With all the concerns over seasonal flu and swine flu (H1N1) vaccinations and whether the vaccinations will be delivered in time…you may be wondering if there is anything you can do on your own to protect yourself from the pandemic. Here are some home remedies that could save you from being infected.

1. Wash your hands with soap in warm to hot water. The amount of infection that could be transferred to other parts of the body can be reduced. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective.

2. Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread this way.

3. Try to avoid close contact with sick people. If you must have close contact with a sick person (for example, hold a sick infant), try to wear a facemask or N95 disposable respirator

4. Clean your nose.  Dip a cotton swab in warm salt water and clean out your nostrils. Right before bedtime is a great time to do this. The salty water will cleanse your nostrils and prevent anything that may have settled in your nose from germinating further.

5. Bring on the Vitamin C. Vitamin C supplements and eating lots of foods that are high in Vitamin C can give your immune system just the boost it needs to ward off the flu and other virus’ that may be lurking around.

Lenneice A. Drew is an experienced journalist currently focused on healthcare reform. She is working to help others achieve better lives by finding affordable health insurance alternatives and reporting stories related to the healthcare industry. She lives in Miami, Florida.

New Rules for Old Healthcare: Many of us are ‘Going it Alone’

After nine months of back-and-forth public debate, big corporate bail-outs and strained political ties amongst members of Congress, the shock of the new economy and all its moving pieces has officially worn off. But healthcare reform still dominates our national agenda at a time when few of us can afford to be without. Whether or not the so-called “Public Option” becomes part of any finalized healthcare bill signed into law, the average American will have some vital decisions to make about when, where and how they seek coverage. The old rules of group coverage no longer apply in the new economy.

No Safety in Numbers

Just as fast as the U.S. housing meltdown completely redefined what it means to live within our means, so too are the days when finding a good job guaranteed you’d find affordable health coverage where you work. Companies of all sizes are cutting back benefits now that they’ve cut back their workforces. As a result, the old-school “pool” insurance model is proving less and less sustainable. The good news is while debate still rages on Capitol Hill, health insurance providers are restructuring their product portfolios to make coverage more affordable for millions of individuals — no matter if they’re employed or not.

“Next to salary, health insurance is the largest expense any company has,” says Larry Johnson, a human resources officer with Nashville, Tenn.-based Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), the nation’s largest for-profit hospital company. “The reality is that individuals can go online and out in the open market now and get low cost, low deductible coverage on their own.  Lots of times it’s cheaper than what we can provide our own employees.”

Inside Out

In the same way telephone companies broke themselves up into smaller, regional providers in the 1980s (to address government concerns that telecommunications had become a monopoly of a few big providers), health insurance companies are breaking themselves up from the inside out. It was clear several years ago, says one industry health insurance executive, many healthcare companies saw the governmental reform train coming down the tracks.

“Changing an entire product set, expanding a marketing strategy and creating a new pricing model for an industry that’s been pretty much self-regulated up until now doesn’t happen overnight,” says Miami-based independent health insurance agent Jerry Sommers. “Public option or not, this has been in the corporate pipeline for years before it ever got into the media or Congress. It’s only going to get more confusing before it gets better. I’m quoting a lot of policies for people who are scared of what we might end up with when the government gets done.”

There has been panic over the H1N1 (a.k.a. swine flu) vaccine shortage. Unfortunately, the pharmaceutical companies responsible for producing the vaccine have had various production problems. These corporations, including GlaxoSmithKline and AztraZeneca, have been working with the U.S. government to get the vaccine out as soon as possible. In addition, as Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explained to the New York Times, the actual reproduction of the vaccine in eggs chicken eggs has grown slower than expected. While the goal is to get all Americans vaccinated, only 30 million doses of the vaccine will be available by the end of this month.

Still, the situation’s not as scary as it sounds–even though it’s Halloween! Supplies are steadily growing, and H1N1, while serious, is not yet a nationwide pandemic. There’s still time for the vaccine to roll out, which it has been doing. Moreover, it’s only a subset of the population that is at higher risk:

• Children
• Pregnant women
• Teenagers & young adults
• and those with existing health problems.

