Even as a doctor, all that paperwork, the numbers can be overwhelming. A lot to sift through. Here to help navigate this sometimes minefield of open enrollment is Consumer ReportsSenior Health care reporter nancy mets calmetcalf. How are you . You probably sift through this, the number of choices people have can vary. For anybody with some choice in their Health Insurance, you they have are we can questions they have to ask themselves. Like what . Well, the first one is dont base your choice on how you what you need when youre healthy. Youre not going to need much medical care when youre healthy. You dont buy Homeowners Insurance for the all the days your house isnt on fire, you pea it whbuy it for the day house burns down. You have to think about the worst case scenario. This year, we have a new tool for that, its something called the summary of benefits and coverage. Brought to you courtesy of obama care. Its basically a nutrition facts label for Health Insurance where every plan has to set out its main features in a standard way so you could compare them side by side. So you can really see what youre buying. Right. Right. Now, one thing i want to clarify, when you talk about this worst case scenario, youre not saying that the idea of prevention and having adequate protection for prevention, as well, is obviously important. You want that to be parts of your health care plan. Well, all Health Care Plans now have to cover preventsive services. Thats not an issue. Of course you wants to haptwant immunizations and preventsive services. The real money, expenses come when you get hit by a bus, have cancer, or have a medical catastrophe. What were advising is to take this sbc that youre going to get, multiply your monthly premium by 12 and look for a number on the front page called the annual outofpocket limit. This is the most youll have to spend in a year on things like deductibles, kay poecopays and deductible insurance. It can add up fast if you get sick. Add the outofpocket limit to how much money youre going to be spending are o premiums that year. Thats your maximum outlay that youll have for health care. People as you know will look at the cost and say their basic monthly premium. Thats what im basing this on. And youve said this before, you say thats a bad idea. Why . Yeah. Its its a big mistake. There are so many other things involved. Look, Insurance Companies are not charities. They have to make their money some way. If you is a chance of plans and one has a lot lower premium than the others, theres youve got to look, again, at the summary of benefits and coverage and figure out why that is. Either it has a much higher deductible, higher coinsurance, you might have to be paying 30 of your bill instead of 10 or 20 . It might leave out certain things. Might only cover generic drugs. That may be okay with you. But you really need to understand what youre getting yourself interest in exchange for the lower premium. Something else that comes subpoeup is prescription drugs. Some people need a separate program for prescription drugs. Is that wleclear when you need additional coverage like that . Most employer coverage incorporates prescription coverage. But make sure youve got all kinds of drugs covered. Dont make the mistake of only taking a plan that only covers generics because, again, you never know whats going to come your way. If you werent taking notes, listening to what nancy was saying, here are questions that you can ask yourself when comparing these Health Insurance plans first of all, can i afford being in a cat strof . Plan for that. Two, am i buying this based on the premium . Not a good idea. Nancy said, as well. Does my policy include prescription drugs . Most do, but not all. Always great information, nancy, for viewers. Really appreciate it. Thanks for being with us. Thank you. Theres big news in the world of fertility, as well, to tell you about. The mesh American Society of reproductive medicine says that egg freezing should no longer be experiment experimental. This means insurance may be more likely to pay. Theres controversy around this. The asrn says the technique has proven safe and effective but say this healthy women shouldnt save eggs for cases of infertility. They say it should be used for infertility issues. Many agree with that fact. Heres what dr. Peter naj told me when i visited his ivf lab. Women, unfortunately, they are getting married later, having children later. They are facing more infertility problems. Doing artificial fertilization by cryoization is a possible for them. Fertility is different for every woman. If you have questions or concerns, talk to your doctor. Coming up, theres a new way to tell if your senator or congressman is putting their vote where their mouth is. Tom colicchio of top chef will explain next. [ male announcer ] this is sheldon, whose long dy setting up the news starts with arthritis pain and a choice. Take tylenol or take aleve, the 1 recommended pain reliever by orthopedic doctors. Just two aleve can keep pain away all day. Back to the news. Just two aleve can keep pain away all day. Imimagaginine e ifif y yod alalwawaysys s seeee l e [m[mususicic]] inin t thehe b besest t lil. Eveverery y titimeme o of f. Ououtdtdoooorsrs, oro. Trtranansisititiononss® ls auautotomamatiticacalllly y fift ththe e ririghght t amamouountn. Soso y youou s seeee e eveg ththe e waway y itit is memeanant t toto b be e ses. Mamaybybe e evevenen a lilittttlele b betette. Exexpeperirienencece l lifife e, asask k fofor r trtrananss adadapaptitiveve l lene. Weve got election day coming up as you know. If youre looking for more reasons to vote for or against a particular candidate, i want to tell you about a new scorecard. This ranks members of Congress Based on how they voted on something thats important to me food. Food safety, nutrition programs, farm subsidies, a lets more. Joining me from new york is top chef, tom colicchio, part of the group that came one the new rankings. Thank you very much for joining us. Im a big fan of much of your work. Now this is very interesting to me, as well. The group is called food policy action. And you