health first

Do You Need Texas Heath Insurance?

If you are new to Texas, or new to shopping for health insurance, you should know that the regulations and even the insurers you can buy a policy from will differ by state. Sometimes they even differ by zip code or county. It is really important to note this if you came from another place, and you think you know how the game is played. You may find a whole different set of rules in the Texas health insurance market!

It is also important to remember that your premiums will vary by where you live. The rates in Austin will be different than the rates in Houston or Dallas. Your choices will vary too. You sister in San Antonio may have great coverage from one company in San Antonio, but that company may not do business where you live in rural East Texas!

US News and World Report published study of the top major medical companies in Texas. They used measures like how good of a job the insurer did at managing health conditions and preventative care. Just for reference, some of the top companies they suggested follow.

Top 10 Texas Health Insurance Companies

Humana Health Care System of Texas (Austin, Tx)
CIGNA Healthcare of Texas
Scott and White Health Plan
AETNA Health – Texas
United HealthCare of Texas
Humana Health Care System of Texas (South)
Pacificare of Texas (Austin / Dallas)
Humana Health Plan of Texas (Houston)
Pacificare of Texas (San Antonio / Houston)
Missouri Health Plan of Missouri (Texas)
Note that some of these plans are specific to a city or area. Also note that some may not be open to all people. This is just a guide for reference. To find the best Texas health insurance plan for a person like you, you must do some comparison shopping of the insurers in your own local area. Some of you may also be limited by the companies on your group plan at work.

Texas High Risk Pool

Texas has its own way of handling people with pre-existing conditions that cannot get accepted by a private insurer. This is called the Texas High Risk Pool. Not everybody will qualify, some people will have a waiting period, and premiums are pretty high. Also note that this is changing because of the new federal high risk pool that is being established because of health reform. To find out more about the Texas high risk pool, you can search for it on your favorite search engine. You will also find out more about the new federal high risk pool too.

Low Income Texas Health Insurance Options

If you cannot afford private major medical, you have some options. There is a federal and Texas state Medicaid program for people with very low income and few assets. The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIPS) helps kids and pregnant women who have low to moderate family incomes. There are also some county health systems that help people access health care on a sliding fee schedule.

How To Find Texas Health Insurance

It used to be a lot harder to find the right major medical plan. After all, Texas is a big state. There are lots of choices here. But the internet does make it a bit easier to compare and contact health insurance companies.

Kaiser plans are available through Kaiser Medical Insurance, a leading HMO company that boasts over eight million members. Any quality plan includes coverage for several basic medical needs such as doctor appointments, maternity care, examinations such as physicals, hearing and vision tests, emergency care, hospitalizations and prescription drug coverage of some sort. Kaiser plans include these benefits and sometimes more in the variety of plan options they have available to applicants. Offering quality health insurance coverage at affordable prices, Kaiser health plans offer both individual and group plans.

Healthcare is something no family should be without. It only takes one serious illness or injury to throw a family’s financial future in serious jeopardy. With adequate health insurance coverage, this does not have to happen and the family can weather medical problems with the focus on getting well instead of worries about paying for the medical bills incurred. Kaiser health plans not only provide quality, affordable health insurance policies, but they focus on the overall health and wellness of their customers. Kaiser health plans have worthy preventative medicine goals that work in tandem with gaining maintaining good health with exercise and nutrition.

While there are many, many health care insurance plans available, Kaiser health plans is committed to providing what consumers need in medical coverage at an affordable price. There is no need for ridiculously high premiums that cause families to struggle with paying for their health insurance coverage. By ensuring their health care plans are affordable, Kaiser health plans help families be able to obtain the insurance coverage they need to get healthy and stay healthy. Preventative health practices include coverage for wellness doctor visits and screenings for vision, hearing or physical issues on a periodic basis. These types of things help ensure optimal health and well being.

Preventative health is a strong point with many HMOs these days and Kaiser health plans are no exception. By helping people get better, learn how to stay well and thrive with good overall health, this reduces the overall medical costs for everyone, from the patients to the doctors to the health insurance companies such as Kaiser health plans. In order to better serve the public, Kaiser has set up their website so that applicants can visit it to learn plan overviews, quotes and even apply for health insurance coverage there. Optimized overall health is the key to healthier, happier lives and lower overall health care costs.

