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	<title>Health &#38; Family &#187; Kate Pickert &#124; TIME.com</title>
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	<description>A healthy balance of the mind, body and spirit</description>
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		<title>Health &#38; Family &#187; Kate Pickert &#124; TIME.com</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com</link>
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		<title>TIME&#8217;s Mobile Tech Issue: Better Care Delivered by iPad, M.D.</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/16/doctors-using-ipads/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/16/doctors-using-ipads/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Aug 2012 11:20:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Clinical Practice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Doctors & Nurses]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy & Industry]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=66533</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Signs barring cell-phone use are a familiar sight to anyone who has ever sat in a hospital waiting room. But the growing popularity of electronic medical records has forced hospital-based doctors to become dependent on computers throughout the day, and desktops — which keep doctors from bedsides — are fast giving way to wireless devices. As clerical loads increased, “something had to give, and that was always face time with patients,” says Dr. Bhakti Patel, a former chief resident in the University of Chicago’s internal-medicine program. In fall 2010, she helped launch a pilot project in Chicago to see if the iPad could improve working conditions and patient care. The experiment was so successful that all internal-medicine residents at the university now get iPads when they begin the program. Johns Hopkins’ internal-medicine program adopted the same policy in 2011. Medical schools at Yale and Stanford now have paperless, iPad-based curriculums. “You’ll want an iPad just so you can wear this” is the slogan for one of the new lab coats designed with large pockets to accommodate tablet computers. (MORE: Read about the TIME Mobility Poll) A study of the University of Chicago iPad project published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that patients got tests and treatments faster if they were cared for by iPad-equipped residents. Many patients also gained a better understanding of the ailments that landed them in the hospital in the first place. With a tablet, “if you tell someone they have pulmonary edema, you can pull up an abnormal chest X-ray, which is theirs, and a normal X-ray and say, ‘Your lung is full of fluid, and that’s why you’re short of breath,’” says Dr. Micah Prochaska, a second-year resident at the University of Chicago. (MORE: Read TIME&#8217;s Special Report On How Your Phone Is Changing The World (and your life) Here) Smartphones, too, are changing medicine. Dr. John Halamka, a Harvard professor and the chief information officer for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, is a toxicologist specializing in mushroom poisoning. About 300<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=66533&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Health Care</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/policy-industry/health-care/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/dripad.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>Meet Dr. Bill Sears, the Man Who Remade Motherhood</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/10/has-motherhood-gone-to-extremes/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/10/has-motherhood-gone-to-extremes/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 May 2012 11:45:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attachment parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[william sears]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=59201</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For TIME&#8217;s May 21 cover story (available to subscribers here), I explored the personal history and legacy of Dr. Bill Sears, the father of a child-rearing philosophy called attachment parenting. As the author of 40-plus books on parenting and pregnancy, Sears is a familiar figure to many American mothers and fathers. Some parents subscribe to his theory that attachment parenting — characterized by extended breast-feeding, co-sleeping and wearing your baby in a sling across your body — is the best way to raise confident, secure children. Others think Sears is an antifeminist tyrant, or that his ideas are just totally unrealistic. Sears’ most well-known parenting manual, a purple 767-page tome called The Baby Book, is ubiquitous, but his own story is not. In reporting this article for TIME, I was intrigued to find out how little had been written about Sears&#8217; upbringing or how he came up with his parenting theories in the first place. It turns out that he and his wife Martha had written a lot of earlier books about attachment parenting before The Baby Book, including one with an evangelical approach. I also came across a book the Searses wrote in 1982 based on another book called The Continuum Concept, which I traced back to a college dropout who had become fascinated by child care in the Venezuelan jungle. “We read the book and thought, Well, this is neat,” says Sears. When I interviewed Bill and Martha Sears at their home in Southern California, we talked for a long time about their childhoods — neither of which resembled the kind of idealized environment the couple imagines for their supporters. Bill&#8217;s father abandoned him when he was a baby; Martha’s father died when she was young, and her mother suffered from mental illness. Their childhoods seemed to be lacking in affection and parental bonding, the very tenets of their teachings. (PHOTOS: Behind the Cover: Are You Mom Enough?) I began to realize that Bill Sears’ theories are based not only on his experience as a pediatrician and father, as<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=59201&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/10/has-motherhood-gone-to-extremes/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Parenting</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/family-parenting/parenting/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>Q&amp;A with Breast-Feeding Mom Jamie Lynne Grumet</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/10/q-a-with-jamie-lynne-grumet/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/10/q-a-with-jamie-lynne-grumet/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 May 2012 11:45:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Breast-Feeding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Childhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Family & Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Infancy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[adoptive breast-feeding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attachment parenting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dr. Sears]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[extended breast-feeding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jamie Lynne Grumet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[public breastfeeding]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=59148</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Jamie Lynne Grumet, a 26-year-old mother of two in Los Angeles, is on the cover of