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Dalton chiropractor promotes fitness as instructor, author – Scranton Times-Tribune

medsites — Sun, 20 May 2012 11:49:45 +0000

Dawn Pompey Strickland understands how the human body works, and she wants to help people maintain theirs in the most natural way possible.
The Dalton resident and mother of two shares her passion for helping others not just through her work as a chiropractor but also as a fitness instructor for people of all ages.
“I always had a love of wanting to help people,” she said on a recent afternoon, relaxing in her cozy country home.
A Nicholson native, Dr. Pompey Strickland became familiar with chiropractics early in life, even writing a term paper about the subject as a high school senior.
“I just find it so interesting that you treat the body in a more natural way,” she said.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Scranton, Dr. Pompey Strickland received a doctorate in chiropractics from New York Chiropractic College. In addition to working one day a week in Dalton, she practices in an office attached to her home with her husband and fellow chiropractor, Charles “Sam” Strickland.
“It’s great because I’m right next door,” she said. “I’m always here. The positives outweigh the negatives.”
A fitness enthusiast, Dr. Pompey Strickland branched out a few years ago and earned certification in fitness training through the International Sports Science Association. She runs fitness programs for adults and youth at Waverly Community House and the park in Dalton throughout the year.
“I think quality of life is really important, to feel good,” she said.
An important part of helping others is treating everyone individually, Dr. Pompey Strickland said. And having a chiropractor’s knowledge of the human body helps in her physical-fitness instruction.
“When someone is having an issue, I can tell them what to do or what not to do,” she said.
Good for her children
Her love for fitness and healthy habits also is something she tries to instill in her two sons, 12-year-old Charlie and 9-year-old Connor. In addition to ensuring they eat healthily, Dr. Pompey Strickland even runs 5Ks with her eldest son, and the boys sometimes will come to her fitness classes.
Balancing her work with being a mother can be challenging, though.
“I want to do so much, and there’s only so many hours in the day,” she said.
She still manages to accomplish plenty, though. Dr. Pompey Strickland also has shared her passion for healthy living with the community, presenting programs about staying fit to elementary and high school students in Lackawanna Trail School District, where her children attend school. She showed students different types of exercises they can do and how working out can be fun.
“It’s great to be able to help even one child,” she said.
Last summer, Dr. Pompey Strickland donated proceeds from a children’s fitness camp she ran to Griffin Pond Animal Shelter, a cause she selected because her family loves animals and because she thought it “would really touch kids’ hearts.” She plans to hold the camp again this year.
When Dr. Pompey Strickland is not volunteering with Parker Hill Community Church or blogging at her website, www.getfitwithdrdawn.com, she also makes time to work on a series of three health and fitness e-books.
The project has been a challenge because she is not a writer by trade, but she has enjoyed reviewing what she has learned during the last 20 years. She wanted to write the books so she could share that knowledge with a broader audience, she said.
Inspiration
Dr. Pompey Strickland enjoys inspiring others to become fit and hearing the stories people share with her about feeling better.
“I would love to be able to reach as many people as I can and get them back to health,” she said.
Contact the writer: cheaney@timesshamrock.com
TO NOMINATE A NORTHEAST WOMAN, please submit requests via email to lifestyles@timesshamrock.com or mail them to Northeast Woman Nominations, The Sunday Times, 149 Penn Ave., Scranton, PA 18503. Please include the woman’s name, address and the reason the reader feels the woman is deserving. Those submitting need to include their name and a daytime phone number.
Meet Dawn Pompey Strickland
At home: Lives in Dalton with her husband, Charles “Sam” Strickland, and their sons, Charlie, 12, and Connor, 9. She is the daughter of Dominick and Judy Pompey and has three sisters, Debbie Whitney, Danielle Pompey and Judy Oliveira.
At work: A chiropractor at Strickland Chiropractic, she also is a certified fitness instructor and conducts classes at Waverly Community House and the park in Dalton.
Inspiration: Her family and friends, fitness icon Jack LaLanne and fitness proponents Tosca Reno and Jari Love.
Aspirations: To help people through chiropractic care, nutrition and exercise, and to inspire as many people as she can, from children through senior citizens, to find their way back to health.
Diversions: Spending time with her family, golfing, skiing and boating.
Aversions: Sugar, unkind people and junk food in schools.
Quote: “If you listen to your conscience, it will serve you like no other friend you will ever know.” – Loretta Young

