After healthcare.gov

The strange and annoying healthcare.gov error
that no one understands and which is keeping me from enrolling.

I've spent a month, off and on, trying to get past a site error and #getcovered. I've talked to about five official HealthCare.gov workers. I haven't spoken to any unofficial ones but I have posted to the Facebook page and tweeted. Don't bother. Whoever is running the online presence is stuck in broadcast mode.

Anyway, I managed to get on the call-back list today. This means I am now a number on what I presume to be a very long list indeed. I no longer have to worry about the deadline because healthcare.gov will call me back at some point to enroll in healthcare.

The application is finished*. I got that far before the website crapped out with some weird error that no one understands or knows how to fix. Asking for a supervisor got me to "send us income verification." I mean, come on, this is the FEDERAL government. They have a record of my income going back to my first job ever. I sent it in, though. Gotta cross all those T's and dot those I's. heh

Friday I was on hold twice before giving up. Once for 20 minutes after which the call spontaneously aborted. Then for 30 minutes and I hung up. It just wasn't happening.

Meanwhile, I wonder just how good my coverage deal will be. I'm am discouraged by hundreds of reports from those at the Facebook page about high deductibles ($12,000 per year) and high premiums. I keep thinking about the poor soul who continues to pay cash for medical care in addition to having (basically) useless healthcare.gov coverage. Because they can't afford a non-insurance penalty on top of all the bills.

Thankfully, I've worked through to the point where I can do no more. It's all on the government now.

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*It's a two-part process. You apply, after which you get a notice of eligibility, and then you enroll in coverage.  I'm stuck at the enroll part because I get a tax credit which generates the above error.

The Elaine Report: Feb 6, 2013

From Richard III to Beutel-Ei Nr. 1 in 8 steps.

• Reconstructing Richard III's Face So glad they did this! The portraits existent are so flat and characterless. There's a good description of digital facial construction and its limitations.
• Indian women robbed of their uteruses by money grubbing doctors ... and the government does nothing. Many women now convinced they cannot recover from illness without a hysterectomy. 
• New York city negotiating with Air BnB to keep visitors off the street. I was an Air BnB host for about a year. I met some intriguing, kind travelers who appreciated my local expertise. And helped pay my bills.
• Turns out being miles underground is the best way to study dark matter and get real peace and quiet.
• Microscopic nutrients from the Sahara rain on the Amazon. We are all one ecosystem, ya'll! Not a lot of other facts or explanations in this brief article with a Nikon-sponsored video of lovely shots of the Sahara.
• 21 Things You Should Never Buy at a Garage Sale. Full of ooky bugs and germs! Would have been better to tell us what we should buy.
• Internet to be replaced by esoteric time stream. Note the napkin sketch at the end of the article. Doesn't really help. Tumbled it.
• Technology aging backwards? I don't get it. Read about three paragraphs and became overcome by dark matter.
• Seamless beautiful backpack made of wool. The artist named it an Egg Bag. It is sort of egg shaped. Looks more like a Lady Bug to me. Pinned it.

On Peace: Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

In his acceptance speech in Oslo today, the President said:

The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached — their fundamental faith in human progress — that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.

The President goes on to talk about our "moral compass." Prior to these quotes, he talked about "three ways that we can build a just and lasting peace." This was a very long section of his speech, with concrete examples. Here are the three ways (direct quotes):

1. First, in dealing with those nations that break rules and laws, I believe that we must develop alternatives to violence that are tough enough to actually change behavior — for if we want a lasting peace, then the words of the international community must mean something.
   
2. This brings me to a second point — the nature of the peace that we seek. For peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting.
3. Third, a just peace includes not only civil and political rights — it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.

Less than half of the President's speech was about war. Once again, lazy and sensationalistic news reporters have grabbed at what is easy and all around them. Instead of thoughtful consideration of the full text, they shoot out off-the-cuff, half-formed emotional opinions about President Obama's war stance, reacting only to headlines and buzz words. It is quite obvious that Obama is a man of peace. To see that, all you need to do is read the full text or watch the video (part 1 of 4).

In closing, consider this big applause generating quote from his speech: "Let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls."

What's wrong with socialized medicine?

Socialized medicine is not socialism. Socializing medicine seems to be the magic bullet that will fix all our health care ills. The reality is far from the dream. According to my experience, anyway. I've twice been the victim of socialized medicine. Okay. Victim is too strong a word. Let's leave that for now.

My first experience with socialized medicine was in England where I gave birth to my second child. You can't go by pregnancy and birth because they can't wait. Not like gall stones, hairlips or bone spurs which can be put off for a very long time indeed. As a pregnant person I received priority treatment. My then mother-in-law with gall stones ended up on an 18 month waiting list and was only bumped to the head of the line after 7 months because the only thing she had been able to keep down for weeks was warm water.

