The Health News USA October 21 2017

• Middle-class Americans fear that their health insurance costs will soar as Trump weakens former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, which extended insurance to more than 20 million Americans. Aside from cutting subsidies, President Trump signed an executive order last week that could eventually make it easier for Americans to buy cheaper, bare-bones health insurance plans than required by Obamacare.
• According to the report by Common Sense Media, the amount of time young children in the United States spend with mobile screens might raise some eyebrows, as a new report found it has tripled in just four years. Children 8 and younger spent about fifteen  minutes a day staring at a mobile screen in  2013 and now they spend 48 a day.
• A new study found that an injectable diabetes medication may also be able to lower blood sugar and promote weight loss when taken orally. According to research from the Leicester Diabetes Centre at the University of Leicester in England, the medication, called oral semaglutide, “significantly” improved the health of people with Type two diabetes.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 21th of  October 2017. Read by Tabetha Moreto. Health News

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-effect-healthcare-subsidies/some-middle-class-americans-worry-trump-health-subsidies-cut-will-hurt-idUSKBN1CO1HV

Tom Westerman voted for Donald Trump in last year’s election but says he might not do so again after the president cut off billions of dollars in Obamacare subsidies to health insurance companies.“It really upset me,” said Westerman, sixty three, a self-described “middle-class guy” with an annual household income of about sixty thousand dollars in the western Pennsylvania city of Arnold. Westerman’s change of heart reflects mounting fears among middle-class Democrats and Republicans that their health insurance costs will soar as Trump weakens former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, which extended insurance to more than twenty million Americans.

Trump said last week he would stop paying the monthly subsidies, which he has derided as a bailout of insurers. The money reimburses insurers for discounts on deductibles, copays and other out-of-pocket costs the firms still must provide under Obamacare to low-income households. Some insurers, anticipating that Trump would end the funding, had already raised two thousand eighteen premiums on insurance plans under Obama’s Affordable Care Act to recoup those funds. Others withdrew from Obamacare markets in many states because of the uncertainty.
….
Westerman already pays five hundred twenty dollars a month in healthcare premiums and about seven hundred dollars  a month for his twenty one-year-old daughter’s college tuition. A White House spokesman declined to comment and referred inquiries to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has called subsidy payments a “gift” for insurance companies. His administration has argued that it cannot lawfully make the payments unless Congress passes new legislation.
Some people said they were encouraged to see Trump deliver on a campaign promise to dismantle Obamacare, after repeated failures by congressional Republicans to repeal the two thousand ten law.
….
In addition to cutting subsidies, Trump signed an executive order last week that could eventually make it easier for Americans to buy cheaper, bare-bones health insurance plans than are required by Obamacare.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/19/health/children-smartphone-tablet-use-report/index.html

The amount of time young children in the United States spend with mobile screens might raise some eyebrows, as a new report found it has tripled in just four years. Children eight and younger spent about fifteen  minutes a day staring at a mobile screen in two thousand thirteen and now they spend forty eight minutes a day, according to the report by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization focused on helping children, parents, and educators navigate the world of media and technology. The report, released Thursday, also found that forty two percent of children eight and younger now have their own tablet devices, a steep increase from seven percent four years ago and less than one percent in two thousand eleven.
Children spending more time on mobile devices comes as no shock to Douglas Gentile, a psychology professor at Iowa State University who was not involved in the new report but has studied the effects of media use on children.

For the new report, one thousand four hundred fifty one parents of children eight and younger were surveyed online in January and February about how their children use media. The new survey built off of two previous surveys on children’s media use that were conducted in two thousand eleven and two thousand thirteen. The new findings, detailed in a report, showed that children eight and younger spend an average of two hours and nineteen minutes a day with screen media, roughly the same as in prior years. Overall, sixty seven percent of parents whose children use screen media say it helps their children’s learning, according to the report.

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-care-news/articles/2017-10-18/diabetes-medication-could-be-available-in-pill-form

A new study found that an injectable diabetes medication may also be able to lower blood sugar and promote weight loss when taken orally. According to research from the Leicester Diabetes Centre at the University of Leicester in England, the medication, called oral semaglutide, “significantly” improved the health of people with Type two diabetes. When taken orally once a day, the pill was found to lower HbA one c levels, a measurement of blood glucose, over three months by up to one point nine percent. It also aided weight loss, according to the University of Leicester.

“Type two diabetes is a serious condition with potentially devastating complications which is posing a major challenge to health services across the world because of the increasing numbers of people developing it,” said Melanie Davies, professor of Diabetes Medicine at the Leicester Diabetes Centre. She went on to say that, with many people struggling to inject themselves, the results of the oral medication appear “hugely promising.” Despite the availability of several other drugs used to treat Type two diabetes, they come with undesirable side effects, including weight gain and low blood sugar – a condition known as hypoglycemia. However, up to ninety percent of the study’s participants taking oral semaglutide achieved the desired blood sugar levels. Additionally, seventy one percent experienced significant weight loss.