July, 2009 archive
Going to the Doctor 0
Read the rest at the link.
I am writing you today because I am outraged at the notion of involving government in healthcare decisions like they do in other countries. I believe healthcare decisions should be between myself and my doctor.
Well, that is not strictly true. I believe healthcare decisions should be between myself, my doctor, and my insurance company, which provides me a list of which doctors I can see, which specialists I can see, and has a strict policy outlining when I can and can’t see those specialists, for what symptoms, and what tests my doctors can or cannot perform for a given set of symptoms. That seems fair, because the insurance company needs to make a profit; they’re not in the business of just keeping people alive for free.
Oh, and also my employer. My employer decides what health insurance company and plans will be available to me in the first place. If I quit that job and find another, my heath insurance will be different, and I may or may not be able to see the same doctor as I had been seeing before, or receive the same treatments, or obtain the same medicines. So I believe my healthcare decisions should be between myself, the company I work for, my insurance company, and my doctor. Assuming I’m employed, which is a tough go in the current economy.
Hmm, but that’s still a little simplistic. I suppose we should clarify.
I also believe my healthcare should depend on the form I fill out when I apply for that health insurance, which stipulates that any medical problems I ever had previously in my life won’t be covered by that insurance, and so I am not allowed to seek further care for them, at least not at my insurance company’s expense. That seems fair; otherwise my insurance company might be cheated by me knowing I needed healthcare for something in advance.
Dragnet 0
All joking aside, if someone tried to get me busted for attempting to enter my own house, I might be a little non-plussed.
Being non-plussed is not and should not be a crime.
When a cop finds out no crime is being committed, he or she should just leave. Not make one up.
Via BartBlog.
The Profit of Denying Health Care 0
Health Insurance CEO compensation in 2008 would pay for a lot of doctor visits.
Any wonder they don’t want change?
- 1. Ron Williams, Aetna: $24,300,112
2. H. Edward Hanway, CIGNA: $12,236,740
3. Angela Braly, WellPoint: $9,844,212
4. Dale Wolf, Coventry Health Care: $9,047,469
5. Michael Neidorff, Centene: $8,774,483
6. James Carlson, AMERIGROUP: $5,292,546
7. Michael McCallister, Humana: $4,764,309
8. Jay Gellert, Health Net: $4,425,355
9. Richard Barasch, Universal American: $3,503,702
10. Stephen Hemsley, UnitedHealth Group: $3,241,042
Total: $85,429,970
At my doctor’s full rate for an office visit ($87), that’s just shy of 1,000,000 visits.
And that’s only the top dogs.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Not.
Some persons don’t pass the “stupid” test for gun ownership.
In South Carolina, a four-year-old boy was shot in the stomach by his three-year-old brother after the little boy found a gun.
Guns are nasty, smelly, dangerous things that should be treated with respect. There is an irony in that many of those who seem to want them the most respect them the least.
Yellow Card for “Wealth Creation” 0
As I have discussed before, a basic tenet of Wall Street in recent years has been borrowing your way to wealth.
It is not called “borrowing,” natch, it’s called “leverage.”
Buy something.
Borrow against it.
Buy something else.
Borrow against it.
And so on, until you “own” lots of stuff.
This works just fine as long as you can keep borrowing. The thing is, it doesn’t “create” anything, except the appearance of money as it flies by from one debt to another. It looks like wealth because, as the money flies by from debt to bigger debt to even bigger debt, the amount of flying money gets larger. But nothing is being created.
This works fine until you can’t borrow any more. Then it all goes, you will pardon the epression, “crash.”
Well, the Brits didn’t particularly like it when Americans used that practice to ruin the finances of the Liverpool football club:
Liverpudlians turned on the men for breaking what supporters saw as a promise not to put the 117-year-old soccer team in hock. They complained the pair borrowed so much that interest payments ate up the cash needed to restore “the Reds” to glory. The owners have been negotiating with Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Wachovia Corp. to renew a 350.5 million- pound ($578 million) credit line before it expires today.
The concept of “leverage” is a fancy word for legal Ponzi scheme.
Dustbiters 0
Today’s question: Are there any banks left in Georgia?
