Buzz builds at word of a British royals' CA visit

Family fun: Bring your tiniest chef to a cooking class at Playtown Cafe in Boca

Venue Listing: Directions, invite a friend, see more upcoming events at Playtown Cafe Do you have a tiny chef at home? If you do check out the Lil Chef Skill 101 & Dinner Party at Playtown Café in Boca Raton. Your budding chef will learn kitchen safety and knife skills. Along with cooking skills, kids [...]

Source: http://www.pbpulse.com/dining/2011/05/02/family-fun-bring-your-tinest-chef-for-a-cooking-class-at-playtown-cafe-in-boca/

Jill Duggan Palm Beach Jill Duggan Palm Beach Florida Jill Duggan Florida Jill Duggan Palm Beach Woman Jill Duggan Palm Beach Woman Magazine

EXCLUSIVE: Tiger Woods? Privacy for sale!

Troubled Jupiter Island golfer Tiger Woods is putting his mega yacht Privacy up for sale, Page2Live has learned.

Privacy

Privacy

Woods

Woods

A Woods camp insider is telling me the golfer originally offered the 155-foot Christensen ship to ex-wife Elin Nordegren as his wedding present in 2004.

But Nordegren turned down the yacht during divorce-settlement talks with philandering Woods last summer.

“She didn’t want it because the upkeep is incredibly expensive,” the source said.

With a permanent crew of 13, Privacy costs more than $2 million a year to maintain.

Click here to see where Tiger lives when he’s on land

Woods had the vessel sailed south to Fort Lauderdale in the fall. It was dry-docked in a yard for two months to paint the hull and re-surface the deck.

Privacy is now back at its home-port in North Palm Beach’s Old Port Cove, and Woods is shopping for a broker to list it for $25 million.

For more, look below or click

Privacy

Privacy, at Old Port Cove

While Woods bought the ship for $20 million, he believes it appreciated in value because it’s been well taken care of.

But Palm Beach Gardens mega-yacht builder John Staluppi doubts the former world’s best player will get the asking price.

“The market on big yachts has gone down,” said Staluppi, who’s currently building a 200-footer. “Banks aren’t financing and the economy is off. It’s a buyer’s market.

“Unless he sells to someone who wants to brag that he’s got Tiger’s yacht, he’ll get about $20 million.”

So, why’s the golfer unloading his toy?

For one thing, he still has a brand-new 62-foot yacht, Solitude.

And he’s got only four years left to make good on his deal to pay Nordegren $100 million!

Source: http://www.page2live.com/2011/03/29/exclusive-tiger-woods-privacy-up-for-sale/

Jill Duggan Jill Duggan Palm Beach Jill Duggan Palm Beach Florida Jill Duggan Florida Jill Duggan Palm Beach Woman

Greyhound has lump that?s growing

Question: I adopted “Mama” three years ago from Elite Greyhounds. She IS my life. Almost a year ago, we noticed a lump on her left neck. I brought her to the vet. He biopsied it, said it was OK. The lump now is quite large, and he said she was too old (13 now) to operate. It does not seem to bother her; she eats and poops very well.

She is losing some weight from vet visits, other than that, she’s “my baby,” and I’m so lucky to have found her. PetSmart advised to start giving her vitamins to help boost her system. They are GNC Mega Multivitamin Chewable tablets for senior dogs. Is this OK? — Jane

Answer: What a great adoption you made. Greyhounds make wonderful pets and you have had your dog for 10 years now! Good for you.

Do you know what type of biopsy was performed on the mass on Mama?s left neck? There are two types of biopsies. One is called a fine-needle biopsy. When this procedure is performed, a needle is inserted into a mass and some cells are removed. The cells are ejected onto a glass slide and sent for evaluation. This biopsy is non-invasive and does not require anesthesia. There is no incision and there are no sutures needed. With this procedure, though, it can be difficult to get a large sample of cells. Sometimes the cells obtained do not represent what is actually present in the mass. There is a 15 percent chance of getting a false negative result with this procedure.

The second type of biopsy procedure is called an excisional or incisional biopsy. This is when a piece of tissue is removed and sent to a pathologist. Surgery is required and some type of sedation is usually performed. There are sutures used. This is more invasive than the fine-needle procedure, but is less likely to obtain a false negative result. The other benefit of this procedure is if there is cancer present, the cancer can be graded and a more exact diagnosis given.

Since the mass on Mama?s neck is growing, ask your veterinarian which type of biopsy was performed. If a fine-needle biopsy was performed, then either an excisional or incisional biopsy could be performed to obtain a more specific diagnosis. If this has already been done, and a negative cancer result obtained, then we will need to decide if it will need to be removed at some point so that Mama does not become uncomfortable as a result of the large mass.

In answer to your final question regarding vitamins, if Mama is eating a well-balanced diet, she probably does not need further supplementation. A geriatric canine vitamin will not harm her in any way, though, and can safely be administered to almost all dogs. Check with your primary care veterinarian first.

