Finally Friday Edition

Medicare open enrollment starts tomorrow. Do not skip this opportunity to review your selections and see if you need to make changes.

The federal Court of Appeals in California ruled that insurers have to cover residential treatment for eating disorders the same as treatment for other medical issues under the state mental health parity law. There's been progress made in the courts of New Jersey, as well. I'm waiting for a decision in an eating disorder case -- they're heartbreaking and near impossible to win without going to court.

The House passed another bill prohibiting the use of federal health reform dollars to pay for any insurance policy that offers abortion. Not just no federal money to pay for the abortion itself, or even for the portion of the policy that covers abortion, which is already the law; but if the policy covers abortion even with private dollars, there will be no federal subsidy for the plan. Which means it will be near impossible to find an insurance plan that covers abortion, even with private funds.

The health reform law has nearly tripled the number of doctors practicing in rural areas, the National Health Service Corp.

Just as President Obama's jobs plan has been blocked by the GOP, Dems aren't likely to support GOP jobs proposals (which are all tax cuts for corporations anyway), leaving the unemployed with no answers and no support. Oh -- and the GOP plan also includes a repeal of health reform even though it has made the health care sector the strongest job grower in the economy.

And the next health reform lie? That the government will have access to your medical records. Not true. The government will collect claims data -- no names (not even doctors' names), no medical records, just what your health care cost -- to help find ways to be more efficient and economical. The government already has Medicare claims data, veterans' claims data -- but not medical records. This is just absurd, as the people telling this lie must know.

Medicaid cuts would hurt racial and ethnic minorities harder than whites.

Words matter. So do you want to be called a patient or a consumer? Should we call doctors physicians or providers? It's convenient to be able to talk about health care providers to include nurses, physicians assistants, and so on, but apparently some doctors don't like it. I always talk about our clients as patients -- unless I'm working with a coalition of advocacy orgs which tend to refer to them as consumers.

Vitamin B12 deficiency can hurt memory in older age.

Contact lens recall -- CooperVision brand. Does this mean you?

And that's today's news. Have a great day. Jennifer