Cupping, healthcare costs stabilizing and vaccine season

Cuckoo for Cupping
Although it might be hard to argue with Michael Phelps’ 21 (and counting) gold medals, the evidence for the regimen behind those purple spots all over his back is slim. “Cupping” — the process in which those welts are formed by sucking the air out of plastic cups placed on the skin in hopes of increasing blood flow to the area—actually just produces bruising, argues a doctor in Atlantic Monthly. “A bruise is a blood clot, though, and clotted blood is definitionally not flowing.”

Good News on Health Insurance
Despite considerable gloom and doom surrounding Obamacare, costs and prices on the Affordable Health Care Act exchanges appear to be stabilizing. In the latest report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, data showed younger and healthier people were buying insurance on the exchanges, and that medical costs per exchange enrollee did not rise between 2014 and 2015, while healthcare costs for those in other insurance programs rose 3 to 6 percent. “This should reassure people that despite the narrative that these markets are going down the toilet, in fact the report shows the opposite … that these markets are generally performing pretty well,” says Sabrina Corlette, from Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute.

Shots for Kids
You may not know it, but we are smack-dab in the middle of National Immunization Awareness month. And just in time for back-to-school, the Spokane Regional Health District announces two free vaccine clinics for kids returning to area classrooms. If you need to check on your child’s vaccination status, records are located at doh.wa.gov/immsrecords, where you can also print out a record to submit to school. For more information on what vaccines are required by age, go here. 

The no cost-immunization clinics will be offered Riverside Elementary School, 3802 E. Deer Park Milan Rd., on Monday, Aug. 29, 2016 from 4-7 p.m. and Central Valley School District, will team up with Rockwood Health System,to offer no-cost immunizations on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2016 from 2-5 p.m. at Greenacres Middle School, 17409 E. Sprague Ave. Flu vaccine is not available, but some vaccines will be available for eligible adults. More info here. 

For more on how to get ready for a successful school year, check out School Do’s the cover story on the current issue of InHealth. Available on stands and online.