Archives for September 2012

Yesterday, coming home from Drinking Liberally, I was reading the paper version of the New York Times. And I guess it was seeing all of the headlines for the Op-Ed columnists all together. I noticed that all the headlines were shit.

They’re Not What They Used to Be doesn’t tell you what “they” refers to. People over 30 will say that about just about anything if given the opportunity. Maybe say “conventions” in the headline. The Elevator Speech refers to a common phrase that BoBo mentions in the piece. But again, it’s a common enough phrase, especially in the business world that just using that as the headline doesn’t actually tell you anything. The Hex on Paul Ryan is the least terrible of the headlines, and it’s not particularly good either. I guess you could probably guess that the hex is being picked as VP, but the piece probably spent more time on Biden than Ryan, so maybe something more VP related would be better.

Over at Seattle Transit Blog, there’s a discussion of the upcoming elimination of the free ride area, and answering some objections to it. While I generally agree with the post, this stuck in my craw: “while I would like to see more County programs that provide transportation assistance to the poor, giving everyone a break on downtown trips seems like a badly targeted way to do it.”

I’m not sure that it’s in the county’s best interest, in general, to separate things that help the middle class from those that help the poor. Programs tailored to the poor have a tendency to get the ax earlier than those with middle class support.

I readily admit that I don’t know what busing should look like downtown. And I support eliminating the ride free area (although I supported it a lot more before the fare increases). But in general, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have separate programs for the poor and the middle class.

Please join us tonight for an evening of politics and conversation over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally. Believe it our not, this will be the first week of the 2012 presidential General Election. That’s worth discussing. Oh…and the Democratic Convention is now underway.

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle’s DL tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter meets. And the Spokane chapter and Drinking Liberally Tacoma meet this Thursday.

With 236 chapters of Living Liberally, including thirteen in Washington state four in Oregon and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter that meets near you.

– Desmond Tutu says Bush and Blair should be tried for war crimes.

– The terrible thing is that he’s right.

– Sure, Paul Ryan’s marathon time should be the lie that proves he’s a liar.

– What to do with the missing link if there’s still an EIS to do?

– One true soul mate.

– Theistic evolution

Why Unions matter more than ever.

Roy ZImmerman: The Problem With Democrats:

“In 1968, France was a dangerous place to be for a 21-year-old American, but Mitt Romney was right in the middle of it.”

Bill Maher’s New Rule: GOP must admit George W. Bush exists .

The making of Labor Day.

The redevelopment of Yesler Terrace.

Chair Talk:

• The Million Dollar Chair.
• Jon celebrates Clint Eastwood’s ‘Fistful Of Awesome’ speech
• The old man from Gran Torino crashes the RNC.
• Bill Maher defends Clint Eastwood.
• Clint Eastwood’s Comedy Central Chair Roast.

Bashir: Is Paul Ryan the fastest ‘Kenyan’ candidate ever???

Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. It was the home of the Sikh Temple shooter in Cudahy, WI.

This week’s contest is a random location somewhere on earth, good luck!

[HA Bible Study is on hiatus through the November election as we honor Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney by studying the scriptures of his Mormon religion.]

Book of Mormon, Ether 11:14
And it came to pass that Ethem did execute judgment in wickedness all his days; and he begat Moron. And it came to pass that Moron did reign in his stead; and Moron did that which was wicked before the Lord.

Discuss.

I’m fortunate.

When I was laid off from my job last month, I was eligible for continuation of my health insurance. I have enough money saved up that I can pick up the large portion of the premiums that used to be contributed by my employer. I was persistent enough, and knowledgeable enough, to navigate through the shoals of bureaucracy that lay between employer-based and formerly-employed insured status.

It was frustrating for several weeks. For instance, I wasn’t allowed to apply for continuation coverage while still insured. Then I couldn’t write a check for the first month of coverage until my application for continuation coverage was received, processed, and accepted. It took over a week after my check was deposited before my status was updated from no coverage to insured. Even after that change was acknowledged, it required a call to the PBM (pharmacy benefit manager), a business separate from the insurer, to update my prescription insurance.

When it all settled out, the insurance was reinstated retroactively to the first day of the month. But I still had to make sure that the claims rejected while I was in limbo were resubmitted (I haven’t yet contacted the lab that drew and tested a blood sample). Every one of those steps wastes money—customer service operators who could have helped someone else, clerks who had to open, photocopy, and file my applications, eligibility assessors who had to process my paperwork, personnel at my providers who had to send my claims to the insurer for a second time, computers that had to rerun those claims. It was only a little bit of money each time, but of course those infinitesimal amounts add up to big bucks when multiplied by thousands or millions of incidents. At least I get my EOBs electronically, so I didn’t kill many trees by generating all those papers twice.

My office visits and lab tests hadn’t made it through the providers’ billing systems by the time I became retroactively covered, so they had no visible impact on my wallet. Because the office personnel don’t know the alleged prices of their services, they probably couldn’t require up-front payment anyway. Not so when it comes to prescriptions … I had to pay the full retail price before I could get my medications. Once covered, I went back to the drugstore to have my credit card reimbursed for the cash I’d laid out.

