Obama's new health secretary nominee draws early Republican fire - Reuters

U.S. President Barack Obama (2nd L) applauds after announcing Director of the Office of Management and Budget Sylvia Mathews Burwell (2nd R) as his nominee to replace outgoing U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius (R), during a ceremony in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, April 11, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama's new nominee for health secretary drew some early political fire from Republicans on Sunday in what could foreshadow a stormy election-year confirmation debate in the U.S. Senate over the future of the law known as Obamacare.

Two days after Obama nominated his budget director, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, to head the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Republican lawmakers alleged the new nominee could help the White House exert political control over Obamacare enrollment numbers and other data showing how well the reforms are working.

After a disastrous launch last year, the administration's enrollment drive has surpassed the most optimistic independent forecasts by signing up 7.5 million people in private health plans through new online insurance marketplaces.

That number is expected to grow and could approach the 8 million mark as applicants who were unable to complete the process by the March 31 deadline continue to sign up through federal and state-run marketplaces.

The results present a challenge for Republicans, who claim Obamacare is a failure that Americans should reject. They maintain that the actual number of enrollees could be much smaller than the administration's total and many have signed up for Obamacare plans because their original coverage was canceled as a result of the law.

"Burwell is an interesting choice. They know they've got a math problem with Obamacare and the numbers are not going to work out so that the program is actuarially sound," Representative Marsha Blackburn said on CBS' "Face the Nation" program.

"They're going to have to have somebody to kind of spin the numbers and this is something ... I think they're expecting her to be able to do for them," added Blackburn, a senior Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees healthcare issues.

TOUGHER FIGHT IN SENATE?

Burwell, who would succeed outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as the public face of Obamacare, needs to be confirmed by the Senate before she can start the job. She sailed through the Senate last year for her current job as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) with a 96-0 confirmation vote.

But Republicans say things may not be so easy this time.

"There is no doubt she was a good choice for OMB. That does not necessarily make her a good choice for HHS," Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina told "Fox News Sunday."

"Will the next secretary have Americans' (interests) first, or will they have the administration's policies and try to carry the water for the president?" he said.

"We are going to have an opportunity to discuss with Director Burwell her approach to making sure that the American people are the primary objective and not politics," Scott added.

Republicans hope to wrest control of the Senate from Democrats in November's midterm elections and see Obamacare's unpopularity as a key lever for attracting independent swing voters and turning out their own base.

But the strong enrollment results have revived Obama's fellow Democrats, who now hope the impending change in leadership at HHS will begin a new chapter for the law and help stave off blistering Republican attacks.

"It probably is a good thing to have a new face going forward," Democratic U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said on "Fox News Sunday."

Sebelius, whose tumultuous five-year term became overshadowed by last year's botched rollout, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that she made the decision to step down and told Obama in March, after the enrollment effort had bounced back and was meeting its targets.

"The site actually worked, and the great thing is there's a market behind the site that works even better. People have competitive choices and real information for the first time ever in this insurance market," she said.

Blackburn scoffed at the idea that Sebelius' resignation would quell Republican opposition to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

"No, it's not going to quiet the controversy, I think it's quite the opposite," the Tennessee Republican said. "What it has done is to elevate some of the concerns."

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Sarah Lynch; Editing by Jim Loney and Meredith Mazzilli)

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Sebelius Resigns After Troubles Over Health Site - New York Times

WASHINGTON — Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, is resigning, ending a stormy five-year tenure marred by the disastrous rollout of President Obama’s signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Obama accepted Ms. Sebelius’s resignation this week, and on Friday morning, he will nominate Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to replace her, officials said.

The departure comes as the Obama administration tries to move beyond its early stumbles in carrying out the law, convince a still-skeptical public of its lasting benefits, and help Democratic incumbents, who face blistering attack ads after supporting the legislation, survive the midterm elections this fall.

Officials said Ms. Sebelius, 65, made the decision to resign and was not forced out. But the frustration at the White House over her performance had become increasingly clear, as administration aides worried that the crippling problems at HealthCare.gov, the website set up to enroll Americans in insurance exchanges, would result in lasting damage to the president’s legacy.

Even last week, as Mr. Obama triumphantly announced that enrollments in the exchanges had exceeded seven million, she did not appear next to him for the news conference in the Rose Garden.

