Page 4 May 4, 2017 Seniors Tips to Reduce Your Health Care Expenses (BPT) - Health care costs are in the news all the time. You hear about them at work and when you’re with friends and family. The comments are always the same. Health care is getting more and more expensive and it seems to be outpacing the money you make. Fortunately you’re not helpless when it comes to controlling your health care costs. While some treatments simply have to be done in order to support your health, there are other things you can do to protect yourself and your loved ones while looking out for your pocketbook at the same time. Employ these five tips today and you’ll enjoy the care you need without breaking your budget. • Focus on your health first. When it comes to controlling your health care expenses, you actually have more control than you think - a lot more. The decisions you make every day - what to eat, whether or not to smoke, how much to exercise - all play a dramatic role in your overall health. So take charge, dine on fruits and vegetables, take a run and kick that nicotine habit for good. Each of these little decisions will benefit your health and your budget. • Be decisive with your deductible. Your insurance deductible is a fixed cost and one you’ll pay every single year before receiving network coverage support. But once it’s paid, you’ll enjoy the full coverage of your plan. Thus, if you have another treatment or procedure coming up, don’t put it off any longer than you have to. Undergoing additional procedures in the same year means you get more coverage while paying only one deductible. Many health plans also cover preventive services in full, without going against a deductible. • Be smart about where you go for care. While health care facilities across the country are all capable of delivering compassionate, quality care, they are not all priced the same. According to a Blue Cross Blue Shield, The Health of America Report, 29.8 percent of emergency room visits were for conditions that could have been treated in retail clinics. The same research also found consumers saved money on out-of-pocket costs by visiting retail clinics for routine services when compared to doctor’s offices, and the visits were much more inexpensive than receiving the same treatment in the emergency room, according to the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. • Ask questions. Your provider may know best, but it’s all about your health. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, not only about the procedure itself, but about the price of the procedure and if there is anything you can do to reduce the expense. Sometimes there may be something you can do on your own that supports your health and lessens your costs at the same time. • Embrace an HSA. Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) provide a cost-effective way for people who don’t use a lot of health care services, to access care and pay for services up until they reach their deductible. Plus the money you save in your HSA can be used to pay for co-insurance payments or co-pays at your doctor’s office, and it’s also an eligible tax write off, opening the door to further savings. There are ways you can manage your health care spending. Follow the tips above and be an active participant in your role as a health care consumer and you’ll be surprised at how much you save. To learn more about the The Health of America Report, visit www.bcbs.com/ healthofamerica. • Looking Up Habitable Region within Saturn’s Moon Enceladus? Based on Press Release from Southwest Research Institute, Provided by Bob Eklund Scientists from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) have discovered hydrogen gas in the plume of material erupting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Analysis of data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft indicates that the hydrogen is likely produced through chemical reactions between the moon’s rocky core and warm water from its subsurface ocean. The SwRI-led team’s discovery suggests that Enceladus’ ocean floor could include features analogous to hydrothermal vents on Earth, which are known to support life on the seafloor. “Hydrogen is a source of chemical energy for microbes that live in the Earth’s oceans near hydrothermal vents,” said SwRI’s Dr. Hunter Waite, principal investigator of Cassini’s Ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS). “Our results indicate the same chemical energy source is present in the ocean of Enceladus. We have not found evidence of the presence of microbial life in the ocean of Enceladus, Enceladus is only 314 miles (505 km) across, small enough to fit within the length of the United Kingdom. Photo Courtesy of NASA JPL. but the discovery of hydrogen gas and the evidence for ongoing hydrothermal activity offer a tantalizing suggestion that habitable conditions could exist beneath the moon’s icy crust.” Waite is the lead author of “Cassini Finds Molecular Hydrogen in the Enceladus Plume: Evidence for Hydrothermal Processes” (http://science.sciencemag.org/ content/356/6334/155), published in the April 14, 2017 issue of the journal Science. On the Earth’s ocean floor, hydrothermal vents emit hot, mineral-laden fluid, allowing unique ecosystems teeming with unusual creatures to thrive. Microbes that convert mineral-laden fluid into metabolic energy make these ecosystems possible. “The amount of molecular hydrogen we detected is high enough to support microbes similar to those that live near hydrothermal vents on Earth,” said SwRI’s Dr. Christopher Glein, a co-author on the paper and a pioneer of extraterrestrial chemical oceanography. “If similar organisms are present in Enceladus, they could ‘burn’ the hydrogen to obtain energy for chemosynthesis, which could conceivably serve as a foundation for a larger ecosystem.” During Cassini’s close flyby of Enceladus on October 28, 2015, INMS detected molecular hydrogen as the spacecraft flew through the plume of gas and ice grains spewing from cracks on the surface. Previous flybys provided evidence for a global subsurface ocean residing above a rocky core. Molecular hydrogen in the plumes could serve as a marker for hydrothermal processes, which could provide the chemical energy necessary to support life. To search for hydrogen specifically native to Enceladus, the spacecraft flew particularly close to the surface and operated INMS in a specific mode to minimize and quantify any spurious sources. “We developed new operations methods for INMS for Cassini’s final flight through Enceladus’ plume,” said SwRI’s Rebecca Perryman, the INMS operations technical lead. “We conducted extensive simulations, data analyses, and laboratory tests to identify background sources of hydrogen, allowing us to quantify just how much molecular hydrogen was truly originating from Enceladus itself.” Scientists also considered other sources of hydrogen from the moon itself, such as a preexisting reservoir in the ice shell or global ocean. Analysis determined that it was unlikely that the observed hydrogen was acquired during the formation of Enceladus or from other processes on the moon’s surface or in the interior. “Everything indicates that the hydrogen originates in the moon’s rocky core,” Waite said. “We considered various ways hydrogen could leach from the rock and found that the most plausible source is ongoing hydrothermal reactions of rock containing reduced minerals and organic materials.” • CLASSIFIED ADS The deadline for classified copy and payment is NOON on Tuesday. We reserve the right to reject, edit, and determine proper classification of classified ads. Email ad copy to: class@heraldpublications.com. 1x 2x 3x 4x 3 Lines $40 $50 $60 $70 4 Lines $45 $55 $65 $75 Need more lines? Additional line charge of $5 per line ALL SIX NEWSPAPERS – FOR ONE PRICE! 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