Bluebikes is offering a $50 credit to riders for National Bike Month. Here's how you can claim it.
The credit applies to both pedal and e-bike trips at more than 500 Bluebikes stations across 13 municipalities — Arlington, Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Medford, Newton, Revere, Salem, Somerville, and Watertown — according to Blue Cross.
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Bluebikes currently has more than 5,300 pedal and e-bikes in the system.
'We're proud to offer our largest-ever Bluebikes credit during National Bike Month — and Mental Health Awareness Month — to help even more people discover the joy and benefits of cycling,' said Jeff Bellows, vice president of corporate citizenship and public affairs at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.
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Time Magazine
08-08-2025
- Time Magazine
The Connection Between Spirituality and Mental Health
Today, there are between 10,000 and 20,000 mental health apps. In the U.S. alone, there are 1.2 million mental health providers. And Mental Health Awareness Month began 75 years ago. It's safe to say we've never been more aware of mental health. And yet, some fear that as awareness of mental health has gone up, the state of our mental health has gone down. A 2023 study found that one out of every two people in the world will develop a mental health disorder in their lifetime. The situation with young people is even worse. 'The youth mental health crisis is very real,' Dr. Harold Koplewicz, founding President and Medical Director of the Child Mind Institute, tells me. 'The most common disorders of childhood and adolescence are not infectious diseases but mental health disorders. Every 30 seconds a child or adolescent with suicidal ideation or an attempt comes to an ER.' There are many reasons why these are particularly challenging times: Natural disasters are intensifying, chronic diseases continue to climb, and AI is driving fear and anxiety about all aspects of life. People are afraid they will lose their jobs to AI, that their kids will be negatively impacted by AI, and that AI's constantly accelerating development will evolve beyond human control. But beyond the circumstances of the times we're living in lies a more complicated existential crisis. As the French priest and philosopher Teilhard de Chardin once said, 'we are spiritual beings having a human experience.' When we give up on the spiritual part of human nature, we also give up on a supportive framework which can help us handle the anxieties of this historic moment of disruption. Many answer this need for spirituality through organized religion, but as Columbia psychology professor Lisa Miller explains, there are many ways for people to embrace their spirituality. 'The moments of intense spiritual awareness were biologically identical whether or not they were explicitly religious, physiologically the same whether the experience occurred in a house of worship or on a forest hike in the 'cathedral of nature,'' she writes. 'Every single one of us has a spiritual part of the brain that we can engage anywhere, at any time.' The exact practices we engage in that lead to spiritual states of mystery, awe, grace, and wonder doesn't matter. What does matter is that we don't amputate them from our lives. The famed psychologist Abraham Maslow placed self-actualization at the top of his hierarchy of needs—above physiological needs, safety, and belonging. But in the last years of his life, he realized that self-actualization did not fully encompass what it means to be human and added 'transcendence' to the top of the pyramid. As Maslow put it, 'The spiritual life is part of the human essence. It is a defining characteristic of human nature, without which human nature is not fully human.' It's this drive for spirituality that takes us beyond self-centeredness and allows us to resist despair and meaninglessness. This ability to find meaning in our struggles has helped humans navigate times of stress, turmoil, and crisis throughout history—and it is now validated by the latest science. 'When it comes to finding ways to help people deal with issues surrounding birth and death, morality and meaning, grief and loss, it would be strange if thousands of years of religious thought didn't have something to offer,' writes David DeSteno, author of How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion. Spirituality can help us not just weather times of crisis but even emerge stronger than before. A 2024 study on frontline healthcare workers in Poland during the pandemic found that higher levels of spirituality were connected to positive psychological change as the result of struggling with life challenges, known as post-traumatic growth. According to Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist at Thomas Jefferson University, the focused attention which occurs during spiritual practices like meditation and prayer can increase frontal lobe function, which governs executive control, and down-regulates the limbic system, which is linked to fear and the fight-or-flight response. 'When it comes to broader aspects of health, the improvements in brain function associated with spiritual practices that lead to reduced stress and anxiety ultimately can lead to benefits in physical health as well,' Newberg says. 'The practice of religion, as opposed to its theological underpinnings, offers an impressive, time-tested array of psychological technologies that augment our biology,' writes DeSteno. 'To ignore that body of knowledge is to slow the progress of science itself and limit its potential benefit to humanity.' He describes religion first as working similar to how a a vaccine works, 'boosting the body's and the mind's resilience so that they can better confront whatever health challenges come their way.' And second, he uses the metaphor of medicine, healing the body and mind when sickness does hit. He cites a Mayo Clinic review of hundreds of studies in which a clear pattern emerged: 'people who regularly took part in religious activities were objectively healthier.' Even more evidence has been provided by Miller through her work on MRI scans. 