The president is hoping that Ms. Burwell, 48, a Harvard- and Oxford-educated West Virginia native with a background in economic policy, will bring an intense focus and management acumen to the department. The budget office, which she has overseen since April of last year, is deeply involved in developing and carrying out health care policy.

“The president wants to make sure we have a proven manager and relentless implementer in the job over there, which is why he is going to nominate Sylvia,” said Denis R. McDonough, the White House chief of staff.

Last month, Ms. Sebelius approached Mr. Obama and began a series of conversations about her future, Mr. McDonough said. The secretary told the president that the March 31 deadline for sign-ups under the health care law — and rising enrollment numbers — provided an opportunity for change, and that he would be best served by someone who was not the target of so much political ire, Mr. McDonough said.

“What was clear is that she thought that it was time to transition the leadership to somebody else,” he said. “She’s made clear in other comments publicly that she recognizes that she takes a lot of the incoming. She does hope — all of us hope — that we can get beyond the partisan sniping.”

The resignation is a low point in what had been a remarkable career for Ms. Sebelius, who as governor of Kansas was named by Time magazine as one of the five best governors in the country and was even mentioned as a possible running mate for Mr. Obama in 2008. The two had bonded when Ms. Sebelius endorsed his presidential bid early in 2008, becoming one of the highest-profile Democratic women to back him over Hillary Rodham Clinton, and helping him deliver a big win in the Kansas caucus.

White House officials were quick to point out the many successes during Ms. Sebelius’s tenure: the end to pre-existing conditions as a bar to insurance, the ability for young people to stay on their parents’ insurance, and the reduction in the growth of health care costs. In addition, Ms. Sebelius helped push through mental health parity in insurance plans and worked with the Department of Education to promote early childhood education.

Ms. Sebelius said in an interview on Thursday that she had always known that she would not “be here to turn out the lights in 2017.”

“My balance has always been, when do you make that decision?” she added.

The president had been under pressure for months to fire Ms. Sebelius. But he had resisted, in part because he did not want the Department of Health and Human Services to undergo more upheaval amid all the problems plaguing HealthCare.gov, and in part because of his general reluctance to publicly rebuke top officials.

In November, Mr. Obama defended the secretary, saying in an interview with NBC News that she “doesn’t write code; yeah, she wasn’t our I.T. person.” As recently as last week, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, rejected any suggestion that Ms. Sebelius would be fired.

On Thursday, Mr. McDonough praised Ms. Sebelius as “a fierce advocate,” and said she had been “tenacious in her belief” in the president’s health care law. “She’s fearless in her defense of this idea at the heart of the Affordable Care Act,” he said. “The president has commented to me countless times how much he admires that.”

But the Affordable Care Act faces a range of obstacles, political and otherwise, in the months ahead, and Mr. Obama is hoping that Ms. Burwell can smoothly steer the department and bring stability to its operations. In addition to the midterm elections, in which the health care law is the target of a flood of negative ads, the administration is grappling with policy questions: how it will levy the penalty on individuals who lack insurance, how much premiums will increase in the coming year, and how ultimately to administer the requirement that employers provide insurance.

Ms. Sebelius was not Mr. Obama’s first choice to lead the department; he wanted former Senator Tom Daschle in the job, but Mr. Daschle withdrew after acknowledging that he had underpaid his taxes for several years. She was hailed as a gifted political leader in Kansas who could work with legislators of both parties. But those skills were less evident in Washington, and she became a more distant figure within the administration.

In addition to the political battles over the passage and carrying out of the Affordable Care Act, she clashed with conservatives over contraception, and faced frequent calls for her political head by Republicans after the health care website failed to function properly last year.

In hearings on Capitol Hill, Ms. Sebelius sometimes grew rattled under questioning by lawmakers. In one hearing at the end of October, Ms. Sebelius declared that HealthCare.gov “has never crashed.”

“It is functional,” she added, “but at a very slow speed and very low reliability, and has continued to function.”

She made that statement even as large screens in the hearing room showed a live shot of the website with a page that said: “The system is down at the moment. We are experiencing technical difficulties and hope to have them resolved soon.”

An appearance on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” last October went even worse. Mr. Stewart challenged her to “sign up for Obamacare” before he could download every movie ever made. “We’ll see which happens first,” he joked. She struggled to defend the website and the health care law.

