How many of you travel? Ok – I don’t mean for vacation, which is nice, but on a regular basis and I mean full on, in and out of airports, hotels, and rental cars at least once a week. It can sometimes be taxing to you and to your wallet when it comes to the preparation that is needed, especially after 9-11. Preparation requires travel size everything and quart size zip lock bags (if you want some advice let me know).

Airports have sort of loosed up slightly from the 3 oz. thing, not much, but a little. Either way it’s hard to decide on what you need in travel size and what you can buy economy size and get some of those cool refillable squeeze bottles. I personally like the reusable squeeze bottles, but that sometimes gets a little messy so you have to double zip lock in case you spring a leak.



The bottom line is, you have to decide what is “affordable” to you and your budget as you start traveling more and more. Then my mind asks, what is the definition of affordable? I’ve always thought it meant, if you have the money to spend, then it’s affordable, right? Not so. You have to break the word down to its root “afford” which means – to be able to do, manage, or bear without serious consequence or adverse effect (dictionary.com).

As we move closer to the date of January 1, 2014 and the beginning of affordable healthcare for all, the question remains – what is affordable? One size doesn’t fit all. You may want to go the state or federal or even private exchange that is going to be set up sometime in the future, more of the economy size. Or you may want to tailor your own benefits and decide what you can afford or bear based on your income. Sort of the pick and choose from the travel size aisle items at the CVS or Target.

Either way I feel that most employers will be working hard to provide the affordable options for their employees and it will be up to us to decide what we can “afford”.



As employees, do you understand the upcoming Affordable Care Act and what it means for you? If not – there a lot of resources available to look through and read. Check out some of the links below and I encourage you to pass this along to other employee groups and find out if they understand what’s in it for them.

But now the big question is – how long can you make 3 oz. last?

Search on Affordable Care Act on these sites:

IRS.GOV

HEALTHCARE.GOV

REGULATIONS.GOV

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