DIRECTOR'S REPORT–Thomas H. Young, Director

Open Season Results are in

The NALC Health Benefit Plan experienced a net gain of over 6,000 new members as a result of Open Season activity. More than a third of that number are active letter carriers and their families.

So, as we continue this positive growth in Plan membership, I again want to express my appreciation to all who put forth the effort during Open Season to "recruit" new members.

That thank-you goes beyond the Health Benefit Representatives and other officers and certainly includes all of the employees of the Plan here in Ashburn, Virginia. These employees put a "face" on the Plan as they communicate and serve the membership by answering each question and concern. Our ability to respond to our members makes us, I believe, truly unique in the realm of federal health plans.

Having said that, I now move to "What have you done for me today?" by telling you we are in the midst of preparing our response to the Office of Personnel Management’s Call Letter. This is the annual rite that finds each federal health plan presenting their "package" containing the next year’s proposal for premiums and benefits.

Each year of this annual exercise presents its own challenges in trying to strike the balance that will meet the members’ needs benefit wise, while establishing a premium that is fiscally responsible and affordable.

This juggling act is undertaken in the face of rapidly increasing utilization and cost of providers, hospitals, and prescription drugs.

Each year my sense of alarm seems to increase as we prepare to deal with how the Plan should look in the next year.

I wonder (and so should you) is the "next year" the one when some very dramatic and, no doubt, onerous steps have to be taken in order to continue to be fiscally responsible in the operation of the Plan (as we must be).

Now, I know virtually every one of the federal health plans is facing this same question and dilemma. In fact, I’m sure there are some who are closer to that "next year" than the NALC Health Benefit Plan.

However, notwithstanding those dark clouds I just mentioned, I am optimistic that we will be able to present an offering that continues to meet the needs of letter carriers and their families.

Plans are well underway for the Health Benefit Plan Seminar in October. For those who have attended these functions in the past, you will see a new "wrinkle" to the program.

All of us in Ashburn are looking forward to this event and the educational opportunities it presents.

The Health Benefit Plan Seminar Returns!!!!!

The 26th National Health Benefit Plan HBR Seminar will be held October 19 through 22, 2003 at the Tropicana Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. A registration form has been enclosed with this newsletter for your use in making a reservation for this important and informative seminar. As in the past, our Health Benefit Representatives and other branch representatives will be presented with valuable information relating to the Health Benefit Plan, the 2003 Open Season, and the 2004 benefit year.

Instead of our usual opening "Ice Breaker" on Sunday evening, we are planning to wind-down the Seminar with a "tropical" fun event on Tuesday evening. We also plan to provide our attendees with a health screening event during Sunday’s registration hours. Details will be coming up in future issues of the
HBR Report.

As you will note on the registration form enclosed with this report, you no longer make your room reservations with the Plan. You are provided with a toll-free number to contact the hotel directly to make your reservations. Just mention that you will be attending the NALC Health Benefit Plan Seminar in October. You will be required to make a deposit on your first night’s stay at the time you make your reservations.

If you have any changes to be made to your reservations, you will need to contact the hotel directly.

Please make your room reservations as soon as possible, especially if you will need a Friday or Saturday arrival. Space for these nights is extremely limited and will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis.

If you have any questions about the Seminar, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Seminar Classes:

All classes on Monday and Tuesday will have an in-depth study of the Plan’s brochure and benefits. An explanation of pertinent issues, both simple and complex, will be given. Section-by-section of the brochure will be scrutinized in a manner that is easy to follow and exciting to learn. You will come away with a greater understanding of the Plan’s benefits and the brochure’s wording. On Wednesday, classes will focus on specialty areas of the Plan, such as enrollment information, open season, coordination of benefits, and more.

Look for additional articles outlining the Seminar classes and items of general interest in future issues of the HBR Report. We promise that this year’s Seminar will prove to be one of our most informative HBR Seminars, and we look forward to seeing you all again in October.

NOTE TO HBRS ATTENDING THE SEMINAR: When filling out your registration form, please remember: Your Seminar registration fee can be made only by check or money order and must accompany your registration form. Please indicate your daytime phone number (or e-mail address if available) in case we need to reach you with a question regarding your registration. Please fill out a separate form for each branch member attending the seminar. Do not contact the Plan with questions about your room reservations; contact the hotel directly. The deadline for all "ROOM" reservations is September 22, 2003.

HEALTH IN THE NEWS

Food of the Month:
Carrots / Turnips

Who says there’s nothing new under the sun? When it comes to vegetables, something new about carrots is making the nutritional headlines.

The beet-colored carrot from J&D Produce is one of the newest super-healthy foods. Actually, just the outside quarter inch or so is beet-colored. The inside is still orange.