Some people think that socialized medicine is good because the poor will have the health care they need. In my English situation I lived in what we in America consider to be an upper middle class neighborhood. So did my mother-in-law. We weren't poor or needy by any stretch. What happens is that patients flood the system without a comparable increase in doctors. The doctors and hospitals get overloaded.

Those with discretionary income who can pay for private care can jump to the head of the line. And we're back to where we started. The poor and those who can't afford the premium prices of private doctors, including professional couples with children, are put on hold for just about everything but emergencies. They are seen by overworked doctors and end up in thinly staffed hospitals.

This is much like my experience now. I am unemployed and have qualified for free local health insurance offered by Virginia Commonwealth University's Medical College of Virginia. The program is also know as VCC (or Virginia Coordinated Care). My coverage is much like an HMO. I have a primary care physician and can't see a specialist without a referral. For emergencies I can only go to the Medical College of Virginia hospital (MCV).

The emergencies work out fine. Socialized medicine is set up for emergencies and other priority conditions. Of course, I still sit for hours with all kinds of people, although MCV has a special streamlined system (two hours instead of four) for those who are "in-and-out" patients.

On the other hand, it took six months for me to get to a Urologist and two months to get my first doctor's appointment. Originally the Urologist had scheduled my appointment for a year out, but my doctor and the patient advocate managed to pull some strings to get my wait time shortened. Getting a taste of this? Good.

As well as quantity, quality also suffers. Since doctors are in such demand you get all kinds of doctors. Urologists who cause off-the-charts pain with a q-tip. Doctors who can't get your blood pressure medication right or who refrain from referring you to a specialist for any number of reasons — one of which may be that the system requires they exhaust certain options before referring. Another may be that they are just too overworked to keep up with any patient who isn't teetering on the brink of emergency.

It would be great to provide some kind of health care either permanently or temporarily for those who can't afford to pay. I don't know what that looks like. It doesn't look like anything I've seen or heard about so far. Whatever system is created, the patient should bear some financial responsibility, no matter how small. And there needs to be enough doctors and hospitals to go around.

How will that be paid for? I don't have an answer. Right now the American system is being stretched to the limit with record unemployment and the boomer retirement bombshell. Can we afford socialized medicine? Can we afford to not have socialized medicine, keeping in mind that prevention is a lot cheaper than treatment?

I hope a workable a solution can be found. I hope everyone who is able and willing helps find a solution in a peaceful, fact-finding, respectful way. Best of luck to those working on this problem.
Current Fads
Listening. Somebody Like You, Silver Screen Soundtrack Orchestra; susurration of Air Conditioner
Watching. The Fifth Element (1997)
Activity. learning how to navigate free health care; dealing with 10 months of unemployment
Gadget. resuscitated Palm Zire 31
News Source. the news feeds in Safari
Reading. Fruits of the Poisonous Tree - Archer Mayor; First Impressions: What You Don't Know About How Others See You - Ann Demarais and Valerie White; facebook and twitter updates; Garage Band help
Writing. this blog post; morning pages

It's Not the President's Fault

I recently had a conversation with a friend who relayed to me her belief that employment in the US most likely is about only 85%. Officially I think it's about 90%, not taking into account those who have dropped off the unemployment lists. I'll buy that some have given up and that some are under employed (forced to work part time or for less than industry standard). So, let's say that employment is around 85% (unofficially). Pair that with a cute statistic I saw in the news that about 70% of those employed are afraid of losing their jobs. Interpolated, this could mean that just about everyone who has a job is afraid of losing it. This is fear factor.

Let's also combine the fact that President Obama's approval rating is falling. According to a newscast I watched (sorry I can't remember which one, might have been CNN), the low confidence in job security is to blame for this loss of approval. Seems like kind of a long shot to me. After all, Obama has done a whole bunch of things in the first six months of his presidency which could affect that rating. Also, let's remember that Obama was not just a candidate, but a super candidate that we all hoped would save us. (New Hope, anyone?) Based on these ideas, I think we can say that Obama may have started out with a high approval rating but it was based on him turning out to be Superman or maybe Spiderman.

Folks, the issues in this economy go way back to the beginning of George W. Bush's reign of terror. Some go back even further. US finances have long been based on faulty notions that there will always be more money and if we run out we'll make more. Turning around this sort of thinking and getting the military away from buying $1,000 hammers is going to take some time. It won't happen overnight or in six months. It won't happen even in four years. All the president can do at this point is make a start. The best we can do is support him and offer up whatever knowledge and experience we have of sound financial practices.

It's not his fault.

bailout smailout

The whole bailout thing seems to be a lot like borrowing from home equity to pay the mortgage but what do I know! For those of you who are ready to jump on the cash-direct-to-you train that you read about in an email, the math is wrong. Check Snopes. I always do.