As it happens, I take six “maintenance medicines”, prescriptions that I refill every month. All six are generics, costing appreciably less than the brand name versions of those medications. Even so, the full retail price of a month’s-worth of my meds was rather hefty — $445.74 (brand names would have run $864.67). After my coverage was restored retroactively, I went back to Bartell so that they could resubmit the prescriptions to my insurance. After applying the (appreciably lower) price negotiated by the insurer, and after accounting for the portion of that price paid by the insurer, my out of pocket cost for those six prescriptions came to just $11.98. I have very good insurance.

Similarly, were I not insured, the price of an office visit would be $219.00. My insurer had negotiated an allowed amount of $83.01 for that sort of visit, only about 38% of the alleged retail price. And my out of pocket portion of the insurer-negotiated price comes to a mere $12.45. To reiterate, I have very good insurance.

I knew it would work out as it did. And I had the resources to ease the difficulties of the bureaucratic delays. But suppose I didn’t have a credit card. Suppose I lived from paycheck to paycheck, with only a debit card and a meager bank account. Then, I would have had a problem. Then, I might have been required to choose between maintaining my health and buying groceries, or maybe even between medicines and rent. Forced into such a dilemma, filling prescriptions would undoubtedly fall behind food and shelter.

Being unemployed and uninsured, then, is a double triple-whammy:

• You have much less money coming into your bank account
• The bill for healthcare services is much larger than what an insurer can negotiate with the provider
• You bear responsibility for paying the entire bill

I could go on. I could mention the uncertainties faced by providers; because of the myriad insurers with myriad rules and myriad methods of bill submission, they never know how much they’ll actually receive in reimbursement for their services (and they must hire additional staff to handle all those procedures). I could argue for something like Medicare for all, or for a sensible healthcare system like those in civilized nations (there are many models to choose from, all of which are better and less costly than ours).

Instead, I’ll just thank my lucky stars that my layoff isn’t the kind of financial and health disaster that it could be if I didn’t have resources. And I’ll pay my insurance premiums every month.

[Cross-posted from Peace Tree Farm]

Roy Zimmerman: Vote Republican, Aloha, Hawaii!:

The Obama-Romney rap battle.

The debate between Inslee and McKenna.

Who is Paul Ryan?

Roy Zimmerman: Vote Republican, South Carolina edition:

Pap: GOP bound to fail.

Thom and Pap: Obama endorses Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

Liberal Viewer: The most negative campaign ever?

Thom with some Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

White House: West Wing Week.

The G.O.P. Multimedia Extravaganza!

• Young Turks: Mitt on Abortion.
• The Worst jokes from the convention (via Political Wire).
• Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: RNC 2012—Romney for President?
• Mitt: “Say”.
• Young Turks: Tim Pawlenty’s jokes at the Republican Convention.

Clint on Obama:

• Clint Eastwood offers a rambling and surreal bit of “performance art” at the convention.
• Raw Story interviews Clint Eastwood’s chair
• Jonathan Mann: Clint Eastwood Talking To A Chair:
• SlateTV: Eastwooding
• Young Turks: Clint Eastwood and the invisible Obama.
• Ann Telnaes: Romney talks to his chair.
• Maddow: Eastwood’s terribly timed RNC meltdown
• Sam Seder: Clint Eastwood, Mitt Romney & the RNC in a nutshell
• Comedian John Fugelsang reacts to Clint Eastwood
• Sam Seder and friends on Fact checking Paul Ryan’s RNC Speech (hint: full of lies!).
• Thom: It’s all another Republican con job.
• Young Turks: Mitt’s acceptance speech.
• Young Turks: The Ryan acceptance speech.
• Sam Seder: Ann Romney’s RNC Speech (or Tell Us How You REALLY Feel!).
• Thom: How the MSM helps the GOP Big Lie.
• Mark Fiore: The Love Me Mitt doll!
• Thom: GOP’s nightmarish response to MLK’s “I Have a Dream”.
• Mitt’s convention: Not going as planned.
• Jon would settle for ANY truth in Ryan’s speech
• Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: RNC 2012, elephants and a Newt!
• Jonathan Mann: Your Monster’s Come To Life
• Sharpton: The history of Mitt Romney’s flips and flops
• Young Turks: Buying Mitt Romney…The real Convention Is at Cracker Bay.
• Sam Seder: RNC attendees throw peanuts at African American CNN camera operator. “This is how we feed the animals”.
• Mitt accidentally calls the United States a “company”
• Thom: Can Romney flip-flop from being wealthy and out of touch?
• Young Turks: Paul Ryan blames Obama for S&P downgrade?!?
• Sam Seder: Jan Brewer endorses Obama at RNC?
• Mitt Romney: You didn’t build it…you DESTROYED it!

Roy Zimmerman: Mitt’s America the Beatiful:

Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.

Maddow: Court strikes down Ohio early voter restrictions.

The Democratic plan for gun control.

Veterans who support Obama.

Liberal Viewer: Colbert in the tank for Obama?

Ann Telnaes: Republican VP candidates, past and present.

Roy Zimmerman: Vote Republican, The Idaho verse.

Romney’s plan to “strengthen” the middle class.

Young Turks: The Michelle Obama slave mag cover.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.