President Obama’s Weekly Address – 08/15/09
Filed under: Blog Entries, Community, Family, General, Health, Obama, Politics
The President talks about how the chatter and ruckus around health insurance reform on television obscures the reality of what’s happening in America. He discusses how in most towns people and Members of Congress are having constructive conversations, and how people are learning how reform will help them and their families with the real problems they have faced with the insurance system.
President Obama’s Weekly Address – 08/08/09
The President calls health insurance reform critical to our nation’s long-term economic strength and dispells the outlandish rumors being promoted by those who are defending the status quo.
Health Care Hecklers
Filed under: Blog Entries, Community, Health, Politics, Society & Culture
I saw this video and thought it was pretty funny. Citizens who were not satisfied with their Congressperson’s views were told to attend town hall meetings and let their voice be heard. The news was saying that it was an effort by the Republican Party to interrupt the meetings and show their disapproval of the health care bill. On CNN I saw a Democratic official complaining about the protesters and their efforts, but isn’t this what politics is all about? While I’m not a Republican, I do applaud them for their efforts. They are preparing for 2012 and I can’t in any way hate on them for that.
The problem I have is with the people who all of a sudden want to “take their country back”. Where were these people six years ago? The problems plaguing Americans have been going on longer than 200 days, but for some strange reason they feel the need to have Tax Parties and protests about the state of our economy.
When it comes to the issue of health care, the majority of people probably know very little about what’s going on. That’s why you haven’t seen me post much about it here. I don’t know who to trust when it comes to acquiring information about the bill and I’m kind of glad Congress didn’t get to it this session.
I think it’s great that President Obama is pushing for health care reform, but I hope he’s not trying to move through it too fast. This is not an issue like the Cash for Clunkers Program where we can have a redo. This affects all Americans and the times needs to be taken to make sure it’s done right. Funding is going to have to come from somewhere and sadly that burden may have to fall on the American people.
You know, it’s easy to complain and fuss about the health care bill when you are insured. But I know a lot of hard-working Americans who are uninsured and something needs to be done to make sure they can get the care they need when the time comes. No one should have to be turned down for medical care because they don’t have the coverage to pay for it. Something has to be done.
Desk Mini-Workout
If you have a job that requires you to be sitting most of the time, it’s important to find some way to take an exercise break when you can. I found this video and thought it would be good to try when I don’t get a chance to go out and walk during lunch. Just know that if you are in a cubicle, people will look at you crazy. And be careful if you have a chair with rollers on it. I’d hate to see a comment about you rolling out in the aisle when attempting to do these exercises.
President Obama’s Weekly Address – 07/25/09
Filed under: Blog Entries, Business, Health, Obama, Politics, Society & Culture
The President discusses a key factor that has been considered in the development of the health insurance reform proposals that are being considered: the impact of reform on small business. Visit the website at whitehouse.gov to comment on the White House Council of Economic Advisers report on the subject in conjunction with this address.
President Obama’s Weekly Address – 07/18/09
Filed under: Blog Entries, Community, Family, Health, Obama, Politics, Society & Culture
The President calls on Congress to seize this opportunity – one that may not come again for decades – and finally pass health care reform: “It’s about every family unable to keep up with soaring out of pocket costs and premiums rising three times faster than wages. Every worker afraid of losing health insurance if they lose their job, or change jobs. Everyone who’s worried that they may not be able to get insurance or change insurance if someone in their family has a pre-existing condition…”
President Obama’s Weekly Address – 06/27/09
Filed under: Blog Entries, Business, Community, Family, Health, Obama, Politics, Society & Culture
The weather isn’t the only thing heating up in DC this summer. Health care reform is already a hot topic, and as legislation moves through Congress, Americans across the nation have questions about how costs will be brought under control to make quality affordable health care accessible to everyone.
That’s why the White House is taking another step to connect with people outside of Washington and answer some of the most common questions you have. In the coming days, we’re going to focus on your questions about health care, with President Obama and some of his top health care advisors providing answers.
