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Health insurance may not be the sexiest New Year's resolutions subject, but thinking about it could be just as important as vowing to drop a few pounds or quit smoking.
The cost of health care rises every year and coverage has been shrinking, which leaves a greater portion of the doctor bill to patients. It could be very beneficial to your fiscal health in 2016 if you make a few promises to yourself.
—GET FAMILIAR WITH YOUR COVERAGE
Know the limits of your insurance before you start using it. No one wants to begin the year with a nasty case of sticker shock from a steeper-than-expected doctor's bill.
The particulars of your plan may have changed compared with last year, and perhaps you missed the letter or email from your employer or insurer. An outpatient surgery that would have cost you $700 last year might run more than $900 this year if the plan increased your coinsurance responsibility, or the amount you have to pay after meeting a deductible.
Your deductible also may have jumped, which means you might have to spend more this year before most of your coverage begins.
— SHOP FOR CARE
Shopping for health care is the wave of the future.
Many employers and insurers are convinced that health care costs can be controlled better if providers are forced to compete for your business. Insurers are providing online tools that let patients compare prices and quality measurements for a wide range of non-emergency care. Doing that could save hundreds of dollars on an outpatient procedure for people with high-deductible plans.
But you don't need an app or some online tool to shop for all care.
Drugstores and grocers have been squeezing clinics into their store spaces for years. The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart, also has been developing in-store clinics that charge $59 per office visit. That's much cheaper than the $100 a patient with high-deductible coverage might pay for a doctor visit.
The cost of an office visit can vary depending on factors like where the doctor is located. If you haven't met your deductible yet for the year, check with your insurer or the doctor's office to determine the cost of a visit before making an appointment.
— TRY SOMETHING NEW
Telemedicine is supposed to be all the rage in 2016, with big insurers like UnitedHealth Group Inc. expanding coverage and the drugstore chain Walgreens pushing a smartphone app that lets patients see a doctor without leaving home or work.
Doctors have used video feeds and other technology for years to treat patients in rural areas or remote locations. But experts say growing smartphone use and customer demand are fueling a rapid expansion of telemedicine into everyday care.
If you're worried about a high deductible, you might want to think about adding to your insurance coverage. Companies like Sun Life Financial offer accident coverage that will provide cash that helps cover costs left behind by shrinking insurance.
— USE IT, DON'T LOSE IT
This applies to flexible spending accounts, which employers provide to let their workers set aside income before taxes to cover health-related expenses. Resolve to use your entire balance before you lose it.
Check with your employer on how that might happen. Some companies may require you to spend your money by the end of the year or give you a grace period into the new year. Many also allow you to carry over as much as $500.
These accounts can help pay for bandages, condoms or cough drops, among an array of eligible items, so think creatively if you need to spend a leftover balance.
Those who can't spend down their accounts generally wind up forfeiting less than $100, according to WageWorks Inc., which administers benefits accounts for employers.
— LEARN DEADLINES
If you don't like your coverage, you can change it. But you have to know when the next chance will arrive.
Employers hold open enrollment periods every year, generally in late fall for coverage that starts Jan. 1. That's the main window in which people can adjust coverage, unless they have a life-changing event, like a marriage or the birth of a child.
Likewise, coverage sold outside the employer-sponsored market also must be purchased largely during an open-enrollment window. For 2016 coverage, that window closes Jan. 31.
If you miss the open enrollment windows and have no coverage, consider a short-term or limited benefits plan. These can provide some protection from a big medical bill, but they generally offer skimpier coverage than what you can get through an employer.
Several candidates for the presidency in 2016 have proposed building more border wall along the nearly 2,000 mile frontier with Mexico to keep people from crossing into the U.S. illegally.
Here is what they have to say about a border wall.
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DONALD TRUMP
Trump has been the most outspoken about building a wall, and insists he'll make Mexico pay for it.
"We're going to do a wall. We're going to create a border," he said during the third Republican debate in October. Trump also made reference to the Great Wall of China, and claimed that "Mexico is going to pay for the wall."
