCare.gov, the federally run exchange that serves residents of more than 30 states, though the figure would include those who received error messages. State-run exchanges also reported higher-than-expected use, including several million visits to New York’s Web site.
The demand “exceeds anything that we had expected,” President Obama said at the White House on Tuesday afternoon.
But it remained unclear whether the array of problems — many people received messages saying the system was down, and others were unable to create accounts to buy insurance — stemmed more from heavy traffic or from flaws in design. Federal and state officials had promised for months that the exchanges would be ready for heavy use by Oct. 1, and had run numerous tests to ensure that the complex systems would work properly from the start.
The problems came on a landmark day for the health care law, Mr. Obama’s signature legislative achievement and the central issue in the Congressional battle over federal spending that has led to a shutdown of the government. A trouble-plagued start, accompanied by the complaints of frustrated consumers, may undermine political support for the law and discourage people from signing up.
Across the country, people trying to use the Internet exchanges expressed mixtures of hope and frustration.
At the Jessie Trice Community Health Center in Miami, out of about 70 people who arrived seeking help with the new program before noon, no one was able to get access to the marketplace. All were given appointments to come back another week.
At the Lower Light Christian Health Center, a clinic just west of downtown Columbus, Ohio, Carrie Moss, a certified application counselor, said the exchange Web site was not working when she tried to show patients their health care options.
And in Kentucky, by 9 a.m. the state-run insurance exchange was freezing up, with users unable to take even the first step of creating an account. Gwenda Bond, a spokeswoman, said that more than 1,000 applications had been filed online by 8:30 a.m., and that the “high volume of traffic” was to blame for the technical problems.
“This surge of early applications demonstrates the pent-up demand for quality health coverage,” Ms. Bond said.
Why the Health Care Law Scares the G.O.P.
This spring, the Missouri Chamber of Commerce
urged the state Legislature to accept the federal government’s plan to expand Medicaid for the poor and disabled.
The business lobbying group had not suddenly gone rogue. Here is how Daniel P. Mehan, its president, summarized his feelings about President Obama’s health care law: “We don’t like it.”
But the Chamber was cognizant of the plea of its members directly affected by the issue: dozens of Missouri hospitals stood to lose $4.2 billion over six years in federal support for uncompensated care if the state refused to increase the income ceiling for Medicaid eligibility.
And it would expand health coverage in the state’s poor, predominantly white rural counties, which voted consistently to put Republican lawmakers into office.
Missouri’s Republican-controlled Legislature — heavy with Tea Party stalwarts — rejected Medicaid’s expansion in the state anyway.
After their vote, a
frustrated editorial in the faithfully conservative Missourian asked of the state’s elected Republicans: “Who Do They Represent?”
Today, the same forces that blocked the expansion of Medicaid in Missouri are going all out in Washington in a bid to undo all of the Affordable Care Act. Bowing to the vehemence of its Tea Party faction, the House G.O.P. forced a government shutdown when Senate Democrats refused to delay or defund the president’s health overhaul.
House Republicans are threatening even further damage if they don’t get their way, possibly unleashing financial chaos if they manage to force the United States into its first default ever on the government’s debt.
Republicans’ efforts raise the same perplexing question posed by the Missourian: What drives Tea Party Republicans and their financial backers? What calculation persuades them that repealing the health care law is worth the risk? Indeed, whose interests do they represent?
Demand is strong as Obamacare enrollment starts in California - latimes.com
Kicking off a historic healthcare expansion, California's new insurance market stumbled out of the gate with computer glitches, long hold times and an online enrollment delay for small businesses.
Still, many consumers rushed to get coverage Tuesday when enrollment opened nationwide as part of President
Obama's
Affordable Care Act. It was a rocky start for many government-run insurance exchanges across the country as computers froze and online enrollment was postponed for several hours.
In California, officials nonetheless took heart at the stronger-than-expected response: about 5 million online hits and more than 17,000 calls.
"It was a huge outpouring of interest, which is good news," said Peter Lee, executive director of
Covered California, the new state marketplace. "Today was just the starting point."
The federal law marks the biggest healthcare overhaul since the launch of Medicare half a century ago. Its fate depends a great deal on how well California handles the expansion, given the state's size and strong backing.
The flood of first-day inquiries quickly overwhelmed the state's $313-million enrollment system and its call centers, making it difficult for many to complete applications.
County health officials complained they couldn't access the state's computer system, forcing them to fill out applications by hand. In a disappointment to some business groups, the exchange said Tuesday that it had postponed online enrollment for small employers until November.
But many took the delays in stride. As expected, those with chronic illnesses and huge medical bills showed up first.