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Camargo Insurance Agency, Inc. Offers an Interactive Way to Purchase Insurance Coverage Online

medsites — Sun, 20 May 2012 11:49:39 +0000

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Insurance May Spike For UNM Students

medsites — Sun, 20 May 2012 07:24:27 +0000

Student health insurance at the University of New Mexico could increase by up to 30 percent next school year.
The expansion in health insurance coverage mandated by President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act is causing a rise in premiums in most student insurance plans around the country, student health and counseling director Beverly Kloeppel said Friday. Affordable Care Act provisions that affect student health insurance plans take effect in August.
At UNM, the increase in cost has not been set because the school has not yet selected a vendor for its health insurance plan. However, colleges and universities nationwide have seen their student plans spike by anywhere from 20 percent to 30 percent, Kloeppel said.
“I would say that it’s likely the university would experience similar (increases),” she said.
About 2,000 UNM students, including student employees such as graduate assistants, are covered by the school insurance program. The annual cost for a student plan at UNM is about $1,400, Kloeppel said.
“We tried to do some things to reduce costs, and, you know, they were successful, but we’re still going to experience considerable increases,” Kloeppel said.
One effort to contain costs was a partnership UNM formed with New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology for a new health insurance vendor. The potential vendor would have a greater pool of students to insure, so it might be able to keep the premium increases lower, Kloeppel said.
Those new premium costs could be set as soon as next month, when Kloeppel expects to recommend a vendor to the board of regents. Regents have to approve the insurance plan.
Kloeppel said the rise in premiums could mean fewer students opt for UNM’s plan. However, the Affordable Care Act has increased the age limit for youths covered by their parents’ insurance to 26, she added, and that means many more students can stay insured by their parents’ employer.
Among the reasons for the growing premiums are significant increases in the amount of medical costs that insurers will be forced to cover. Next year, insurers can impose a limit of no less than $100,000 in costs they will cover. The year after, that amount will rise to $500,000 and the year after that there will be no annual limit, meaning insurance companies will be forced to cover all costs accrued by a student.
The ACA has also expanded coverage in other ways. Insurers now must cover “recommended preventive services,” such as wellness screenings, without any cost-sharing. They also must now provide access to contraceptives, also without cost-sharing.
Students are not the only ones who will be affected by changes imposed by the ACA. Insurance premiums for regular UNM employees, who are covered under a different program, will increase by 8.5 percent. UNM will also pay some of those costs, increasing the amount they pay by another 8.5 percent.

Reprint story – Email the reporter at agalvan@abqjournal.com. Call the reporter at 505-823-3843

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This Week in God – msnbc.com (blog)

medsites — Sat, 19 May 2012 22:22:23 +0000

First up from the God Machine this week is a look at the ongoing fight over women’s access to contraception, which had faded from the front pages, but which clearly hasn’t gone away.Sarah Kliff reported yesterday that Ohio’s Steubenville University “decided it would end its student health insurance plan rather than comply with the health reform law’s mandated coverage of contraceptives,” and other schools are likely to follow suit. Lawyers for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops intends to go further, taking their opposition to contraception to court.

