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Young people aren’t buying it.

Young people just aren’t buying it.

Young Americans, almost 20 million uninsured 18-34 year olds, aren’t signing on for affordable health insurance through the health insurance exchanges as hoped.

The administration is expected to report on the number of Americans who have signed up for health insurance on the federal exchange this week. But the estimates aren’t great, and young, healthy people are needed to balance the risk pool.

Cost has been the greatest inhibitor to reducing young adults uninsurance rates.

A recent HHS report states that some young adults eligible for health insurance marketplace could pay $50 or less per month for coverage in 2014.

The Young Invincibles, in collaboration with HHS, has a #GetCovered campaign and just launched a video contest, “Healthy Young Americans Video Contest” to engage this group and get buy-in. The results of the winner will be announced Friday, November 15th.

Will writing in the facts about the benefits of the Affordable Care Act into television plot lines work to get them to enroll? Mediate reported on a $500,000 grant from the California Endowment to the University Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism’s Lear Center’s Hollywood Health & Society to do just that. The Center provides entertainment industry professionals accurate and updated information on health and climate change. This grant will allow them to provide information on the ACA and it’s implementation. The full press release can be found here.

Then there’s the Koch-funded Generation Opportunity, an anti-Obamacare group, reaching out to this age group telling them not to buy health insurance.

Media does have a social impact.

No one thought this would be an impulse buy. Is this procrastination? Hold outs because the penalty in the first year is just $95?

How do we get a Millennial to take action and purchase health insurance?

Beats me.

November 13, 2013

author: Editorial Staff

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Young people just aren't buying it. Young Americans,

Health

Unsung heroes, military caregivers

This article is written by Lily Casura, a freelance journalist and founder of HealingCombatTrauma.com and reposted from today’s Houston Chronicle.

With Veterans Day, our thoughts turn typically to “him who has borne the battle,” in the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln, which are now enshrined above the entrance to the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C.

Yes, veterans are usually “him,” but increasingly also a “her,” thanks to more women serving today, estimated at 15 percent of the Armed Forces. But something we’re even less likely to “see” when we focus on the veteran in the picture is the unsung hero standing right behind him or her – the military caregiver, often a spouse or partner, sometimes a parent.

The Rand Corp., acknowledging the unavoidable imprecision in estimating the number of military caregivers, in a 2013 report estimated that somewhere between 250,000 and possibly as many as 1 million Americans are serving or have served as caregivers to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Not all injuries are immediately apparent, and care needs can fluctuate over time. That’s why the figure could be even higher, according to Rand. When you add in veterans from other wars, such as Vietnam, those figures keep climbing.

And some of the severely injured veterans, such as Houston native Anthony Thompson, a former Navy medic who served as a corpsman in Iraq, are so disabled by their injuries that they require around-the-clock care. Ivonne Estrada Thompson, a high school Spanish teacher and also a Houston native, was newly married to Anthony in 2007 when he left on his second deployment. She was also pregnant with their first child. (continue reading here)

November 11, 2013

author: Editorial Staff

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This article is written by Lily Casura,

Health, HealthCetera, Media Engagement, Policy

Health Care in Haiti

NP Students in Leogane, Haiti

On January 12, 2010, a devastating earthquake crumbled Haiti. What little there was to what could be called a health care system before the earthquake was crushed, along with a school of nursing that collapsed with its nursing students and faculty inside. Some tried to remain hopeful that this disaster could herald the development of a better health care system with the rebuilding of Haiti and its health care workforce.

While the health care system is still almost nonexistent, the first family nurse practitioner program in the country has opened with the help of an organization called Promoting Health in Haiti, supported in part by Hunter College and its school of nursing. This visionary initiative promises to build a community-based primary care workforce that focuses on rebuilding the health and wellbeing of individuals, families, and the nation.

Last night on Healthstyles, on WBAI (99.5FM), producer and moderator Diana Mason, PhD, RN, interviewed the president and vice president of Promoting Health in Haiti—Carol Roye, PhD, RN, FAAN, and Carmelle Bellefleur, EdD, RN—about their vision for this initiative, the challenges it addresses, and the future of health care in Haiti. Click here to listen to the program anytime: