Celebrate St. Valentines Day with a purpose - get heart smart

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February is American Heart Month

$0 Cost Heart Healthy Workshops & $59 comprehensive health risk assessments are available for Southern Nevada employers in February.

Las Vegas, NV (February 2, 2011) – Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States.  Approximately every 25 seconds, an American has a coronary event, and every minute, someone dies from one.  Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) indicates that 33 million American adults have hypertension, and an astonishing 76 million Americans have serum cholesterol of greater than 240mg/dl.  Both of these indicators are extraordinary risk factors for the development of cardiovascular disease.  While heart disease is one of the most costly diseases, it is also one of the most preventable.  In honor of American Heart Month and in cooperation with the American Heart Association (www.heart.org ), My Health Coach (MHC) is seeking to create greater awareness about the importance of lifestyle and behavior as the first line of defense against heart disease.  Because a healthy heart is such a critical component of every individual’s ability to prosper and thrive, MHC is offering to conduct a complimentary heart health workshop and low cost lifestyle and behavioral health risk screenings for a limited number of employers in Southern Nevada in the month of February.

WHY CONDUCT A HEART HEALTH SCREENING IN FEBRUARY?

The old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is self-evident. Prevention starts with education.  Awareness of the early warning signs of cardiovascular disease and an individual’s ability to reduce their personal risk factors is – for the month of February- a benefit that employers can offer their workforce with $0 investment.  Based upon data gathered from employers that implemented a work-site wellness program recommended by Department of Health & Human Services, employers saved $600 to $1,100 on health care costs per employee.  Within this population, we found:

• 76.7% of the employees had a risk factor based upon high blood pressure causing an expected excess cost to the employer of $1,188 per at risk employee;
• 90.3% of the employees had a risk based upon body fat percentage causing an expected excess cost to the employer of $606 per at risk employee; and
• 64.3% of the employees had a risk factor based upon low HDL, 25% based upon high LDL, and 50% based upon high Triglycerides.

WHAT WE CAN DO TOGETHER ABOUT THIS PROBLEM

My Health Coach is putting its corporate responsibility front and center by offering $0 cost workshops for employers and their employees.  Abundant research makes it clear that, by modifying behaviors and by educating ourselves on specific, easy to implement, no cost and low cost steps to improve our heart and general health; we may avoid the need for expensive prescription medications and costly medical interventions while prolonging our life span by years or decades.  MHC is making this offer to create positive changes in the health of our nation.

For hosting a Heart Healthy Workshop by My Health Coach, employers receive a Healthy Workplace Certificate and the economic benefits of a healthier and more motivated workforce.  A healthier workforce is a less expensive workforce and every business owner is aware of the need to contain rising costs and add profit to their bottom line.  My Health Coach intends to create a healthier Nevada and America by helping employers decrease the cost of medical claims, improve productivity and decrease absenteeism.

MORE INFORMATION

My Health Coach is a Southern Nevada small business dedicated to improving the health of the nation one person at a time.  We believe every individual should take ownership for his/her health and be well-informed health care consumers.  We educate and empower individuals through one on one and population based health screenings, work-site wellness programs, personal and small group coaching, and high touch personal service. 

Employers or organizations seeking to schedule a Heart Healthy Workshop and/or Lifestyle Health Risk Screening Event or to obtain additional information on how we can help you be healthier, please contact Troy Lovick at 702-445-1901, or via email at askcoachtroy@gmail.com

So Cal Ragnar Relay 2010

One of my endurance race adventures in April was the So Cal Ragnar Relay. Thanks to Coach tracy Hulson for putting this video together. I'd never done a team endurance event and thanks to Coach Tracy's skillful and experienced management this was the MOST FUN I've had in a long run of events. I guess the thing I was missing was FUN FUN FUN!!!


Coach Tracy is putting a team together for the 2011 Florida Keys Ragnar Relay. If you want a great team to have a lot of fun with and raise money for a children's fitness charity you cannot beat a Ragnar.
We'll see you in October 2010 for the Vegas Ragnar! WOOT!

How dumb are we?