TIME this week breast-feeding her son Aram, who turns 4 next month. Kate Pickert, the author of the accompanying cover story, &#8220;The Man Who Remade Motherhood,&#8221; spoke with Grumet about attachment parenting, adoption and breast-feeding, topics Grumet writes about on her blog, I Am Not the Babysitter. It’s clear from your blog that you’re into attachment parenting. Are you a fan of Dr. Bill Sears? He’s great. I’ve read all his books. He has a very gentle spirit, and I find what he’s saying to be nonjudgmental and relevant to what’s happening today and what we’re finding out about some of the issues that are popping up with our children’s health. I feel like he really is doing this because he knows this is best. And the way he does it is graceful and educating rather than condemning. (PHOTOS: Behind the Cover: Are You Mom Enough?) How old are your children? My adopted son is 5, and my biological son will be 4 next month. Tell me about becoming a mom and breast-feeding your children. We were starting the process of adoption when I got pregnant. We weren’t expecting our biological son at all. He was born two months early, and preemies that age don’t have a sucking reflex. The nurses in the NICU [neonatal intensive care unit] — they kept trying to put him on formula. I couldn’t see him for three days because I was so sick. I was basically passed out from the medication they were giving me. My husband is so great — he would bring the equipment in and actually do the pumping while I was asleep. It was a full family effort. My mother breast-fed me until I was 6 years old, until I self-weaned. Her encouragement to breast-feed is why we were so successful. (QUIZ: What’s Your Parenting Style?) And your adopted son? We were able to bring our son home in November 2010. I know so many amazing women who have induced their lactation, but<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=59148&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/10/q-a-with-jamie-lynne-grumet/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Parenting</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/family-parenting/parenting/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/aattachment_parenting_time_050612_45917_f.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Q+A</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>CT Lung Cancer Screening Saves Lives, But at What Cost?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/30/ct-lung-cancer-screening-saves-lives-but-at-what-cost/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/30/ct-lung-cancer-screening-saves-lives-but-at-what-cost/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 30 Jun 2011 12:00:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Cancer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CT scan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lung cancer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lung cancer screening]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National Lung Screening Trial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New England Journal of Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nlst]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[overdiagnosis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[x-ray]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=37360</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There are only a few cancer diagnoses more terrifying than lung cancer. The disease is responsible for about one-third of all U.S. cancer deaths every year and only 15% of people diagnosed with it live more than five years. These daunting statistics are why U.S. medical professionals have been trying since the 1960s to come up with a way to detect lung cancer at earlier, more curable stages. They may have finally found a way. A paper documenting the results of the government-funded National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) on the effectiveness of lung cancer screening via computer tomography (CT) was published June 29 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). It showed that, compared with those screened for lung cancer with regular X-ray, those screened with CT had a 20% lower lung cancer mortality rate. This figured was so significant that when researchers revealed it in late 2010, the trial was stopped early and preliminary results released ahead of time. The paper just published delves into the results more deeply to reveal promising signs, but also warnings that policy makers should proceed with caution before recommending widespread use of this screening tool. The NLST included more than 53,000 people ages 55 to 74 with an elevated risk of developing lung cancer. To be included in the trial, participants had to smoke or have smoked at least a pack of cigarettes every day for 30 years, or the equivalent. (Someone who smoked, for example, two packs a day for 15 years could also qualify.) Each participant was randomly assigned to receive an annual screening test using either X-ray or CT. In addition to showing a lung cancer mortality rate 20% lower than that of the group assigned to undergo screening via chest X-ray, participants in the CT group also had a 7% lower overall mortality rate. It may be tempting for some patients and doctors to take the results of the NLST as a sign that every American — or at least every smoker or ex-smoker — should undergo a<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=37360&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/30/ct-lung-cancer-screening-saves-lives-but-at-what-cost/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Cancer</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/cancer/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/lung-cancer.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">lung cancer</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Why British Doctors May Read Mammograms Better</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/02/23/why-mammography-may-be-better-abroad/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/02/23/why-mammography-may-be-better-abroad/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Feb 2011 16:00:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Breast Cancer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[affordable care act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[group health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mammography]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=26335</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Critics of the new health reform law say their worst fear is that the U.S. medical system will become more like the one in the United Kingdom. But what if this was a good thing? A new study suggests that in one area of health care — reading mammograms — the British way may be better. There, radiologists are permitted to interpret “screening mammograms” — those performed on women without symptoms or signs of cancer — only if they review at least 5,000 per year. The U.S. minimum threshold, enforced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is just 960 screening or “diagnostic mammograms” — the latter refers to mammograms conducted after an abnormal screening mammogram or other symptoms — every two years. The result, say researchers, is that the rate of false positives — women erroneously told they have cancer or signs of cancer — is far higher in the U.S. than in the U.K. In addition to causing psychological distress in women and invasive follow up procedures like biopsies, false positives in mammography cost