Just Announced it this week. Its organized, my understanding is, by the Environmental Working Group and several activists and leaders of nonprofits. People who are paying attention to this for the first time may ask how does congress fit into this in terms of making a difference in how well we eat . Sure. You know, i think this is a real values issue. If you value and want to understand sort of where your food comes from, on r really interested in food safety, if are you interested in Farming Families and keeping them together, if youre interested in the environment, if youre interested in labeling food, then your values are if you lie somewhere in there, you want to place a place to go to check to see if your elected representatives are voting your values. Another thing you bring up, and i read through the report, you think the government should subsidize or more subsidize growers of fruits and vegetables. Theres not more subsidy, people dont realize that. How big a difference do you think that would make in terms of what people pay . I think thats the question they have. Right. It would drive prices down. For instance, you know, if you want to feed your family organics, its very expensive. Its definitely out of the reach of lowincome people. But yet, you know, a lot of us feel that nutritious foods should be affordable and easy to obtain. And so if youre taking 20 billion a year and youre using that to subsidize corn, wheat, and soy, most things that go into highly processed foods and artificially keeps things cheap. Now, if you take some of those subsidies and move them over to small local farmers that are growing organically, hopefully it will drive prices down and more people could afford them. So again, that just makes good food policy. I dont think most people connect what that eating, prices, you know, at your supermarket or in a farmers market, to decisions that politicians are making. You know, you said at the beginning, food is not a partisan issue. And i mean, i agree with that. Looking at the rankings, they do seem to clearly favor democrats. I mean, looking at them. Is why do you think that is . You know, i dont know. Thats not for me to figure out. But i think that, you know, possibly theres clearly a lot of votes in here for snap dollars and things like that that are usually or food stamps that are usually championed by progressives. I say usually because a lot of republicans scored above average, as well. And so i think thats probably why. But i think, again, hopefully that before our politicians are casting votes, theyll think about this and know theyre getting graded on it. You know, thats our goal here. We hope that people will vote with with their constituencies. If their constituencies care about food issues, theres a place where they can go and get the information now. And hopefully politicians will think twice before how theyre voting on these various food issues. You bring up the food stamp program. George mcgovern died this past week, a liberal democrat. Sure. He helped found the food stamps or expanded at least with the help of bob dole exactly. Exactly. With bob dole. You know, this goes back to late 60s, early 70s, a film that they saw called hunger in america. That, quite frankly, embarrassed a lot of people and opened a lot of peoples eyes to some of the issues that were going on. And very quickly, they reached across the aisle and got together and created the modern food safety net. Again, i dont think this is partisan at all. We fixed hunger. Back in the in the early 70s. Almost nonexistence. You know, we could do it again. This isnt the issue like Global Warming that is is so difficult to figure out. A lot of people know how to fix this. We need to Pay Attention to. We can definitely fix hunger in this country. Yeah. As a parent, as a doctor, it makes a lot of sense. And i appreciate you sharing some of this with us. Were certainly going to send people to the web site, as well, tom. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot. I appreciate. It good talking to you. 22yearold College Center paul headings has spent the last five years trying to put the shattered pieces of his world back together. You see, at 17 he dreamed of becoming a baseball player but instead faced a debilitating medical condition that was about to change his life forever. The thing is that headings refused to let it steal his dreams. [ cheers ] as a drum major for marching mizzou, the university of missouris famed marching band, paul headings is living his dream. A new dream because his original dream of playing professional baseball was disappearing. September 7, 2007, just barely into my junior year of high school. The 17yearold woke up, and his world was changing. Everything was just a little blurry, didnt seem like anything was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. His retinas had detached and started to tear apart. In both eyes. I didnt know how my life would change, what id be able to do, what i couldnt be able to do. I could potentially go completely blind. Here we go, set paul says this was not caused by disease or trauma but by genetics. This has happened to my mom, my grandma, a couple ink else. Even my little sister is having similar issues. They didnt lose much vision. Paul, on the other hand, is now legally blind. Sight in his best eye cant be corrected beyond 2,200. My left eye has blind spots. My peripheral vision is great. And thats why im so high functioning. The right eye is just kind of there. He can read but not well, by digitally scanning books into a computer that has screen manageification software. He says family, friends, and music saved his life. He joined his High School Drum line, taking the music home, magnifying it, memorizing it. Here we go, b flat. I just strapped up my boots and went to work. He made the mizzou drum line first playing cymbals. After an extensive interview process hut clinched the coveted drum major spot. Most in the band didnt even know he was legally blind. He suffered three detachments and cataracts in both eyes. One has now been removed. So far hes had more than ten operations and countless laser