Provides practical advice on paying for health care services, finding long-term care and paying for long-term care.

You can reduce insurance premiums and lower your medical expenses. Millions of Americans benefit from this advice and now you can too! See the doctors you want to see! Health insurance should protect you against financial ruin, not cause it! The trick to choosing the right plan for your family is to do some homework first. Like a"friend in the business" this book outlines the things the insurance company's don't want you to know, that will save you thousands of dollars. You can keep your money in your wallet and put money in the bank! Don't let the monster eat your health care dollars. "Who knew a book about insurance would be a page turner?" Dr. B. Orange, MD "You are the Suzie Orman of Health Insurance." Robert Foster, Bridgewater Marble and Granite "An invaluable resource I go back to again and again." M. Hanhart, Business Coach " I never met anyone who worked so hard to talk me out of spending money." N. Lordi, Nalpro Business Solutions

From one of the most prestigious nonprofit organizations devoted to environmental issues comes a clear, practical, and rational overview of the relationship between consumers and the environment. Paper or plastic? Bus or car? Old house or new? Cloth diapers or disposables? Some choices have a huge impact on the environment; others are of negligible importance. To those of us who care about our quality of life and what is happening to the earth, this is a vastly important issue. In these pages, the Union of Concerned Scientists help inform consumers about everyday decisions that significantly affect the environment. For example, a few major decisions--such as the choice of a house or vehicle--have such a disproportionately large affect on the environment that minor environmental infractions shrink by comparison. This book identifies the 4 Most Significant Consumer-Related Environmental Problems, the 7 Most Damaging Spending Categories, 11 Priority Actions, and 7 Rules for Responsible Consumption. Learn what you can do to have a truly significant impact on our world from the people who are at the forefront of scientific research.

Many Americans believe that people who lack health insurance somehow get the care they really need. Care Without Coverage examines the real consequences for adults who lack health insurance. The study presents findings in the areas of prevention and screening, cancer, chronic illness, hospital-based care, and general health status. The committee looked at the consequences of being uninsured for people suffering from cancer, diabetes, HIV infection and AIDS, heart and kidney disease, mental illness, traumatic injuries, and heart attacks. It focused on the roughly 30 million-one in seven-working-age Americans without health insurance. This group does not include the population over 65 that is covered by Medicare or the nearly 10 million children who are uninsured in this country. The main findings of the report are that working-age Americans without health insurance are more likely to receive too little medical care and receive it too late; be sicker and die sooner; and receive poorer care when they are in the hospital, even for acute situations like a motor vehicle crash.

" Scare headlines about the first human clones appear in our newspapers. Biotech companies brag about manufacturing human embryos as "products" for use in medical treatments. Events are moving so fast—and biotechnology seems so complicated—that many of us worry we can’t keep up. But now, Wesley J. Smith provides us with a guide to the brave new world that is no longer a figment of our imagination, but a reality just around the corner of our lives. Smith unravels the mystery of stem cells and shows what’s at stake in the controversy over using them for research. He describes the emerging science of human cloning—the most radical technology in history—and shows how it moves forward inexorably against the moral consensus of the world. But at the core of this highly readable and carefully researched book is a report on the gargantuan "Big Biotech" industry and its supporters in the universities and the science and bioethics establishments. Smith reveals how the lure of huge riches, mixed with the ideology of "scientism," threatens to impose on society a "new eugenics" that would dismantle ethical norms and call into question the uniqueness and importance of all human life. "At stake," he warns, "is whether science will continue to serve society, or instead dominate it." In Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World, Smith presents a clear-eyed vision of two potential futures. In one, we will use biotechnology as a powerful tool to treat disease and improve the quality of our lives. But in another, darker scenario, we will be steered onto the antihuman path that Aldous Huxley and other prophetic writers warned against half a century ago. "

The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.