some $1.6 billion per year, according to the study, which was spearheaded by researchers at Group Health and largely funded by the American Cancer Society and National Cancer Institute. This counterintuitive finding — that asking doctors to do more leads to fewer errors —could be applied to other screening tests. “You could imagine this for colonoscopy,” says Diana Buist of Group Health, the study’s lead author. Mammography is unique among screening tests in that the federal government requires doctors interpreting mammograms to do so a minimum number of times to legally continue the practice. This is thanks to the Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA) of 1992, which set guidelines for the field of mammography after widespread variation in the quality of mammograms and breast cancer treatment was discovered. The Group Health study also shows how much American health care practitioners could learn from how care is delivered in other countries. While the heated political rhetoric around health care in Washington depicts foreign health care<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=26335&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2011/02/23/why-mammography-may-be-better-abroad/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Breast Cancer</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/breast-cancer-medicine/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>Money Isn&#8217;t Everything, Even to Doctors</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/26/money-isnt-everything-even-to-doctors/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/26/money-isnt-everything-even-to-doctors/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:45:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy & Industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[affordable care act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[doctors]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[financial incentives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harvard study]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pay-For-Performance]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=23706</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Many health policy experts, including those who wrote the Affordable Care Act, believe there’s only one thing that can get doctors to change their behavior — money. A new study may blow a giant hole in that belief, just in time to save the government millions or even billions of dollars. “Pay-For-Performance” is the theory that health care wonks believe could bring the U.S. health care system back from the financial brink. Pay for quality; compensate for competency. If we can just reward doctors when their patients stay or get healthy, we can solve a lot of what ails us systemically. Healthier patients are less expensive to care for and place less strain on the medical system. If doctors are incentivized to keep their patients from getting sick (or sicker), staggering amounts of money and time could be saved. At least that’s the theory behind some of the most experimental and innovative provisions in the new health reform law. (More on TIME.com: In Rural Areas, There May Be No Doctors to Tend to Your Sick Kid) Right now, doctors don’t get paid this way. For the most part, the government (via Medicare or Medicaid) or private insurance companies pay physicians for each individual task they perform. There are no penalties or rewards if these doctors choose the wrong treatments or if a patient’s chronic disease isn’t well managed. The more treatments, surgeries, or office visits a doctor performs, the more money he or she makes. A few years ago, the United Kingdom, in a preview of how the U.S. system could be transformed under health care reform, thought it had a way to improve quality. (Doctors who work for the NHS, a single payer system, are paid differently than in the U.S., largely via salary, but the experiment is still applicable.) Beginning in 2004, the country’s National Health Service (NHS) committed more than $3 billion toward a program to pay doctors bonuses of as much as 25% of their total income. All they had to do was meet or exceed<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=23706&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Health Reform</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/policy-industry/health-reform/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/107070769-surgeon-writing.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">107070769 surgeon writing</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>5 Ways to Get the Most Out of Health Reform</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/03/5-ways-to-get-the-most-out-of-health-reform/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/03/5-ways-to-get-the-most-out-of-health-reform/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:36:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy & Industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[2011]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[affordable care act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Guide to Life 2011]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health care tipsheet]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=21232</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Still not clear on the ins and outs of the Affordable Care Act? Here&#8217;s an easy tipsheet to help you get the most benefit out of health reform in 2011.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=21232&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/03/5-ways-to-get-the-most-out-of-health-reform/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Health Reform</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/policy-industry/health-reform/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/307_checkup.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Get a Checkup</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>Health Care Under the Golden Arches: Cheap But Faulty</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2010/12/03/health-care-under-the-golden-arches-cheap-but-faulty/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2010/12/03/health-care-under-the-golden-arches-cheap-but-faulty/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:30:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Insurance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy & Industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[affordable care act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health insurance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[McDonald's]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mini med plan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Richard Floersch]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=18223</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There’s a central maxim to health insurance pricing: If it seems too good to be true, it is. Health insurance is basically standardized gambling. Insurers set premiums based on how much risk is posed by those who enroll in their plans. Profit margins are generally small and fixed — about 3% to 6%. So next time you hear about a health insurance plan offering deep discounts, keep this in mind: There are only a few variables that can push the price of health insurance down. (More on Time.com: Maybe It&#8217;s Not Such a Good Idea to Marry a Doctor&#8230;) * A huge number of people enrolled in a single plan, diffusing risk * A very healthy and/or young