Those groups need the vaccine as soon as possible, and most clinics have been rationing the vaccine for the moment. High-priority populations are moved ahead of the line, and others will receive any leftover vaccines. Some regions are seeing higher demand than others–and live vaccines for the H1N1 virus eventually expire. The worst scenario is for the vaccine to be thrown away; therefore, it should be then be offered to lower-priority populations, e.g. senior citizens (unlike the seasonal flu, senior citizens aren’t at high risk for the swine flu). Remember also that you only need a single shot of the vaccine for it to be effective.

Does your health insurance plan cover the H1N1 vaccine? It most likely does, if your primary care physician has it. If he or she doesn’t have a supply on hand, there are free and low-cost clinics available from county and state governments, as well as pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS.

(Image: Ben Chau under CC 2.0)

Internet media is abuzz with an article claiming that the Health Insurance Industry doesnt make nearly as much money as say, chocolate companies, etc. Although this is not really a fair comparison as we are not measuring “apples to apples” it is still an interesting point. Health insurance business models are different than consumable goods as they are a risk based industry that provides and pays for peoples consumable services, with the possibility of people going years without using it. Everyone needs to eat, so to compare it to say, a food manufacturer is unfair because there is a daily neccessity for food.

Next point, people profit off of food, so why not insurance? People profit off of everything, it is how our economy works. Yes, greed can corrupt and cause problems, but tell a farmer he is not going to be paid for his crop and see how much food he produces. Similarly tell a health insurance expert he gets nothing for finding people quality affordable health insurance plans, and see how hard it will be to shop for insurance without an agent in sight. Then go to the hospitals and tell doctors that their patients all cannot afford even the most basic of prosecudres and examinations and see how well the hospitals, doctors and busnesses all modeled around health and healthcare do!

We need to look beyond profits and look toward a solution to the real problem: affordability. We should be asking: how can we make health insurance more affordable to the average American? How can we still profit from this industry while taking care of people and giving them the healthcare that they need?

VitalOne Health is proud to announce a guest blogger on Health Insurance and Healthcare related topics, Yamileth Medina.  She has been keeping up with Health Insurance, Health Insurance Reform and Healthcare related topics. She is an up and coming expert on the Health Insurance debate with a strong understanding of the political and social implications of the public option.

Health Insurance reform is a difficult subject but Yamileth takes care to address issues and news with as little bias as possible. With the political situation the way that it is it is hard to find a single source to talk about Health Insurance without a political agenda. Looking at the situation from a holistic point of view, Yamileth brings her insight and attention to detail in a time where vague comments seem to be the standard.

Follow Yamileth on Twitter @YamilethMedina to keep in the know about Health Insurance news in real time and to be notified if any of her new blog posts. She also has been invited as a guest administrator of the VitalOne Facebook fan page and would be happy to participate in any discussion.

Even though news has broken that a Public Option bill has passed, it is really still stalled. It only passed out of the Senate Finance Committee but has yet to pass any other sectors of congress. It can still be shot down or filibustered. The problem is no one wants to vote on this issue. They want it to stay the same. The effects of this bill are vast and sweeping. They effect both the economy and workplace as well as every American.

A public option, however, doesn’t meant free universal healthcare. It could mean tax credits for those making under a certain amount. It could mean annual credits for checkups at any doctor or it could mean simply another plan to choose from to compete with current plans, driving down prices. In fact, it could even increase the value of private healthcare because if government run healthcare works anything like the VA or medicare, then people are going to want an alternative even if it is a bit more costly.

How many doctors are going to want to deal with government health insurance? What will the limits be? will they be just as ruthless on cost of operations, will they deny you what you need because it is too expensive to the US government?

There are still so many questions and without a clear bill to really look at (since its always changing) things are still up in the air and people are still stalling.

Don’t go without health insurance too long hoping for the public option, Obama may be out of office by the time it passes and gets established as a viable option.

