After four days visiting the genetic envelope in Tucson and soaking up hot sunny days in the desert, I have returned to the GreyNorWet. This evening I have just completed a brisk walk to the beach during which it hailed, sleeted and then rained incessantly. No, I do not love this. I know that Oscar Wilde famously said that "Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative" but look what happened to him. He died in the month of November in a city renowned for its crappy winter weather.
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.
I know that there are positive things about the GNW. Yes there were otters on the beach. No they were not seals, I know the difference. Yes the evening light peaking out under the clouds over Puget Sound is lovely as it illuminates the sleet knifing sideways into my eyes. Groovy, that.
Well, the weather be damned. I have had days of not blogging and the rants are building up like untapped carnal desires in a novitiate. If I am on vacation and I try to blog around the TBG and/or the Envelope, they mutter and throw things at me. They tried to burn my blackberry at the stake the other day. They don't understand that the rants need to breath free, the wretched refuse of my teeming.... you get the idea.
I had thought to blog about one of the many triggering events on this trip, whether the poor scared Mexican couple miles from anywhere on a back road who needed water or the Titan II Missile Museum. Instead I am on a rant about the events at my office.
Today we had a health care meeting. Rather, we dragged in our insurance broker and the rep for the large-and-unnamed-insurance-provider-who-might-sue-me (LaUIPWMSM) so that they could explain just what in THE hell has been going on since we switched from our former LaUIPWMSM. People were not happy.
OK, here's the disclaimer: I know lots of people don't have insurance of any kind and that I should be grateful that I do. I want to say that I am grateful to my employer for continuing to provide health insurance for us even if our only two choice seem to be the LaUIPWMSM who is screwing us now as opposed to the LaUIPWMSM who was formerly screwing us. I am also full of compassion for the many of my fellow citizens that are not able to afford health insurance in this ridiculous and obscene system of predatory insurance that we have allowed to flourish in this country.
My small employer pays almost $ 1,000 per month for health and vision insurance for each of our employees and their dependents. Yes, roughly a $ 1,000 per person per month. The insurance kicks in after each person pays a $ 500 deductible. If you get really sick or hurt, you are going to pay $ 3,000 in co-insurance on top of your deductible while my company is still paying the $ 1K each month. These are obscene amounts of money. I want the bucket concession for these folks since they obviously don't have enough places to store all of their loot.
Co-pays, like co-insurance, are the sort of thing that gives the prefix "co" a bad name. Here's a spot of joy: the co-pay is waived on preventative care. Unless the practitioner finds something wrong, then it ain't preventive anymore. If you go in for a mammogram, and are careful to have the physician correctly "code" it as preventative, then there is no co-pay. That is, unless you mention anything else when the Doc questions you about your general health and then its an office visit and ca-ching, co-pay time. Colon check? Yes, its preventative right up until they find that polyp. "Preventative" is the Cheshire Cat of the insurance game, now you see its smile, now you don't.
Take a prescription drug? I don't, but if you believe the ads aired or plaster on everything, everyone needs to if they want happiness, sleep or an erection. The LaUIPWMSM charges a low co-pay (sick of the "co" yet?) for generic prescriptions, a much higher co-pay for "Formulary Brands" and a co-pay that is over seven times that for the generic for what are called "Non-Formulary Brands". Even after serious questioning the rep would not or could not answer the question of who chooses what is "Formulary" except that it was their board of "medical experts". If I had to bet on it, I would be wagering that the pharmaceutical rep with the best golf resort junkets for the "medical experts" was getting "Formulary" tacked on to the name brands that he or she represents.
Are you a healthy person, exercise regularly, watch your diet and not taking any prescription drugs? Well are you going to feel left out of the hit parade because the nice insurance folks are taking ALL of your money or your employers money and you are getting nothing. The stick, of the carrot and stick, is the very real possibility of being homeless if you or a family member are unlucky enough to suffer a catastrophic illness or injury. Actually, there is no carrot and stick. There is only the stick of homelessness. The insurance folks kept all the carrots for themselves. Maybe there are feeding them to the test rabbits.
Let me just say that calling these pirates health care "providers" is as silly as the Kniggets of the Round Table being taunted a second time. These are health care denyers. Health care repellers. What they really are is sleight of hand artists involved in an amazing game of three card monte. Guess who the marks are?
Best health care system in the world? Puh-lease. Oh, and when asked who the culprits really were, the answers were the Doctors and health care reform. Well, we all knew that the Doctors are actually an evil cabal bent on world domination through ugly golf clothes. As for health care reform, who wouldn't hate an effort, even a watered-down, pissed on and distorted effort such as our polarized political system belched out, if it even dreamed of tampering with a perfect health care system such as the one we have.
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