The television appearance prompted headlines like “Kathleen Sebelius’s ‘Daily Show’ Disaster” and accusations from Republicans that she was being misleading. Democrats squirmed at her stiff and halting performance, which did little to inspire confidence in the website’s performance — or her own.

But Ms. Sebelius has not been at the center of public attention in recent weeks. Her national television exposure has been limited after the poor public performances, but she has continued to make small appearances and has been active on Twitter to press for people to sign up for insurance. She submitted to another questioning before a Senate committee on Thursday and later acknowledged that the idea of not doing “a hearing every three weeks sounds pretty good to me.”

The president’s choice of Ms. Burwell to lead the Department of Health and Human Services places a relative outsider at the helm of one of the government’s largest bureaucracies. Ms. Burwell has led the president’s budget office since taking over for Jacob J. Lew, who is now the Treasury secretary.

Ms. Sebelius said she hoped — but did not expect — that her departure would represent the beginning of a more cooperative period in Washington to make health care better.

“If I could take something along with me,” she said, it would be “all the animosity. If that could just leave with me, and we could get to a new chapter, that would be terrific.”

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Sebelius to Resign as Chief of Obama's Health Programs - Bloomberg

Kathleen Sebelius, the U.S. health secretary who steered the troubled rollout of President Barack Obama’s signature health-care law, will resign just as the program topped its first-year enrollment goal.

The president will announce Sebelius’s resignation tomorrow and name Sylvia Mathews Burwell, 48, director of the Office of Management and Budget, as the health department’s next secretary, the White House said.

A former Democratic governor of Kansas, Sebelius, 65, was an early backer of Obama’s campaign for president. She spent five years running the Health and Human Services Department, presiding over the largest change to government health programs since Medicare and Medicaid began almost 50 years ago.

“From her work on Head Start, to expanding mental health coverage, to advancing cutting-edge health care research and, of course, her unwavering leadership in implementing the Affordable Care Act, Secretary Sebelius often calls her work here the most meaningful of her life,” Dori Salcido, a department spokeswoman, said in an e-mail confirming Sebelius’s resignation.

The move closes the first major chapter of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. The 2010 law is projected to eventually offer health insurance to 25 million more people in the U.S., paid for with changes to Medicare, taxes on health-care providers and a requirement that all Americans have insurance.

Surprise Decision

Sebelius’s departure was unexpected by at least one person close to her, Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, a Republican who has worked with her since 1991. Praeger said she was at a dinner where the health secretary spoke last week and that “she seemed like she was in it for the long haul.”

Sebelius told Obama in early March that she would resign, according to an e-mail from the White House. She said the end of the health law’s first enrollment period on March 31 would be “the right time to transition the department to new leadership,” according to the e-mail.

Sebelius and Burwell will join Obama for the public announcement tomorrow at the White House.

Assessing Sebelius’s work, the number of people who signed up for coverage through Obamacare may trump the difficulties in getting there when the new online insurance marketplaces started with flawed technology last October. In total, 7.5 million Americans signed up for private health plans through the exchanges, half a million more than the government’s most optimistic estimates.

‘Key Role’

The secretary “played a key role that enabled the Affordable Care Act to become the law of the land, and she worked tirelessly to implement it successfully,” Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a Washington-based health advocacy group that supports the law, said in an e-mail. “We owe her an enormous debt of gratitude for her excellent work in improving health care for families across America.”

That was despite numerous computer issues that stymied early sign-ups. People who tried to use the U.S.-run website healthcare.gov encountered delays, couldn’t log on, or began an application only to see their data vanish in what the Obama administration termed “glitches.” Sebelius was accused by Republicans of covering up or not knowing about the difficulties, which lasted from October until December.

Sebelius took the blame. “Hold me accountable,” she said of the problems at an October congressional hearing.

‘Right’ Time

“This is the right decision,” U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who sits on a committee that will consider Burwell’s nomination, said in an e-mail from a spokeswoman. “The challenge for Ms. Burwell, or any other successor, is to help Congress find the right way to repair the damage Obamacare has done to American families.”

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, offered Sebelius a back-handed compliment.

“I thank Secretary Sebelius for her service,” he said on Twitter. “She had an impossible task: nobody can make Obamacare work.”

