Way back in the day, OPM routinely would announce the next year’s FEHB premiums around Labor Day. The announcement was known as OPM’s Labor Day press release. Currently, the announcement is made in the last week of September.
Tammy Flanagan writes in Govexec about federal employee benefit issues confronting couples who both work for Uncle Sam, specifically
- “Should we carry two self only plans under the Federal Employees Health Benefits program or one self plus one plan if we don’t need to cover children?
- “Do we need to provide survivor annuities for each other?”
Check it out.
The Senate returns from its August State work break tomorrow for a shortened week of Committee business and floor voting. The House of Representatives returns to the Nation’s Capital next Tuesday.
From the public health front,
- The Washington Post reports
- “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday [September 1] issued a national alert warning health-care professionals to watch out for infections of Vibrio vulnificus, a rare flesh-eating bacteria that has killed at least 13 people on the Eastern Seaboard this year.
- “Although infections from the bacteria have been mostly reported in the Gulf Coast, infections in the eastern United States rose eightfold from 1988 to 2018, the CDC said. In the same period, the northern geographic range of infections has increased by 30 miles every year. This year’s infections came during a period of above-average coastal sea surface temperatures, the agency said.
- “Up to 200 people in the United States every year report Vibrio vulnificus infections to the CDC. A fifth of the cases are fatal, sometimes within one or two days of the onset of illness, according to the agency.”
- The Wall Street Journal tells us
- “A two-decade decline in [prostate cancer] death rates has stalled. Some doctors worry deaths could rise in coming years.
- “We’re finding them with disease not contained in the prostate but also in the bones, in the lymph nodes,” said Dr. James Porter, a urological surgeon in Seattle. “That’s a recent phenomenon.”
- “The pendulum swing hits at a fundamental problem in screening for all cancers: Testing too many people leads to more invasive procedures some patients don’t need. Testing too few misses opportunities to catch cases while there is a better chance treatment will work.
- “Groups including the American Cancer Society are reviewing their own guidance for prostate-cancer screening. Many doctors want to better target the test, limiting screening for some men while encouraging high-risk groups including Black men or those with a strong family history to get testing earlier.
- “PSA recommendations have been ping-ponging back and forth, and what’s been lost in that is the high-risk people,” said Dr. Heather Cheng, director of the Prostate Cancer Genetics Clinic at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. She is helping to review the American Cancer Society’s prostate-cancer screening guidelines.
- “Cheng and other doctors working to better calibrate screening said the risks of overdiagnosis have declined. More doctors now monitor low-risk tumors for growth before rushing a man into surgery or radiation. Better imaging tools have reduced biopsies.”
- In other words, the problem is not necessarily the screening test; rather the problem may be the reaction of the medical community to screening results.
- NPR Shots informs us,
- “The idea of food as medicine dates back to the ancient Greek doctor Hippocrates, and a new study adds to the evidence that a diet full of fruits and vegetables can help improve heart health. The research comes amid an epidemic of diet-related disease, which competes with smoking as a leading cause of death.
- “Researchers evaluated the impact of “produce prescriptions,” which provide free fruits and vegetables to people with diet related diseases including diabetes, obesity and hypertension. The study included nearly 4,000 people in 12 states who struggle to afford healthy food. They received vouchers, averaging $63 a month, for up to 10 months, which could be redeemed for produce at retail stores or farmers markets, depending on the location.
- “Health care providers tracked changes in weight, blood pressure and blood sugar among the participants. “We were excited to see improvements,” says study author Kurt Hager, an instructor at UMass Chan Medical School.
- “Among adults with hypertension, we saw that systolic blood pressure decreased by 8 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure decreased by about 5 mm Hg, which could have a meaningful impact on health outcomes,” Hager says.
- “Among people with uncontrolled diabetes, their A1C levels, which is a 2-3 month average of their blood sugar, also declined significantly, by about .6 percent. “The reductions we saw in blood sugar were roughly half of that of commonly prescribed medications, which is really encouraging for just a simple change in diet,” Hager says.”
- Fortune Well explains how to deal with the uncertainty that serves as the root of anxiety.
- “Uncertainty is life’s promise to us all. For more than twenty years, I have watched people rise from unspeakable pain to venture again into a future that withholds all certainty. I work with people who have endured shocking traumas and, predictably, our early conversations are filled with interrogative pleas for a certain safety: “How can I be absolutely sure nothing like this will ever happen again?” they ask me.
- “The answer is: they cannot.
- “After many years, the thing that still takes my breath away is the grace and courage of people who accept this truth and say: I rise again not because I know for sure, but because I hope anyway.”