Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Why We Refinanced, Part I
by Ken Houghton
After dancing around the FMLA, I instead departed from the ranks of those full-time employed at an Investment Bank. Which means we are covering this through COBRA.
Since the departure was in mid-April, the paperwork from The Old Firm didn't arrive until near the end of last month. And since it was clear from their documentation that nothing absolutely needed to be done until the end of this month, I waited until the return from vacation to mail the formal notice out, hoping that the newly-formed business would be in place with its own checks by the end of the month.
This appears to have thrown a major spanner into the U.S. health care system.
Yesterday's second call from the hospital prompted me to the call my provider, and be assured that everything was fine. (Their representative, without my using the word said, "You went COBRA, right." I confirmed this, and she assured me that everything was approved and would be fine.)
There were three or four calls today, with both the hospital and the doctor. Apparently, the provider has not been so upbeat with the hospital, threatening that my opting for COBRA meant that, if the check hasn't cleared already, they may not cover it.
Upshot: barring a last-minute sanity check from The Old Firm (whose administrator had gone home before 4:30 today), and/or acceptance of my copies of the mailed forms, we're giving the hospital a $2,000 deposit tomorrow, and have committed a somewhat larger sum to the surgeon in the event that COBRA turns out to be something that businesses can treat as a free option not to allow employees to continue coverage.
This in addition to paying almost $2,000 a month in COBRA to The Old Firm. Which I guess makes us really "gold-plated." And a lot of others will follow me, just as Roy headlined (h/t Tom).
Between this and the insurance cf Tom described, is there any wonder that the voters believe that providing affordable health care independent of their employment situation is a key issue? Or that it's the centerpiece of John Edwards's War on Poverty/Two Americas campaign?
As I said before, several transitions, not the least of which being that Shira is going in for back surgery around 7:00 a.m. tomorrow.
After dancing around the FMLA, I instead departed from the ranks of those full-time employed at an Investment Bank. Which means we are covering this through COBRA.
Since the departure was in mid-April, the paperwork from The Old Firm didn't arrive until near the end of last month. And since it was clear from their documentation that nothing absolutely needed to be done until the end of this month, I waited until the return from vacation to mail the formal notice out, hoping that the newly-formed business would be in place with its own checks by the end of the month.
This appears to have thrown a major spanner into the U.S. health care system.
Yesterday's second call from the hospital prompted me to the call my provider, and be assured that everything was fine. (Their representative, without my using the word said, "You went COBRA, right." I confirmed this, and she assured me that everything was approved and would be fine.)
There were three or four calls today, with both the hospital and the doctor. Apparently, the provider has not been so upbeat with the hospital, threatening that my opting for COBRA meant that, if the check hasn't cleared already, they may not cover it.
Upshot: barring a last-minute sanity check from The Old Firm (whose administrator had gone home before 4:30 today), and/or acceptance of my copies of the mailed forms, we're giving the hospital a $2,000 deposit tomorrow, and have committed a somewhat larger sum to the surgeon in the event that COBRA turns out to be something that businesses can treat as a free option not to allow employees to continue coverage.
This in addition to paying almost $2,000 a month in COBRA to The Old Firm. Which I guess makes us really "gold-plated." And a lot of others will follow me, just as Roy headlined (h/t Tom).
Between this and the insurance cf Tom described, is there any wonder that the voters believe that providing affordable health care independent of their employment situation is a key issue? Or that it's the centerpiece of John Edwards's War on Poverty/Two Americas campaign?
Labels: Economics, Health Care, John Edwards, just life, refinance, The Old Firm
Monday, March 26, 2007
Life Goes On, Long After the Thrill of Livin' It's Gone
by Ken Houghton
Waiting for Rush to talk about how Thompson "turned to Basketball instead of G-d."
Turns out that John Edwards isn't the only one who has been told to continue working while his wife is battling cancer:
The past two years, John Thompson III hasn't said much about his wife's battle with breast cancer. But don't think for a second that he hasn't been dealing with more stress and pressure than anyone else coaching in this field.