- Security Bank of Jones County, Gray, Georgia
Security Bank of Houston County, Perry, Georgia
Security Bank of Bibb County, Macon, Georgia
Security Bank of North Metro, Woodstock, Georgia
Security Bank of North Fulton, Alpharetta, Georgia
That was a trick question, of course. All those “Security Banks” were tendrils of the same vine.
Just for grins and giggles, here is Security Bank’s new website.
Stray Question 0
Why do persons drive to a park in air conditioned cars to go running in the sun?
Brendan Makes a Phone Call 0
Details here.
Everybody Must Get Stoned 0
It will curl your toes:
Police say the thieves probably thought they were taking a lorry full of alcohol from a secure car park at an ice rink.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Bushonomics: The Hangover continues:
The Labor Department said first-time claims for unemployment insurance benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 554,000 in the week ended July 18, after a revised 524,000 in the preceding week.
They Just Can’t Help It 0
It’s bigger than any one of them: The racist innards of the right-wing keep spilling out.
See more examples here.
What amazes me is that, when they get caught out, they really don’t see why what they’ve done is offensive.
Birthfright 0
John Stewart shreds the Birthers:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Born Identity | ||||
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Oh Noes 2
Never been to France (though I have a good friend who loves the country and the people).
Now I might never go.
Have Cake. Eat It Too 0
Dick Polman analyzes Republican principles. A nugget:
Actually, the party is quite flexible about its limited-government philosophy. I seem to recall that it championed federal overreach quite vigorously just four years ago, when the Republican Congress decided to control the fate of Terry Schiavo, taking the case away from a local Florida judge (a southern Baptist and Republican) who had already ruled that Schiavo should be allowed to die in accordance with state law and previous state rulings, not to mention the wishes of Terry’s husband. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay insisted that Washington knew what was best for Terry, regardless of state law; as DeLay famously put it, “I don’t care what her husband says.”
(snip)
The Republicans may be philosophically fraudulent, but I’ll give them points for political gamesmanship. Who cares about principles when there’s a big chance to score fresh points in the culture war?
Read the whole thing. The examples are whelming, if not overwhelming.
Legacies 0
I have often thought that, were it not for the Iranian hostage-taking, Jimmy Carter’s presidency would be remembered far more kindly than it is. And that event had little to do with him directly.
And, yes, I was working on North Capital Street four blocks from the Capital Building at the time and saw the parade when the hostages came home.
Indeed, I have read numerous articles looking back on that event; the Iranian students who participated in the hostage taking have consistently stated that they might have taken over either the Russian or the American embassy.
CC considers Jimmy Carter from his take across the St. Lawrence River:
In an act more courageous than anything conceived in the poisonous heart of a Reagan or a Bush, Carter has actually chosen to live by his principles and by his faith. He isn’t a church whore , bending his knee for appearances, power and votes. He remains a man of conscience and commitment. Last week, while Washington’s “Christians” were shedding crocodile tears over their latest round of infidelities, lies and graft and angling for the ways and means to continue their wretched grasping for power, Mr Carter left them in his wake. Jimmy Carter, a true American hero, walked away from the corruption of the message in the book he lives by. Jimmy Carter left the Southern Baptist Convention and in a stirring essay in Australia’s The Age took a stand for the rights and future of women in the face of persecution and dehumanization as wrought by the world’s major religions.
As I said earlier in these electrons, I didn’t leave the Southern Baptist Convention. It left me.
Unscientific Sample 0
In my frequent trips back and forth to Virgina (about every two to three weeks this spring and summer), it seems to me that the volume of through traffic between Philadelphia and points north and Virginia Beach and points south is substantially less than it was even last summer, when gasoline prices were out the roof.
Gun Nuttery 0
While beating feet down the road, I listened to this show about the F-22 fighter program on my podplayer.
The representative from the Heritage Foundation, natch, favored buying more of these jets that the Secretary of Defense says are the wrong weapons, at the wrong time, for the wrong price (follow the link to the show to hear the arguments hashed through).
If I may summarize her argument, it boiled down to this:
Guns are good. More guns are better. More new guns are better still. Having the biggest, baddest, most expensive gun on the block is, in fact, the cat’s meow, even if you are never going to need it.
Guns guns guns guns guns guns guns GUNS! Better than health care! GUNS!!!
