So, how is Obamacare working for you? The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is Orwellian in title, and it is anything but affordable so far for anyone who doesn't get pushed on to Medicaid. A lot of us have been told that we will lose our medical insurance at the end of the year. Mercifully, mine has been extended until 2015 with a substantial premium increase.
Having several preexisting conditions, under ACA my monthly premiums would go up from $400 a month to $2000 a month if my insurer didn't decide to keep me on another year. My insurance agent is not optimistic. He reckons it might be as high as $3500 a month come 2015. This is not sustainable for the average person. Most of us who have preexisting conditions and although not disabled, can't afford to pay $42K a year. With any luck ObamaCare will implode under its own weight over the next year, and relieve is from this socialist state rum monstrosity. I'm not betting on that.
I am seriously considering moving out of the country so I can still get pay as you go health care in places like Thailand, Taiwan, and Singapore. My chemo infusions cost about $4000 a treatment in the US, much cheaper abroad, and I only need them bi-monthly. It is cheaper for me to live in a home I've already purchased in Asia and buy a round trip ticket to places like Singapore or Thailand than to pay the Obamacare premium.
It is indeed sad than Obamacare is driving people offshore because the ACA is anything but affordable. And until this gets repealed or fixed, which I am doubtful it can be, people with preexisting conditions, to paraphrase President Obama, should just take a pill.
I may take the ultimate opt-out, but what happens in 2014 will help me make a decision. Oh by the way the website debacle is the tip of the iceberg. It gets far worse from there.
As Nancy Pelosi said when this passed: "This is our gift to the American people". But Joe Biden said it best: "This is a big fucking deal"
Big fucking deal indeed.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Sunday, September 29, 2013
You can't fix stupid
My friend Jazz Shaw over at HotAir asked the question yesterday, how can anyone who does not live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with no connection to the outside world without even having a clue as to what Orwellian named "Affordable Healthcare Act" aka ObamaCare is about. The CNN video clip he posted is telling as to just how clueless some people are. They can tell you what Honey Boo Boo did last week but not have a clue as to what even happened up the street from them.
Well Jazz, we have plenty of these people here. A local radio program asked random people in downtown Memphis how ObamaCare is going to affect them. The answers ranged from, "I can't wait to get my free health care", "Can I get this all put on my EBT card and can I use it in a supermarket?", and "Where do I go so sign up for this? My girlfriend is about to pop a baby next week".
The bottom line is you can't fix stupid, as Ron White so aptly pointed out several years ago. We have a lot of them, and they do vote, once someone takes them to a polling place and tells them how to vote.
I don't know how to fix this. Education might help, so long as they are not taught by teachers from the Memphis and Shelby County Public Schools. We have tenured teachers who are functionally illiterate and can barely speak proper English training kids to be nothing more than government dependent serfs, who between recharging their EBT cards are out gang banging, or knocking up their harem of girlfriends.
These are not people watching the news, they watch Dancing with the Stars, and whatever Tyler Perry is churning out these days.
I'm writing this out of frustration, half asleep and pissed off that the stupid people of the US have so much power to elect equally stupid people or worse.
*Sigh*
Well Jazz, we have plenty of these people here. A local radio program asked random people in downtown Memphis how ObamaCare is going to affect them. The answers ranged from, "I can't wait to get my free health care", "Can I get this all put on my EBT card and can I use it in a supermarket?", and "Where do I go so sign up for this? My girlfriend is about to pop a baby next week".
The bottom line is you can't fix stupid, as Ron White so aptly pointed out several years ago. We have a lot of them, and they do vote, once someone takes them to a polling place and tells them how to vote.
I don't know how to fix this. Education might help, so long as they are not taught by teachers from the Memphis and Shelby County Public Schools. We have tenured teachers who are functionally illiterate and can barely speak proper English training kids to be nothing more than government dependent serfs, who between recharging their EBT cards are out gang banging, or knocking up their harem of girlfriends.
These are not people watching the news, they watch Dancing with the Stars, and whatever Tyler Perry is churning out these days.
I'm writing this out of frustration, half asleep and pissed off that the stupid people of the US have so much power to elect equally stupid people or worse.
*Sigh*
Monday, September 16, 2013
What ObamaCare means to me
I'm a 56 year old man, I have multiple sclerosis and my overall health is not the best. I spend 5 days in the hospital last month and even with insurance it is going to cost me, out of pocket, over $7000.