To most people herbs are thought of in terms of enhancing flavor in cooking. People also think of herbs is reference to natural medicine and oriental medicine. A very common use of the term herbal is in relation to herbal teas.

Actually an herb can be any plant. Herbal health is all about using specific plants (herbs) that have specific know compounds that are used in natural health and as medicine.

While herbal health may be thought of as using herbs like some form of medicine, herbs are also whole foods that support holistic health.

When I think of herb for health I feel it is the idea of using edible plants that have powerful nutritional healing and holistic health benefits to balance the body.

Often it seems herbs are mystified as being exotic potions or drug like compounds that only very specific practitioners or healers know how to use. While there is some truth to this, especially with formulas and combinations of herbs, there are also a whole range of herbs used for herbal health that are easily understood.

Herbal health is a modality for creating and supporting optimal health.

In China and in many cultures all over the world herbal remedies have successfully been used to promote health since the dawn of man.

Herbal health has been around forever and has been widely accepted by past and present societies all over the world. Yet there does continue to be a mistrust and a lot of misinformation about herbal health that persists in the the U.S. culture. Ignorance is partly to blame but there is also a concerted effort on the part of the American medical industry and the pharmaceutical industry to limit and repress the knowledge and use of herbal health therapies and medicinal herbs.

Natural medicine remedies, cures and therapies are often very inexpensive and because they do not offer the massive profits to the drug and medical industry infrastructure they are repressed. The government plays into this as well through the lobby influence of these industries. There have been ongoing efforts by these industries in collusion with the FDA and other governmental agencies to suppress and even ban the use of herbs for health and for treatment of illness and disease. Recently there has even been attempts to criminalize natural medicine practitioners and their use of herbal therapies.

The reality of herbal health is that herbs have been used for centuries to improve and maintain health and to cure illness and disease. As we look at the U.S. western medicine health care system today, we see that the U.S. population has evolved into one of the most unhealthy on this planet, while at the same time being the wealthiest and most well fed. The western conventional health system is heavily based on the use of pharmaceutical drugs to chase symptoms with no effective understanding or program for preventative health. People wait till they are ill then they are put on drugs to maintain their illness and often told to take the drugs for the rest of their lives. No actual healing or cure ever takes place.

Herbal health is based on a holistic health model that uses natural medicine and nutrition as a preventative process to avoid illness and disease. If people do get sick then the herbal health model uses herbs for natural medicine and nutrition to heal by re balancing the body.

Healing and curing can mean the same thing or can be two different perceptions. If you are healed of an illness or imbalance then you no longer have the illness or imbalance this is the same as saying you are cured. There are some limited occasions where you are cured with medicine or a process without going through a healing process. Like the use of an antidote, surgery or a serum that automatically cures your specific illness. Actually outright automatic cures are rare, most illness and disease is about healing.

Illness and disease is caused or allowed to develop from imbalances in the body’s systems. The use of herbs or natural health processes to create and maintain vibrant health and prevent illness and disease has actually proven to be far more effective over time than the conventional western medical model.

As long as massive profit is available from health care, illness and disease, then people will be misinformed and prevented from using the herbal health model. Herbs are an inexpensive form of effective medicine, for maintaining optimal health and for illness and disease prevention.

Whole herbal super foods are herbs that have been concentrated and prepared for consumption as a supplement to your everyday normal diet.

Amazon rainforest raw herbal supplements are eaten by people all over the world and the same herbs gathered and eaten in their natural wild state have been used to support the health by indigenous people in the Amazon for thousands of years.

Take a closer look at herbal superfood supplements, herbal medicines and whole foods as medicine. If you want to be healthy naturally and prevent illness and disease before it can happen to you, then herbal health is worth investigating.

In 2021, due to lockdowns and mandates, more people than ever before began to look for ways to earn money working from home. In particular, many looked at blogging as an online business. The problem though, was that many of them didn’t really know how to make money from a blog. So just how can it be done?