A soldier bravely serving his country overseas in Iraq begins to notice he has a hard time breathing.  He takes a trip to the medic where they tell him he has an incurable lung condition that will leave him unable to breathe.  Pretty grim outlook until they say he will be fast tracked on a lung transplant waiting list and once he is paired with a  donor he will be able to receive a transplant.  He patiently waits the 2 years it takes for a pair of lungs to be matched and he is finally able to receive the transplant.  All goes well with the procedure and as he sees it he is granted a new lease on life, after all the doctors told him he most probably should have died by then and now here he was with a new set of lungs able to breathe clearly again.  Fast forward one year and this same Iraqi War Vet aforementioned is now dead.  From Lung Cancer.

As it turns out the lungs he received in the transplant we’re donated from a chain smoker.  In Fact, they we’re donated from a smoker who smoked up to 50 cigarettes a day according to tests performed on the lungs during the autopsy.

A tumor had soon developed in the lungs soon after the transplant and the tumor was accelerated due to the immuno-suppresive drugs he was taking to prevent his body from rejecting the new lungs.

Papworth Hospital, where the transplant was performed, issued a statement in regards to the soldiers death stating that “using donor lungs from smokers is not at all unusual,” in fact its quite common.  They say they really have no other option but to use smokers lungs if not far more people would die while waiting on the wait list for lungs.

While clearly this is an extremely rare case, it does shed light on a very interesting topic of debate.  Should donors be fully informed of the organs they are to receive and be granted access to the donors prior medical history, and how rigorously are donors organs screened?

The Official cause of death listed on the Autopsy reads:  “Complications from Lung Transplant Surgery and Immuno-Suppresive drug treatment.”

R.I.P.  Corporal Matthew Millington

There are many services that already incorporate online records for your medical history, prescriptions, etc. For instance, CVS, Blue Cross of MA, Quest Diagnostics and many clinics store up to 2  years of your medical history. It is easy to get on Google Health and authorize those sites to import data into your Google Health profile. This way your treatments at the clinic and prescriptions at the drug store all stay in one handy place.

The advantage to using Google Health is having access to all of your own personal files in one location. You can set sharing permissions, and import whatever data from whatever doctor you need. You can even manually import data if you have paper copies of your records. The point is that the more data you have the better diagnosis and treatment you will get. This is especially helpful for those who are acting as guardian of the elderly. Often they end up on so many different medications it is hard to keep track of them. Instead of logging everything in a journal take advantage of Google Health and help your parents, children, and loved ones stay healthy for years to come.

One of the most difficult things about switching healthcare providers, visiting specialists, and being prescribed medication is that often your doctor doesn’t know what your previous doctor has prescribed or done; This includes lab work. millions are spent every year on duplicate lab tests. Imagine how much you will save, and your insurance companies will save when people start synchronizing information and start keeping their own records so that the story doesn’t change every time there’s a new form to fill out.

Keeping your doctors consistently informed is vital, the more they know the easier it is to help you. Often doctors can cause harm because of misinformation, chopping off the wrong limb during a surgery. Don’t risk it! Start creating a data mine of your own, on yourself. Share it with family and doctors to keep you as healthy as possible. There are so many pharmaceuticals nowadays its almost impossible ot keep track of them all and which ones conflict.

As a side note: wouldn’t it be interesting if Google Health had a Datastore of all pharmaceuticals and their side effects, so that if you are taking two that can cause you harm it would put up a red flag? Perhaps I will suggest this myself.

Google has a service that they are working on perfecting, it’s known as Google Health. It is a place where you can either automatically or manually import your medical history, lab results, etc. in order to share it with your doctor. It even allows you to print out small sized forms to give to yoru doctor when he asks for any medical information.

Imagine that! A free service that allows you to store your medical history and control it yourself! Imagine being able to see a history and record of all the medicines you have and are taking, and then being able to give it to your doctor so he doesn’t prescribe a conflicting medication! This is a blessing that is very little known. For more information check out http://www.google.com/intl/en-US/health/about/.