Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.
Anthony D’Angelo

With so many options on the shelves, selecting the right shoes can feel like a workout itself. To simplify your search, determine your foot type then click on the links to our expert-vetted guide, which is divided by exercise category.

What’s Your Foot Type?
Number one mistake: Buying kicks based solely on style or what friends are wearing. Picking the right shoe for your foot type and biomechanics should be your top priority. Most specialty running stores can advise you—they have well-trained staff who can assess your arches and evaluate your pronation (the way your foot moves as you walk and jog). Or try this at-home test: Wet your foot, then step on a paper bag. What shape do you see?

High Arch: You may underpronate (land on the outside of your feet), which can cause too much shock to travel up your legs. Look for a neutral or cushioned shoe.

Normal Arch: You probably have few foot or pronation problems. A neutral shoe is your best bet.

Flat Arch: You likely overpronate (your feet turn inward too much). Try neutral or stability shoes.

Expert Guide: Our Top Shoe Picks
Running Shoes
Shoes for the Gym
Shoes for Group Fitness Classes

Committing to the One
Fit into multiple exercise categories but able to spring for only one pair of shoes? Let your most demanding activity dictate your pick. For example, while running shoes can handle the demands of an indoor class or boot-camp session, cross trainers may not translate well out on the roads.

Barefoot Essentials
Going barefoot during yoga, Pilates, or barre-based classes may put you more in touch with your body—but it also puts your feet in touch with bacteria and can make you more prone to slipping. Try Blake Brody In-Studio Footwear’s Robin, thin ballet flats with arch support ($98, blakebrody.com), or the five-toed ToeSox for traction without restricting your feet ($15, toesox.com).

Read more at Women’s Health: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/best-sneakers#ixzz1sKmXjyfR

In regards to Heather Mollon, one of our agents!

“You have been really great to work with, and if we find ourselves moving back to Arizona full time, I would certainly call you again. I will also recommend you to people I know in Arizona.”

Thank you,

Caroline M.

Why Get An Eye Exam?

NEW YORK—The tough economy. President Obama’s mission to reform health care. A concern about workplace productivity. The aging population. The awareness of learning issues among children. The rise of undetected refractive errors in the U.S. and around the world. The changing scope of practice in optometry. The growing awareness of the need for healthy lifestyles. The proven connection between eyecare and general health.

These trends, and dozens more, are why “wellness”—and its clear relationship to eye health—is an issue now firmly on the radar of vision care professionals, organizations, public healthcare officials, government legislators, optical retailers, managed care groups and vision care products companies.

It is part of a groundswell of health care, practitioner, policy and business initiatives that have the potential to transform the vision care field and raise vision care’s profile to decisionmakers and consumers/patients in the U.S.

Vision Monday spoke with a range of industry leaders and professionals about “wellness,” a term that used to connote herbal medicines and communing with nature and now is a most serious phrase and issue.Clearly, from their comments, eye health’s wellness connection is hitting prime time.

Observed Jack Schaeffer, OD, of Birmingham, Ala.-based Schaeffer Eye Centers: “There is much talk today about nationalizing medical insurance, wellness care and of course maximizing the health care dollar. Eyecare plays a major role in preventive health care. Diagnosing systemic diseases as diabetes and hypertension, serious eye diseases that can cause blindness like glaucoma, and even enhanced school performance are all important reasons why eyecare needs to be a part of any major healthcare initiatives. Educating the public on the importance of this eyecare should be a major part of health awareness campaigns for all relevant institutions.”

Noted Pauline Yan, vice president, Integrated Healthcare Market Solutions, Essilor of America, “We [all] need to extend our scope of influence. Focusing on the optical industry is like preaching to the choir. We need to have more efforts with the general population at large. The current economic downturn will cause consumers to scrimp on unnecessary items. As an industry, we need to help consumers understand having good eyecare and good vision is too important to scrimp on.”

“The economic downturn should make it even more imperative that we focus on eye health and wellness when we communicate to consumers,” stated Dave Cole, general manager of the Americas, Transitions Optical, Inc. Several years ago, Transitions launched the breakthrough “Healthy Sight” initiative, Healthy Sight Institute and propriety studies linking eyecare’s relationship to over-the-counter and Rx medications, surveys on UV awareness, multi-cultural research and other programs.

“As consumers think about where to cut corners, seeing their best should not be one of them. This is an area we should not compromise,” Cole declared. “Through the Transitions Healthy Sight Working for You initiative, for example, we have been providing education to benefits brokers and HR professionals about the value of a vision plan and the role of quality vision care and vision wear in employee productivity and overall health.

“In just a little over a year, we are certainly seeing more visibility for vision. Through our outreach to benefits media we’ve seen many more stories, for example, on the topic of vision benefits. We’ve found strong allies in the vision plans providers in promoting the wellness message. Especially as our government considers the state of today’s healthcare and reform possibilities, the vision story must be told loud and clear.”

In fact, new studies and estimates on the clear connection between eye exams and disease detection, workplace productivity and healthy lifestyles abound as the new Administration is pushing for reform overhauls. Just this month, a study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of School of Public Health, the International Centre for Eyecare Education, the University of New South Wales and the African Vision Research Institute reported that corrected vision impairment could prevent billions of dollars in lost productivity annually. Worldwide, researchers estimate, nearly 158 million people globally suffer with vision impairment resulting from uncorrected refractive error, which can usually be eliminated with a pair of eyeglasses and an eye examination.

