Family Medical Costs Still Rising, and Other Links
An iPhone application lets users check levels of blood, protein and other substances in their urine. (I’m trying to imagine how that would work?)
Health Care Policy and Reform Insights | NCPA
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“Can dyslexia be good for you?”
We all have different strengths and weaknesses. I’m sure dyslexics have unique insights that prove valuable to society.
Maybe it isn’t the dyslexia that made this person successful, but the struggling to overcome dyslexia. Some people fail to overcome, others succeed. As far as anecdotal evidence goes, I bet we can find a significant number of dyslexics that haven’t succeed.
“An iPhone application lets users check levels of blood, protein and other substances in their urine.”
True, the article doesn’t go into the tech aspect of how this actually works. Can’t seem to find a possible way to think of how this would work.
@dyslexia
I’ve heard of cases where this disorder stimulates other parts of the brain that help the person in other creative outlets. However, I don’t know how scientific this is and how much nurturing and environment have an effect on this.
“the first target of U.S. regulators seeking boundaries in a burgeoning industry for medical diagnosis on-the-go”
Always with the boundaries. Can’t the government just let US decide what WE want?
@Sam
Maybe it only works once. Then, you have to get a new phone to replace the old one that you destroyed.
@Jake
I wonder what other great stuff the government has regulated out of existence.
@ Costing a family $22,000
That is a very large chunk out of an average income family. Add to this that fact that we don’t really consume medical services all that frequently, and so, insurance seems like something that many, on a shoe string budget, would choose to go without.
@ $22,000 for Health Insurance
Given this, I am not surprise why people choose to go without it. If your a healthy family, why choose health insurance when that money can be saved for college as oppose health insurance, which many consume on selective cases.
@ Urine testing Smart Apps
I question how legit it might be, they have tried to do these things for some time now, but the results have mostly been mixed.
“Can dyslexia be good for you?”
– I think it’s a persons character that explains why some people with disabilities are able to persevere and succeed despite physical setbacks. Can using your disability help you when you fill out an application for school or work? Sure. But people use life experiences all the time to demonstrate how they’ve overcome an obstacle. Why treat disabilities differently?
I’m waiting for the iPhone app that will retrieve a beer out of the fridge and bring it to me on the couch while I watch tv. I tried to teach my dog, however, my patience was limited.
Patel, @ Costing a family $22,000
That is not exactly what the article says. It says that’s the average cost to cover a family. But the majority of families typically don’t pay this total cost.
That’s because they have insurance for which some other party pays all or the majority of the cost for them. This includes people who have group insurance (roughly 160 million people) or Medicare (more than 45 million have Medicare or Medicare Advantage) or Medicaid (another 40 million have Medicaid).
Who is liable for their own full cost? Mainly the 20 million or so that purchase an individual insurance policy and pay its full premium, and, of course, the 50 million uninsured.
@Bud,
I’ve been waiting for the same thing!
If the cost of coverage has no factors pushing prices down even with the lower reimbursement percentages offered by Medicare and Medicaid, how will expanding existing forms of coverage make a difference?
@Jordan, I think the idea is that exchanges will force competition. Problem is that the competition already exists — and annual coverage rates are still growing.
@Hoover, yes competition already exists – among insurance companies.
But the main component of insurance cost is medical cost.
And the history of the past 50 years sorta suggests insurance companies can’t control medical cost. They just pass it along.
Same is true for the largest insurer in the U.S. – Medicare.
So I doubt competition among insurance companies will help reduce insurance premiums any more over the next 50 years than it has over the last 50 years.
How it works? I guess you pee on your phone.