group of people enrolled in a plan * Skimpy coverage The last factor explains how McDonald’s can offer its part-time hourly employees the chance to buy “health insurance” for just $13.09 per week. The fast food chain is under scrutiny for this coverage thanks to a waiver it recently received from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). McDonald’s, along with scores of other organizations that offer these so-called “mini med plans,” were temporarily exempted from a new Affordable Care Act rule that bans insurers from severely limiting how much they will pay annually to cover medical costs. HHS justified these exemptions, which affect more than 1 million Americans, by basically saying mini med plans would go out of business under the new regulation. The exemptions are temporary and besides, said HHS, skimpy coverage is better than no coverage. But is it? Insurers that that aren’t exempted can set annual limits no lower than $750,000 in 2011. The $13.09 McDonald’s plan, in contrast, will only pay out a maximum of $2,000 in benefits per year. Appearing on Wednesday before a Senate committee that is investigating mini med plans, Richard Floersch, the chief human resources office for McDonald’s, said the coverage — while minimal — was an affordable option for workers. (More on Time.com: &#8220;Family Only&#8221; Hospital Visitation Rules Get Scrapped) A<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=18223&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2010/12/03/health-care-under-the-golden-arches-cheap-but-faulty/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Health Insurance</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/policy-industry/health-insurance-policy-industry/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/mcdonalds-sb10062598f-0011.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">sb10062598f-001</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>&#8220;Family Only&#8221; Hospital Visitation Rules Get Scrapped</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/18/family-only-hospital-visitation-rules-get-scrapped/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/18/family-only-hospital-visitation-rules-get-scrapped/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Nov 2010 21:25:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Hospitals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy & Industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA["family only" visitation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hospital visitation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[visiting hours]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=16596</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In a victory for patients and their loved ones, a new federal regulation was announced Wednesday that dramatically loosens the rules on hospital visitors. Beginning two months from now, any hospital that cares for Medicare or Medicaid patients must give patients control over who’s allowed to visit their bedsides. This means hospitals will no longer be permitted to limit visitors to “family” or “immediate family.&#8221; Rules like this previously varied by facility and by state. (More on Time.com: Need Health Insurance? Click Here). Hospital guidelines limiting bedside visitors to legal relatives clearly discriminated against same-sex couples, but as the Obama Administration pointed out when initiating this rule change in April, the restriction affected others as well. Often, a widow or widower with no children is denied the support and comfort of a good friend. Members of religious orders are sometimes unable to choose someone other than an immediate family member to visit them and make medical decisions on their behalf. While this change may provide relief for friends and family of patients previous denied the chance to visit their loved ones in the hospital, one other restriction wasn’t addressed — how long and when visitors can be at the bedside. This is more complicated than just ending discrimination of who can visit. There are issues like needed rest and roommates that come into play. (More on Time.com: 5 Keys to Health Reform&#8217;s Success or Failure). But it’s possible today’s rule change could lead to further examination of existing policies. In a May 2010 commencement address at Yale Medical School, Dr. Donald Berwick, who was chosen by President Obama to oversee Medicare and Medicaid, talked about the pain that strict visiting hours can cause families. In his remarks, Berwick described the true story of a woman only allowed to visit her dying husband in the hospital for 30 minutes at a time, four times a day. The couple, who had been married for 19 years, was rarely apart and these limitations devastated them. Berwick then imagined an alternate scenario, in which<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=16596&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/18/family-only-hospital-visitation-rules-get-scrapped/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Hospitals</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/policy-industry/hospitals-policy-industry/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/hospital-room-1039193762.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">hospital room 103919376</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>What&#8217;s a Tax Deductible Health Expense?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/27/whats-a-tax-deductible-health-expense/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/27/whats-a-tax-deductible-health-expense/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:30:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Insurance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy & Industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[affordable care act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health expenses]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[open enrollment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tax deductions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[taxes]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=14008</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you get health insurance through your job, heads up — it&#8217;s open enrollment time. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, it&#8217;s even more important than usual that workers pay attention to what their health insurance plan will look like next year. There are major changes afoot. One change concerns flexible spending accounts, or FSAs. These allow workers to set aside pre-tax income to pay for out-of-pocket medical expenses like insurance co-pays and drug costs. Beginning in 2011, employees will not be able to use FSA funds to pay for over-the-counter medicine unless it&#8217;s prescribed by a doctor. This change is something employees should keep in mind when deciding how much of their paychecks to route into FSAs next year. (More on Time.com: 5 Keys to Health Reform&#8217;s Success or Failure) The New York Times reports today on a lack of change that rankling some. Despite a sweeping new health care reform law intended, in part, to emphasize behavior that will keep people healthy, the IRS will continue to exclude breast-feeding expenses from FSA expenditures. Research indicates that babies who are breast-fed are healthier than those who are fed formula. Says the Times: A study released this year by Harvard Medical School concluded that if 90 percent of mothers followed the standard medical advice of feeding infants only breast milk for their first six months, the United States could save $13 billion a year in health care costs and prevent the premature deaths of 900 infants each year from respiratory illness and other infections. For mothers who return to work within weeks or months of their babies&#8217; birth, breast pumps are an essential tool, argue groups like La Leche League International. The Affordable Care Act does include another provision, however, intended to encourage breast-feeding. New mothers will be allowed by law to take unpaid breaks from work to use breast pumps. (More on Time.com: Special Report: Health Care for the Uninsured). Other changes to look for this open enrollment season include new health insurance regulations that may make plans better<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=14008&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Health Insurance</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/policy-industry/health-insurance-policy-industry/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/md001982-breast-pump.