My insurance company decided to drop me after that illness, effective Oct. 15, the exact same day that ObamaCare exchanges become available. Very convenient for them. It seem a lot of private insurance companies have decided that this whole insurance racket is better suited to be run by government bureaucrats and let the federal government take the hit when people get sick. So here I am looking for medical insurance. Nobody wants to offer me coverage. NOBODY. ObamaCare is where I'm going to get stuck. I lose my doctor, lose my insurance, and get stuck under a plan administered by faceless government employees who got jobs because of political patronage that do not give a damn about anything but their next raise.
Barack Obama lies that if you like your doctor you can can keep your doctor. He also lied that if you like your insurance plan you can keep it. I'm losing both.
What I know now is my insurance premiums double for me under the Orwellian named "Affordable Healthcare Act" , my primary health care physician won't deal with ObamaCare and is approaching retirement. My neurologist who has been treating my MS for years now is moving back to India, because he hates all the new regulations, and says he can still make a living there without a lot of government interference.
I'm just venting here, but I am not the only one stuck in the wonderful new world of socialized medicine. Congress is inept, they can't pass a budget let alone defunding this medical nightmare. Young people are going to suffer far more than I will from this. They are going to pay the bill for ObamaCare for decades to come. Fortunately I'm not poor and can pay to get decent health care, but we as a nation will suffer the fate of the UK and Canada. There is a large medical center in Plattsburgh, NY for nothing. It's a small town just an hour away from Montreal. It's full of Quebecois who can afford to pay cash.
In the end, this how we are going to get medical care in the US. Either pay up cash up front at medical centers in places like Singapore or Thailand, or wither and die on an ObamaCare exchange.
My insurance company decided to drop me after that illness, effective Oct. 15, the exact same day that ObamaCare exchanges become available. Very convenient for them. It seem a lot of private insurance companies have decided that this whole insurance racket is better suited to be run by government bureaucrats and let the federal government take the hit when people get sick. So here I am looking for medical insurance. Nobody wants to offer me coverage. NOBODY. ObamaCare is where I'm going to get stuck. I lose my doctor, lose my insurance, and get stuck under a plan administered by faceless government employees who got jobs because of political patronage that do not give a damn about anything but their next raise.
Barack Obama lies that if you like your doctor you can can keep your doctor. He also lied that if you like your insurance plan you can keep it. I'm losing both.
What I know now is my insurance premiums double for me under the Orwellian named "Affordable Healthcare Act" , my primary health care physician won't deal with ObamaCare and is approaching retirement. My neurologist who has been treating my MS for years now is moving back to India, because he hates all the new regulations, and says he can still make a living there without a lot of government interference.
I'm just venting here, but I am not the only one stuck in the wonderful new world of socialized medicine. Congress is inept, they can't pass a budget let alone defunding this medical nightmare. Young people are going to suffer far more than I will from this. They are going to pay the bill for ObamaCare for decades to come. Fortunately I'm not poor and can pay to get decent health care, but we as a nation will suffer the fate of the UK and Canada. There is a large medical center in Plattsburgh, NY for nothing. It's a small town just an hour away from Montreal. It's full of Quebecois who can afford to pay cash.
In the end, this how we are going to get medical care in the US. Either pay up cash up front at medical centers in places like Singapore or Thailand, or wither and die on an ObamaCare exchange.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Have you ever met an astronaut?
Have you ever met an astronaut? I've met a few in my career, mostly from the Shuttle. But one encounter was more interesting and gave me some insight into the early, glory days of the Mercury astronauts.
I really did not like "The Right Stuff" movie for a lot of reasons, not the least the treatment it gave Gus Grissom. It portrayed his as a coward, and a bit of a dolt. He was neither, and he was slated to be the first man to pilot a moon landing by Deke Slayton before he was killed in the awful Apollo 1 fire, that killed the whole crew during a test on the launching pad.
I did have the opportunity to meet Gordon Cooper on a plane flight about 10 years. He and his wife were sitting across the isle from me on a flight I was lucky enough to get bumped up to first class. I recognized him, but he looked old and frail and his wife helped him to his seat. I was hesitant to approach, because I'm not an in your face type of guy first of all, and didn't want to get kicked back to the back of the plane between 2 fat ass women in row 36E, so I quietly sad hello. He smiled, said hello back, and then I got up the courage to ask him if he was Gordon Cooper. Well, he got this big shit eating grin on his face and told me that I was addressing the one and only. The old ego never went away, and he still liked to talk.
He told me that he really didn't like all these dramatizations and documentaries that really don't get what was happening in the space program, all the politics, internal and external to NASA, and how he got railroaded out of the program because of personality conflicts with Deke Slayton.
Cooper may have been old, but he had a good mind, and wasn't shy about giving me a piece of it. After we had a few drinks together, and his wife scowling at both of us, he went to the restroom, and I asked Mrs. Cooper if I was causing a problem or a distraction. Her answer was basically, no but don't get him too excited. He likes to talk, but he had a weak heart.