On Wednesday, the President will hold another online town hall to answer more of your questions. This online town hall will be a little different than the last one. This time around, we are engaging online networks outside of WhiteHouse.gov, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
Feeding America Facebook Cause
Filed under: Blog Entries, Community, Family, General, Health, Society & Culture
Feeding America provides low-income individuals and families with the fuel to survive and even thrive. As the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity, our network members supply food to more than 25 million Americans each year, including 9 million children and 3 million seniors. Serving the entire United States, more than 200 member food banks operate 63,000 agencies that address hunger in all of its forms. For more information on how you can fight hunger in your community and across the country, visit www.feedingamerica.org.
For every $1 you donate, Feeding America helps provide 10 pounds of food and grocery products to men, women and children facing hunger in our country. Please join the Kellogg Company and Causes as we take small steps towards creating BIG change. 15% of all donations made through Causes on June 18, 2009 will be matched and donated by Causes to Feeding America. Visit your Causes homepage and invite friends to take action. For more information you can visit the Facebook page or check out the website above.
President Obama’s Weekly Address – 06/13/09
Filed under: Blog Entries, Family, Health, Obama, Personal Finance, Politics
The President has long noted that skyrocketing health care costs will be disastrous in terms of our long term national debt unless we pass real reform. In this Weekly Address, the President also explains how he will cover the upfront costs of reform by eliminating over-payments from Medicaid and Medicare and driving down costs contributing to government’s health care expenditures across the board.
Less sleep associated with high, worsening blood pressure in middle age
Filed under: Blog Entries, Community, General, Health
If it ain’t one thing it’s another. Even at the young age of 33, I’m on a small dose of pressure medicine. It runs in my family (with both parents), but I hope to kick the pill soon. I’ve been slacking on the exercising and I could get a little more sleep, but that’s something I’m working on. I’ll do better. I have people depending on me. Check out this article published on Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
WASHINGTON, June 8 (Xinhua) — Middle-aged adults who sleep fewer hours appear more likely to have high blood pressure and to experience adverse changes in blood pressure over time, according to a report published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Almost one-third of Americans have hypertension or high blood pressure, a condition that contributes to seven million deaths worldwide each year, according to background information in the article.
“Identifying a novel lifestyle risk factor for high blood pressure could lead to new interventions to prevent or reduce high blood pressure,” the authors write. “Laboratory studies of short-term sleep deprivation have suggested potential mechanisms for a causal link between sleep loss and hypertension.”
Sleep deprivation is associated with increased activity in the sympathetic nervous system, which controls the body’s stress response. Over time, this activation could contribute to high blood pressure.
Kristen L. Knutson of the University of Chicago and his colleagues studied 578 adults who first had their blood pressure and other clinical, demographic and health variables measured between 2000 and 2001. In 2003 and 2005, the researchers measured sleep duration by using surveys and wrist actigraphy, in which a sensor is worn on the wrist to record periods of rest and activity. Blood pressure, demographic and self-reported sleep information were measured again in 2005 and 2006.
Participants (average age 40) slept an average of six hours per night; only seven (1 percent) averaged eight or more hours of sleep. After excluding patients taking medication for high blood pressure and controlling for age, race and sex, the researchers found that individuals who slept fewer hours were significantly more likely to have higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
Sleeping less also predicted increases in blood pressure over five years, along with the onset of hypertension. Each hour of reduction in sleep duration was associated with a 37 percent increase in the odds of developing high blood pressure.
“Consistent with other studies, we observed higher blood pressure levels in men, particularly African American men,” the authors wrote. “Also, as described in a previous report from this study,
African American men slept much less than white women. These two observations suggested the intriguing possibility that the well-documented higher blood pressure in African Americans and men might be partly related to sleep duration.”
“In summary, the present study provides evidence for a link between the duration and quality of sleep and high blood pressure levels using objectively measured sleep characteristics,” they concluded. “Intervention studies are needed to determine whether optimizing sleep duration and quality can reduce the risk of increased blood pressure.”
Editor: Fang Yang
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