Squirrel Nutkin

Looks like the Monkey has picked up the Squirrel Nutkin gene from both parents.  Though our packrat tendencies go much more toward hoarding stuff than cleaning out the nest, so he's a bit of an aberration.    The last two days he's been all about cleaning and reorganizing.   It's freakish, but I certainly won't complain.  This unholy urge probably started with his helping Mr. Stang clean out the garage the last few weeks.   Yesterday he was on a mission to clean out my closet.  You can see floor (except for the huge pile of assorted shoes, etc. in one little corner).  Last night he announced his intention to reorganize the bathroom cupboards by moving the stash of spare soap to make room for the T.P.  Sure thing - as soon as I jumped in the shower this morning he started working under the sink.   Now Mr. Stang calls to tell me the boy has decided the cookbook shelves in our dining room need cleaning.  He's right - they're covered in dust.  Yesterday, he helped Daddy unload a ton of 40 lb bags of wood pellets into the newly clean garage. OK - it was just two bags, and he didn't get more than 20 feet before having to drag them... but still - he only weighs 45 lbs himself!!!

Did I ever mention how I rewarded him for potty training?  He was upset we wouldn't let him clean the toilets with the cool little disposable brush thingie that turns the water blue.  I told him only people who *use* the toilet get to clean them.  It worked, more so than getting to wear big kid underpants.   He loves to mop.  And vacuum.  And wash windows (using non-toxic squirky stuff).  And dust.  And pull weeds.  And rake leaves.  I tell you, it's freakish.  I dread the day somebody will tell him these things are actually considered by the vast majority of the population to be "work" and not "fun".   But then, we never use the word "chore" in our house, either.

He was very proud of himself when he graduated from being able to fold kitchen towels/ napkins to bath towels, and gets positively irate if you don't let him dump the fabric cleaner and detergent in the washing machine before pushing the buttons (bleach, of course is off limits).   I'm not entirely convinced that the Fey Folk didn't swap him out with a changeling.  But I don't care.  I'm keeping him.

My grandmother would find this behavior very odd.  She died one year ago tomorow at the age of 90.  She lived next door when we were growing up, and would come over almost every day after school (we were latchkey kids), tsk tsk tsk and say "this house is atrocious!  Why won't you clean it up for your mother ??"

She would be amazed at how a housework-loving child could ever be spawned from my womb, get this ironic little smile on her face and sadly shake her head - awed by the vagaries of the universe.

I'm missing her very much today.

What a Relief!

Now there's even less of a chance all life on Earth will be wiped in a blazing asteroid impact in 27 years.: NASA downgrades threat of Apophis.

An Apple A Day

The plan was to make it all the way to Kiyokawa Family Orchards in Parkdale to pick Honeycrisps.  We didn't quite make it that far as the Monkey was getting a bit anxious to get out of the car.  So we stopped at the first "U-Pick" + "Honeycrisps"  sign we saw outside of Hood River on Hwy 35.  Draper Girl's Country Farm was terrific.  Due to the coveted nature of the variety they charged a straight per pound rate, however and not $8 by the bucket as they did the other varieties. 

The Monkey went a little ape for apples, however (as you'd expect) and picked more than our budget of $10 would allow.  The clerk took pity on us and only charged $1.75 instead of the advertised $1.99/lb.  Which still beats the hell out of $2.99/lb in store.  We blew the budget out of the water, coming home with 20 + lbs of the biggest, most gorgeous honeycrisps you've ever seen.   I'd hoped they would last a few months, but at the rate they're disappearing I doubt they'll last two weeks. We couldn't wait to get them back in the car for a luscious, crunchy snack.

Next stop, Rasmussen "Funland" Farms in Hood River for the corn maize and pumpkin picking.  The Monkey and I were *so* close to bringing home this poor bedraggled fellow.  I haven't had an all-black cat in ages. Alas, he eluded our grasping clutches, much to the relief of Mr. Stang.

