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What do your heart and your teeth have in common?

Did you know that bad dental hygiene can lead to heart disease? An article in my local newspaper today explored the connection between hygiene and coronary health. The surprising connection is how heart disease is directly related to dental up keep.

In honor of February being Children’s Dental Health Month, it’s time to get your mouth in shape. Unless your family health insurance includes a good dental plan, you will want to pay attention. And let’s be honest a healthy mouth is good for your body and for your wallet, so you will want to pay attention anyway.

The article does state that taking really good care of your teeth will prevent any heart disease, but they suggest that those who have goo dental hygiene tend to be those who have a good overall health in general. Extra

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Nearly a year ago, I addressed the issue of whether or not PPACA regulations would apply to student health insurance policies provided by colleges and universities.  The language of the law was unclear on the subject, and didnt specifically require student health insurance policies to conform to the new rules.

Today, HHS has proposed additional regulations specifically aimed at student health insurance policies, in order to make sure that those plans meet the guidelines created in the PPACA.

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Hundreds of thousands of Washingtonians currently face the threat of catastrophic family health care expenses from serious, unexpected injuries or illnesses, such as accidents, sports injuries, cancer, diabetes, and other diseases. A new cap on out-of-pocket expenses, a key provision of the Affordable Care Act, will help those families protect both their health and their budgets.

Although the spending caps go into effect in 2014, the consumer health group Families USA asked The Lewin Group, a health care policy research and management consulting firm, to look at the impact of the caps on Washington families as if the caps were going into effect in 2011. Read more…

Winter. Just when we thought it was over, Jack Frost pulled a fast one on us. If you have been watching the news, you know that more than a third of the country was pounded with snow last week, causing power outages, canceled school and work, and treacherous driving conditions. If that is not enough to drive anyone crazy, I do not know what is. Even though Punxsutawney Phil (you know, the weather-forecasting groundhog from Pennsylvania) did not see his shadow and predicted an early spring, it feels like winter will never end.

Winter blues is that down feeling you get when the days are shorter and it just cannot seem to get any warmer. Bundling up, day after day, going to work before the sun rises only to go home after it sets.

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This weeks Health Wonk Review included an excellent post by Gary Schwitzer, addressing a recent article in Prevention Magazine about high-tech screening tests for heart disease.  Gary notes that the Prevention article over-recommends many of the tests for healthy, asymptomatic individuals.  In addition, their three example stories about women who didnt think they were at high risk for heart attack included one woman who was morbidly obese (54 and 245 pounds) and another who was borderline obese when their heart attacks occurred.  Perhaps they didnt realize this put them at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease including heart attack but it seems a bit irresponsible to use their stories to push for advanced cardiac testing on all healthy (and presumably healthy weight) people.

Some of these tests are not cheap.  T

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Two years after the reauthorization and expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a new Commonwealth Fund state-by-state scorecard evaluating how the health care system is working for children finds that federal and state action on behalf of children has helped preserve, and even expand, health coverage for this group, despite the severe recession. Yet wide differences persist among states when it comes to health insurance coverage, affordability of health care for families, children’s receipt of preventive care and treatment, and the opportunity for children to lead healthy lives. Read more…

The new superintendent of the Los Angeles school district, John Deasy, is calling for free health, dental, and eye care for any students in need.  Considering this is the 2nd largest school district in the nation, it’s huge news and a big step for a student health insurance quote.  According to the article “New LA Schools Leader John Deasy Calls for Student Healthcare” by Howard Blume on LaTimes.com, Deasy has no clear plan to pay for these benefits but he see this as a necessary benefit for students.

Deasy did say in an interview that he’s considering leveraging the district’s contracts with companies that offer health insurance to employees in addition to raising the profile of the issue to encourage philanthropic donations.

John Deasy takes charge of the LA Unified school district in mid-April and has a lot to take on as the new leader.  There is a

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Two New York Times editorials examine the current “wars” over abortion in the states and in the federal government. Also, Center for Reproductive Rights President Nancy Northup addresses potential court challenges to state abortion legislation.

~ The Two Abortion Wars: A Highly Intrusive Federal Bill: The House Republican-backedbill (HR 3) “is so broad that it could block insurance coverage for abortions for countless American women,” the editorial states. According to the editorial, the bill “would bar outright the use of federal subsidies to buy any insurance that covers abortion, well beyond” the ban on federal funding for abortion coverage in the new insurance exchanges.

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