The Catholic Church’s U.S. hierarchy warned Tuesday that without quick action by Congress, it will sue the Obama administration for mandating that insurance plans provide birth control to women without a co-pay. [...]
The bishops group and its leader, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, have led calls to rescind the mandate but threatened court action Tuesday in light of “approaching regulatory deadlines.”
For the record, houses of worship are already exempt from the contraception policy, and the Obama administration approved a compromise so that religiously-affiliated institutions will not have to directly pay for contraception if they don’t want to.But the fight continues anyway. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius spoke at Georgetown yesterday, where she faced protestors and hecklers, but reminded her audience of John F. Kennedy’s remarks in 1960 to Baptist leaders in Houston, and the vision of an America in which “no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials.”It probably wasn’t a message the bishops wanted to hear.Also from the God Machine this week:* Radical TV preacher Pat Robertson offered some destructive advice to a viewer this week concerned about a friend’s Buddhist statue.* President Obama’s re-election team hired a religious outreach director this week: Michael Wear, who currently serves as executive assistant to the executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.* And Norway will amend its constitution so that it no longer has an official religion, ending the 1,000-year tradition of its state church. Policymakers made the move to respect the nation’s growing pluralism and religious diversity.

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Insurance Company Approved for Land Trusts

medsites — Sat, 19 May 2012 22:22:16 +0000

The Land Trust Alliance has won nonprofit status from the I.R.S. for an insurance company it is creating.

Fugitive Smuggler Lai Changxing Gets Life Imprisonment – NTDTV

medsites — Sat, 19 May 2012 04:45:25 +0000

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A Chinese court has sentenced a smuggling kingpin to life imprisonment. Lai Changxing was extradited back to China in July last year, after being on the run for more than 12 years in Canada.
He was one of China’s most wanted fugitives. Now Lai Changxing has been sentenced to life imprisonment for running a massive smuggling ring in the 1990s, state-run media reports.

The Intermediate People’s Court in Xiamen delivered the judgment on Friday, following a trial last month. Lai was found guilty of smuggling 4.3-million US dollars worth of goods with his Xiamen based Yuanhua Group and other networks. He dealt in goods ranging from textiles, cigarettes to cars and oil.

On top of the life sentence, the Xiamen court also handed Lai a second prison term of 15 years for bribery. He was found guilty of bribing 64 government officials with cash, cars and real estate worth more than 5-billion dollars.

State-run Xinihua news agency cited documents which said, quote “The sums involved are unusually large, and the details are extraordinarily serious, meriting the double sentence.”

53-year-old Lai was extradited back to the southeast city of Xiamen in July last year. The well-connected businessman had escaped to Canada in 1999 and ultimately failed to obtain refugee protection.

Lai’s crimes turned into one of the most high profile cases in modern China, and implicate several senior Chinese Communist officials, including former regime leader Jiang Zemin.

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Insurance broker admits defrauding Philly Housing Authority