Sebelius “did the best she could during the tumultuous and volatile rollout of the law,” U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, said in an e-mail from a spokeswoman.

The White House delayed regulations crucial to the construction of the online marketplaces until after Obama’s 2012 re-election, giving contractors working on healthcare.gov less than a year to finish and test the site.

“We can point fingers in a lot of different directions. I don’t think it’s fair to point them at her, solely,” Praeger said.

Economic Background

If confirmed, Burwell, 48, will bring a background in economics and management to the health position. She was deputy director of OMB during the Clinton administration and also served as chief of staff to then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin during a time that included the 1995 budget standoffs that led to partial government shutdowns.

Before joining the Obama administration last year, Burwell was president of the Wal-Mart Foundation. She also previously worked for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on global health-care issues.

Obamacare enrollment began to surge in December as the deadline for coverage beginning Jan. 1 approached. That grew further in March, the last month when people could sign up for 2014 health plans, as the program matched, then beat its enrollment goals.

Promoting the Law

“She spent a lot of time going to states,” Praeger said in a telephone interview. “I think the HHS putting ads out -- that were very good -- the last month or so, resulted in a big surge the last couple of weeks.”

She wasn’t Obama’s first choice to lead the department. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s nomination to the post stalled after reports he had to pay about $140,000 in back taxes and interest, partly related to chauffeur services. Sebelius’s nomination was announced on Feb. 28, 2009, and she was confirmed two months later.

Sebelius became the point person on Obama’s effort with the new health law, a top campaign promise the president pushed through Congress while dealing with a financial crisis and strong political opposition.

U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat who is House minority leader and a close friend of Sebelius’s, said the secretary’s leadership of the health department was “forceful, effective and essential.”

Sebelius “has remained laser-focused on a single purpose: to make health care a right, not a privilege, for all Americans,” Pelosi said in a statement.

State Flexibility

Sebelius repeatedly emphasized that the law gave states flexibility to implement it. That included letting them design and set up the marketplaces for people to shop for new insurance. Still, many governors in Republican-led states declined, leaving the U.S. to run more of the markets than it planned.

The insurance components of the law may have been the most debated yet were hardly the entire story. It also contains provisions to improve quality of care and to try and reduce financial incentives that drive up spending, which were just as important to Sebelius, said George Halvorson, former chairman and chief executive officer of Kaiser Permanente, the nonprofit health organization.

“There’s a fairly rich vein of quality-related elements that are pretty much invisible -- important, but invisible,” Halvorson said. “Those were things that she took very seriously and spent time on, to make sure the hospital infection rate reporting happened, for example.”

Budget Share

The Health and Human Services Department is the biggest U.S. agency. It spent about $886 billion in 2013 -- a quarter of all federal dollars. The majority of that goes to Medicare, the U.S. health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, and Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for the poor.

Despite the law’s current success, her successor faces challenges. Twenty-four states haven’t agreed to an expansion of Medicaid under the law, which was a key part of providing coverage to the uninsured. The federal government runs insurance marketplaces in 36 states, more than the Obama administration anticipated, after most declined to take on that responsibility.

Before joining the Obama administration, Sebelius was elected as governor of Kansas for two terms, from 2003 to 2009. She also spent about a decade as the state’s insurance commissioner, a role that would prepare her for the job running Obamacare.

She is one of six Obama cabinet members who have remained since the beginning of the administration, including Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

She is also the first daughter of a U.S. governor to be elected to the same post. Her father, John Gilligan, was Ohio’s governor from 1971 to 1975, according to her biography on the health and Human Services website.

To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Wayne in Washington at awayne3@bloomberg.net; Julianna Goldman in Washington at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net; Drew Armstrong in New York at darmstrong17@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net Andrew Pollack

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Health Highlights: April 9, 2014 - Philly.com

Filed Under: Press, Medical, Health Reporting

Posted: Wednesday, April 9, 2014, 9:11 AM

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:

Some Doctors Paid at Least $3 Million Each by Medicare

A small number of doctors received at least $3 million each in Medicare payments in 2012, for a total of nearly $1.5 billion, according to an analysis of Medicare claims data released Wednesday by the White House.

In total, Medicare paid individual physicians nearly $64 billion in 2012. The median payment was just over $30,000, the Associated Pres reported.