Grown without genetic modification, the new carrot tastes sweeter than an entirely orange one. And it contains 40 percent more beta-carotene, says its developer, Dr. Leonard Pike. The beet-colored carrot is available right now at grocery stores nationwide.

To get the most food value from carrots, remember that it’s best to cook them lightly, rather than eating them raw. Some studies indicate that you’ll get four to five times more nutrients from lightly cooked carrots than from raw.

Cooking releases more carotenoids by breaking down the plant’s cell walls. A minute or two of steaming or microwaving is enough to soften cells and still preserve heat-sensitive vitamins.

Now about those turnips. They look a lot like carrots, but they are entirely different. Turnips are members of the cruciferous family of vegetables that includes cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli.

Like other members of the cruciferous family, turnips contain several compounds that help prevent cancers from occurring. They are particularly effective in preventing cancers of the breast, prostate gland, and colon.

Turnips come in a wide range of shapes and sizes. Most have white flesh. Young ones are small and tender, but older ones have thick skin and keep better. They are good pureed, mashed with potatoes, or added to stews and soups.

Low glycemic-load carbs can make you lighter

You can indeed lose weight faster if you decrease your carbohydrate intake, but make sure you avoid high-glycemic carbs. These include bagels, chocolate cake, corn flakes, jellybeans, spaghetti, baked potatoes, raisins, white bread, and white rice.

These foods and others that are high on the glycemic index cause a rapid rise in blood sugar. A couple of hours after eating, however, your blood sugar levels drop. That leaves you hungry long before your next meal.

By contrast, foods that are high in fiber and low on the glycemic index will be converted to blood glucose slowly. You feel fuller longer and probably won’t be hungry before mealtime. Such foods include all-bran cereal, apples, broccoli, carrots, cherries, sweet corn, grapes, ice cream, kidney beans, lentils, milk, oranges, peanuts, peanut butter, popcorn, soybeans, strawberries, and yogurt.

Mid-range foods with medium glycemic-load carbs include apple juice, bananas, barley, blueberry muffins, English muffins, oatmeal, orange juice, pretzels, sweet potatoes, and wheat bread.

A high-glycemic diet may put you at higher risk for obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, according to studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

This doesn’t mean that you have to eliminate high glycemic foods entirely, just that it would be better to eat smaller helpings and eat them less often.

For smart carbohydrate control, it’s better to focus on foods that have low to medium glycemic load.

April is Cancer Control Month

Cancer rates are rising: Prevention is more important than ever.

Rather than showing improvement, statistics on cancer are even worse than had been assumed. The National Cancer Institute recently discovered that incidence of the five most common cancers are actually on the rise.

The rates of lung, breast, prostate, colon, and skin cancers have all steadily increased since 1997. In fact, in the next decade cancer will probably pass heart disease as the leading cause of death in the U.S.

One in three will develop cancer in his or her lifetime. Half will die within five years of diagnosis.

Researchers hope that new drugs will keep cancer in check while patients live longer, symptom free lives such as diabetic patients do using insulin. Whether or not that happens in decades to come, prevention is and has always been better than treatment. Here are some things you can do to protect yourself from cancer or get lifesaving early diagnosis of cancers:

Lung: Stop smoking and avoid situations where the air contains harmful substances. Eat fruits and vegetables that are loaded with vitamins A and C. Lung is the third most common cancer in the U.S.

Breast: Eat at least three servings of vegetables daily. Limit alcohol to one drink a day, since it affects the level of estrogen and other hormones. The mammogram is still the most common and most widely available type of screening. Women should have one as ordered by their doctors.

Prostate: Eat less animal fat, which affects different hormone levels. Eat more tomatoes, a good source of lycopene that has a protective effect. The PSA test after age 50 is recommended.

Colon: Maintain a healthy weight, and eat just one serving of meat per day. Take a multivitamin, and get at least 30 minutes of exercise per day. Get screened for polyps that can become cancerous.

Skin cancer: Use sun block and wear a hat, sunglasses and long sleeves. Reapply often, especially after swimming or perspiring. Be sure to use sun block on children. Teach them to put it on before going outdoors.

THE PHARMACY CORNER

Spring Pollen — The Quest for Allergy Relief

Allergies plague millions of people — and those people spend billions of dollars on allergy medications to relieve their symptoms.

Direct medical costs for common allergies to pollen, dust mites, dog allergies and cat allergies can range from $1.2 to $4.5 billion with an additional $3.2 billion in time off from work and lost productivity.

A study by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality indicates that the physical symptoms of allergies (sneezing, nasal congestion, headaches, and fatigue) can interfere with your thinking process and impair your work performance and, more importantly, cause absences from work. This is why many allergy sufferers seek whatever means are available to treat their symptoms.