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">MD001982</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>An Insurer Aims to Put Your Oncologist on a Budget</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/20/an-insurer-aims-to-put-your-oncologist-on-a-budget/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/20/an-insurer-aims-to-put-your-oncologist-on-a-budget/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Oct 2010 17:55:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Insurance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy & Industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bundling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[chemotherapy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health insurance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[medical costs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[united healthcare]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=13267</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[An oncologist who administers chemotherapy drugs in his office has a business plan a little like a general contractor who renovates your house. These doctors buy drugs from manufacturers are wholesale prices, tack on a little extra and bill insurers at retail prices. A pilot program from United HealthCare aims to change this. As Julie Appleby of Kaiser Health News reports, the insurer is now experimenting with paying oncologists lump sums for full courses of cancer treatments, based on 2010 prices, instead of paying for each service performed. The idea is to remove the financial incentive doctors have to use more expensive drugs. (More on Time.com: Photos: The Landscape of Cancer Treatment) Slowing the growth in medical spending in America is a necessity, but doing this is not easy. United HealthCare&#8217;s idea, known as bundling, is one thing that might help. Appleby reports: It is the first large foray into payment &#8220;bundling&#8221; for chemotherapy by a private insurer, although other insurers are testing the approach for hip and knee replacements, and Medicare will launch a program next year combining drugs and dialysis services. The new health overhaul law also calls for such payments. The insurer aims to &#8220;separate oncologists&#8217; income from their drug selection&#8221; and &#8220;start searching for the best practices and move to them,&#8221; says Dr. Lee Newcomer, United&#8217;s senior vice president for oncology. Bundling is not a new idea. As I reported in July 2009, the Centers for Medicare &#38; Medicaid Services is in the midst of a similar demonstration project, targeting 37 common surgical procedures. Other privately funded pilot programs have also taken up the bundling mantle, encouraging insurers to pay doctors fixed amounts for everything from managing a patient with congestive heart failure to one with diabetes. It&#8217;s an idea academics believe could realign financial incentives for doctors, rewarding them for providing safe and effective care and penalizing them for performing overly expensive or unnecessary procedures. (More on Time.com: Special Report: Advances for Breast Cancer Patients). Doctors sometimes bristle at this kind of talk, saying neither<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=13267&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Health Insurance</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/policy-industry/health-insurance-policy-industry/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/ab70503-cancer.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">AB70503</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/d40234a6843419b1a17b2c08b6848561?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>Is Birth Control Preventive Medicine?</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/13/is-birth-control-preventive-medicine/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/13/is-birth-control-preventive-medicine/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Oct 2010 20:41:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Women's Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[affordable care act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Birth Control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Planned Parenthood]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=12443</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[That’s the question federal officials will by answering in the next year as they continue writing regulations to implement the Affordable Care Act. If federal regulators decide to include prescription contraception in its list of official preventive services, private insurers will be required to cover 100% of the cost. To help convince federal regulators, Planned Parenthood just launched a campaign called “Birth Control Matters.” The effort includes an online petition and results of a poll commissioned by Planned Parenthood showing that 81% of women and 60% of men agree that birth control “definitely” or “probably” should be “covered under preventive health care.” (More on Time.com: Check out &#8216;au natural&#8217; birth control as part of our package on eco-friendly sex aids) Predictably, conservative groups like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Heritage Foundation and National Abstinence Education Association oppose the categorization of birth control as “preventive,” according to the Daily Beast. Since Sept. 23, 2010, all new plans have been required to cover preventive services with no out of pocket costs for consumers. (Existing plans do not fall under this new rule.) This health reform provision kicked in using guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the Centers for Disease Control and the Health Resources and Services Administration, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services. Birth control is not considered “preventive” by these agencies, but the Affordable Care Act gives HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wide latitude to include other services. She has asked the Institute of Medicine to help it decide “what preventive services are necessary for women’s health and well-being and should be considered in the development of comprehensive guidelines for preventive services for women,” according to IOM. Birth control will be on the table as IOM researches this area. The IOM is a highly respected non-partisan organization known for its comprehensive research and review of research already conducted. The Wall Street Journal says the final IOM report