Trumpcare: A new reality for U.S. healthcare & the workplace

Now that Donald Trump will soon be sworn into office as our next president, in the weeks and months ahead we can expect to learn more details about his proposed healthcare policies and how he plans to begin the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act.  

While most Americans are likely more familiar with his reality TV show than his proposed healthcare policies, and while his proposed policies are not as detailed as those that were listed on the Hillary Clinton campaign website, there’s more substance to Trumpcare than what was reflected in many of his short statements and one-liners in the debates. The policies that make up Trumpcare will require substantial changes to U.S. healthcare’s current legal and regulatory structure, and to U.S. tax law. 

Repeal of the ACA 

The first priority for Trump will be the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). However, this is not expected to happen overnight. The overhaul of the ACA, or the transition from the ACA to Trumpcare, however it is done, will clearly not be as simple as a reality TV show where Trump sits at a conference table, looks through each ACA rule and says “you’re fired.” Economists and lawmakers that have been deeply involved in U.S. healthcare policy have noted that repealing the ACA will be an extremely difficult task.  

Source: Trumpcare: A new reality for U.S. healthcare  

There are most likely hundreds if not thousands of opinions by now on what might happen to the ACA once the transition team for the new administration is established. No one really knows for sure what will happen, we may not know for sometime. What ever does happen will take time and surely is not an overnight happening. 

One thing is for sure, people are still sick, and going to get sicker. Smart companies will invest in their employees health. Experts agree those companies who don't will experience a disengaged workforce that will become as unstable as our economy. There's no way your company can afford this, no matter with Trumpcare has in store for us. 

Your partner in health, 

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA

Wellness Consultant

Certified Health Coach
WELCOA Faculty

C2 Your Health LLC

5 Ways the CDC Protects U.S.Businesses

Did you know the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has launched new work-site wellness tools, guidance and resources to protect your business health? 

Business Pulse: 5 Ways CDC Protects the Health of Your Business, 

Five ways CDC helps businesses:

1. Rapidly deploys disease detectives, life-saving vaccines and medicines and other support during a health emergency that could disrupt business continuity. 
2. Provides comprehensive travelers’ health information and advice to help protect U.S. citizens and businesses from diseases and other health risks abroad.
3. Advances the Global Health Security Agenda to accelerate progress toward a world safe from disease threats.
4. Protects America’s businesses, employees and their families by partnering with others to investigate food borne outbreaks and improve food safety. 
5. Provides businesses with flu-fighting strategies and resources to help prevent flu in the workplace.

The Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) provides a range of resources to help 

America’s employers keep their workers healthy, safe and secure.This month the Business Pulse highlights these challenges, as well as CDC solutions, and includes advice from CDC experts. 

Read the entire article: Five Ways the CDC Protects U.S. Businesses - cdcfoundation.org

Your partner in health, 

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA 

Certified Health Coach

Wellness Consultant 

WELCOA Faculty 

C2 Your Health LLC

What’s Your Personal Health Plan Look Like?

Whether you have 1 employee or 5000 people work where you work it seems many of us live minute by minute. You and the people you work with may be planning their week at work but not planning for their health and happiness. Their family life is in crisis mode moving from one crisis to the next moving to the next urgent problem to the next chaos in their life. You too as a manager or business owner maybe doing much the same thing. What gets left in the dust is your health, the health of your family and the people you work with. Why? Because many people just don’t have a plan.

You might want to stop for a second, take a breath then ask yourself “Is my health important to me and is it important enough to me to plan for?” I will never forget the day I was sitting across from a health coaching client when they said “No, my health is not a priority to me.” Really? You have got to be kidding! You plan for your health now or plan for your medical bills later. You either make your health a priority or your health will become a priority for you when you develop sickness that keeps you from enjoying your family, working on your job and takes your money. 

So what’s the plan? What are your health goals? Do you know? If you have not thought it over in a while now is a great time. The rules are the same when it comes to planning your vacation, your business and your health. The more time you spend planning the more fun and prosperity you’ll experience.  