I tried to tone things down when when Col. Cooper returned, but he wanted to talk. Apparently not many people recognized him, and he liked talking about his experiences, and we talked for another hour. He was an interesting guy, was a real pioneer, both as a hot shit test pilot and a gutsy astronaut who flew a not too well tested spacecraft and lived to tell of it. Guys like this advanced American technology and allowed us to get to the moon, before the deadline that JFK gave them.
We can no longer put people in space, and have to rely on the Russians, who are not our friends, to get to the space station. We no longer have a space program that has goals, deadlines and objectives to either go back to the moon and establish something bigger, or do an interplanetary mission. NASA is now more about Muslim outreach, and just maintaining what we have up there. Gordon Cooper is turning over in his grave.
I really did not like "The Right Stuff" movie for a lot of reasons, not the least the treatment it gave Gus Grissom. It portrayed his as a coward, and a bit of a dolt. He was neither, and he was slated to be the first man to pilot a moon landing by Deke Slayton before he was killed in the awful Apollo 1 fire, that killed the whole crew during a test on the launching pad.
I did have the opportunity to meet Gordon Cooper on a plane flight about 10 years. He and his wife were sitting across the isle from me on a flight I was lucky enough to get bumped up to first class. I recognized him, but he looked old and frail and his wife helped him to his seat. I was hesitant to approach, because I'm not an in your face type of guy first of all, and didn't want to get kicked back to the back of the plane between 2 fat ass women in row 36E, so I quietly sad hello. He smiled, said hello back, and then I got up the courage to ask him if he was Gordon Cooper. Well, he got this big shit eating grin on his face and told me that I was addressing the one and only. The old ego never went away, and he still liked to talk.
He told me that he really didn't like all these dramatizations and documentaries that really don't get what was happening in the space program, all the politics, internal and external to NASA, and how he got railroaded out of the program because of personality conflicts with Deke Slayton.
Cooper may have been old, but he had a good mind, and wasn't shy about giving me a piece of it. After we had a few drinks together, and his wife scowling at both of us, he went to the restroom, and I asked Mrs. Cooper if I was causing a problem or a distraction. Her answer was basically, no but don't get him too excited. He likes to talk, but he had a weak heart.
I tried to tone things down when when Col. Cooper returned, but he wanted to talk. Apparently not many people recognized him, and he liked talking about his experiences, and we talked for another hour. He was an interesting guy, was a real pioneer, both as a hot shit test pilot and a gutsy astronaut who flew a not too well tested spacecraft and lived to tell of it. Guys like this advanced American technology and allowed us to get to the moon, before the deadline that JFK gave them.
We can no longer put people in space, and have to rely on the Russians, who are not our friends, to get to the space station. We no longer have a space program that has goals, deadlines and objectives to either go back to the moon and establish something bigger, or do an interplanetary mission. NASA is now more about Muslim outreach, and just maintaining what we have up there. Gordon Cooper is turning over in his grave.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
A really bad month
I've been pretty sick this past month. It started with what my doctor thinks was food poisoning, and it went downhill from there. I ended up seriously ill, in the hospital, and I didn't realize just how close I came to cashing it in at the time. Well, after almost a week in the hospital, under the good care of the doctors, nurses, and technicians at Methodist Hospital in Germantown, Tennessee, I was good enough to be released and although weak, just being home made me feel better. My elderly parents insisted that as soon as I was strong enough, they wanted me to travel to their home in northeastern Pennsylvania and recuperate there. So off we went. It was nice spending almost 2 weeks in that part of the world, getting some good food....mostly....I won't get in to the mostly part because I don't need the wrath of mom descending on me.
We went to the Harford Fair, one of the largest country fairs in the state of Pennsylvania, and it was crowded. Good food, interesting exhibits, and fun competitions like tractor pulls made the day worthwhile.
I came home to get some stern warnings from some of the pathology reports. Because I had hepatitis when I was younger, and I've not always treated my liver all that well in the past, I've been told in no uncertain words, never to take an alcoholic drink again. I can do it, but I won't like it. My white blood count is also very low, and one hematologist wants to get a bone marrow sample from me. This is an extremely painful procedure and may not yield any useful information. My PHP told me do not do it. (Next year when I get stuck under ObamaCare, it will probably not even be offered as an option, as it is expensive). That is advice I'm happy to follow.
So folks, I'm back, just feeling old at 56, and still trying to get over this really bad health crisis.
Thanks to my friends for your prayers and good thoughts during my illness, and know I appreciate you all. God bless!