should be released next summer. (More on Time.com: Special — Health Care for the Uninsured). The Planned Parenthood<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=12443&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Women&#039;s Health</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/womens-health/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>Bowl Half Empty? How to Tell If Your Dog Is a Pessimist</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/12/bowl-half-empty-how-to-tell-if-your-dog-is-a-pessimist/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/12/bowl-half-empty-how-to-tell-if-your-dog-is-a-pessimist/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:56:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Behavior]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[optimist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pessimist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pet behavior]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=12245</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The only time my dog&#8217;s tail stops wagging is when she&#8217;s asleep. She&#8217;s a really happy pup, in other words — or at least I thought she was. The lead author of a new study in the journal Current Biology suggests she may have a &#8220;negative underlying emotional state.&#8221; According to researchers at the University of Bristol and University of Lincoln in the U.K., dogs that exhibit &#8220;separation-related behavior&#8221; (SRB) may be inherently pessimistic pooches. This behavior includes barking, destructive chewing and peeing and pooping when left alone. (My dog, Lola, exhibits the second one.) (More on Time.com: Why Spamming Your Friends With Cute Kitties Is Good Karma) For the study, researchers observed 24 shelter dogs to determine which ones exhibited SRB. Next, the researchers taught the dogs that a bowl placed on one side of a room would contain food, while a bowl placed on the other side would not. After the pups had that down, the researchers placed a test bowl elsewhere in the room. Dogs that ran to that bowl expecting food were labeled &#8220;optimistic&#8221;; dogs that ignored the new bowl figuring it wouldn&#8217;t contain food were labeled &#8220;pessimistic.&#8221; The authors of the study found a correlation between dogs that exhibited SRB and those that were pessimists in the bowl test. In a published interview, Mike Mendl, the study&#8217;s lead author said, &#8220;Happy people are more likely to judge an ambiguous situation positively. Now it seems that this may also apply to dogs.&#8221; The ambiguous situation he referred to was being left alone. Pessimistic dogs, the study says, may view this circumstance as bad and react accordingly, while optimistic dogs may not. Back to my dog, Lola. When my husband and I first adopted her from a rescue group, we immediately bought a metal crate and began the process of &#8220;crate training,&#8221; allowing her to be outside her crate only under supervision or if it was time to go for a walk to pee and poop outside. Once she got the hang of that, we left her<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=12245&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Behavior</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/mental-health/behavior/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/lola-healthland.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/lola-healthland.jpg?w=240" />
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			<media:title type="html">Lola-Healthland</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/d40234a6843419b1a17b2c08b6848561?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fmu.gif&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>How to Keep Surgeons From Leaving Things Behind</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/06/how-to-keep-surgeons-from-leaving-things-behind/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/06/how-to-keep-surgeons-from-leaving-things-behind/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Oct 2010 21:39:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Policy & Industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Safety]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[abdominal surgery]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hospital accidents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[retained foreign objects]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[surgery]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=11655</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It may seem unthinkable, but as many as 1 out of 1,000 people who undergo abdominal surgery end up in the recovery room with a foreign object mistakenly left inside them. In the medical community, these forgotten surgical tools are known as &#8220;retained foreign objects.&#8221; The object most commonly left behind is the surgical sponge which is used to soak up fluids during surgery. Sometimes these forgotten sponges are not discovered for years, if at all. Other times, however, they can cause grave injury down the road, which can also lead to malpractice lawsuits. (More on Time.com: Why Do Black Patients Get Unwanted End-of-Life Care?) But evidence from a recent demonstration shows that technology can provide a safety net for doctors and nurses in the operating room. National Public Radio reports that the Mayo Clinic has begun using electronic sensors to track surgical sponges. They are scanned when removed from their packaging and scanned again when they are thrown out. The system, which costs about $13 per surgery, has reduced the sponge left behind rate from about once every month or two to never, according to NPR. More on Time.com: Need Health Insurance? Click Here. Confused About Health Reform? Help Is Here What Health-Care Reform Really Means Health Checkup: How to Live to 100 Years Old<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=11655&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Safety</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/policy-industry/safety-policy-industry/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/eb4702-001.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">EB4702-001</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>Need Health Insurance? Click Here.</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/01/a-relatively-new-and-definitely-improved-website-for-health-insurance/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/01/a-relatively-new-and-definitely-improved-website-for-health-insurance/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Oct 2010 17:00:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Insurance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy & Industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[affordable health care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health insurance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Medicare]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=11080</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you’ve ever tried to sign up for health insurance on the open market – meaning, not through work or a government program like Medicare – you know how painfully difficult it can be. Without an insurance broker, just figuring out what insurance options are available, how much they cost and what they cover can be a nightmare. If you can wade through that, the next step is come to grips with the fact that as an insurance pool of one person or one family, your premiums will be