Tomorrow marks an important day for millions of Americans: the beginning of the open enrollment period for the Federal Marketplace. Thanks to the last open enrollment period, millions of Americans who were previously uninsured now have insurance, and this open enrollment period has the potential to help millions more gain insurance. Last week, I wrote about the ways in which congregations and individuals can take action in order to make the open enrollment period a success.  Now, with open enrollment less than 24 hours away, here are some resources about health insurance and the marketplace:

In 12 days, the open enrollment period will begin for the federal Health Insurance Marketplace. Last year, over 8 million people enrolled in the Health Insurance Marketplace. While those 8 million people had 6 months to enroll last year in the Health Insurance Marketplace, Americans this year will only have 3 months, until February 15, to enroll. In addition, most individuals without insurance who were easy to target for enrollment already enrolled during the last open enrollment period, making it more difficult to enroll the same number of people this year. On top of that, a recent survey showed that nine in ten of the uninsured do not know that open enrollment begins on November 15 and 66% of the uninsured know little or nothing about the health insurance marketplace. These statistics illustrate the importance of educating Americans about the open enrollment period and the opportunities available to help the uninsured.

Turning on the news, it seems like all that anyone is talking about these days is the Ebola virus. From the news, to our offices, to our conversations amongst friends, we’ve been hearing every day about what symptoms to look for, how to safeguard against it, and how far it might spread. One American man has already died in Dallas, and two are in treatment in Atlanta and Bethesda. To be sure, it’s a deadly, scary disease, and our world community should be treating this outbreak with extreme caution. Amidst the fear of an outbreak in America, we’ve been hearing from some news commentators that we need to introduce a travel ban for West Africa; denying visas to anyone traveling from West Africa. This idea has made its way from media circles to popular sentiment, as now two-thirds of Americans support denying entry to people traveling from the affected countries. Given this popularity, the travel ban has now become an easy way for politicians to score points with voters. Both the Republican and Democratic Senate candidates in the hotly-contested races of North Carolina and New Hampshire now favor a travel ban as a way of preventing contact between West Africa to America.

Last year, Angelina Jolie made national news after revealing that she had undergone a preventive double mastectomy because she had a BRCA1 gene mutation which dramatically increased her risk of developing breast and ovarian cancers. Last week, Myriad Genetics, Inc., a company well known for its breakthrough research showing the connection between BRCA gene mutations and an increased risk for breast and ovarian cancer, was at the Federal Circuit defending some of its patents related to the BRCA genes. BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes produce proteins which suppress tumors, and consequently people with BRCA mutations are at a greater risk for certain cancers. This case is especially important to Ashkenazi Jews because Jews of Ashkenazi descent are more likely to have harmful BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations than the general public.

Ebola is not the only important health-related news from Texas this week. Thursday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that all but seven facilities that provide abortion services must close immediately, leaving 900,000 women more than 150 miles from the

In the battle over the efficacy of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, numbers are key for measuring the successes and failures of health care reform. From the number of Americans with insurance to the to the average cost of health care a year, these numbers will be used by both supporters and opponents of recent health care reforms to both praise and criticize the impact of Obamacare.  This month the Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released important statistics that both paint a picture of health care enrollment in the United States and serve as a baseline for judging the impact of the Affordable Care Act in the years to come.  While the increase in insurance coverage is a positive sign, the racial disparities illustrated by these statistics offer an important reason as to why we must fight to expand coverage and accessibility for all.

Jewish tradition teaches us that our bodies and the preservation of our health is above all the most cherished value.   God bestowed onto us the opportunity for life and prosperity and we have to obligation to treat our bodies with the utmost care and respect.  We see this value reflected in the current U.S healthcare system.

By The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research Do you know anyone who has Parkinson’s disease (PD)? It’s likely – the neurodegenerative disease affects one in 100 people over the age of 60, and more than 5 million people worldwide. Today, medicines exist to alleviate motor symptoms of the disease, but currently there are no treatments that can slow or stop its progression.