I can’t remember what the machine says but imma low ball it and say 422. That means 578 cals left to go!
Anyone know what machines will help burn those the quickest?
Last week: 126.6
This week: 124.6
Back on track.
Next week’s goal: between 1-2 lbs
QUEENS, NY: 20 (ninety minute) bikram yoga classes for only $20 at Bikram Yoga Queens located in Astoria! Originally worth $360! - via Living Social!
*Click picture for link
In good health news, a study finds that Californians live longer than the average American – 77.4 years for men and 82.2 years for women. Among states, California men have the seventh-highest life expectancy and women the fifth.
But with few exceptions, Californians’ life expectancy is still shorter than that of the healthiest nations. For men in Yuba County and women in Lake County, life expectancy was at a level not seen on the international frontier since 1978. Read more.
Graphic of life expectancy for U.S. women in 2007 via Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
The rates charged by popular health insurance companies may not be favorable but their faithfulness in fulfilling their promises cannot be undermined. They are also dependable in crisis moments. At times, making a little higher payment for a superior product may be more rewarding that always rushing for cheaper ones. Bearing that in mind, there are several ways for attaining reduced payments and
Choosing The Perfect Insurance For You: Stuffs To Help You Decide
SideEffects and recovery from a lumbar puncture, spinal tap http://bit.ly/czJbjR health
“The John Hopkins study—whose results will be published this week in the journal Psychopharmacology—involved giving healthy volunteers varying doses of psilocybin in a controlled and supportive setting, over four separate sessions. Looking back more than a year later, 94 percent of participants rated it as one of the top five most spiritually significant experiences of their lifetimes.”
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Far out: Magic mushrooms could have medical benefits, researchers say
How times change…
Expenditures In Healthcare Globally As Well as in OECD Developed Nations:
A comprehensive study published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development last year in 2010, covering 30-plus nations including the majority of the most developed world economies (excluding Brazil, Russia, India or China), found stark contrasts between health costs here in the United States and those of other nations. Three years ago in 2008, the average of a list that includes, for example, the U.K., France, Germany, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Australia and the U.S., spent 9.0% of GDP on health care. The highest figures were right here at home in the U.S. at 16.0% of GDP, France at 11.2% and Switzerland at 10.7%. Health expenditures per capita, on a purchasing power-adjusted basis (PPP), averaged $3,000.
Total health care expenditures around the world are difficult to determine, due to several unpredictable factors like emergencies and calamities, but $5.5 trillion would be a fair estimate for 2010. That would place health care at about 8% of global GDP, with expenditures per capita about $800. This $5.4 trillion breaks down to approximately $2.6 trillion in the U.S., $2.4 trillion in non-U.S. OECD nations, and $0.5 trillion elsewhere around the world. Outside the U.S. and the rest of the OECD, that would allow roughly $88 per capita per year. Clearly, there is vast disparity in the availability and cost of care among nations, as there is with personal income and GDP. Health care spending per capita in the U.S. was equal to about $8,290 in 2010, while spending in the world’s remotest villages was next to nothing. The trend over the near future is for the modest amount now spent on health care in emerging nations to rise dramatically, while OECD nations like America struggle to contain their own mountainous costs. The total prescription drug market globally was in the $630 billion range in 2010.
Health Care Costs in the U.S.
Continuous increases in the cost of health care, especially here in the U.S., grow at rates far exceeding the rate of inflation in general, are hammering health consumers and payers of all types. Insurance providers continue to struggle to contain costs. Employers, meanwhile, are hit hard by vast increases in the cost of providing coverage to employees and retirees. This, particularly felt, in small businesses all over the nation. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that in 2010, an employer’s premium cost to cover a typical family was $13,770 per year (that’s a 114% increase since 2000), with the typical worker paying 30% ($4,131) of that premium.
Many major employers are now utilizing preventative care programs in efforts to reduce employee illness, and thereby reduce costs. For example, many organizations have participated in providing/offering gym memberships to promote health through active, physical activities and exercise or the use of employee education aimed at better managing the effects of diseases such as diabetes.
Smart employers are showing their employees how to use the Internet to obtain better information about diseases and prevention. Insurance providers are jumping on the Internet bandwagon as well. Some employers are even hiring in-house physicians and nurses to provide primary and preventive care support in the workplace.
Patients and insurance companies are also dealing with sticker shock over the nation’s prescription drug costs. Other factors edging costs upward include expensive new medical technologies and patients’ demands for greater plan flexibility in choosing doctors and specialists at their will. At the same time, hospitals and health systems write off massive amounts of revenues to bad debt, which increases costs for bill-paying patients.
In the wake of the tremendous growth of all aspects of the health care industry from the end of World War II onward, efficiency, competition and productivity were, regretfully, largely overlooked. Much of this occurred because employers plus federal and state governments paid such a large portion of the health care bill.
Healthcare providers are caught between the desire to provide quality care and the desire for cost control on the part of payers, including PPOs, Medicare and Medicaid. The cost versus care debate has spawned an energetic movement to improve the quality of health care in the U.S., much of it centered on patients’ rights, disease management, preventive health care and patient education. Wellness programs,nonetheless, with preventive medicine and health education remain woefully inadequate.
A Milken Institute study released in 2007 found that during the year 2003 (the year on which the study focused), 109 million Americans suffered from one or more of the most common, chronic diseases, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease, pulmonary conditions, mental disorders, stroke or hypertension. This means that more than one-third of all Americans had these conditions to one degree or another. The study estimated one year’s cost of treatment of these conditions at $277 billion, but estimated lost economic productivity to be vastly higher at $1 trillion. In other words, lost work and lost output due to these illnesses reduced the nation’s GDP by about 10%. These burdens could be vastly reduced through better consumer health practices and better preventive medicine. For example, obesity, lack of exercise and cigarette smoking are immense contributors to these diseases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that medical costs for obesity-related diseases rose as high as $147 billion in 2008, compared to $74 billion in 1998.
Back at our nation’s capital, both houses of Congress remain at odds—due to bipartisan differences, as to move forward with true reform in healthcare. Meanwhile, technology and innovations in the pharmaceutical/biotech industries, as well as in the holistic side of managing health—-together with health care costs, march ahead relentlessly.
-The Bassist From Hell