relatively high. (More on Time.com: The Five Keys to Health Reform&#8217;s Success or Failure) Well, today the Department of Health and Human Services added data to its already well-functioning new health insurance web site that will make this process easier. (Not less expensive, but easier.) With funding from the Affordable Care Act, HHS launched healthcare.gov back in July. Here’s part of what I wrote about it at the time: The site, which boasts some 500 pages of content, contains information about private insurance for individuals and small businesses, Medicaid programs in every state and high-risk pools. There are sub-sections of the web site with information geared to specific populations – young adults, employers, families with children, etc. The site is amazingly easily to navigate and isn&#8217;t overcrowded with information. Enter your zip code, insurance status, basic health status, family makeup and a few other details and up pops the insurance plans available to you. Pretty cool, huh? If this sounds like an ad for the web site, it is. Consumers should go there. Part of the reason the U.S. health insurance system is dysfunctional is that consumers aren&#8217;t empowered and there&#8217;s not enough transparency. Many people don&#8217;t know what their insurance choices are or what laws and regulations affect them. Now they can get this information easily and quickly. But what was missing from the initial launched of healthcare.gov was the number one thing people care about when shopping for insurance – price. (More on Time.com: Top 10 Health-Care-Reform Players) Today’s<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=11080&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Health Insurance</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/policy-industry/health-insurance-policy-industry/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/307_healthcare-com1.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">307_Healthcare.com[1]</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>Happy Insurance Regulation Day!</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/23/happy-insurance-regulation-day/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/23/happy-insurance-regulation-day/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:50:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Insurance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy & Industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[affordable care act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health reform]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=10002</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Today, some major health insurance regulations created by the Affordable Care Act kick in. These consumer protections have kind-hearted-sounding descriptions like &#8220;coverage for kids with pre-existing conditions,&#8221; but they come with a host of caveats and seem unlikely to make the sweeping health law instantly more popular. (More on Time.com: What Will Health Care Mean For You?) In a story today, I run through the major new rules, who they will affect and how. (Hint: If you&#8217;ve got an uninsured kid with a pre-existing condition, you might still face an uphill battle getting coverage.) More on Time.com: Number of the Day: 50.7 Million Health Insurance Broker: Friend or Foe?<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=10002&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Health Insurance</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/policy-industry/health-insurance-policy-industry/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/regulationcropped.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with Democratic leadership at a news conference on health insurance reform</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>Confused About Health Reform? Help Is Here</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/22/confused-about-health-reform-help-is-here/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/22/confused-about-health-reform-help-is-here/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:45:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy & Industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[affordable care act]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kaiser]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=9603</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On the whole, Americans don’t understand the Affordable Care Act (ACA) very well. After the jump, some proof of the confusion, as well as a helpful — and adorable — video tutorial that might help clear some things up. The Associated Press released a poll Tuesday confirming what other pollsters have found — Americans are utterly confounded when it comes to the ACA. According to the AP survey: *41% of people don’t think the law will require U.S. citizens to have health insurance or pay a fine. (Actually, the law will do this with what’s known as the “individual mandate.”) * 41% of people don’t think the law will have the government give money to low-income citizens to help them buy insurance. (This is a central tenet of the new law.) (More on Time.com: Meet the Man Behind Health Care Reform) * 40% believe the law will require Americans to provide a government ID card to get care at hospitals. (This is false.) * 39% believe committees will review individual medical histories to decide if they can get care paid for by the government. (This is false.) * 65% believe the law will increase the federal deficit. (It will reduce the deficit by more than $100 billion over 10 years.) There are lot more interesting survey questions and answers in the full poll results available here. If you are confused about the new law, you are not alone. In fact, generally, you’re in the majority. But fear not. The Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-partisan non-profit group, just produced a cartoon video that does an amazingly thorough job of explaining what’s wrong the U.S. health care system and how the ACA attempts to solve those problems. The best part — it’s only 9 minutes long! And it’s cute. And it’s narrated by Cokie Roberts. Enjoy! More on Time.com: Five Immediate Benefits of Health Reform The Five Keys to Health Reform&#8217;s Success or Failure<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=9603&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Health Reform</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/policy-industry/health-reform/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/confused-102483988.