'The high-spiritual brain was healthier and more robust than the low-spiritual brain,' she writes. 'For spiritually aware people across faith traditions, the brain appeared able to protect itself from the long-standing neurological structures of depression.' In what Miller calls our 'achieving awareness,' we're focused on organizing our lives, thinking about what we want and how to get it. This is how we build careers and get things done. But a life solely defined by achieving is an unballenced life. In our spiritual or 'awakened awareness,' our perception expands. We see ourselves not just as individual achievers but as connected to others. We seek and experience meaning and purpose. This is really the distinction between Maslow's self-actualization and self-transcendence. In today's culture, many see therapy as the only answer to the mental and emotional struggles of modern life. As psychiatrist Dr. Samantha Boardman writes: 'I am not anti-therapy. I am anti-therapy culture. I believe therapy works best when it is targeted and purposeful.' She is echoed by Dr. Richard Friedman, a psychiatrist at Weill Cornell Medicine, who wrote that 'excessive self-focus… can increase your anxiety, especially when it substitutes for tangible actions.' Excessive self-focus is exactly the sort of thing that can be mitigated in spiritual experiences connecting to something larger than ourselves. The everyday behaviors Boardman cites that improve our mental well-being include practicing spirituality, spending time in nature, volunteering, and helping others. A spiritual element, and an emphasis on helping others, have proven essential to the success of Alcoholics Anonymous. In co-founder Bill Wilson's book, Alcoholics Anonymous, published in 1939, he wrote that 'deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there.' Today, many people are hungry for a sense of spirituality. While religious affiliation has been dropping for decades, the spiritual impulse hasn't. A recent U.S. Gallup poll found that 82% consider themselves religious, spiritual, or both. People have had valid reasons for leaving organized religion, but when we reject our innate predisposition for spirituality along with that, we deny ourselves the full, expansive possibilities of our humanity—as well as the tools to navigate the labyrinths of our lives.
USA Today
30-07-2025
- USA Today
Is your private health insurance actually Medicaid? Name changes confuse public
You might have a decent idea of which state provides your health insurance coverage if you signed up for MaineCare or Medi-Cal. But what if you enrolled in a plan under Healthy Connections? That's what South Carolina calls its Medicaid program. Medicaid is a federal-state health insurance program for low-income families that provides health insurance to more than 1 in 5 Americans. President Donald Trump's tax cut and spending legislation will trim more than $900 billion in federal spending on Medicaid over the next decade. The law will leave 10 million Americans uninsured over the next decade, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Despite widespread media coverage of the law, which Trump dubbed the "Big Beautiful Bill," health advocates say millions of consumers who might be affected by Medicaid and Affordable Care Act cuts likely aren't aware of the scope of changes, which will be phased in over several years. In fact, many might not be aware they are on Medicaid, experts said. "Sometimes people who are on Medicaid don't even realize it's Medicaid because it has different names in different states," said Arika Sanchez, health care director at New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty. New Mexico's Medicaid program insures 34% of the state's population − the nation's highest proportion of residents covered by the public health insurance program, according to a February 2025 report by the health policy nonprofit KFF. New Mexico has tapped four private insurance companies to administer Medicaid coverage under a program the state calls Turquoise Care. It's one of 42 states that rely on private companies − called managed care − to administer one or more categories of Medicaid coverage, according to KFF. Sanchez said consumers might be confused because "when they look at their insurance card in New Mexico, it will say Turquoise Care, not necessarily Medicaid." Further complicating matters is consumers often get Medicaid coverage even though private insurers manage their benefits. Consumers might think they have a private-sector insurer when they are enrolled in a Medicaid plan administered by well-known insurance companies such as Blue Cross Blue Shield or UnitedHealthcare. The four Medicaid plans under Turquoise Care include Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Mexico, Molina Healthcare of New Mexico, Presbyterian Health Plan and UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of New Mexico. Some states have rebranded their programs so the name Medicaid doesn't appear on insurance cards or communications. Arizona calls its program the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, or AHCCCS, which is pronounced "access." California's Medicaid program is Medi-Cal. Decision-makers often seek to identify names that are unique to their states, said Jennifer Tolbert, deputy director of the program on Medicaid and the uninsured for KFF. Some states turn to university mascots or nicknames when branding their Medicaid programs. Oklahoma's program is Sooner Care. Wisconsin offers BadgerCare. Washington state dubs its Medicaid program Apple Health. Stigma, politics motivate Medicaid rebranding Many states rename Medicaid plans to avoid the stigma people might associate with a government-provided health program. The idea is to