Undoubtedly he is a long lost descendant of one of those injured kitties Mom & Dad told us kids they "gave to a nice family farm out in the country" to recuperate and live out their lives happily chasing mice in a big red barn. Haven't seen any of the sofa-eating dogs, though that were supposed to be there, too.  Maybe they were busy chasing raccoons in the woods.

Sure, the pumkin picking is fun.  But not nearly so much as the Monkey's favorite pumpkin passtime - rolling the pumpkins in search of wiggly squiggly worms.

Because no weekend adventure is complete without a handful of slimy new friends.

Out & About in the Pacific Northwest in October

I'm going to try to provide a monthly roundup of upcoming things to do, places to go in the Pac. NW.  I meant to start this last month and give you all the lowdown on area Oktoberfests, but you'll have to wait until next year for that (yes, Oktoberfests are always in September.  It makes no sense, I know).

October.  Month of harvest festivals and All Hallow's Eve.  And so I'm told, Football :p  Traditionally it's when we head up to the Gorge area for some R&R.  See all those lovely links to B&B's/romantic inns on the right hand side?  We've stayed at almost every one.   Usually in Sept/Oct to celebrate our anniversary.  You can't drive a mile in Hood River County in October without coming across some fabulous open farm, winery, pumpkin patch or harvest festival.  The wild huckleberry harvest is over, which makes it the perfect time to pick up some syrup or jelly. Grapes and hops are in.   That means wine and beer festivals.  Apple/Pear/Pumpkin harvest is on.  And don't forget the Fall Foliage!!  Last year two Oregon scenic drives made Forbes Magazine's list of the Top 15 Most Awesome Autumn Drives: The Columbia River Hwy and Hwy 126 through Central Oregon.  It's like driving on a river of gold.

September/ October are my favorite months to travel in the NW.  The temps are typically in the 60's and 70's during the days, with crisp cool nights that make you dive for the down comforter in front of a warm fire with a hot toddy or glass of wine.  The summer out-of-state tourists are all gone and it's party time for the locals (see above... wine and beer festivals.  Also? Weird but lovable football fans).  And when it's not divinely sunny, it's fabulously stormy.  The wind whips the crunchy red and orange leaves around.  Rain showers followed by blinding sun breaks set the whole world asparkle.  Perfect days to watch old movies (or if you're into that sort of thing, football)  and watch the trees dance in the wind.   Notice the trend.... cozy blanket, fire, glass of wine.  Wet or dry, you can't miss.

I do love the football fans.  Mostly because they hole up on weekends either in a stadium or living room watching whatever big game is going on and leave the roads clear (except for I-5 south to Eugene/Corvallis on Saturdays), beaches empty and parks/festivals less crowded.  I actually enjoy a little football on occassion.  I just don't understand giving up every Saturday for three months to catch *every.single.game*.  I think I still have issues from being forced to watch every home football game in high school from the "Pep Band" section of the bleachers.  I was in Concert Band.  That, I loved.  But we had no marching band, and it was a requirement if you were in Concert Band to play in Pep Band. I didn't have a lot of "band friends", though so my buddies were all out in the "regular" section of the bleachers gossipping and flirting, eating hot dogs and cheering on the home team.  While I sat lonely and bereft off to the side watching a sea of hundreds of people all having fun while I was miserable playing The Magnificent Seven over and over and over again.  

Where was I?  Oh yes, back to the Harvest/All Hollow's Eve fests....

Little Kid friendly:

Hood River Valley Harvest Fest (Hood River - on the Columbia River waterfront)  Oct 17 - 19
Rasmussen Farms Pumpkin Funland  (Hood River)  Admission Free. Nationally recognized.  Daily.
Sauvie Island Pumpkin Patch & corn Maize (Portland)
Pomeroy Farms Pumpkin Lane (Yacolt, WA).  Not free.
Roloff Farms (Helvetia, OR)  (If you're a fan of the TLC channel Little People, Big World)
Stocker Farms (Snohomish, WA)

Round up of Puget Sound area Pumpkin Farms.