Health care is the only industry that’s booming in Maine, and that’s not always good for our economic health.
It’s not every day that a building gets treated like a rock star. But the Alfond Center for Health is no ordinary building.
The $312 million replacement for MaineGeneral’s two outmoded facilities in Augusta and Waterville is a state-of-the art facility with the latest image-guided surgery technology, 192 private rooms, and common areas and halls that are flooded with natural light.
On Sunday, traffic stretched out onto Old Belgrade Road as drivers lined up for spaces in packed parking lots hoping to get a look around the new hospital, which opens for business next month.
Their interest is understandable. Aside from Bath-built destroyers (which slip into the Kennebec, rarely to be seen in these parts again), there aren’t any $300 million construction projects in Maine.
That should tell you pretty much all you need to know about where the health care industry stands in our economy. And that’s most of what you need to know about what’s wrong with our health care system.
One day after the health care exchanges started making insurance available to millions of Americans, there is still little in place to control the escalating cost of health care, which is about twice what our peers pay in other industrialized countries. Health care cost increases are the major driver in the federal deficit and crowd out other spending priorities on the state and local level. They burden American businesses that have to compete globally and they take money out of workers’ pockets, as annual premium increases make pay raises disappear.
Hospitals are in a highly competitive market where they face intense pressure to be the best, but they don’t face the same pressure to be affordable. No matter how high the costs go, everyone knows it will be passed on to consumers.
“It’s an endless upward spiral,” said Joe Ditre, executive director of Maine Consumers for Affordable Health Care. “The market works to raise prices, not control them.”
The new MaineGeneral building shows how it works. The hospital was endowed with a $35 million gift from the Alfond Family Foundation, which, along with about $12 million from other philanthropists, made an eight-digit down payment on the nine-digit project. The rest is being raised by selling bonds.
The bonds will be paid off from the money the hospital earns by providing services. A small part of that comes from bills sent to individuals, but the vast majority comes from insurance plans, both private and public – including Medicaid and Medicare.
So, the philanthropists get their names out front, but the public ends up paying most of the cost, whether they personally use the facility or not. They pay through their insurance premiums and they pay through their taxes whenever a senior citizen or someone on MaineCare (our state’s name for Medicaid) needs treatment.
But while everyone pays, not everybody has a say. Decisions to expand or build a new hospital are made by the hospital boards, with some oversight by state regulators.
Posted Oct. 01, 2013, at 5:40 p.m.
Mainers seeking to sign up for health insurance through online marketplaces that launched Tuesday under Obamacare weren’t stalled by the government shutdown which is rooted in an impasse over the law in the nation’s capital. But technical glitches — along with the political infighting — tested consumers’ patience.
More than 1 million people visited
Healthcare.gov, the federal government’s website for the new marketplaces, before 7 a.m., President Barack Obama said Tuesday in explaining the glitches, which prevented many people from enrolling.
Tuesday marked the opening of the health insurance marketplaces at the heart of the pivotal health reform, marking a major milestone for the
Affordable Care Act even as it fueled a heated congressional standoff in Washington, D.C.
The shutdown won’t mean much for the marketplaces, which are funded with a pot of federal money that isn’t tied to yearly budget fights.
Dick Barclay of Holden said he visited the federal site early Tuesday morning only to receive a “try again later” message after spending 20 minutes setting up a username and password. He had hoped to shop for a health plan for his wife, who expects the premium for her existing policy to jump to at least $1,500 a month. He doesn’t think the Affordable Care Act will help them much.
“Like everything the government does, it is screwed up,” he wrote in an email. “I’m about done with this and am on the verge of not participating in this worthless program.”
Health care advocates urged consumers to stick with it, saying officials predicted opening-day bugs and stressing that individuals have six more months to sign up. Americans without health insurance have until the end of March to sign up in order to avoid tax penalties.
Consumers also may call for help, fill out paper applications, and visit in person with designated marketplace “navigators” and assisters.
Local health advocates said the high volume of Web traffic indicated great interest in the health insurance marketplaces, which consumers and small businesses can use to shop for private health plans.
Most Mainers receive health coverage through an employer or government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and don’t need to worry about the marketplaces, which are designed to serve the uninsured and individuals who buy their own coverage. Only about 5 to 8 percent of Maine’s population is eligible to shop on the exchanges, according to the state insurance bureau.
Charlene Brousseau of Manchester was stymied in her attempts to log onto
Healthcare.gov on Tuesday morning, but she remained optimistic. She said she expects to purchase a suitable health plan in the coming days with help from Consumers for Affordable Health Care, an Augusta advocacy group spreading the word about the marketplaces.