make it seem coverage isn't much different than what consumers would get through an employer-provided insurance plan, said Joshua McCrain, a University of Utah political science professor who co-authored the study. For example, In 2024, researchers from Harvard, University of Utah and the insurance company Humana surveyed perceptions of more than 5,800 consumers who were asked about Medicaid names. When programs replaced Medicaid with a state-specific name, consumers were more likely to conclude they hadn't heard enough to say how they felt about the program. The researchers said in the study that rebranding Medicaid with state-specific program names may "muddle understanding of the program as a government-provided benefit." McCrain said some states also likely rebrand Medicaid plans for political purposes. Former President Barack Obama's signature 2010 health-care law, the Affordable Care Act, gave states the option to expand Medicaid for low-income adults. All but 10 states have expanded Medicaid, but some Republican-led states did so on their own terms. Under former Republican Gov. Mike Pence, Indiana called its Medicaid expansion the Healthy Indiana Plan, which required enrollees pay monthly premiums and manage health savings accounts. The former vice president during Trump's first term said it emphasized personal responsibility. Several states followed Indiana by filing waivers with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that sought to implement work requirements for low-income, nondisabled adults who sought Medicaid coverage. The Biden administration blocked such waivers during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the work-or-volunteer mandate for Medicaid coverage is a pillar of Trump's tax cut and spending legislation. Georgia, the only state currently with a Medicaid work requirement, grants low-income adults a chance at Medicaid under its Pathways to Coverage program. The program extends coverage to low-income, non-disabled adults who work at least 80 hours a month or qualify for exemptions such as being full-time students or volunteers. McCrain, however, said it's unclear whether renaming Medicaid makes a difference in public perception. When people learn Medicaid provides health care access to low-income Americans, they generally support the program, he said. But some political leaders, especially Republicans in conservative states, might find it useful to rebrand Medicaid when seeking to pass legislation. "It could be the case, that (name change) had to be done in that political moment to get it passed," McCrain said.
Associated Press
24-07-2025
- Associated Press
Discover Health Group Expands Insurance Network to Improve Access to Addiction Treatment Services
New partnerships with major insurers make comprehensive care more accessible and affordable for patients in New Hampshire. Nashua, New Hampshire--(Newsfile Corp. - July 24, 2025) - Discover Health Group, a trusted rehab center serving New Hampshire, announced significant expansions to its insurance network that will dramatically increase access to care for individuals seeking substance abuse treatment. The organization has established new in-network partnerships with Carelon, Blue Cross Blue Shield, WellSense, and Uprise Health with additional coverage through Point32Health beginning August 1, 2025. 'We're thrilled to expand our network partnerships because we know that insurance coverage can be a significant barrier to accessing the addiction treatment services people desperately need,' said Greg Moulton, Founder and Managing Partner at Discover Health Group. 'These new relationships align perfectly with our mission - ensuring that well-being and recovery are accessible to as many people as possible.' The expanded network partnerships represent a major step forward in Discover Health Group's commitment to removing financial barriers to addiction treatment. The organization already accepts most major insurance plans and offers flexible, affordable self-pay options to accommodate different financial situations. Key Network Expansion Details: 'Addiction doesn't discriminate based on insurance status or financial means, and neither should access to quality treatment,' added Greg Moulton. 'These partnerships ensure that more individuals and families can focus on recovery rather than worrying about the cost of care.' For patients currently covered by these insurance plans, the transition to in-network status means reduced out-of-pocket costs and simplified billing processes. Prospective patients are encouraged to verify their specific coverage details and benefits. About Discover Health Group Discover Health Group is a trusted rehab center in Nashua, New Hampshire, offering expert treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. Licensed by the State of NH DHHS, the facility also holds prestigious Joint Commission (JCAHO) accreditation. Services include substance abuse recovery, relapse prevention, behavioral therapy, and care for co-occurring disorders like depression, anxiety, and PTSD, utilizing methods such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and holistic options like mindfulness meditation and art therapy. Discover Health Group offers specialized Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) for Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) and Substance Use Disorder (SUD), using FDA-approved medications like Suboxone, Vivitrol, etc. With in-network contracts such as Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS), they ensure accessible, affordable care across New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont. A professional team guides your journey to a healthier, substance-free life. For more information about Discover Health Group's services or to verify insurance coverage, visit website or call (603) 316-6148. Contact Details: Greg Moulton Mail: [email protected] Phone: (603) 316-6148 To view the source version of this press release, please visit
