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There are many changes to health care that have come and are coming from the Affordable Care Act. For example, if you are a young adult looking for health insurance, you can now be covered under your parent’s plan (if it covers children) until you turn 26 years old. (See for more info.)

Another change that I was reminded about from this is that plans must cover “recommended preventive services” without charging a deductible, copayment, or coinsurance. In other words, it’s free as long as you visit an in-network provider. Something to consider if you’ve been putting them off due to cost.

The list of is long and covers a variety of screenings, and also includes the cost of 10 vaccines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Here is the . For adults, the CNN article highlighted the Influenza, Pneumococcal, Tetanus/Diphtheria/Pertussis, and Zoster (shingles) vaccines, but I see other familiar ones like Hepatitis A, so talk to your doctor. The required frequency varies from annually for the flu to once total for the shingles vaccine. A family member got shingles recently and it was not a pleasant experience.

There are some exemptions for existing plans, but as time progresses almost all plans should participate. From :

Unless noted otherwise below, the recommended services must be provided without cost-sharing when delivered by an in-network provider in the plan years (in the individual market, policy years) that begin on or after September 23, 2010. For recommendations that have been in effect for less than one year, plans and issuers will have one year from the effective date to comply.

19
Jul

Yowie: Will This Start-Up Survive?


Start

The adventure of new ventures.

This is the first in a series of quick profiles of start-up companies. The Small Business Administration has found that about half of new businesses survive five years. Will this be one of the survivors?

Business: Yowie, established in July 2010, is a Web service that connects performers and fans through live video chat. (A “yowie” is Australia’s version of a yeti, a k a Bigfoot.)

Employees: Nine full time.

Location: Santa Monica, Calif.

Founders: Jay Snider, 53, is the former president of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team and the founder of SpectaGuard, a security company he created at age 22 and sold in 1998. To start Yowie, he teamed up with his son, Jamie Snider, 26, and two MySpace alumni, Frank Orozco and Carlos Montes.

Pitch: There are already lots of services for streaming entertainment in real time. Yowie

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19
Jul

The secret way Google costs you money

What’s a Google filter bubble and how does it trap you? Donna Ferguson examines the secret way your searches could be costing you money.

Ever heard of a ‘filter bubble’? If you think it sounds like something only a car mechanic would need to know about, or some kind of snazzy bath gel, I don’t blame you. But it’s actually a lot more sinister – and it affects almost everyone who uses the internet.

So even though you might not have heard of a filter bubble, you’ve almost certainly come across one. In fact, you’ve probably made decisions while trapped in one. At the time, you probably thought what you were experiencing was perfectly innocuous, perhaps even helpful… but delve benea

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18
Jul

Best ways to pay for home improvements

More home-owners than ever are choosing a lick of paint and new wallpaper to improve their home, according to Halifax.

Total spending by UK households on DIY has fallen to its lowest level since 1998, according to new research by Lloyds TSB. On average, we are now spending just £352 per household – a 13% fall since 2009.

Part of the problem is that maintaining – or improving – our homes is expensive, and money is tight for many of us right now.

The good news is, if you pay for your home improvements in the best possible way, you can save significant sums of money.

So, if you are planning to carry out some home improvements this summer, what’s the best way to pay for them?

There are different ways to borrow and which you choose can depend on how much you are planning to spend.

Small jobs like painting and maybe even wallpapering you might attempt yourself, and they tend to cost a few hundred pounds up to perhaps £1,000. New i

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17
Jul

Are You Willing to Be Humiliated to Save Money?

Chik-Fil-A hosted their annual “Cow Appreciation Day” last week. If you went to the restaurant fully dressed as a cow, you got a free meal. If you wore just a little cow gear, you got a free entree. We decided that it would be fun so we made some simple costumes from white clothes we already had by taping on some printed cow spots. We pinned some beanie cows to our hats and off we went. We each got a the full free meal so it was a free dinner for us in exchange for just a little bit of creativity and effort.

The whole evening was pretty fun, too. Several other “cows” were there so we got to see how other people dressed up. The management had the cow mascot out playing games with the kids and all of the staff was dressed as cows. It was a fun summer activity. Something different, something silly, and something free.

Of course, when we got there some jerk behind us in line had to say, “No way would I humiliate myself like that just for free food.” I just smiled and said, “Okay.” Personally, I think he was a little jealous that other people were getting free food and he wasn’t. Maybe he was just

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