Once you have a plan in place then to insure success you will need to keep track what’s important like your care GPS keeps you on track helping you reach your destination.

Most experts agree these are the top five most important influencers on your health and well-being:

1. The quality, quality and frequency of your food choices.

2. How much and what type of activity you experience.

3. Sleep quality and duration.

4. How you manage family, financial and job stress.

5. Water quality and frequency of consumption.

Food Influencers: Does how you feel influence your food choices? Food choices are made for many reasons besides hunger and these hide in your daily actions. Sometimes it’s convenience and availability. Are healthy foods convenient and available in your company break room? Are there healthy restaurants close by? Can you bring your lunch to work? 

Other times your food choices are determined by your level of frustration, time pressures and stress. When this happens you are more likely to make unhealthy food choices. Plan to keep healthy foods like fruits, vegetables and nuts nearby in your desk, purse or car to sooth your mood.

It’s important to bring eating into your awareness. Noticing patterns in foods choices and behaviors will help you make better decisions in the future.  Not sure what to eat? The USDA can help www.choosemyplate.gov.

Track your successes: Don’t limit yourself in how you measure success. The scale is only one way and maybe not the best because the weather and food additives will cause the scale to fluctuate. Monitor your clothing size, measure your waist, legs, and arms, and monitor how tight or loose your clothes feel.

Keep track of your food choices too. How may fruits, vegetables and whole grains are you eating? Not enough check this out www.YourJuicePlus.com. Most importantly monitor how you feel and how your body is working. With better food choices comes energy, better sleep, improved digestion, lower blood pressure, weight loss and many other health benefits.

Track your goals:  While your long-term goal may be to lose 10, 25, 50 or more pounds, you need small goals to keep your motivation up. Focus on improved healthy and vitality. Being skinny in your casket really isn’t what you are shooting for. You can’t control your weight but you can control your habits. Make goals you have control of such as eat 1 more fruit and veggie per day, exercise 30 minutes and go to bed early enough to get 8 hours of sleep.

So what’s your plan to get and stay healthy? What’s the plan to support your employees to make healthier choices at work? When you look down the road what do you see in your future and your company’s future? If It’s not health then you still have time it’s never too late to get started down the road to better health.  

Need some help? Then ask a wellness consultant, certified health coach or health professional find a program that’s right for you and those you work with.  

Your partner in health, 

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA

Certified Health Coach 

Wellness Consultant 

C2 Your Health LLC

LinkedIN 

What’s Your Health Plan Look Like?

Whether you have 1 employee or 5000 people work where you work it seems many of us live minute by minute. You and the people you work with may be planning their week at work but not planning for their health and happiness. Their family life is in crisis mode moving from one crisis to the next moving to the next urgent problem to the next chaos in their life. You too as a manager or business owner maybe doing much the same thing. What gets left in the dust is your health, the health of your family and the people you work with. Why? Because many people just don’t have a plan.

You might want to stop for a second, take a breath then ask yourself “Is my health important to me and is it important enough to me to plan for?” I will never forget the day I was sitting across from a health coaching client when they said “No, my health is not a priority to me.” Really? You have got to be kidding! You plan for your health now or plan for your medical bills later. You either make your health a priority or your health will become a priority for you when you develop sickness that keeps you from enjoying your family, working on your job and takes your money. 

So what’s the plan? What are your health goals? Do you know? If you have not thought it over in a while now is a great time. The rules are the same when it comes to planning your vacation, your business and your health. The more time you spend planning the more fun and prosperity you’ll experience.  

Once you have a plan in place then to insure success you will need to keep track what’s important like your care GPS keeps you on track helping you reach your destination.

Most experts agree these are the top five most important influencers on your health and well-being:

1. The quality, quality and frequency of your food choices.

2. How much and what type of activity you experience.

3. Sleep quality and duration.

4. How you manage family, financial and job stress.

5. Water quality and frequency of consumption.

Food Influencers: Does how you feel influence your food choices? Food choices are made for many reasons besides hunger and these hide in your daily actions. Sometimes it’s convenience and availability. Are healthy foods convenient and available in your company break room? Are there healthy restaurants close by? Can you bring your lunch to work? 