medsites — Sat, 19 May 2012 04:45:17 +0000

A politically connected insurance broker pleaded guilty Friday to defrauding the Philadelphia Housing Authority of $2.3 million and is now naming names for federal authorities of public officials and others who allegedly have accepted bribes or kickbacks in return for business.
Kobie T. West, 39, who took over West Insurance Group from his father and the firm’s founder, Bernard T. West, has admitted to one count of wire fraud.
With the help of a PHA accomplice, Kobie West created a fake invoice of $2,141,523 for worker’s compensation coverage, then included a commission of $181,202 for the money he stole.
At his plea hearing Friday, U.S. District Judge Joel Slomsky cited a confidential plea agreement that said West was “conspiring with another person to provide bribes and kickbacks to persons, including public officials known to the U.S. government, in order to maintain business for West Insurance.”
Slomsky also said West was involved in “three to four other areas of cooperation with the government.”
Joseph J. Khan, an assistant U.S. attorney, would not comment about the investigation after the hearing.
But eight years ago, West figured in the sprawling federal investigation of pay-to-play politics in City Hall that led to the indictment of the late Ronald White, a confidant to former Mayor John F. Street, and the conviction of former City Treasurer Corey Kemp.
In 1998, West Insurance gave a check for $10,000 to Street on the eve of the former City Council president’s first successful run for mayor. The company later moved its headquarters to Philadelphia from Boston and received no-bid contracts from the city.
At the time, West said the check was payment for a presentation to the company’s board. Street’s associates gave conflicting accounts at the time of what the money was for, and one adviser said there had been no speech.
Street could not be reached for comment Friday. No one was charged with a crime regarding the payment.
In 2010, the minority-owned West Insurance sold most of its assets to a Havertown insurance company, PK Financial Group, which is run by a number of former West Insurance executives.
Prosecutors said West Insurance depended on political contacts and contracts from public agencies for most of its business. But since 2004, it had contracts totaling only $142,303 with the city, according to the City Controller’s Office.
Kobie West and his father were major political donors, contributing $95,000 to Pennsylvania politicians from 2000 through 2009, according to campaign finance reports filed with city and state authorities. Kobie West also gave at least $11,000 to President Obama’s 2008 campaign.
The biggest recipient was State Rep. Dwight Evans, who received more than $38,000 from the Wests while he was the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. Other big beneficiaries of the Wests included then-Gov. Ed Rendell ($16,500), then-Mayor Street ($8,250), Mayor Nutter ($5,000), and two powerful legislators now doing prison time: former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo ($4,500) and former House Speaker John M. Perzel ($5,000).
Released on bail of $25,000, West is scheduled for sentencing Sept. 19 and faces a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Leaving the courtroom, West would not say where he worked. One way he earns money is through poker. Last July, West placed 167th in the World Series of Poker 2011 No Limit Hold’em event, winning $3,088, according to PokerPages.com, which tracks the game. He did much better in 2006, winning $19,765, part of $30,723 won since 2005, according to the site.
At PHA, West conspired with Edgar Bridges, a risk manager, according to court documents. At one time, Bridges was the brother-in-law of Ronald White, the Street fund-raiser who was charged with corruption but died before his case went to trial.
Street was PHA chairman at the time but has not been mentioned in the West dealings.
According to court documents, West Insurance was the broker matching PHA with worker’s compensation insurance from AmeriHealth Casualty Services Inc. of Philadelphia.
In May 2006, a state regulatory agency changed how it calculated a surcharge tax on PHA’s insurance policy that would have required a payment of $169,933.
West used the situation to concoct an inflated fake bill. In an e-mail to Bridges, he warned of “bad news” – AmeriHealth would bill “close to $3 million” extra for its coverage. He suggested that premium could be negotiated down.
In the end, PHA paid $2.3 million, which was deposited in West Insurance’s bank account on Oct. 6, 2006.
West hired Bridges as vice president with a $5,000 signing bonus and after three months, paid him a $30,000 bonus.
An audit at PHA turned up the payment to West Insurance. Still trying to cover up the fraud, around May 29, 2008, West wired the money to AmeriHealth.
Khan, the assistant U.S. attorney, said AmeriHealth returned the money to PHA.
Bridges pleaded guilty to tax evasion connected to an unreported bonus and admitted to violating state ethics laws. He was sentenced to two years probation.
Contact staff writer Jennifer Lin at 215-854-5659 or jlin@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @j_linq.
Inquirer staff writer Bob Warner contributed to this article.

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This column will change your life: underachieving – The Guardian