Of the more than 825,000 doctors in the database, 344 earned at least $3 million each. At the top of the list was Florida ophthalmologist (eye specialist) Dr. Salomon Melgen, who earned nearly $21 million, the AP reported.

Last year, it was revealed that Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., used Melgen's personal jet for trips to the Dominican Republic.

The AP analysis showed that 87 (1 in 4) of the top-paid doctors practice in Florida, followed by California (38), New Jersey (27), Texas (23) and New York (18). The data also showed that 151 ophthalmologists were among the 344 doctors in the $3 million-plus club and that they took in a total of nearly $658 million in Medicare payments.

Cancer specialists were fourth in line, with a combined total of nearly $477 million.

Medicare is taxpayer-financed, but doctor payment data has not been available to the public until now. Doctor groups tried to prevent release of the data, claiming it would be an invasion of doctors' privacy, the AP reported.

Consumer groups, insurers, employers and news organizations wanted the data made public, arguing that it could help patients find doctors who provide quality, cost-effective care, the AP reported.

A federal judge's ruling last year paved the way for the release of the data, which could also be used to learn more about health care costs in an attempt to control them.

The American Medical Association was against the release of the Medicare database, claiming it would do more harm than good. For example, the data may contain inaccurate information and does not provide useful facts about the quality of care, the AP reported.

The AMA wants doctors to be able to review their information before it is released.

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Dozens of California Cruise Passengers Sick

More than three dozen passengers on a Princess Cruises ship sailing along the California coast may be sick with a highly contagious virus, officials say.

About 37 passengers on the Crown Princess reported being sick while the ship was in San Francisco on Monday, company spokeswoman Karen Candy told the Associated Press.

Princess Cruises believes the illnesses may be due to the Norovirus, which causes symptoms such as nausea, stomach cramping, vomiting and diarrhea.

All of the sick passengers are being asked to remain in their rooms, and the ship's staff is disinfecting surfaces throughout the vessel, Candy told the AP.

The ship's seven-day cruise began in Los Angeles on Saturday and concludes in Santa Barbara.

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Ebola Outbreak Could Take Months to Contain: WHO

The number of deaths from the Ebola virus has reached 101 in Guinea and 10 in Liberia, the World Health Organization says.

The agency also said the situation in West Africa is "one of the most challenging Ebola outbreaks we have ever dealt with" and it could take another four months to contain it, BBC News reported.

So far, 157 suspected cases have been recorded in Guinea and 67 of those cases have been confirmed as Ebola, according to the WHO. Ebola kills between 25 and 90 percent of its victims.

"We fully expect to be engaged in this outbreak for the next two to three to four months before we are comfortable that we are through it," Keija Fukuda, WHO's assistant director-general, said at a news briefing in Geneva, BBC News reported.

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Honey with Added Sweeteners Not Honey: FDA

Food companies cannot add sugar or other sweeteners to pure honey and still call it honey, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday.

The agency said it would consider enforcement action against U.S. businesses or importers if they do not properly label honey with added sweeteners, the Associated Press reported.

If sweeteners are added, labels should inform consumers that the product is a "blend of sugar and honey" or "blend of honey and corn syrup," the FDA said.

It's common for the agency to detain honey imports after discovering they contain drug residues and unlabeled added sweeteners, the AP reported.

Copyright © 2014 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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The Stress Antidote: Restoring Health by Evoking the Relaxation Response

Stress has been listed as one of the major causative factors for preventable disease. It is known to set in to motion an unhealthy chain of events within the body, causing damage to health. Just as damage can be derived from stress related illness, studies now show that the body can be healed through using techniques that calm the mind and body by evoking the relaxation response.

This response can be elicited through any of the practices listed under the "focused relaxation" umbrella such as yoga, tai chi, guided imagery, visualization, progressive muscle relaxation and meditation, just to scratch the surface. These techniques are being used to manage all kinds of pain, infertility, insomnia, and numerous health conditions.

Dr. Herbert Benson,who heads the Behavioral Medicine Section at New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston and who also teaches at Harvard Medical School, describes the phenomenon: "What we have found is that when you evoke the relaxation response, the very genes that are turned on or off by stress are turned the other way. The mind can actively turn on and turn off genes. The mind is not separated from the body."

