Pak Doktor a.k.a. Mr Doctor!

Every week, we’ll be highlighting great deals for area parents and their families around the Brookfield area

This week, Frugal Family scoured our local sources and came up with some great deals.  This week you can fill up your car and save money while you make your home more energy efficient, which will save you money in the future. There are also some deals on vitamins.

Deal: Green Star Energy Solutions, 72K Grays Bridge Rd, Brookfield, is offering a Home Energy Solutions (HES) visit, which is an energy assessment and in-home improvements, for just $75. The home improvements include light bulbs, blower-door test and air sealing, among other measures, and you’ll also learn what kinds of energy efficiency upgrades your home actually needs. 

Good Through:  May 31

Deal: GNC, 14 Candlewood Lake Rd, Brookfield, has a sale on vitamins. Save $14 on New Chapter Organic Vitamins (men’s and women’s). Vita Pacs are buy one get one half off. A large size (180) of Woman’s Ultra Mega Vitamins is $31.99. The large size of Men’s Ultra Mega Vitamins is $29.99.

Good Through: New Chapter Organic sale until April 28; The other vitamins are on sale until April 14

Deal: Vitamin Shoppe, 21 Federal Rd, Brookfield, has many of their nutrition bars on sale for 30 percent off.

Good Through: Thursday, March 31

Deal: Sun Tile, 115 Federal Rd, Brookfield, is offering four colors of granite for $39.95 per square foot.

Good Though: ongoing

Deal: Four Corners Gulf Service Station, 820 Federal Rd, Brookfield, has a price of $3.779 per gallon of regular gas. This price is good for both cash and credit.

If you know of some local deals or savings, won’t you please share with us so we can pass along, as well?

SANDPOINT — Bonner County residents aren’t the poster population
for Idaho health, but they’re still in pretty good shape based on
new study results.

According to a survey conducted by the University of Wisconsin,
Bonner County ranks 12 out of 42 counties in overall health, an
improvement from its 16th rank last year. By comparison, Kootenai
County ranked the highest in the panhandle. Shoshone County ranked
the lowest, finishing second to last in statewide ranking and last
in factors such as smoking, drinking, obesity, sexually transmitted
diseases and impoverished children.

Study numbers indicate that countywide health isn’t tied to any
particular region. Panhandle Health District public information
officer Cynthia Taggart said that with one of the state’s top and
bottom rankers sharing a border, this year’s results make that
clear.

“It’s impossible to generalize based on a region,” she said. “The
study shows completely different results from county to
county.”

Bonner County not only improved its general rank this year — it
also made strides in several key areas. The percentage of smokers
decreased from 21 percent to 20 percent. Adult obesity dropped from
23 percent to 22 percent. Motor vehicle-related deaths decreased to
21 percent from 22 percent. The teen birth rate tumbled from 33 per
every 1,000 to 32 per 1,000. Finally, the percent of people with
easy access to healthy food providers increased from 19 percent to
27 percent. 

“But the big things I found most telling was the data for the
percentage of uninsured adults and the unemployment rate,” Taggart
said.

In the case of adults without medical insurance, the numbers
climbed from 18 percent to 19 percent. As for the unemployment
rate, it escalated from 6 percent to 10 percent. The number of
children in impoverished homes increased from 21 percent to 23
percent.

The results are part of a five-year study funded by the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation that ranks all Idaho counties except for Clark
and Camas based on several health factors, lifespan length and
general wellness. It gathers data from the Centers for Disease
Control and Protection, the National Center for Health Statistics,
the U.S. Census, the American Community Survey and other national
research projects. The 2011 numbers released today mark the study’s
second year.

The rankings looked at factors in four categories: Health behavior,
clinical care, social and economic factors, as well as the physical
environment.

Those broke down rates of adult smoking, adult obesity, excessive
drinking, and teenage births; the number of uninsured adults,
availability of primary care providers, and preventable hospital
stays.

To view the full study results, visit
http://www.countyhealthrankings.org and select Bonner County on the
interactive map.  

• Hagadone News Network writer Tom Hasslinger contributed to this
story.