In the U.S., VSP, the largest managed vision care benefits company, last month released a long-term, third-party study which shows that VSP helps save its clients an estimated $3 billion on healthcare costs associated with chronic diseases detectable through an eye exam. The same study demonstrated that employers can reap an estimated 94 percent return on investment on dollars spent on a VSP exam benefit.

Gary Brooks, president, VSP Vision Care, stated, “VSP has always focused on eye health and the connection to overall wellness. The VSP Eye Health Management Program focuses on the early treatment and management of both eye and related health conditions through our network of doctors. It complements our clients’ existing disease management and wellness programs by using data to ensure patients receive the care they need.”

He added, “We collect patient data in addition to diagnosis codes when a VSP doctor submits a claim. This data includes HIPAA-compliant information on VSP members who self-report or present signs of one or more of these conditions: diabetes, glaucoma, macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, hypertension, and corneal arcus. Patient-specific information submitted on claims can be shared with health plans and disease management vendors. We can also share summary disease prevalence data with employers. This helps identify patients who could benefit from disease management or wellness programs. Members identified as diabetic in VSP’s system receive a reminder letter from VSP 14 months after their last exam. This is crucial, especially when you consider that 90 percent of all diabetes-related blindness can be prevented with regular eye exams.”

Brooks added, “As the Capitol Hill healthcare reform discussion heats up, we have state professional representatives reaching out to their local peers and sharing statistics drive conversation on elevating awareness for patients and decision makers.”

Brought to you by the professionals at Benefit Logic, Inc.

Benefit Logic, Inc. is keeping you up to date on Health Care Reform and the Supreme Court (Affordable Care Act)

Philip Scott Andrews/TheNew York Times

Updated: March 28, 2012

On March 26, the Supreme Court began three days of hearings on challenges to the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the health care reform bill pushed by President Obama and passed by Congress in March 2010 over bitter Republican opposition.

It is one of the most significant cases heard by the court in decades, with implications for the presidential race as well as the future of health care coverage. The decision, due in late June, is also likely to be a major factor in shaping the legacy of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., as well as Mr. Obama, whose signature domestic initiative is on the line.

Day Three

On the third day of health care arguments, the justices shifted their attention to a question with enormous practical implications: If they strike down a key provision of the sprawling law, what other provisions would have to fall along with it?

Justice Antonin Scalia said the whole law would have to go. “My approach would be to say that if you take the heart out of this statute,” he said, “the statute’s gone.”

Other justices considered a variety of possible approaches.

The issue took on practical urgency after some of the questioning the day before had suggested that the law’s core provision, often called the individual mandate, may be in peril. It requires most Americans to obtain insurance or pay a penalty.

Last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, ruled that the mandate was unconstitutional, but it said the balance of the law survived.

The Obama administration argued for a middle ground: that if the mandate falls, two politically popular provisions must die with it — those that prohibit insurers from declining coverage or charging higher premiums because of pre-existing medical conditions. 

The challengers to the law argued that the entire act must fall along with the what one lawyer called “its heart.’’ The court appointed an outside lawyer, H. Bartow Farr III, to argue the 11th Circuit’s position, that the mandate could fall alone.

Day Two

On March 27, the second day of hearings, a lawyer for the administration faced a barrage of skeptical questions from the four of the court’s more conservative justices on the central question in the case: whether the federal government can compel individuals not engaged in commerce to buy a product, health insurance, from private companies.

“Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked the lawyer, Solicitor General Donald B. Verilli Jr., only minutes into the argument. Justice Antonin Scalia soon joined in. “May failure to purchase something subject me to regulation?” he asked. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked if the government could compel the purchase of cell phones. And Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked about forcing people to buy burial insurance.

The conventional view is that the administration will need one of those four votes to win, and it was not clear that it had captured one.

The court’s four more liberal members – Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – indicated that they supported the law, as expected. Justice Clarence Thomas, who asked no questions, is thought likely to vote to strike down the law.

The legal question for the justices was whether Congress had exceeded its constitutional authority in requiring most Americans to obtain insurance or pay a penalty.

The law’s challengers — 26 states led by Florida, the National Federation of Independent Business and several individuals — present the central question as one of individual liberty. The Obama administration urged the court to answer a different question. May Congress decide, in fashioning a comprehensive response to a national crisis in the health care market, to regulate how people pay for the health care they will almost inevitably need?

The insurance requirement, which the law calls a minimum coverage provision and which is generally referred to as the individual mandate, was thought necessary to supplement a requirement in the law that insurance companies accept all applicants without taking account of pre-existing conditions.

Day One

In the first argument, the justices considered whether they are barred from hearing the case until the first penalties come due in 2015.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., ruled in 2011 that it was powerless to decide the law’s constitutionality for now, and a prominent judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed. Their opinions relied on an 1867 federal law called the Anti-Injunction Act, which says that “no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court by any person.”

In other words, people who object to taxes must pay first and litigate later. But the first penalties do not kick in until 2014, and they must be paid on federal tax returns by April 2015. That means, the appeals court judges said, that federal courts are forbidden for now to hear challenges to the health care law.

In court, lawyers for both the Obama administration and challengers to the law took the same side on this question, arguing that the Court could hear the case now. The justices appeared receptive, suggesting that they will reject the argument made by an outside lawyer that it is too soon to rule.