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The Obama Administration has lowered its estimate of how many Americans will enroll under national healthcare insurance exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act, the White House announced Monday. About 9.9 million people will be signed up by the end of next year, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said. This is approximately 30% lower than the latest level predicted by the Congressional Budget Office. The new figures from HHS are based on how quickly Americans have signed up for previous public health insurance programs, and also account for people who won’t stay in their plans. As the Washington Post pointed out in its coverage, this may be seen as a referendum on both the act itself and the President’s overall effectiveness. “The discrepancy re...

There is a plethora of human behaviors that can cause back pain, from lifting heavy items to sitting in an office chair for 40 hours a week, to slumping on the couch for Netflix marathons, but new research shows that there's a new culprit for Americans' back pain problems. According to CBS News, new research performed by chief of spine surgery at New York Spine Surgery and Rehabilitation Medicine Dr. Kenneth Hansraj, which has been accepted for publication in Surgical Technology International, reveals that texting is probably causing a lot of back pain for people. According to a survey taken by the National Institute of Health Statistics, back pain is the most reported type of pain at 27%, followed by headache and neck pain. An estimated 26 million Americans between the ages of 20 and 64...

When you're building a custom luxury home, it's usually a given that it will be located in a luxury area. But real-estate data site Zillow recently wondered: will you be able to see the stars? At the request of Spread Sheet, a column in the Wall Street Journal, Zillow created an index to measure low levels of light pollution against high property values to try to find luxury areas with the best views of the night sky. As Zillow economist Skylar Olsen told the Wall Street Journal, “It’s the combination of [being] out in the boonies but still in luxury markets.” The Zillow team went through over 11,000 postal codes, comparing the median home value as of August to light-pollution data provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Each zip code was then ranked on a wei...

Anthony Manfre, an Army veteran, was able to cover most of the cost for his associate's and bachelor degrees using benefits from his GI Bill, though he still took out $4,000 worth of student loans to cover additional expenses. “At the time, I thought that was a lot,” he says. “And now I look back and wish I only owed that much.” However, Manfre decided to pursue both a master's and doctorate degree in marriage and family therapy, and needed to take out additional loans to cover his living expenses. Now, he's riddled with $200,000 of student loan debt. Like many other college graduates, Manfre viewed taking out student loans as a wise investment -- one that would allow him to further his career and create a better future. He assumed he would be able to afford to pay off his loan payme...