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">confused - 102483988</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>Why Being Poked and Prodded Is a Good Thing</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/20/why-being-poked-and-prodded-is-a-good-thing/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/20/why-being-poked-and-prodded-is-a-good-thing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 20 Sep 2010 21:30:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Doctors & Nurses]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy & Industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[doctor's office]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[family medicine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[medical technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NPR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[physical exam]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=9304</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Richard Knox had a great story on NPR today looking at how technologies are replacing the oldest form of doctoring – the physical exam. Knox’s reporting focuses on how modern medical training doesn’t emphasize the old-school techniques doctors have been using for centuries. His conclusion – that medicine has, with technology, sped up considerably at a cost shouldered by patients &#8211; echoes a similar concern I have heard from lots of primary care providers. Family medicine in the modern era has become treadmill-like. Rapid, impersonal, 10-minute appointments – at $60 to $100 a pop – are now the norm and they don’t give doctors much time to get to know their patients. Sure, a doctor can learn a lot about a patient by looking at his or her chart &#8211; or MRI. But a doctor won’t find out about lifestyle factors, for instance, that can be as every bit as important to health as an elevated cholesterol reading. Conversations happen at the bedside or while a patient is perched on an exam table. These conversations are critical to managing a patient’s health, but they don’t happen as often as they used to. The shortage in primary care providers – like family doctors and internists who pursue general practice – only speeds up the treadmill even more. Who has time to perform a complete physical when there are 50 more patients outside the door who’ve waited three months to get an appointment? (More on Time.com: Why Medical Malpractice Suits Have Little to Do with Doctor Performance) A family doctor I interviewed recently was complaining to me about how so few medical students decide to follow in his footsteps and instead pursue specialty medicine which is far more lucrative and can require far fewer hours of work per week. The family doctor I talked to cares for his patients literally from maternity ward to death bed. He delivers babies, cares for children and adults and helps elderly patients determine their end of life plan. It doesn&#8217;t get any more old school than<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=9304&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Doctors &amp; Nurses</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/policy-industry/doctors-nurses/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/patient-exam-98471505.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">patient exam 98471505</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>Number of the Day: 50.7 Million</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/16/number-of-the-day-50-7-million/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/16/number-of-the-day-50-7-million/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:12:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Health Insurance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Policy & Industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health insurance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[medicaid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[uninsured]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=8695</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Census bureau announced today that 50.7 million people in the U.S., including 7.5 million children, did not have health insurance in 2009, up from 46.3 million in 2008. The number of U.S. residents with insurance in 2009 was 253.6 million, down from 255.1 million. This is the first time the number of people with insurance has dropped since the Census started measuring coverage this way in 1987. More people than ever before are getting insurance through the government, with 30.6% of the population enrolled in Medicaid, Medicare or military coverage programs. Only 55.8% of people are now covered by job-based insurance, the lowest percentage since 1987. Hispanics had the highest rate of uninsurance of any ethnic group in 2009, at 32.4%, followed by blacks, at 21%. Both groups had the largest increase in uninsurance from 2008 to 2009. Young adults continued to lack insurance at a rather alarming rate &#8211; 30.4% of people 18 to 24 were without insurance in 2009. Non-citizens too had a very high of uninsurance, at 46% in 2009. People in the South were less like to have coverage than in other regions of the country, as were people earning less than $25,000 per year. More Time.com: Multimedia: Health Care for the Uninsured Obama&#8217;s Controversial Medicare Chief Is There a Better Way to Pay Doctors?<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=8695&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Health Insurance</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/policy-industry/health-insurance-policy-industry/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timewellness.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/files-84437265.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">files 84437265</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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		<title>The Mysterious Case of Donald T., Autism&#8217;s First Child</title>
		<link>http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/14/the-mysterious-case-of-donald-t/</link>
		<comments>http://healthland.time.com/2010/09/14/the-mysterious-case-of-donald-t/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Sep 2010 16:06:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kate Pickert</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Autism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mental Health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[donald gray triplett]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[the atlantic]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://healthland.time.com/?p=8296</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Atlantic has an absorbing tale in the current issue about the first person ever diagnosed with autism. The man, now 77, is named Donald Gray Triplett and the story&#8217;s authors tracked him down in Mississippi where — 74 years after he was institutionalized for exhibiting introverted behavior — he spends his days playing golf, drinking coffee with friends and watching TV. According to the article: &#8230;Donald appears comfortable with silence, and in a larger sense, content with the life he’s leading, which resembles — with the car and the coffee and the golf and the TV — a retirement community’s brochure version of how to live out the golden years. Donald has freedom, independence, and good health. All in all, life has turned out well for autism’s first child. The tale is particularly moving because, as the authors note, &#8220;within a decade or so, more than 500,000 children diagnosed with autism will enter adulthood.&#8221; Back when Donald&#8217;s family noticed he was different than other children, his family doctor blamed his oddities on bad parenting. He was institutionalized at age 3 and didn&#8217;t enter the medical literature alongside the term &#8220;autism&#8221; until he was 10. The Atlantic authors, one of whom has an autistic son, traced Donald&#8217;s history intertwining it with what we have learned about autism in the decades since. It&#8217;s worth a full read.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=healthland.time.com&#038;blog=8684427&#038;post=8296&#038;subd=timewellness&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Autism</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://healthland.time.com/category/medicine/autism/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">katepickert</media:title>
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