Retail Healthcare at the MinuteClinic

Today I have my first experience with a Convenient Care Clinic (CCC).  In this case, it was the MinuteClinic which are operated in many CVS stores.  My specific healthcare need was getting a flu shot.  Several weeks ago, I got a tetanus shot (also offered at MinuteClinic) at my doctor's office.  There were a lot of differences...

Doctor's office:
Called to make an appointment
Was in waiting room for 10 minutes
Waited in exam room for 10 minutes
Talked with doctor about nothing important for 5 minutes
Nurse gave injection
Was incorrectly charged by doctor for visit, due to their error.  Had to spend 20 minutes on phone with insurance company to reverse charge.

MinuteClinic:
No need to make appointment
Filled out information on computer, waited about 5 minutes
Nurse practitioner took some basic information and gave shot.  Total time 5 minutes
Correctly determined that I have no co-pay, so I walked out without spending a dime

As you can see, for getting a simple vaccine, a CCC is probably a better option for most.  This particular brand, the largest in the US, also offers a lot of other services.  For example, they will treat coughs, earaches, flu-like symptoms, sore throat, allergies, minor burns, sprains,wounds, poison ivy, etc.  I am actually quite surprised of the breadth of services they offer.  And they are "in network" for almost every insurance carrier.

Maybe centers like this are one way to control healthcare costs, or at least provide an affordable option.  The little room was cleaner than my doctor's office too, which I found interesting.  They also used electronic records, something most physicians fear.

Nu-Salt must be happy

Salt is quite the condiment.  There has even been a great book written on its history.  Now the FDA wants to limit it.

So what exactly are they trying to ban?  Sodium chloride, or NaCl which has been used as a food preservative and flavor enhancer for thousands of years.  Empires have been built on salt and it is even the basis for the word "salary".  Sodium, a necessary electrolyte, contributes to hypertension and other disorders in high quantities.  Most Americans eat too much of it.

If sodium levels are reduced, I would assume that most vendors would switch to potassium chloride, KCl, which tastes almost identical to the sodium varietal.  Nu-Salt has been around for a long time with this formulation.

The only downside I can see is from a marketing standpoint.  KCl is one of the ingredients used in the lethal injection cocktail... but that's only when it is injected.  Still, this may worry some people.

High Fructose Corn Syrup Confirmed to be more unhealthy than sugar

High fructose corn syrup has finally been confirmed by evidence to cause more weight gain that sugar.

The US government, by propping up sugar costs, encourages food companies (like Coke or Pepsi) to use HFCS instead of sugar.  With this new research emerging there are a few story lines I'll be following:

1. How will policy makers resolve the conflict between the health of their constituents with the corn lobby?
2. How will the corn lobby respond?  I've seen ads on TV touting that HFCS has never been proven to behave differently from sugar.  Now it has.  If those ads are displayed anymore, I can see lawsuits.
3. How long until a major company switches back to sugar?  Pepsi has already experimented with "throwback" versions of its products and Mexican coke is very popular.  So is Dublin Dr Pepper.  

Historic Healthcare Legislation Passes

Decades in the making, the healthcare reform bill that many have been waiting for has passed.  The bill is not perfect, but it is still the right thing to do.

I, myself am not happy about one aspect, which will prohibit the use of Health Savings Accounts (HSA's) to spend on non-prescription drugs.  What this means, is that legally I cannot use my tax free account to pay for aspirin, contact lens solution, and things like that.  However, this is merely a change to the Internal Revenue law, meaning that the only way someone would get hit for using their HSA this way, is if their taxes were audited and it was found they used the money for this purpose.  It will be a nightmare both to enforce and to educate the public on, since FSA's are seemingly unchanged.  Now there will be some expenses that are HSA and FSA eligible and some that are just HSA eligible.

But I digress; there are definitely some positives to this bill.  Largely speaking, it will make the loss of a job less likely to lead to a loss in healthcare.  While not all changes take effect for several years, there will be high risk pools, and options available to people with pre-existing conditions.  Soon enough, our system will probably be closer to the Swiss system, than any other.  And it is probably one of the better systems, a mix of public and private.

Time will tell if this is a success or a failure, but what is certain is that some type of change is definitely on its way.

China is moving ahead on climate change

What are we doing? We're stuck debating healthcare, at a time when democrats have full control of the government. Just pass something and turn us into Switzerland. We'll live longer and spend less.

Now let's move onto climate change. Regardless of whether you believe that climate change is caused mostly by us or not (I do), consider this: oil will run out sooner or later, it is dirty on many levels, and there's a lot of money to be made coming up with technology to replace it. Would you rather have that tech developed in China or here? Here you say? Well, the only way to get that done is to pass massive taxes that will make energy so expensive in the US that it will be profitable to create version 1.0 of this technology.

Five Hour Energy not all its cracked up to be?

Interesting article on the ubiquitous energy drink available at just about any gas station in the country. Bottom line: it may or may not work better than coffee, and the safety is not clear.