New studies are showing that relaxation techniques can actually improve health by changing the patterns of gene activity which affect how the body responds to stress. The positive effects were seen in the genetic analysis of both long-term and short-term users of such techniques. They showed changes in their cellular metabolism, response to oxidative stress and other processes. All of which may contribute to cellular damage from chronic stress.

While these positive outcomes from relaxation techniques were once thought to be "all in the head" of the user, Scientists are now starting to find more definitive proof that these techniques, that elicit a relaxation response, have a biofeedback mechanism that alters gene expression. This is the first research of its kind, showing the systemic changes produced through focused relaxation techniques.

The work of Dr. Herbert Benson has been ground breaking in the study of the effects of focused relaxation. He is the leading authority on matter. Dr. Benson's work is part of a new scientific field of study called psychoneuroimmunology or PNI. It draws from psychology, immunology, neurology and other fields to investigate the interaction of mind and body.

In his book, The Relaxation Response, Dr. Benson discusses the actions of the "fight or flight" response and how, when repeatedly accessed, it can cause harm to the body. He notes, "Our studies revealed the opposite was also true. The body is also imbued with what I termed the Relaxation Response - an inducible physiological state of quietude."

He goes on to discuss how the body is able to "heal and rejuvenate itself" through this process. In explanation he states, "Regular elicitation of the Relaxation Response can prevent and compensate for, the damage incurred by frequent nervous reactions that pulse through our hearts and bodies." His research concludes that not only is this process good for health, but it can help to restore it.

In society today, where busyness and multitasking is the norm, it becomes even more important to understand the physical and mental toll that a fast paced lifestyle has on ones health and wellbeing. By understanding and taking measures to counteract the negative effects of stress, you can enhance and potentially prolong your life.

Focused relaxation is a tool that is easy to implement and one to consider as a way to improve personal wellness. Brilliant in its simplicity, many professionals are reluctant to consider it as a viable alternative for traditional treatment methods. However, as more research emerges, it is plausible that acceptance and use of focused relaxation will dramatically rise.

At the very least, regularly evoking the relaxation response allows users to find increased balance and peace. The healing effects that it yields are not just temporary boosts; they can substantially impact your systemic health, making it more resilient to future stressful encounters. This is Part four of a five-part series on the benefits of focused relaxation.

"Wellness Matters" Article Series by Lisa Schilling RN, CPT
Speaker, Writer, Wellness Coach & Consultant

Lisa Schilling is the author of "The Get REAL Guide to Health and Fitness-FIVE STEPS to Create Your Own Personal Wellness Plan" She is juggles life as a doting wife and the mother of three boys, who keep her feet firmly planted on the ground!

Lisa is a Registered Nurse, author and recovering pageant queen, who spreads hope with her Get REAL approach to wellness. She empowers women, caregivers and groups to unleash their fullest potential by helping them to see their true beauty and discover their REAL value. She feels passionate about spreading this message of hope and acceptance to help others be PROactive about their health and not simply REactive. Lisa uses her enthusiasm to inspire people to value and appreciate who they are. She helps people build a bridge from where they are, to where they want to be.

As an outspoken advocate for wellness and prevention, her motto is: "See one, do one, teach one!" Visit Lisa's website http://www.getrealwellnesssolutions.com/ to claim your FREE Bonus Gifts!

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Family Bonding: The Open Sesame to Happiness and Health