Thompson III somehow has balanced coaching the Hoyas to the Big East regular-season and tournament titles and now to the East Regional crown, while also helping with his wife's battle and raising three children under the age of nine.
Waiting for Rush to talk about how Thompson "turned to Basketball instead of G-d."
Labels: John Edwards, Journamalism, NCAAs
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Amanda Resigns; Melissa Remains Too
by Ken Houghton
UPDATE: Make that two major resources.
And the Edwards campaign loses a major resource.
UPDATE: Make that two major resources.
Labels: blogging, John Edwards, Politics
Thursday, February 08, 2007
George W. Bush is Against "Terrific Steps Forward for Medicine"
by Tom Bozzo
The George Bush/Heritage Foundation method? Not so much. The fundamental of the Bush "plan" is that the vaccination decision should be made on individual assessments of willingness to pay the $360 in a world (ideally, in that view) of high-deductible insurance that covers little routine care. Some people — probably concentrated in high-risk, low-income demographic groups — will choose "wrong" and society will pay for avoidable cervical cancer cases around mid-century.
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Herein lies the rub of the Edwards-Blogger business. Any of the major Democratic contenders are smart enough to pass on the opinions of certain "sensible" economists and consign health care a la the WPE back to the right-wing think [sic] tanks. Then again, so were John F. Kerry and John Edwards, and they lost to the WPE and the MEVPE (*) in part because their campaign was fatally slow in the face of the right-wing noise machine's onslaught. People with better policy ideas than George W. Bush or the Republican '08 field are a dime a dozen; people who can win a campaign which, as John Rogers rightly observes, will be a "f***ing knife fight" are not.
(An additional curiosity is that this particular kerfluffle seems to have been an attack on the rapid-response mechanism itself. Amanda Marcotte being the Edwards campaign's blogger-in-chief and Melissa McEwan the netroots coordinator, they'd have presumably coordinated the response had the targets been anyone else on Edwards's staff. As Waveflux observed in Shakes's comments, the progressive blogs stepped into the breach and arguably saved the Edwards campaign from the influence of the "elite punditocracy" with its civility-over-substance bias and showed the value of campaigns having key netroots staff whose bloggerly charisma actually motivates the netroots.)
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(*) Most Evil Vice Preznit Ever.
In today's Capital Times, Judith Davidoff offers this misleading lede:
While social conservatives were expected to fight the mandatory vaccination of young girls against a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, the loudest opposition in Wisconsin is coming from a more unlikely source: pediatricians.A state Senate co-sponsor of legislation to require the HPV vaccine says:
Echoed [Robert] Wirch: "Cervical cancer is a preventable cancer, and we should do everything we can to get rid of this terrible cancer."
But the pediatric community is balking.
If not for those meddling pediatricians!
WTF?! said I, father of a two-year-old daughter... fourteen paragraphs into the story, it turns out that the pediatricians are not actually opposed to requiring the vaccine per se:The objections are not about the vaccine itself, [James] Conway [of the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatricians] stressed: "I don't think anybody from the medical side of things would dispute that the preliminary data and the design behind how they actually developed this vaccine is a terrific step forward for medicine."
It is about the implementation, he said.
Now, according to the story, even at the stiff monopoly price of the vaccine (about $360, per the story), the cost of treating cervical cancer runs to the tune of more than 10 million annual doses of the vaccine. The economic case for vaccination looks clear enough. (Something Gov. Doyle might consider before throwing around more questionable tax expenditures.) A smart policymaker would cough up the money to make the AAP (fully) happy.While insurance companies are pledging to pay for the costly vaccine, Conway questions who will cover the vaccine for the underinsured and uninsured. He said the federal program that covers vaccinations for children without insurance can now barely pay for the other vaccines that have come on the market in recent years.