“I’m just trying to sort out all the different plans and what really fits best for me,” said Brousseau, who retired from a job in education after her husband suffered a stroke.
Brousseau, at 61, is four years away from qualifying for Medicare, the government health insurance program for the elderly and disabled. Until then, she’ll have to buy her own plan. But she expects to qualify for new federal subsidies and tax credits available under the law to help her afford health insurance.
Consumers can apply through the marketplaces for federal help to afford their coverage. While some states will operate the marketplaces themselves,
Maine and 26 other states chose to let the federal government run them.
Small businesses with fewer than 50 workers also can shop on the marketplaces.
The health insurance plans come with new consumer protections, including a prohibition on insurers denying people with pre-existing health conditions and another that prevents companies from charging them more.
Posted Oct. 01, 2013, at 6:54 p.m.
AUGUSTA, Maine — Sen. Angus King said Tuesday that despite having told a reporter that opponents of the Affordable Care Act who urged college students not to buy health insurance were “guilty of murder,” he is ready to work with all political parties to improve the health care law.
“That’s a scandal — those people are guilty of murder in my opinion,” King told a reporter from Salon.com in
an article published Monday. “Some of those people they persuade are going to end up dying because they don’t have health insurance. For people who do that to other people in the name of some obscure political ideology is one of the grossest violations of our humanity I can think of. This absolutely drives me crazy.”
King told the Bangor Daily News during a telephone interview Tuesday that urging young people not to enroll in a health insurance program through the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges, which opened on Tuesday, would lead to early deaths. According to Salon, conservative groups have been encouraging college students to forgo health insurance as a way to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, which depends on millions of healthy young people enrolling.
“If you persuade people not to buy insurance, they’re going to have dramatic financial problems or even death,” said King, who cited studies that show between 20,000 and 45,000 people die annually because they don’t have health insurance. “To tell people to consciously and deliberately advise people not to get health insurance because of your opposition to the law, that’s grossly irresponsible.”
King, who supports the Affordable Care Act, joined numerous other politicians — mostly Democrats — on Tuesday in his objection to efforts by conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives to attach a partial defunding of the ACA to a continuing resolution that would have avoided
the federal government closure that took effect Tuesday. King said Tuesday that he’s willing to work with Republicans and Democrats to improve the law, but only if those efforts unfold on their own, as opposed to being attached to a budget bill.
“What’s happening is a very dangerous precedent for how we make laws; it’s as if we’re rewriting the Constitution,” he said. “There isn’t a chapter in the Constitution which says if all else fails, just hold the government hostage and maybe you can get your way. … You don’t negotiate with a hostage taker because what you would do is really empower them to do it again. They’ll say ‘that solves this problem’ and six weeks later, what’s their next demand?”
King said his “murder” quote to Salon, which has been reported by blogs and media outlets across the country, has no bearing on his willingness to negotiate changes to the ACA and was borne from a personal belief that health insurance is a necessity for everyone, no matter how young or healthy they are.
When King was 29, doctors discovered that he had cancer during a routine checkup that he said he wouldn’t have scheduled if it weren’t free through his insurance.
“I think the reason I feel so strongly about this is that if someone had given me that advice [to not purchase health insurance] when I was 25, I wouldn’t be here,” he said. “I’d be dead. For someone to tell young people not to buy insurance, for me personally there’s nothing worse you can do.”
Exercise “as good as medicines” in treating heart disease
LONDON — Exercise may be just as good as medication to treat heart disease and should be included as a comparison when new drugs are being developed and tested, scientists said on Wednesday.
In a large review published in the British Medical Journal, researchers from Britain’s London School of Economics and Harvard and Stanford universities in the United States found no statistically detectable differences between exercise and drugs for patients with coronary heart disease or prediabetes, when a person shows symptoms that may develop into full-blown diabetes.
For patients recovering from stroke, the review — which analysed the results of 305 studies covering almost 340,000 participants — found that exercise was more effective than drug treatment.
Cardiovascular disease is the world’s number one killer, leading to at least 17 million deaths a year.
“In cases where drug options provide only modest benefit, patients deserve to understand the relative impact that physical activity might have on their condition,” the researchers wrote.
The review also said the amount of trial evidence on the health benefits of exercise is considerably smaller than that on drugs, which the scientists said may have had an impact on their results.
They argued that this “blind spot” over exercise in scientific evidence “prevents prescribers and their patients from understanding the clinical circumstances where drugs might provide only modest improvement but exercise could yield more profound or sustainable gains”.
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