More about Bonner County

• ARTICLE: Pend Oreille Lodge
• IMAGE: Pend Oreille Lodge

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Texas Straight Talk with Ron Paul

The administration’s terrible healthcare reform bill is now law, but the debate over how– and whether– the federal government should be involved in providing healthcare services is not over. It is not too late for America to correct its course and stop the march toward a government run, “single payer” healthcare system.

Polls show that a large majority of Americans don’t want Obamacare. Congress should seize the opportunity to repeal the very worst aspect of this new legislation, namely the mandate that forces every American either to purchase health insurance or face an IRS penalty. This mandate represents nothing more than an unconstitutional, historically unprecedented gift to the insurance industry. I introduced the “End the Mandate Act” (HR 4995) expressly to prevent the administration from ever putting this provision into effect.

Instead of mandating the same failed entitlement healthcare schemes that are bankrupting Europe, Congress should fundamentally re-examine the case for free-market healthcare. Our current model, based on employer-provided health insurance, did not arise based on market preferences. On the contrary, it makes no sense to couple health insurance with employment. But federal wage and price controls instituted during World War II left employers with no alternative to attract workers in a tight labor market other than offering extra benefits such as health insurance and pensions. Over time these nonwage benefits became the norm, especially since employers could deduct the cost of health insurance premiums from their income taxes while individuals could not. The perverse consequence is that employees lose both their paychecks and their health insurance when they lose their job.

As reliance on third-party health insurance grew, patients became detached from the true costs of their doctor visits. In the 1970s the Nixon administration, along with the late Senator Edward Kennedy, championed the cause of health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Congress accepted the faulty premise that HMOs would reduce costs through centralized management of patients, when in fact the opposite was true: more bureaucracy would only lead to higher costs, less accountability, and worse patient care.

In recent years Congress has only intensified the problem with more laws and more regulations, especially with the disastrous Medicare prescription drug benefit. The drug benefit was another example of naked patronage to a politically-connected industry, and it exponentially worsened the federal government’s balance sheet. Obamacare will be the last nail in the coffin of our bankrupt entitlement system.

More laws are not the answer. Instead, we need to allow a market system to operate that reflects consumer choices while rationally pricing services. In a market system patients likely would pay cash for basic services, while maintaining relatively high-deductible catastrophic insurance for serious illnesses and accidents. The cost of most routine medical care would drop if the patient paid the bill on the spot, especially if doctors no longer needed to employ large staffs solely to deal with insurance and billing.

Let me repeat: we need a system in America where patients pay cash for basic services, and carry insurance only for serious illnesses and accidents. “Health maintenance” is the responsibility of each of us individually. We cannot continue to collectivize the costs of healthcare and expect things to get better.

Authoritarianism is bad for your health. Congress should end the Obamacare mandate and allow market-based medicine to flourish.

Used with permission.

Post Published: 14 June 2010
Author: admin
Found in section: Free Enterprise Zone, ron paul

Tags: End the Mandate Act, free market healthcare, healthcare, HMO’s, HR. 4995, IRS penalty, lessee-faire, libertarian, Medicare prescription drug benefit, obamacare, politics

LOS ANGELES (KABC) —
If you don’t get enough sleep, it can affect your health in a variety of ways. But did you realize it can also make it harder to lose weight? Combine that with stress, and you’ll have an even harder time shedding the pounds.

We’ve all been there: We get on a roll, we exercise, eat well and drop some weight, but within months it’s back again.

Why are our best intentions often thwarted? Researchers say it’s all part of a vicious cycle fueled by stress, insomnia and depression.

Manny Sanchez, 68, is recovering from back surgery, he’s fighting diabetes and it shows on the scale. But he’s trying to take it all in stride.

“I call it ‘creative tension.’ I don’t even label it stress,” said Sanchez.

But whatever you call it, Kaiser Permanente researchers say people who are stressed and don’t get proper sleep cannot lose weight efficiently.

Related Content

More: Kaiser Permanente study: Sleep, stress and weight loss

More: Healthy Living home page

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