The George Bush/Heritage Foundation method? Not so much. The fundamental of the Bush "plan" is that the vaccination decision should be made on individual assessments of willingness to pay the $360 in a world (ideally, in that view) of high-deductible insurance that covers little routine care. Some people — probably concentrated in high-risk, low-income demographic groups — will choose "wrong" and society will pay for avoidable cervical cancer cases around mid-century.
--------------------------------
Herein lies the rub of the Edwards-Blogger business. Any of the major Democratic contenders are smart enough to pass on the opinions of certain "sensible" economists and consign health care a la the WPE back to the right-wing think [sic] tanks. Then again, so were John F. Kerry and John Edwards, and they lost to the WPE and the MEVPE (*) in part because their campaign was fatally slow in the face of the right-wing noise machine's onslaught. People with better policy ideas than George W. Bush or the Republican '08 field are a dime a dozen; people who can win a campaign which, as John Rogers rightly observes, will be a "f***ing knife fight" are not.
(An additional curiosity is that this particular kerfluffle seems to have been an attack on the rapid-response mechanism itself. Amanda Marcotte being the Edwards campaign's blogger-in-chief and Melissa McEwan the netroots coordinator, they'd have presumably coordinated the response had the targets been anyone else on Edwards's staff. As Waveflux observed in Shakes's comments, the progressive blogs stepped into the breach and arguably saved the Edwards campaign from the influence of the "elite punditocracy" with its civility-over-substance bias and showed the value of campaigns having key netroots staff whose bloggerly charisma actually motivates the netroots.)
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(*) Most Evil Vice Preznit Ever.
Labels: Bushonomics, Health Care, John Edwards, Journamalism
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
What Tom Said
by Ken Houghton
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Sadly, I had believed that, having weathered all of the "jacuzzi case" bullshit in 2004, Edwards would be ready this time. (In fact, one of my reasons for supporting him in 2004 was that, having lived and working in NC for part of 2002-2003, I heard about the Senator and the case from the locals—all of whom spoke admiringly of him for having done the Right Thing.)
I have spoken fondly of Edwards, often touting him as the ideal Democratic candidate in comments at Melissa's blog. One of the reasons for this is that he knows (should know) what will be thrown at him. He lived through the "Swift Boat" Swiftboating. He saw disembowment turned into jacuzzi. He saw Obama turned into Osama. He has seen the coverage of his campaign.
We thought he was experienced. It is starting to appear that we were wrong.
Is it really going to be true that Hillary is the only who can face the onslaught? Or is Chuck Hagel the only one who knows that it will be a Republican winner again in 2008, and that that person will have to deal with the mess of the past eight years, making George H.W. Bush's following of Ronald Reagan seem a cakewalk by comparison?
UPDATE: The Edwards campaign does the right thing, making clear the difference between the personal and the professional, and making clear that the deliberate misinterpretations are precisely that. The Right has consistently referred to this as the type of "Sister Souljah moment" they so desperately want in a candidate. I'm not holding my breath waiting for their groundswell of support for Edwards.
-----------------------------------
Sadly, I had believed that, having weathered all of the "jacuzzi case" bullshit in 2004, Edwards would be ready this time. (In fact, one of my reasons for supporting him in 2004 was that, having lived and working in NC for part of 2002-2003, I heard about the Senator and the case from the locals—all of whom spoke admiringly of him for having done the Right Thing.)
I have spoken fondly of Edwards, often touting him as the ideal Democratic candidate in comments at Melissa's blog. One of the reasons for this is that he knows (should know) what will be thrown at him. He lived through the "Swift Boat" Swiftboating. He saw disembowment turned into jacuzzi. He saw Obama turned into Osama. He has seen the coverage of his campaign.
We thought he was experienced. It is starting to appear that we were wrong.
Is it really going to be true that Hillary is the only who can face the onslaught? Or is Chuck Hagel the only one who knows that it will be a Republican winner again in 2008, and that that person will have to deal with the mess of the past eight years, making George H.W. Bush's following of Ronald Reagan seem a cakewalk by comparison?
Labels: John Edwards, Politics, Utter Stupidity