One of the key determinants of health is the development of supportive network of family and friends. Kinship ties and camaraderie and not among life's optional extras, they're absolutely vital to our contentment and physical well-being. When psychologists at Brigham Young University, London carried out a meta-analysis of the data from 148 earlier long term studies they found that people with a loving family and ample friends lived significantly longer than average. To be precise, they discovered that living in social isolation can be as unhealthy as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day, being an alcoholic or leading the life of a total couch potato. As the leader of the team reported: 'When someone is connected to a group and feels responsibility for other people, that sense of purpose and meaning translates to taking better care of themselves.' A similar conclusion was reached by the famous study carried out in Alameda County, California, when the sickness records of seven thousand residents were carefully monitored over a period of nine years. At the end of this time it was found that unmarried individuals with few friends and no links with a church or outside community group had a death rate from all causes which was two to five times higher than those with a well-developed network of friends. We can jog a long in isolation when all is going well, but when disaster strikes it's then we need the support of family and friends. Nowadays disaster victims are still being offered professional counselling, even though a recent review of fifteen medical trials has shown that this often makes matters worse rather than better, largely because it encourages sufferers to dwell on their misfortunes rather than banish them from their memories and get on with their lives. After a catastrophe, the finest therapy is the love and support of family and friends, people who know us well and are best placed to offer us sympathy, guidance and practical help. In his fascinating autobiography, Des O'Connor, the international comedian/singer tells how his terraced home in the East End of London was totally destroyed in a bombing raid during WW2. His father was away working a night shift in a local factory when the blitzkrieg struck. When he returned home in the early morning he found his wife and two young children standing amid the ruins sobbing uncontrollably, in total bewilderment and shock. His wife moaned: 'We've lost everything'. 'No, Maude', his perennially upbeat father said as he gathered the foursome together in a family huddle, 'we haven't lost everything. We've got the only thing that really matters. We've still got us.'

Families are a wellspring not only of health but also of happiness. Epicurus, the Greek philosopher, spent a lifetime studying the ways of achieving happiness, and came to the conclusion that, 'by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.' This was emphasised at the end of 2006 when a group of English people was asked what had given them the greatest pleasure during their Christmas vacations. Seven per cent said they most enjoyed the time off work; three per cent the food and drink and two per cent the presents. But these minor delights were totally overshadowed by the eighty-six per cent who had not a shadow of a doubt that for them the best thing about Xmas was spending time with their family and friends. These times of togetherness are rarer now that they ever were before. This was shown in a recent survey which revealed that that in any one week over three million British people over the age of sixty-five have no contact whatsoever with a neighbour, friend or family member. This isolation is so distressing in Japan that some older couples, having lost contact with their daughters, are now hiring young actresses to visit them on a Sunday to say 'Hi Mum!, Hi Pop!', since they've lost total contact with their daughters. Divorce is clearly adding to the decline of family ties, with half of all US children now living with only one of their original parents by the time their fifteen. The work pressures experienced by dual career families are another factor making it difficult for parents to enjoy quality time with their children. One large survey revealed that nearly half of children between the ages of 11-15 'hardly ever' speak to their fathers about important topics. Approximately a third of British parents who commute to work now spend more time in their cars than they do with their family and friends. When they get home from school and work, families no longer cluster together around the fire to chat and play games, for central heating makes it possible for everyone to retire to their own rooms and living areas. As a result an increasing number of children are becoming bored and claiming that life is meaningless and not worth living. More than a quarter of British 16-25 year olds, interviewed by the Prince's Trust, said they felt depressed. According to a spokesperson for the Trust: 'Young people tell us that the family is key to their happiness, yet too often we find they don't have this support.'

Two things can be done to cure this malaise. In the first place family members must make an effort to keep in touch and build up a kinship network of intimacy and trust..Hugh Everett, the brilliant quantum physicist, was so absorbed with his battle to unravel the mysterious behaviour of sub-atomic particles that he had scant time to spend with his family. He died at 51 from a massive heart attack, and was discovered by his son Mark, who tried without avail to revive him by subjecting his chest to rhythmic compression. This, he said poignantly afterwards, was the only time he'd had physical contact with his father. The second way of building kinship ties is to revert to the old practice of having family meals. Barrack Obama has confessed that 'Among the many wonderful things about being President, the best is that I get to live above the office and see Michelle and the kids every day....We have dinner every night. It is the thing which sustains me.' That act of breaking bread together is the very essence of companionship, a word derived from the words com pagne meaning 'with bread'.

This re-establishment of close family ties is now one of the major aims of politicians and religious leaders. In Britain, David Cameron has launched a Government initiative to measure wellbeing and happiness. His aim is to focus not just on the bottom line but also on all those things that make life worthwhile. He wants to create a climate in Britain, 'that is more family-friendly and more conducive to the good life.' That's also the goal of Britain's Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sachs, who in his latest book The Home We Build Together stresses the need to rebuild communities based on the family and home. The family is the basic unit of every peaceful and civilised society, as Sach's observes. 'Cyberspace can't compensate for real space. We benefit from chatting to people face to face. We need to rediscover the idea of the common good and work together to build a home.'

© Donald Norfolk 2011

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