procedures. I could wake up tomorrow and have lost significantly more vision. I could walk away from here today and something could happen, and i could lose vision. Heddings hopes his time on the ladder will change the perception of visually impaired people. I want to be able to say when i leave here that i did something special. And that i didnt let this hold me back. And that is why we do the human factor. Paul heddings, great story. And another man doing something special, tom joyner. Hes a man with a plan to get more africanamerican men to visit their doctor. Well be back with tom right after this. And its so rich and creamy. Is it really 100 calories . Let me put you on webcan. Lean roasted chicken. And a creamy broth mmm i can still see you. [ male announcer ] progresso. You gotta taste this soup. Now, thaa test drive. Ll silverado the most dependable, longest lasting, fullsize pickups on the road. So, what do you think . [ engine revs ] ill take it. [ male announcer ] its chevy truck month. Just announced additional 750 bonus cash on a 2012 Chevy Silverado allstar. Trade up to get a total value of 8,750. Bonus cash ends october 31st. Wanted to provide better Employee Benefits while balancing the companys bottom line, their very first word was. [ to the tune of lullaby and good night ] aflac aflac [ male announcer ] find out more at. [ duck ] aflac [ male announcer ]. Forbusiness. Com. [ yawning sound ] i had parents that are elderly age, and my thing is that i dont want to do that to my children, so if i can keep on top of my health as much as i can, ill be able to see my children my grandchildren. Who doesnt want that . Ill tell you, we talk about this on the show all the time. How important it is to go to the doctor to get that chair. The guy you just saw was attending a Health Festival in philadelphia. Its something tom has been running, talking about for ten years now. Thanks for coming on the show. Its really nice to meet you and have you here in person. How did this all start . I feel fine. Good. You came for the checkup, right . I feel fine. You look well. Thank you. How did this fair start . We started this ten years ago. The show tries to emphasize and take care of all the issues that affect the Africanamerican Community. One issue that affects the Africanamerican Community disproportionately is health, and so in our community we dont like to go to the doctor, so we came up with one day, and we said, okay, take a loved one to the doctor on this day, and whatever you have to do, if you have to drag them, if you have to nag them, or whatever sometimes you have to. Yeah, and so thats the way it all started out. Its interesting when you compare men and women, men are 70 less likely to go see a doctor versus women. Just the gender gap. Then if you say africanamerican men, they are 10 less likely than to go see the doctor even on top of that. Why is it . Maybe this is an obvious question, but why do you think that is . Have you drilled down on this . Were stupid. They want health. I mean, its when i did your show, people are thirsty for information and content. Why dont they go to their doctor . We just dont want to go. We dont want to be stuck, prod, opened up, looked at, and were macho, and like i said, basically were just stupid, you know, because we know what were supposed to do, but it takes a loved one, especially m Africanamerican Community. Women will go get checked. Women will if get checked in the Africanamerican Community. Men, not so much. It takes the woman to get that husband, father, that son, that grandfather, you know, come on, man, gout to get that looked at. Theres something wrong with you. You yourself are 62 years old. I know you have a busy schedule. I was just talking to you this morning on the radio. Youre flying around now. Im doing good. I do all the right things. Im a vegetarian. I work out. And i have a lot of staff to keep me help you out. I was reading between dallas and chicago for seven years. You racked up eight million frequent flier miles. I would do the morning show in dallas, get on the plane, fly to chicago, do the afternoon show, and then fly back for the next morning show, and i did that for eight years. Its an incredible schedule, and i have a lot of admiration. I think i have a busy schedule until i meet somebody like you. Real quick, when you go to these things in philadelphia, for example, this past weekend, do you get a sense of youre making a difference . What do you hear . I hear things like when we have 400 people to see the our 60 dentists that we have that 90 people have to make appointments for referrals. Two or three people had to go to a clinic right then and there. When we had somebody whose blood sugar was over 1,600 and had to be rushed to the hospital right then, right there at the Health Festival, that makes me feel real, real good. I hope you continue to beat the drum on this. We will do our part as well. Its an honor to have you here. Thank you, dr. Gupa. Last but not least, chaesing life to 100. Takes less than a minute a day, and it could add years to your life. Stay with us. The writers desktop and the coordinators phone are working on a joke with local color. The secure cloud just received a revised intro from the strategists tablet. And while i make my way into the venue, the candidate will be rehearsing off of his phone. [ candidate ] and thanks to every young face i see out there. [ woman ] his phone is one of his biggest supporters. [ female announcer ] with cisco at the center. Working together has never worked so well. [ female announcer ] ii invest in what i know. 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Before you face plant into that halloween candy stash, im want just talking the kids here, chasing life today is about the importance of flossing of your teeth. Every time gu to the dentist, youre told how important this is. Most of you dont actually listen. A proper flossing not only leads to a nice smile, but it gives a window into the Overall Health of your body. You can see your teeth as well. Getting rid of the plaque lowers your risk of heart steez and maybe more so that excessive plaq