Halloweentown (St. Helens, OR).  Features Twilight movie filming locations.

Big Kid Friendly:

Fright Town at the Rose Quarter (Portland)   $20
Wenzel Farm Halloween Fantasy Trail (Oregon City)
Fright Fest at Wild Waves (Seattle)

I'll add more as I come across them in the coming days.   This weekend is the Honeycrisp apple harvest in Hood River.  I think maybe we'll take a trip to pick up a box direct from the farm.   Mr. Stang has this unholy adoration for honeycrisps.   We planted our own 4-in-1 apple tree in the backyard last year - honeycrisps are one of the varieties.

The Red Herring of Tort Reform

There's an excellent post and discussion over at Firedoglake this morning discussing the role of tort reform in the health care reform debate.

Snip: "In the early part of the decade, doctors clamored for tort reform in response to insurance companies jacking up their rates for malpractice insurance. Now, 46 states have passed some version of it. But ironically, malpractice premiums are lower in states without caps. Doctors did not benefit, and the patients who had their rights eliminated certainly did not benefit. So who came out winners from a decade of destroying the civil justice system?


That would be the insurance industry. Tort law changes made medical negligence cases so difficult to pursue that claims dropped precipitously. Between 2000 and 2006, the amount of money insurance companies paid out decreased by 15%. But that did not help the doctors because insurance companies never passed on those savings. In fact, the amount of money insurance companies took in from doctors increased by 120%.

To their credit, insurance industry execs and enemies of civil justice never denied they had pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes. “Insurers never promised that tort reform would achieve specific premium savings,” said the American Insurance Association in 2002. “We wouldn’t tell you or anyone that the reason to pass tort reform would be to reduce insurance rates,” said Sherman “Tiger” Joyce, head of the tort reform movement in 1999. "

As I mentioned there in the comments, the red herring of tort reform is ironically obscuring the huge Red Elephant in the middle of the whole discussion.  Namely - people who know that they, or a family member will most likely be denied ANY coverage FOREVER (any kind of coverage - even for a hangnail),  due to a now "pre-existing" health condition that was somebody else's fault has no choice but to wring as much $$ as they possibly can, when they can via a lawsuit from the insurance company of the responsible party.
 
If you give people no other option than to look to insurance companies for their health care.... it should come as no surprise, whatsoever that hey!  People are going to look to insurance for their health care!   If they can't get their own policy to pay for it then they'll do whatever then can to get somebody else's to do so.

Drive-thru Flu Emergency Treatment, or RN's on Rollerblades

This is absolutely brilliant: Hospitals setting up Swine Flu drive-thru's.  

snip: "...hospitals are opening drive-thrus and drive-up tent clinics to screen and treat a swelling tide of swine flu patients... The idea behind these efforts is to keep coughing, feverish people out of regular emergency rooms, where they can infect heart attack victims and other very sick patients. The need has soared in recent weeks as flu has spread among schoolchildren before vaccine is available."

Fantastic innovation, though the image of this is absolutely cracking me up.

"It works like this:   A nurse near the ER stops cars and sends appropriate cases to the drive-thru. Signs tell families to tune the radio to a public broadcasting station that describes what happens next.

"The patient's automobile acts as a self-contained isolation compartment, a moving exam room," Weiss said. "The hoods of the cars make excellent places to write notes," and medical records are slid under the windshield wipers.

Through the car window, a doctor uses a device that clips on a finger to measure blood pressure, pulse and breathing rates. Fingerstick blood tests can be done. In nearby tents, diabetics can get a urine test for blood sugar, and heart patients can get an EKG. Portable X-rays are available, too. The last stop has a pharmacy to get vaccine, medicines or a prescription to fill."