On his website, Trump reiterates his assertion that "there must be a wall across our southern border." In November, after eight Syrian Christians sought asylum and turned themselves in to officials in Laredo, Texas, Trump tweeted, "WE NEED A BIG & BEAUTIFUL WALL".
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TED CRUZ
The Texas senator pledges on his website to "build a wall that works," and to "complete the wall," though he offers no specifics as to how he would do so.
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MARCO RUBIO
The Florida senator says the most vulnerable sectors of the southwest border must be secured, according to his website. During the Republican debate in September, in response to a question, he said that "we must secure our border, the physical border, with a wall, absolutely."
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JEB BUSH
In contrast to his rivals, Bush has said he considers a massive border fence to be unnecessary. "We don't need to build a wall," he told a group of Latino business owners in September.
A month before in McAllen, Texas, across the river from Reynosa, Mexico, the former governor of Florida told supporters that Trump's wall strategy "not based in reality."
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HILLARY CLINTON
At a November town hall campaign event in New Hampshire, where she was asked about securing the U.S.-Mexico border, the former New York senator and secretary of state stressed that she'd voted for the 2006 legislation that authorized the building of some 650 miles of wall.
"I voted numerous times when I was a senator to spend money to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in," Clinton said, "and I do think that you have to control your borders." She later apologized for using the term "illegal immigrants." She has not said whether she would extend the wall.
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BERNIE SANDERS
The independent senator from Vermont sees the importance of securing the border, but is opposed to building a fence to do so, according to his website.
"I also opposed tying immigration reform to the building of a border fence," he said during a speech in June to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
TOKYO (AP) —
The announcement Wednesday from North Korea that it had carried out a nuclear test brought to the front lines of global attention a phrase not often heard since the Cold War — "the H-bomb."
As opposed to the atomic bomb, the kind dropped on Japan in the closing days of World War II, the hydrogen bomb, or so-called "superbomb" can be far more powerful — experts say, by 1,000 times or more.
North Korea's first three nuclear tests, from 2006 to 2013, were A-bombs on roughly the same scale as the ones used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which together killed more than 200,000 people. Pyongyang announced Wednesday that it had detonated its first H-bomb; while seismic data supported the claim of a large explosion, there was no immediate way to confirm the type.
Atomic bombs rely on fission, or atom-splitting, just as nuclear power plants do. The hydrogen bomb, also called the thermonuclear bomb, uses fusion, or atomic nuclei coming together, to produce explosive energy. Stars also produce energy through fusion.
"Think what's going on inside the sun," says Takao Takahara, professor of international politics and peace research at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo. "In theory, the process is potentially infinite. The amount of energy is huge."
The technology of the hydrogen bomb is more sophisticated, and once attained, it is a greater threat. They can be made small enough to fit on a head of an intercontinental missile.
"That the bomb can become compact is the characteristic, and so this means North Korea has the U.S. in mind in making this H-bomb announcement," says Tatsujiro Suzuki, professor at the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition at Nagasaki University.
But the H-bomb requires more technology in control and accuracy because of the greater amount of energy involved, he said. Both the A-bomb and H-bomb use radioactive material like uranium and plutonium for the explosive material.
The hydrogen bomb is in fact already the global standard for the five nations with the greatest nuclear capabilities: the U.S., Russia, France, the U.K. and China. Other nations may also either have it or may be working on it, despite a worldwide effort to contain such proliferation.
The hydrogen bomb was never dropped on any targets. It was first successfully tested in the 1950s by the U.S., in bombs called Mike and Bravo. Soviet tests soon followed.
The crew of a Japanese fishing boat that unknowingly went into the waters near the nuclear testing of Bravo got acute radiation sickness. Since the 1960s, nuclear tests have gone underground to reduce radioactive fallout.
Terumi Tanaka, head of Nihon Hidankyo, or the Japan Federation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, has been working to ban nuclear weapons for years and was stunned by reports of the H-bomb test.
"It defies hopes for progress," he said. "I am outraged."