Dr. Correa

Dr. Correa

Stephanie Correa, DVM
Board Certified in Oncology
Animal Cancer Care Clinic
www.AnimalCancerCareClinic.com
Read more articles by Dr. Correa | Ask her a question

Source: http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/pawshere/2011/04/05/greyhound-has-lump-thats-growing/

Jill Duggan Palm Beach Jill Duggan Palm Beach Florida Jill Duggan Florida Jill Duggan Palm Beach Woman Jill Duggan Palm Beach Woman Magazine

America gets around to booting Casey from ?Idol? like they wanted

Remember those “Final Destination” movies where some hot teens almost died in a horrible plane crash but narrowly cheated Death? And Death was like “Dude, that’s not gonna work for me?” and came back and killed them all anyway? I was reminded of that situation last night when Casey Abrams, who narrowly avoided being booted [...]

Source: http://www.pbpulse.com/music/2011/04/29/america-gets-around-to-booting-casey-from-idol-like-they-wanted/

Jill Duggan Florida Jill Duggan Palm Beach Woman Jill Duggan Palm Beach Woman Magazine Jill Duggan Jill Duggan Palm Beach

Settlers use tourism to draw Israelis to West Bank

Perched atop a West Bank hill, the Binyamin region visitors center invites travelers to look past the military jeeps patrolling the surrounding area and enjoy nature, archaeological sites and bucolic vineyards.

Source: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/accent/travel/settlers-use-tourism-to-draw-israelis-to-west-1458317.html?cxtype=rss_travel_5228

Jill Duggan Palm Beach Woman Jill Duggan Palm Beach Woman Magazine Jill Duggan Jill Duggan Palm Beach Jill Duggan Palm Beach Florida

?American Idol? eliminates another finalist

Casey Abrams was given the heave-ho on “American Idol.” The eccentric 20-year-old musician-singer of Idyllwild, Calif., received the fewest viewer votes on the Fox talent contest Thursday after his jazzy interpretation of “Hi-De-Ho” on Wednesday’s evening of Carole King tunes. Abrams was previously rescued by the show’s judges with their one-time-only power, but there was [...]

Source: http://www.pbpulse.com/tv/american-idol/2011/04/29/american-idol-eliminates-another-finalist/

Jill Duggan Palm Beach Woman Magazine Jill Duggan

FAU's Rob Housler could be second Owls player taken in NFL Draft

Is Medicare?s price-setting power the cause of high health costs?

Will there be a health safety net when they're ready to retire? /PB Post

Will there be a health safety net when they're ready to retire? /PB Post

It?s easy for economists and pundits to agree on the core problem of health care today: a lack of access, created by the ever-escalating cost of care.

But what?s to blame for high health care costs, and how can they be brought down without destroying the fabric of the nation?s health safety net?

This is what divides us.

Liberal economists like Paul Krugman have argued persuasively that if the private insurance system were to be asked to provide the benefits that Medicare now provides, costs would go up dramatically. In this essay for the New York Review of Books he quotes an Urban Institute study that found costs per Medicare beneficiary in poor health would rise to nearly $15,000 per person if that person were privately insured.

Conservative economists like the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon, however, place the blame squarely on the Medicare program itself, and its role in artificially setting prices:

A government advisory panel of doctors with a vested interest in higher reimbursement rates recommends what Medicare pays hospitals and doctors.
Its recommendations are followed 90 percent of the time.

Those rates are then used by the rest of the private market as the benchmark by which they set their own rates.
(See an outstanding Wall Street Journal article on how the price-setting system works. It ran Oct. 26, 2010)

There?s new evidence to back Cannon’s argument about the powerful role Medicare?s price-setting has on health costs overall.

The Ann Arbor-based Altarum Institute reported Wednesday that overall health cost growth has slowed to a rate not seen in a decade in the past few months:

?Health care prices in March 2011 were 1.9 percent higher than in March 2010 ? the third consecutive month of less than 2 percent growth. ?
Altarum?s latest ?Health Sector Economic Indicators? report shows that prices for hospitals grew by only 1.4 percent in March, while physician prices increased by only 1.6 percent. These two sectors were large enough to offset the 4.0 percent growth in prices for prescription drugs and hold overall growth below 2 percent?.

Pressed on what?s behind the decrease, Thomas Walke, PhD, the deputy director of the Altarum Institute?s Center for Studying Health Spending, pointed to recent cuts to doctors and hospitals? Medicare reimbursements:

? The Medicare inpatient rates paid to hospitals, established through the FY 2011 Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS), are anticipated to reduce acute care hospital payments by 0.4 percent, based on calculations from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
? CMS implemented a zero percent update to the 2011 Medicare physician fee schedule, the system that sets Medicare payment rates for physicians.

Clearly, the data shows the power that Medicare rates have over the health marketplace overall.

But cutting doctor pay and hospital charges alone isn?t going to solve the nation?s deficit problem.

Not with Baby Boomers hitting 65, medical technology offering life-prolonging options that weren’t envisioned when Medicare was created, and many beneficiaries seeing care without thinking about costs.

So what will change the paradigm? Vouchers? More on that tough medicine in my next installment.

Source: http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/on-call/2011/04/29/medicares-price-setting-power-behind-high-health-costs/

Jill Duggan Florida Jill Duggan Palm Beach Woman Jill Duggan Palm Beach Woman Magazine Jill Duggan Jill Duggan Palm Beach