Step into a doctor’s office for a checkup and more often than not, you’ll be weighed, your blood pressure will be checked and you will be asked to pee in a cup so that your urine can be tested...
Diane Archer
How to support a loved one diagnosed with a serious health...
Sachin H. Jain writes for Forbes about the importance of understanding how difficult a grave diagnosis can be for a patient. Many people do not want to accept the fact that they have a serious...
Top predictor for a longer life: close relationships
Only one in 5,000 people in the U.S. reach the age of 100. But, there are places where five to ten times as many people live to 100. Some researchers say that the top predictor for a longer life is...
What you should know about ayahuasca, a psychedelic drug
Casey Schwartz reports for the New York Times that many Americans, including many older adults, are taking ayahuasca, a psychedelic drug, native to the Amazon, that is illegal in the United States...
Ten ways Medicare Advantage plans differ from traditional...
There is a lot of confusion surrounding Medicare Advantage plans–commercial health insurance for people with Medicare–and the ways Medicare Advantage plans differ from traditional...
Thousands of Americans with medical debt arrested each year
We know that millions of insured Americans live with hundreds or thousands of dollars of medical debt. A Pro Publica story by Lizzie Presser (my daughter) uncovers how Americans with medical debt...
How does Canada’s Medicare health care system work?
At this year’s Single Payer Strategy conference held last weekend in Portland, I had the pleasure of interviewing Monika Dutt about Canada’s Medicare health care system. Dutt is a family...
Medicare telemedicine scams around medical equipment on the rise
Victoria Knight reports for Kaiser Health News that family caregivers of institutionalized older adults are getting calls from scammers about the health care needs of their relatives. Medicare...
Social Security benefits will rise 1.6 percent in 2020
As a result of inflation, people on fixed incomes watch their incomes decline in value over time. Fortunately, Social Security’s benefits are adjusted every year automatically to offset...
Does coffee, tea or chocolate improve your brain’s health
You may have read that the different phytochemicals in fruits can be good for your health, protecting you against cardiovascular disease and tumor growth, among other things. Coffee, tea and...