I have visions of an old 50's style drive-in diner.... nurses on rollerblades, wearing scrubs and masks.  Only instead of cheeseburgers and milkshakes they leave a phlebotomy tray on your window.  It really is a brilliant idea. Sick, fevered kids don't even have to leave the comfort and security of their carseats.  You don't even have to wake them up after they fall asleep on the way.  You can sit and listen to the radio while you wait, or watch a portable DVD player.  And most importantly, not worry about catching something even *worse* than what you came into the E.R. for to begin with.

"But Your Mother Did"

Sen Jon Kyl (Az) doesn't think insurance companies should be required to pay for basic maternity care.  Because *he* certainly doesn't need it, ergo it would be "more expensive" to cover.  Sen. Debbie Stabenow (MI) nails him -  "But I think your Mom probably did".  

Read More, after the jump:

Foodzie... the Edible Etsy

Via Pioneer Woman: A very, very cool online marketplace for homemade, artisan goodies:   Foodzie. 
The great part is the map and profiles of the producers that helps you know where your food comes from. When I grow up I want to work for them.

Friday Car Blogging

Ugh.  Used car shopping at the junker end of the market is no fun anymore (I guess to less sick and twisted people, it never was).  I had $1500 to spend, cash and knew it would be a crapshoot no matter what I got.  I needed something cheap and fairly reliable/comfortable to get me the 3 miles to work every day.  But due to the economy and the cash for clunkers program the used, beater car market has dried up.  After coming up empty on this side of the river (and on craigslist) I turned to the old standby for cheap used cars - 82nd Ave in Portland.

I took the Monkey because who would want to screw over a nice woman with an adorable 4 yr old in a Tae Kwon Do uniform?  And he gave me an excuse not to play the old game of "please sit around and wait while we pretend to consult with The Boss in The Back".   He had fun having balloon fights (the Monkey, not the boss - or if he did I didn't see it).  I encouraged him to run around.  Play tag, hide & seek under the cheap desks.   Generally annoy the sales guys as much as possible.  All's fair in love, war and Used Car Haggling.  I have a hyperactive 4 year old and I'm not afraid to use him, Buster!*

Car problem? Find the best mechanics with local unbiased reviews. Try Angie’s List.

Their favorite trick is to make you sit and waste your time in a barren waiting room making chit chat with a gap-toothed babysitter.  I don't do small talk.  If they're not going to do me the courtesy of having some old magazines laying around to occupy my mind, I'll find something else to occupy it.  Like call Mr. Stang on the cell while I'm sitting there and have him look stuff up on the internet.  Especially True Market Values on edmunds.com .  Love Love Love Edmunds.com.  He reads me all the bad owner reviews, which I can share with the babysitter.  Then I call other people.  Ask their opinions.  Gossip.  Nothing gets the Boss In The Back out front quicker than you picking up the cell phone and "stepping outside" to chat. 

I ended up buying a 1994 Honda Passport EX SUV like this one (only black, with a bug shield & faded paint ont he hood),  4wd, 4 doors. Automatic.  130k miles.  Pretty clean, no major structural/cosmetic issues.  Maybe a leaky moonroof.  We'll see when it rains.  Needs a new starter.  But has a tow package so could be used to haul stuff in the future.  It's got power everything... with the usual power problems on a 15 yr old car (passenger door lock, driver side window...).   Engine and tranny don't sound great but hopefully nothing major a tune up won't fix (knock wood.... knock entire forests.....) . If it lasts a year I'll be happy.

Pray to the Used Car Gods and wish us luck!!

*No actual pre-schoolers were psychologically harmed or exploited in the purchasing of this vehicle.  Well, maybe a little exploited.... but he had fun doing it.  And kept the kids of another woman buying a car at the same time well entertained.

Cedar Creek Grist Mill

Doesn't this look like a picture right out of Little House?

This weekend's adventure: Cedar Creek Grist Mill outside of Woodland, WA.