Other times your food choices are determined by your level of frustration, time pressures and stress. When this happens you are more likely to make unhealthy food choices. Plan to keep healthy foods like fruits, vegetables and nuts nearby in your desk, purse or car to sooth your mood.

It’s important to bring eating into your awareness. Noticing patterns in foods choices and behaviors will help you make better decisions in the future.  Not sure what to eat? The USDA can help www.choosemyplate.gov.

Track your successes: Don’t limit yourself in how you measure success. The scale is only one way and maybe not the best because the weather and food additives will cause the scale to fluctuate. Monitor your clothing size, measure your waist, legs, and arms, and monitor how tight or loose your clothes feel.

Keep track of your food choices too. How may fruits, vegetables and whole grains are you eating? Not enough check this out www.YourJuicePlus.com. Most importantly monitor how you feel and how your body is working. With better food choices comes energy, better sleep, improved digestion, lower blood pressure, weight loss and many other health benefits.

Track your goals:  While your long-term goal may be to lose 10, 25, 50 or more pounds, you need small goals to keep your motivation up. Focus on improved healthy and vitality. Being skinny in your casket really isn’t what you are shooting for. You can’t control your weight but you can control your habits. Make goals you have control of such as eat 1 more fruit and veggie per day, exercise 30 minutes and go to bed early enough to get 8 hours of sleep.

So what’s your plan to get and stay healthy? What’s the plan to support your employees to make healthier choices at work? When you look down the road what do you see in your future and your company’s future? If It’s not health then you still have time it’s never too late to get started down the road to better health.  

Need some help? Then ask a wellness consultant, certified health coach or health professional find a program that’s right for you and those you work with.  

Your partner in health, 

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA

Certified Health Coach 

Wellness Consultant 

C2 Your Health LLC

LinkedIN 

Does Your Health Need a Do Over?

     

      

      Who hasn’t emotionally beaten themselves up for eating a whole container of Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream? Or what about the whole bag of Lay’s Potato Chips after all there tagline is you can’t eat just one and surprise you can’t! What about that fitness plan that never really got started? Admit it, laying on the couch feels much better that dragging out to the gym.

No matter how you slice it, diet and exercise are dirty words. They come with frustration, disappointment, deprivation and one more failure to add to the thousands of failures that make up your life. Who needs that? It almost leaves you powerless and hopeless for a solution. Your only recourse is to give up. Sound familiar?  

Here’s something new to consider. You have created our life, your relationships and your life’s work one minute at a time. Every thought, decision and action moves you closer or further away from what you are seeking to achieve. Happiness, fame and fortune. At least that’s what they say. Yes some things in life happen to us however we make lots of things happen too.

The same is true with your health.  Yes, you are born with familial tendencies, heredity and genetics however you have a lot to do with your health too. With every bite of food, every minute of missed of sleep, water we forgot to drink, step you missed and every stress filled thought, you are creating your own health picture.

So what does your health picture look like and what will it look like in the future? There are some things about health everybody knows so let’s start there.

1. Experts agree just because you are not sick right this minute does not mean you are not brewing up a disease inside your body. Heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer and the like are called chronic diseases because they happen over a long time sometimes as long as 10 years before symptoms appear and you know it.

2. Everybody knows if you are overweight you are more likely to develop a chronic disease. Some experts say this is not so much the weight that causes this increased disease risk but the choices you make that result in the weight gain. Experts disagree on the numbers of adults with chronic disease the range being somewhere around 50 – 80% but all agree it is poor nutrition, lack of exercise, too much stress, tobacco and alcohol use are the main contributing factors.

3. Everybody knows what to do to eat and live healthier, or at least have a general idea. Pretty much everybody has trouble doing it. We all know this because according to the Centers for Disease Prevention (http://www.cdc.gov) more than one-third (34.9% or 78.6 million) of U.S. adults are obese. That’s more than any other time in history. 