There are many types of allergy medications available today — both over-the-counter and prescription drugs.

Antihistamines are the most popular. They relieve the sneezing, itching, runny nose, and tearing of eyes.

Decongestants help relieve the congestion you get from swollen nasal passages. If you use an over-the-counter spray, don’t use it for more than three or four days. Prescription decongestants can be used longer. If you have high blood pressure or heart disease, consult your doctor about the use of decongestants — they can raise your blood pressure or cause rapid heartbeat.

Other types of medications used to combat the effects of allergies and asthma are anti-inflammatory agents, bronchodilators to treat breathing problems caused by asthma and allergy shots.

Vitamin C plays an important role in the treatment of allergies. A 1990 study published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, states that just two grams of Vitamin C daily can significantly increase lung capacity because it is acts as a natural antihistamine and may help reduce inflammation in the airways.

You may also be able to find some relief from your allergies by following some simple (non-medicating) steps:

• Use special bedding designed to keep out dust mites.
• Clean your house more often to reduce dust, pollen, and pet dander.

If you like to work outdoors in the yard:

• Avoid gardening on warm or windy days when the pollen counts are the highest.
• Garden after a rain when pollen has been washed from the air.
• Wear a mask while you work in your garden, rake leaves or mow your lawn.
• Keep your gardening tools outside.
• When you take a break, wash your face to remove accumulated pollen.
• Have special gardening clothes and keep gardening shoes outside.
• Shower when your finish gardening and change your clothes.

General Information and "Fun Facts" about Las Vegas

What will the weather be like in October?

Las Vegas weather provides low humidity along with ideal fall temperatures that make this a great place to visit. The average year-round temperature is 80 degrees. In October, you can expect daytime highs to be around 84 degrees and the nighttime temperatures to fall to around 50. Las Vegas is also one of the sunniest cities in the United States with an average 320 days of sunshine per year and only 4.19 inches of rainfall.

Transportation

Your trip to Las Vegas will most likely take you into McCarran International Airport. The Airport is just off the south end of the Las Vegas Strip, so it’s a short ride to all hotels in Las Vegas and especially close to the Tropicana. There are buses, taxis, and shuttle services available at the Airport.

Citizen’s Area Transit runs a good public bus service and can get you just about anywhere in the valley. You can always find a taxi and even the limos are plentiful.

(We will provide you with a list of taxi companies and sample bus route information in future issues of the HBR Report.)

Walking the Strip

You can walk most places on the Strip if you’re staying there, but check the weather first — the heat can take its toll. You probably won’t want to walk from the Strip to Downtown, and the hike from Circus Circus to Mandalay Bay is probably out of the question too! There are four monorail systems that run between several of the Strip mega resorts (the Mirage to Treasure Island; Bellagio to Monte Carlo; MGM Grand to Bally’s; and Mandalay Bay, Luxor and Excalibur Tram). Sure, sometimes it’s easier to walk, but these monorails come in handy when your legs are weary.

FYI

The HIPAA Compliance deadline is fast approach-??ing. As of April 14, if an enrollee in your branch wants you, as a Health Benefit Representative, to contact the Plan on his or her behalf to ask questions on specific claims, check claim status, or access health information, that enrollee must complete a Personal Representative Authorization form naming you, the HBR, as a personal representative. You can request these forms from our Customer Service Representatives so you can have them available for your branch members. Even if the enrollee is with you when you make the call, under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, we cannot disclose individually identifiable health information to you unless we have this form on file.

Also, your Branch Reimbursement Certificates (along with a copy of the current branch printout) must be completed and postmarked no later than April 30, 2003 in order to receive your branch reimbursement for 2002. If you have not already done so, please call the Plan and request two copies of your Branch printout (one will be returned with your Branch Reimbursement Certificate and one you can retain for your files). Any questions regarding completion of your reimbursement certificate can be directed to the Plan’s Administrative office.

On the lighter side –

A Dose of Their Own Medicine:

A doctor, a nurse and the top executive of an HMO have all died and are in line together at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter speaks with them and asks what good each has done in their life.

Doctor: "I have devoted my life to the sick and needy and have had a part in caring for and healing thousands of poor people."

St. Peter: "That’s great! Go ahead into heaven. And, what about you dear?"

Nurse: "I’ve supported the good doctor and his patients my entire life as an adult."

St. Peter: "Wonderful! Please proceed in with the doctor. And, what about you?"

Health Maintenance Organization Director: "I was the president of a very large HMO and was responsible for the health care of millions of people all over the country."

St. Peter: "Oh, I see. Please go in — BUT you can only stay two nights!"