We went to the Harford Fair, one of the largest country fairs in the state of Pennsylvania, and it was crowded. Good food, interesting exhibits, and fun competitions like tractor pulls made the day worthwhile.
I came home to get some stern warnings from some of the pathology reports. Because I had hepatitis when I was younger, and I've not always treated my liver all that well in the past, I've been told in no uncertain words, never to take an alcoholic drink again. I can do it, but I won't like it. My white blood count is also very low, and one hematologist wants to get a bone marrow sample from me. This is an extremely painful procedure and may not yield any useful information. My PHP told me do not do it. (Next year when I get stuck under ObamaCare, it will probably not even be offered as an option, as it is expensive). That is advice I'm happy to follow.
So folks, I'm back, just feeling old at 56, and still trying to get over this really bad health crisis.
Thanks to my friends for your prayers and good thoughts during my illness, and know I appreciate you all. God bless!
Friday, August 30, 2013
TSA and selective use of full body scanners
I've been traveling through a number of airports, both large and small over the past few months, and one thing that is omnipresent are the multitudes of TSA agents, even at the smallest airports. TSA has become an acronym for Thousands Standing Around in many of the small town airports.
One thing I'm beginning to notice is that TSA has removed the full body scan (back scan) machines at some of the small town airports, and restoring the tried and true metal detectors that don't require you to take off everything except shirt, pants and socks. The reason given to me by a TSA employee at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport (AVP) for removing them is that they are needed at larger airports. So, if the back scanners are not needed at AVP, why are they needed anywhere? There are direct flights to Philadelphia, Newark, Chicago-Ohare, Detroit, Atlanta and Charlotte daily from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and passengers are not required to be re-screened upon arrival at the major airport..
Does the Department of Homeland Security think that a potential terrorist would only consider using a major airport to initiate an airborne terrorist attack, and not pay any attention to more lacks security? (although, I tend to think these small town airports do look people over better than my hometown airport of Memphis International Airport)
So here is a suggestion to our friends at TSA, get rid of all the full body scan units, or use them everywhere there is scheduled commercial air service.. The back scan units are intrusive, leave x-ray radiation residue in the bones, that is accumulates and is a potential cancer threat, and now seems the use of these machines depends on your airport of origin.
With the removal of the back scan e-ray machines at secondary airports, the effectiveness of using them at all now approaches zero. Use them everywhere or better yet, get rid of these intrusive monsters.
One thing I'm beginning to notice is that TSA has removed the full body scan (back scan) machines at some of the small town airports, and restoring the tried and true metal detectors that don't require you to take off everything except shirt, pants and socks. The reason given to me by a TSA employee at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport (AVP) for removing them is that they are needed at larger airports. So, if the back scanners are not needed at AVP, why are they needed anywhere? There are direct flights to Philadelphia, Newark, Chicago-Ohare, Detroit, Atlanta and Charlotte daily from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and passengers are not required to be re-screened upon arrival at the major airport..
Does the Department of Homeland Security think that a potential terrorist would only consider using a major airport to initiate an airborne terrorist attack, and not pay any attention to more lacks security? (although, I tend to think these small town airports do look people over better than my hometown airport of Memphis International Airport)
So here is a suggestion to our friends at TSA, get rid of all the full body scan units, or use them everywhere there is scheduled commercial air service.. The back scan units are intrusive, leave x-ray radiation residue in the bones, that is accumulates and is a potential cancer threat, and now seems the use of these machines depends on your airport of origin.
With the removal of the back scan e-ray machines at secondary airports, the effectiveness of using them at all now approaches zero. Use them everywhere or better yet, get rid of these intrusive monsters.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Trust
Trust is not something that is a given thing, but must be earned. Ronald Reagan said about the once defunct Soviet Union, trust but verify. Under Vladimir Putin, an old KGB guy, Russia is not trustworthy once again. Trust is hard to earn, and it has to be earned, not by words, but by deeds.
A good and decent person who I've helped out for the past 11 years, not only with moral support, but monetary support at times told me I'm not trustworthy. It's a dagger in the heart to me. I'm not only sick in my heart, but have lost faith in people I used to think I knew.
I really don't like being like this, but my soul has been shattered. I guess I'll be trustworthy to people who are not afraid to have someone who loves them.
A good and decent person who I've helped out for the past 11 years, not only with moral support, but monetary support at times told me I'm not trustworthy. It's a dagger in the heart to me. I'm not only sick in my heart, but have lost faith in people I used to think I knew.
I really don't like being like this, but my soul has been shattered. I guess I'll be trustworthy to people who are not afraid to have someone who loves them.
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