    

    Let’s call for a health do over. It’s never too late to learn from your failures and start over making healthier choices. All you need is more understanding of what goes into making healthier choices, a solid plan and a support system.  

  

     Decide WHY and then what.  Instead of going straight to what diet or lifestyle change you are going make think about WHY you want to make these changes. Do you want to reverse a chronic disease, prevent sickness, and watch your kids grow up, have more energy or feel better about yourself?  Knowing why you are embarking on this journey will help you make the decision right for your goals and stick it. Really sick to it for the long haul. When deciding what be sensible, backed by research and think of it in terms of your whole life. I recommend the One Simple Change plan by The Juice Plus Company (http://www.YourJuicePlus.com)

Learn something new every day about your decision making. Choosing to drink a calorie loaded chocolate caramel coffee does not make you bad, wrong or a failure. It just means is your plan is not working. Instead evaluate how you came to make that decision, what the payoff is and what the long term consequences are.  Remember what your WHY is then adjust your plan.

Make a firm commitment to your health. A real commitment. The kind where you are all in. No matter what it takes, never giving up kind of commitment.  I think this is the hardest part.  It takes time and energy to stay committed. This level of commitment may require some hard changes. Giving up some things, foods, activities you love like watching TV then replacing them with foods and activities you don’t really like at first like eating more fruits and vegetables and spending time on physical activity.  In some cases you may even consider changing your friend group. Making friends who want to be healthy just like you and support you in your healthy choices. A firm commitment is what brings you success, it’s the stuff great people are made of.  It’s the WHY of what you are doing.
 Understand your personality.  According to Thomas R. Przybeck, PhD assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine who published a recent study on the topic of personality and diet it’s important to know your tendencies so you can tailor your plan accordingly.  This is your support system. Knowing what and who you need to support you is critical to your success. Dr. Przybeck PhD has narrowed it down to five personality types.

1.      Impulsive.  If you have a tendency to be impulsive you need to remove all foods from your home or office that may tempt you from your healthy eating goals and replace them with healthier options. If it’s the TV that’s keeping you from your activity or sleep goals then one strategy might be to not turn on the TV.
 2.      Oblivious. If you tend to not pay attention to what you eat a good idea would be to weigh and measure your portion sizes before you eat and keep a food diary. The USDA website is a good place to start www.choosemyplate.gov. A restaurant strategy would be to ask the server before serving you to divide your meal in half put one half in a to-go container and serve you the rest.
 3.      Uptight. People who are anxious tend to eat because they are nervous or depressed and eat to feel better. If this is you a strategy would be to have a whole life eating plan which allows you to eat as much as you want to feel better and to schedule in your healthy activities such as 10 pm bedtime, then go to bed. A planning a daily schedule, eating plan and a specific time to exercise generally helps to relieve anxiety. I recommend the Transform30 plan http://www.loseweightanddetoxdiet.com.
 4.     Tenacious. This personality finds it easy to lose weight and stay on a healthy living plan because they are self-directed, cooperative and have a strong since of commitment. If this is you look for other people who are motivated just like you.
 5.     Sociable.  If you are good at monitoring your food intake, like keeping a food diary Przybeck would classify you as a social personality. When it comes to exercise we will find you at the gym with your exercise buddy.

Reboot do over.  Success comes from starting and restarting over and over again until you find a plan that works for you.  Once you know why you are building your healthy life you will know what to do to make it happen. If you are unsure seek the help and support of a certified health coach, dietitian or qualified medical professional to help guide you towards a solid healthy life plan. Your plan may need some modifications, tweaking over time and sometimes even an overhaul. After all life happens with all the upsets. That’s ok. When you are ready, take a deep breath, have a moment of silence to be grateful for what you do have, recommit then call for a reboot do over! We’ll all be there cheering you on.
 This article is from Small Biz Forward, a monthly magazine for small to medium business owners, and entrepreneurs. 

    Your partner in health, 

  

    Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA 

    Certified Health Coach

    Wellness Consultant

    WELCOA Faculty

    C2 Your Health LLC

    Health-E 4 Life Worksite Wellness