Early stage

•May notice patient is more anxious, forgets friends’ names and telephone numbers, places everyday items in the wrong storage locations, leaves projects (laundry, meals) unfinished, has trouble making change and balancing a checkbook.

•If patient’s work life is suffering, caregiver also may need to take on more financial responsibility.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK TO USA TODAY:  How Alzheimer’s disease alters lives, stage by stage – USATODAY.com.

Those startling results, published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics, are only an estimate. But several experts who reviewed the analysis said the methods and conclusions seem sound.

“The health care system has got to be aware that breast-feeding makes a profound difference,” said Dr. Ruth Lawrence, who heads the American Academy of Pediatrics‘ breast-feeding section.

The findings suggest that there are hundreds of deaths and many more costly illnesses each year from health problems that breast-feeding may help prevent. These include stomach viruses, ear infections, asthma, juvenile diabetes, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and even childhood leukemia.

The magnitude of health benefits linked to breast-feeding is vastly underappreciated, said lead author Dr. Melissa Bartick, an internist and instructor at Harvard Medical School. Breast-feeding is sometimes considered a lifestyle choice, but Bartick calls it a public health issue.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR YAHOO! NEWS: Study: Breast-feeding would save lives, money – Yahoo! News.

In 1982, Scientific American published an article suggesting that snorting cocaine was no more addictive than eating potato chips. People continue to use when the stuff is around, and simply stop when it’s gone, the researchers argued. The paper was later widely denounced for minimizing the risks of what soon became known as the most addictive drug all. Cocaine, that is, not Fritos. (See pictures of what makes you eat more food.)

The funny thing is that the same headlines are still making news — except written in reverse. On March 29, the New York Daily News declared: “Fatty foods may be just as addictive as heroin and cocaine: study.” Indeed, a look at Americans’ collectively expanding waistline — with two-thirds of adults qualifying as overweight or obese — would suggest that the Scientific American article may have actually understated the addictiveness of junk food, not cocaine. Some addiction researchers might even argue that potato chips — and other high-fat, high-calorie foods — are more effective than a crack pipe in terms of keeping “users” hooked long-term.

via Can Eating Junk Food Really Be an Addiction? – TIME.

Medical costs are rising fast — up 5.7% last year, while the economy declined 1.1%, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In the next 10 years, health spending is projected to rise 6.1%, reaching $4.5 trillion, or nearly 20% of the economy.

Some critics and even proponents of the law say it won’t do enough to slow down that trend. The health insurance industry, blasted by Obama for recent premium increases in California and other states, argues that the unsolved problem is the prices charged by doctors, hospitals, drugmakers and others.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR USATODAY:  Big question: Will we really pay less for health care? – USATODAY.com.

The following is a look at the impact of the law, which will extend insurance coverage to 32 million additional Americans by 2019, but which will also have an effect on almost every citizen.

Here’s how you might be affected:

Q: I don’t have health insurance. Will I have to get it, and what happens if I don’t?

A: Under the legislation, most Americans will have to have insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty. The penalty would start at $95, or up to 1 percent of income, whichever is greater, and rise to $695, or 2.5 percent of income, by 2016. This is an individual limit; families have a limit of $2,085. Some people can be exempted from the insurance requirement, called an individual mandate, because of financial hardship or religious beliefs or if they are American Indians, for example.

What Health Overhaul Will Mean For You : NPR.

Primary care physicians already are in short supply in parts of the country, and the landmark health overhaul that will bring them millions more newly insured patients in the next few years promises extra strain.

The new law goes beyond offering coverage to the uninsured, with steps to improve the quality of care for the average person and help keep us well instead of today’s seek-care-after-you’re-sick culture. To benefit, you’ll need a regular health provider.

Yet recently published reports predict a shortfall of roughly 40,000 primary care doctors over the next decade, a field losing out to the better pay, better hours and higher profile of many other specialties. Provisions in the new law aim to start reversing that tide, from bonus payments for certain physicians to expanded community health centers that will pick up some of the slack.

A growing movement to change how primary care is practiced may do more to help with the influx. Instead of the traditional 10-minutes-with-the-doc-style office, a “medical home” would enhance access with a doctor-led team of nurses, physician assistants and disease educators working together; these teams could see more people while giving extra attention to those who need it most.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR AP & YAHOO! NEWS

Health overhaul likely to strain doctor shortage – Yahoo! News.

The obligation in the new health care law is a Republican idea that’s been around at least two decades. It was once trumpeted as an alternative to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s failed health care overhaul in the 1990s. These days, Republicans call it government overreach.

Mitt Romney, weighing another run for the GOP presidential nomination, signed such a requirement into law at the state level as Massachusetts governor in 2006. At the time, Romney defended it as “a personal responsibility principle” and Massachusetts‘ newest GOP senator, Scott Brown, backed it. Romney now says Obama’s plan is a federal takeover that bears little resemblance to what he did as governor and should be repealed.

Republicans say Obama and the Democrats co-opted their original concept, minus a mechanism they proposed for controlling costs. More than a dozen GOP attorneys general are determined to challenge the requirement in federal court as unconstitutional.

Obama health insurance requirement taken from GOP – Yahoo! News.

But it appears that, from a financial standpoint, some states will be winners and some will be losers in this new arrangement.

Here’s a look at why some states may stand to benefit. Later today, the Monitor will look at other states, which are complaining that it will cost their taxpayers a lot more money in the future.

The biggest winners, state officials and Medicaid experts say, could be those states that have already taken an important step toward expanding their own Medicaid programs: covering childless adults.

The reason for the coming windfall: These states are already paying for something that the new healthcare plan will soon mandate, and as the law’s provisions begin to kick in, the federal government will actually pick up much of the burden that these states are now bearing.

The winners: 11 states plus D.C.The 11 so-called “expansion states” states are: Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin, plus the District of Columbia.

Currently, states that cover childless adults receive a 50 percent reimbursement for their costs. But the federal share of that reimbursement is set to increase, according to the bill of healthcare fixes, which tweak some of the numbers in the healthcare bill already passed and signed by President Obama.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR YAHOO! NEWS

Healthcare reform fallout: Which states are the winners? – Yahoo! News.

With the passage of Obamacare, creating a vast new middle-class entitlement, a national sales tax of the kind near-universal in Europe is inevitable.

We are now $8 trillion in debt. The Congressional Budget Office projects that $12 trillion will be added over the next decade. Obamacare, when stripped of its budgetary gimmicks — the unfunded $200 billion-plus “doctor fix,” the double counting of Medicare cuts, the 10-6 sleight-of-hand (counting 10 years of revenue and only six years of outflows) — is at minimum a $2 trillion new entitlement.

It will vastly increase the debt. But even if it were revenue-neutral, Obamacare preempts and appropriates for itself the best and easiest means of reducing the existing deficit. Obamacare’s $500 billion of cuts in Medicare and $600 billion in tax hikes are no longer available for deficit reduction. They are siphoned off for the new entitlement of insuring the uninsured.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK TO THE WASHINGTON POST:

Charles Krauthammer – Obamacare’s next trick: the VAT – washingtonpost.com.