 It's the only mill in Washington that's retained its original structure, is powered by water and still grinds with stones (like this one!) . It's another "working" historical museum and the volunteers will tell you everything you ever wanted to know (and then some) about the history of grain farming in America, milling, why whole grains are so nutritionally important, and a great deal of local history.   Then they fire up the creek-powered turbine and in seconds out comes finely ground flour, which they generously give to visitors (along  with delicious recipes) to go home and make their own bread.

There's a beautiful covered bridge over the creek.  Next weekend I'm told they make Native American Fry Bread on premises with the flour they grind themselves.  Next month, it's apple-pressing time.

Wide-eyed munchkins not provided.  So bring your own.

Exactly which "Health Care Reform Plan" are they talking about?

Anytime you hear someone in the media about "the proposed health care reform plan" ask yourself - exactly WHICH plan are they talking about?  There are at least a dozen.  Lazy commentators (on all sides) have a tendency to lump the worst (as they see it) details of all plans into a single, scary monolithic BoogeyPlan.  That so far does not exist.

The Kaizer Foundation has a fantastic new comparison tool to help you understand the critical differences.

Then let your reps know what you like - and do NOT like - about each.

Friday Critter Blogging

This little opossum drives Jinx bonkers.  He lives under our neighbor's deck

Bringing the past alive at Pomeroy Farms

Every so often, when especially stressed out by the rigors of modern living Mr. Stang expresses a desire to return to simpler times.  Back when people rose at dawn, worked their ass off all day growing their own food, and fought insomnia the old fashioned way - with bone numbing exhaustion instead of little white pills.

When he does I like to remind him that while life may have been simpler (living on the edge of survival has a way of doing that), it was certainly a lot harder when there wasn't a Safeway around the block.  Thinking it well about time to teach MickeyD this little lesson as well, I dragged them both to Pomeroy Living History Farm outside Yacolt two weeks ago to see how a family in SW Washington would have made a living in 1920.  They were having an open weekend where volunteers (including lots of the famly) dress up in period outfits and demonstrate old fashioned domestic skills.

MickeyD got to churn butter, feed the goats (alas, no nanny goats, so no milking), dip his own candles, see how they spun wool and made clothes/blankets, and otherwise see how his Grandma Great lived when SHE was a little girl his age.   I explained that she didn't have electricity.  So no lights, no TV.  No refrigerator!!  No hot water.  And she'd have to go OUTSIDE to go potty (who am I kidding - he'd probably like that).  Grow/harvest her own food, make her own toys.... everything!

We lucked out - it was the weekend when it was raining so much.  While we caught a break in the weather not many others made the attempt so we had the WHOLE place almost entirely to ourselves.  Including the hayride.   MickeyD was temporarily upset when they wouldn't let him try pounding his own iron in the 1000 degree blacksmith forge, but otherwise really enjoyed it.

A ton of real world, hands on education masquerading as a fun day in the country.   I highly recommend it.  MickeyD's favorite game afterwards was "What ELSE didn't they have?  Tell me ALL THE THINGS!!" He didn't believe that not only were there no cell phones, there were no PHONES at all!  Or cars (well, not many in the 20's).  That it would have taken us 2-3 days instead of 3 hours to go see his Gramma down on the Oregon Coast by horse and buggy. 

They host field trips for schoolkids during the week, and open their Pumpkin Lane hayride and family entertainment weekends in October. We've begun to go up there to get our pumpkins for Halloween  (this was 2 years ago). It's on Lucia Falls road, which is a gateway to all kinds of other recreational opportunities like  Lucia Falls, Moulton Falls.  Lewisville Park.  Sunset Falls.  and Silver Star Mountain.

This explains a lot

Fox's Glenn Beck, who organized the anti-health care reform demonstration in D.C. last week, has a hard-on for a lunatic named Cleon Skousen. 

snip: "Beck has created a massive meet-up for the disaffected, paranoid Palin-ite "death panel" wing of the GOP, those ideologues most susceptible to conspiracy theories and prone to latch on to eccentric distortions of fact in the name of opposing "socialism."   In that, they are true disciples of the late W. Cleon Skousen, Beck's favorite writer and the author of the bible of the 9/12 movement, "The 5,000 Year Leap." A once-famous anti-communist "historian," Skousen was too extreme even for the conservative activists of the Goldwater era, but Glenn Beck has now rescued him from the remainder pile of history, and introduced him to a receptive new audience.