....."Fixing underlying causes requires first fixing the obvious one: insurance. The industry that produces nothing enjoys immense protection and deference from members of Congress, some of whom make killing public competition comparable to pursuing a cure for cancer.

Insurers with a near-monopoly in some states make money as the middlemen processing paper, spending too much of every health-care dollar on non-health matters like advertising, claims denial, bonuses and perks.

Congress is about to drive 40 million new customers into their arms with only the mildest concessions to shape up their act. Do not believe rumors that they are dropping discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions. They will only charge such folks twice as much as other customers. Some reform." Read the entire article

Until today I have always kept my political opinions to myself, preferring to vent them at the ballot box - where it matters.
As I watch the health care "reform" sausage being made in Washington D.C. I find myself becoming angry.
President Obama has risked much in pursuit of a noble and important cause. Ask anyone who has lost "IT" what the most important thing in life is. They will tell you without pause, "IT" is your health.
How has the insurance industry and their legislative lap dogs the US Congress managed to misdirect us, the citizenry, so thoroughly?

We don't just need a public option. We need to remove the profit motive from health insurance entirely. How dumb are we to allow the market to control and deliver what is a basic human right in the rest of the 1st world economies?
And if you think a single payer system is "socialized medicine" you've been duped. Russia does not have it, China does not have it. In fact I find the people who use the term "socialized medicine" as a pejorative are collecting social security and covered by medicare. Heaven forbid their children or grandchildren should get the medical care they get.
They're also the ones who don't have to go to work thus creating ample opportunity to attend town hall meetings screaming idiotic Reaganesque slogans, their fears fueled by misrepresentations whispered by Slugworth the operative.
Those of us who need the coverage had to be on the job...working.

The health care insurance system in this country was created by default. A group of hospitals needed a way to survive the depression and struck upon the concept of telling teachers (the only group reliably gainfully employed at the time) that for $2/month the hospitals would provide medical care for the teachers and their families should they become ill or injured. Fast forward to 2009 and here we are.
We're letting Wall Street decide who gets coverage and who doesn't. Who lives and who doesn't. We've seen what that privileged Ivy League brain trust is capable of. We let them give us the dream of home ownership - that went well. Now we're going to let them run our health insurance system? How dumb are we?

Before we drive 40 million lives into the arms of these corporations let's get an accounting shall we? We want to know how much of each premium dollar is spent on non-health care expenditures. Marketing and advertising? Claims denial? Are they still paying bonuses for saving the company money by denying sick policy holders the care they need? Executive pay, perks and bonuses?
How come we haven't seen these numbers in the "liberal bias media"? Which of the hard hitting self aggrandizing talking heads are delving into the numbers? Ignore the press releases, read the quarterly and annual reports.
But, it's not advisable to bite the corporate hand that feeds you right? We have the right and must demand answers to these simple questions. Nobody is asking - how dumb are we?

Keep in mind dear reader. when an officer/director of a corporation accepts investment dollars from an investor the corporate officer is legally bound as a fiduciary to act in the investors best interest.
That means the CEO/Chairman/board of directors/CFO etc is responsible to the investor - not to the customer - not to the premium payer - to the investor who has legal recourse if the corporate officer loses his money.

Let's put a fine point on this fellow Americans.
In a choice between saving your life or treating your disease a return for the investor comes first - you lose. You die. you suffer. Grandma dies. Aunt mini gets dropped. Suzy gets no transplant. There's an organ available but they won't pay for the surgery. (risk benefit ratio is out of balance)
Those premie twins will just have to get a job when they get out of neonatal ICU - we just canceled your policy you paid for 3 years. (all real cases)
You Mr. and Mrs. premium payer - you the patient - you die. But your 401K manager gets a fat fee and a hefty bonus for having stellar business acumen.

Wake up America. We should be marching in the streets - screaming. Shutting down cities with general strikes and massive civil disobedience.
We're allowing rich and powerful people - who are too cynical and greedy to know better - to usurp our will, to take what should be a birth right for each and every American and commoditize our lives while they cash in. How dumb are we?