medsites — Sat, 19 May 2012 00:10:37 +0000

For obvious reasons, it’s entirely appropriate that a book entitled The Underachiever’s Manifesto never really became a huge seller. Written by an American doctor named Ray Bennett – not the kind of doctor whom I’d necessarily want if I had a life-threatening illness – it vanished soon after its debut, in 2006. Now, though, its publishers have finally got it together to release it as an ebook in Britain, so you can download it. I mean, if you like. Don’t push yourself. After all, you’re already doing great. As Bennett himself points out, “Being alive is by far your greatest achievement.”Subtitled The Guide To Accomplishing Little And Feeling Great, Bennett’s short treatise seems at first like another of those jokey-but-unfunny gift books they sold by the tills at Borders, back before Borders itself stopped achieving. But it soon becomes clear there’s more to it. “The achievement lobby is powerful,” he notes early on, “and underachievement is, surprisingly, not as easy as it should be. Our world is so full of unrelenting messages about being the best you can be that it may not even have occurred to you to try for anything less.” Yet ”how many careers are coupled with disastrous marriages? How many talented, hard-working people smoke too much [and] exercise too little… How many fitness-crazed [people] tear up their knees running marathons?” Underachievement, the way Bennett uses the term, begins to seem less like an appealing option for the lazy-minded and more like a path to a superior kind of achievement.Partly, that’s just because moderation’s often best. (Bennett’s “underachiever’s diet” involves avoiding bad fats and keeping treats occasional; his “underachiever’s workout” entails walking, doing something with your upper body and getting enough sleep.) But the deeper point is your life is an enormously complex web of interacting variables, and it’s impossible to know how, when you focus on maximising one or two of them, you’ll end up distorting the others. “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe,” wrote the naturalist John Muir – an observation that’s become a mantra for environmentalists, but which applies to individual lives, too. Tug too hard on one thread and the whole thing unravels.This column has previously extolled the virtues of “deliberate mediocrity” as a strategy for beating perfectionism. But Bennett’s stance evokes the idea, most often associated with Taoism, that knowing not to reach too far might be the essence of freedom. Forget the “stretch goals” beloved of business gurus. “Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill,” notes the Taoist sage Lao Tzu, in Stephen Mitchell’s modern-day interpretation of the Tao Te Ching. “Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.” Recognise where the limits lie, by contrast, and you’ll have room for manoeuvre. “In knowing how far you’ll be able to reach,” explains Bill Mason, a writer on Taoism, “you’ll have perfect freedom to choose just how far within that range to reach.” Bennett quotes Picasso: “You must always work not just within, but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two… In that way, the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.” I don’t know about you, but I think I could settle for underachieving like Picasso.• oliver.burkeman@guardian.co.uk; twitter.com/oliverburkeman

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Backers of health insurance rate regulation edge closer to ballot

medsites — Sat, 19 May 2012 00:10:29 +0000

Supporters of a proposed ballot measure seeking tighter regulation of health insurance rates in California turned in 800,000 petition signatures, confident that they will qualify for the Nov. 6 election.In the coming weeks, county election offices and the California secretary of state will determine whether the measure meets the requirement for 504,760 valid signatures of registered voters. The deadline to qualify is June 28.The initiative is expected to spark an expensive campaign battle over rising health insurance rates, which have angered thousands of California consumers in recent years. This measure seeks to regulate rate increases for health policies sold to individuals and small businesses, which cover about 5 million people. It doesn’t affect plans purchased by larger employers that cover about 15 million Californians.On Friday, California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones joined with activists from Consumer Watchdog, the Santa Monica group leading the ballot drive, at the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder’s office in Norwalk to drop off boxes of signatures.”Over 34 states have given the insurance commissioner the authority to reject excessive rates,” Jones said. “This isn’t a novel idea. California is behind the rest of the nation.”The proposed ballot initiative would give Jones and the California Department of Insurance the same rate-setting authority over health insurance that they already hold over auto and property coverage. Opponents say that the measure would create a costly new bureaucracy at a time of growing state budget deficits, and they contend that it doesn’t address the underlying reasons for rising premiums.California’s largest health insurers — Anthem Blue Cross, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc., Health Net Inc., Blue Shield of California and United Healthcare Insurance Co. — are leading the opposition by funding a group called Californians Against Higher Healthcare Costs. The coalition also draws support from doctors, hospitals and various business groups.”We all agree that controlling healthcare costs is critical, but this flawed measure will do nothing to address the underlying costs driving healthcare premiums and will ultimately limit patients’ access to care,” said Don Crane, chief executive of the California Assn. of Physician Groups.chad.terhune@latimes.com

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Men urged to buy annuity now – Financial Times

medsites — Fri, 18 May 2012 20:11:08 +0000

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