Keep reading and I’ll go through 3 steps that you need to take to become an online blogger.

First, you need to find the right niche to work in. You need to find a “hungry market,” people who are looking for information to read and looking for products to buy.

It also needs to be a niche that you’re interested in because you’ll be writing a lot of blog posts about it.

Once you know what you’ll be blogging about, you then need to create a blog. This is simple to do using all the blogging software available. You can even set up a blog for free through platforms such as Google’s own Blogger service. Blogger has been around for years and is used by many successful bloggers, including me.

Once you’ve set up your blog, fill it with useful content, products to sell, and onsite advertising for extra income. Some bloggers earn thousands this way, selling products online as affiliates, and earning money through PPC advertising.

Once you get enough pages set up, it’s time to market your blog to get as many visitors as possible. And if you have an email subscription box on your blog, you can stay in touch with all those who sign up.

Marketing can be paid for, or can be done for free through social media and article directories. When you’re first starting out, it’s better to use free marketing, although you can go ahead and pay for it if you want to and if you already have the funds. Personally, I’ve never paid for online advertising for any of my website and blogs. Perhaps I’m leaving money on the proverbial table by marketing this way, but my online success over the years has been good without it.

And that’s the 3 steps you need to take. Choose your niche, set up a blog, join an affiliate network to find products to promote, and market your blog in as many places as you can to get thousands visitors. Just make sure you’re marketing in the right places to get the right kind of visitors.

So what are you waiting for?

Get your own money-making blog set up and running today.

Although, we hear, a lot of opinions, about, interest rates, and their trends, and impacts, very few people seem to understand, the significance, and importance/ relevance, of these rates, in several areas of our lives! After, many decades of involvement, in political campaigns, leadership, leadership training/ planning, real estate, financial sales and consulting, etc, I strongly believed, one benefits, by understanding, more about these, and how they affect, many things, in our lives! Whether, related to personal, organizational, and/ or, public finance/ spending, home ownership and related costs, credit – related issues, business matters, stock and bond pricing, etc, interest rates, truly, significantly, matter! With, that in mind, this article will attempt to, briefly, consider, examine, review, and discuss, 5 of these areas, and how the cost – of – money, makes a significant difference.

1. Bond prices and interest rates: The price of a bond, generally, is inversely – related to interest rates! When these rates go down, prices, rise, and when they go up, the inverse occurs! Bonds have, what is known, as, a par – value, which is the price, paid, at the end of the term. Markets usually set these at 100, which represents $1,000 per bond, at maturity. However, during the period, the pricing can rise or fall, which impacts, liquidity – related issues!

2. Mortgage rates: For the last few years, we have been witnessing and experiencing, record – low, mortgage interest rates, which have helped the overall, real estate/ housing market, especially, in terms of, pricing increases! In most areas of this country, we are seeing, home prices, at their highest levels, ever, by a significant, dramatic amount! When this rate, is low, a home buyer is able to buy, more – house – for – his – bucks, because, his monthly payments, are so low! Consider, however, what might be the potential ramifications, and impacts, when these rates, will, inevitably, rise?

3. Consumer credit: Low costs of borrowing, help the automobile industry, in terms of consumer financing, etc! Although, not as much as other vehicles, rates on credit card debt, are lower, and there are often, shorter – term, promotions, offering deals! However, since, most of these are variable, and based, on some index, etc, what happens, when there is an increase, in this?

4. Business borrowing: Another area affected, is business cost of borrowing! Presently, they have had access, to relatively, cheap – money, which helps in reducing the costs of borrowing, overall operations, purchasing inventory, etc. But, what happens, when this, ticks – up?

5. Impacts on stock market prices: For some time, because bonds have paid so little, in terms of dividends, etc, many have considered, the stock market, the only game, in – town! In addition, many corporations, have seemed, better – off, than they probably are, and we have witnessed, a higher, ratio of prices to profits, than in the past! How long will this last? How high can it go?

Many factors impact these issues, especially: actual and/ or, perceived inflation; consumer confidence; politics/ government actions/ the Federal Reserve, etc. The more you know, and understand, hopefully, the better – prepared, you will be!