"By 1963, Skousen's extremism was costing him. No conservative organization with any mainstream credibility wanted anything to do with him. Members of the ultraconservative American Security Council kicked him out because they felt he had "gone off the deep end." One ASC member who shared this opinion was William C. Mott, the judge advocate general of the U.S. Navy. Mott found Skousen "money mad ... totally unqualified and interested solely in furthering his own personal ends."

The man even agreed with John Birch Society founder Robert Welch who said Dwight D. Eisenhower was a  "dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy." And who thought both he and Truman were definitely communist sympathizers, and probably actual Soviet agents.

Direct Fee Primary Care Doctors, or the "Concierge" model.

**Update 9/21/09:  Woohoo!!  Finally found at least one website that lists participating Direct Primary Care physicians nationwide: Direct Primary Care Coalition.   My doctor isn't listed - I don't know if she's advertising yet.  I'm happy to email her contact info to anyone interested in Vancouver, however.

One fine Saturday night  recently MickeyD and I were visiting my friend E. when the corner of her evil  coffee table decided to take a nasty gash out of his eyebrow.  It could have been a lot worse.   E. was panicking a little and asked if we wanted to go to the E.R.. "No", I said - "it's not that bad and besides, he's not insured. I'll just call our doctor and have her check him out and patch him up."

What??  See a doctor without insurance?  Immediately?  Does. Not. Compute.  Because today, we equate access to health CARE with access to health INSURANCE.  But it wasn't always that way.  And doesn't have to be.

Our doc said she'd meet us at her clinic in 15 minutes. This is Saturday night. 10 p.m.  Five minutes after we arrived he was sitting calmly in her office getting dermabonded (no need for stitches), no concussion, no eye damage.  Medically approved to go to the County Fair the very next day and ride as many high velocity carnival rides as his short stature would allow.

We were home by 11 pm.   Like a modern day Marcus Welby, MD.  This, my friends is Direct Fee Primary Care. Or "Retained care".  Or "concierge" care.  Or "boutique" care.  Nobody is sure what to call it yet.  But what they see, they like.  Once reserved for the uberwealthy who could afford to keep a personal physician on staff for themselves and their family.  Now becoming widely available all across the country as a highly cost effective alternative to Health Insurance plans for the low and middle income earning masses.

This is not the nightmare so many of my fellow uninsured Americans face of not being able to get even the most basic medical care.  This is, dare I say it?  Fantastic.  How is it possible that I can get everything I'd WANT for primary care with no insurance headache and for much less than my monthly cable bill?  July 1 we enrolled MickeyD and Mr. Stang in my doctor's new Direct Contract program. For a small set up fee (like $50) and regular monthly fee (whopping $25 for Duncan, $50 for Mr. Stang) we get:

*Same Day appointments with any of the 3 doctors who practice at the clinic.
*No copays.
*No deductible.
*No paperwork.
*24/7 access to our doctor and her personal cell phone number.
*Any lab tests/treatments/procedures they can do in the clinic, at *their* cost. Including vaccines.
*No time limit on appointments. However long we need.
*Unlimited chiropractic adjustments (one of the docs is an osteopath).

All this at a fraction of the cost it would take to get them both covered on my employer's group policy.   Like 5% of the cost.  Mr. Stang is uninsurable on the individual market. We've tried.  If I were to have both him and MickeyD on my dependent plan at work, or just Mr. Stang and MickeyD on his own policy it would cost us $1200/month - plus all of the above-noted out of pocket expenses.  To go the E.R. or an Urgent Care that Saturday night it would have cost us $30 copay. $500 deductible. 20% coinsurance. All for the privelege of sitting in a waiting room for hours with the drunks, drug addicts and thugs that typically frequent an urban E.R. on a Saturday night.  And paying a small fortune for it.

Read What we don't get, After the jump:

New Census numbers out on Healthcare, the Underinsured & Everything

Census Bureau report here.  Some Highlights:

In 2008 the percentage of people covered by private health insurance was 66.7%; people covered by employment-based health insurance decreased to 58.5%, and people covered by government health insurance programs increased to 29.0%.
 
And what's worse - the census data for 2008 does not account for any loss of insurance due to the 9 Million jobs that have been lost since this recession began at the end of 2008.  Not those people who are unemployed.  Not any of their dependents who were previously relying on that worker's coverage for themselves.

What those figures don't tell you are the number of people who are UNDERINSURED.  There's no formal definition of what it means to be "underinsured" but a generally accepted consensus is when any of the following situations exist:

•  Medical expenses greater than 10 percent of annual income
• An annual income less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level and medical expenses greater than 5 percent of annual income
• Health plan deductibles equal to or greater than 5 percent of annual income

The above article, from the AAOS newsletter estimates that as of 2008 about 35% of Americans are uninsured or underinsured. Again, that article was written *before* the recession hit at the end of the year.

This new report from the non-profit, non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation also gives us a clue as to why that number is exploding.  They found that the average premium for a company provided family health plan has gone up 131% in the last decade.

Why is this so alarming?  Because people who are underinsured drive up total health care costs for everyone almost as much as those who are totally uninsured.  Here's a pretty good breakdown of how that works, and why the underinsured are such a problem.  Most people who don't know the specifics can't get past the apparent illogic -"how do people who DO NOT USE the system make that system cost more"?  The key element is what kind of care they are using.  They forego relatively cheap preventative care (though still too expensive for them out of pocket) and end up using highly expensive critical care when they're out of all other options.

I, and my family fall into this category. 

Premiums for our group plan at work went up 40% in three years (from 2005 - 2008).  In 2008 we could only get three companies to even give us a quote.  Our existing carrier, Regence Blue Cross was the low bid an dwanted our premiums to go up another 39% on top of that to renew.  Management decided to self-insure instead.  At the same time, our deductibles and copays have doubled. It now costs me $30 for an office visit to see my primary physician.  $40 for a specialist.  The smallest deductible I can get is $500.   I pay 15% of my own premiums as an employee.  And would have to pay 100% of the premiums for my dependents if we opted to have them included.   Remember, Mr. Stang has several chronic, pre-conditions that require many office visits and medications.  Due to my pre-existing conditions (sinusitic, depression) I see my doctor 4-5 times a year.  So the out of pocket expenses REALLY add up for us.  Even though I take full advantage of my available Flexible Spending Account - it only helps out with $1500 in expenses.  Which the last few years has been totally eaten up by dental expenses (our dental plan is worse than our medical plan).

This is a far cry from the union-provided insurance coverage we had through Pop as a kid.  Where all we had to do was enter "Blue Cross" and our local # on the paperwork and everything was taken care of.  Never a hassle.  Never a copay.  Never a complaint.

Here's the kicker with the piddly excuse for insurance available on the market today.  The inflated deductible, copays, etc. only apply to COVERED expenses.  So even though we are paying for more and more of our own health care out of pocket, we still have to fight the insurance company every.damned.time we try to get care to get our coinsurance credited correctly.  Which means not only do we get virtually no return whatsoever on the nearly 25% of my total earned income (except perhaps catastrophic coverage) that we invest in health care, we (and more importantly to the question of improving overall effectiveness - our doctors) still get the pleasure of spending countless hours on unnavigable customer service phone trees to get them to approve charges they're not even going to have to pay for.

This results in huge overhead for our doctors - they have to keep people on staff to do nothing but deal with the insurance coverage/billing issues.  It results in huge administrative fees for our insurance company.  That last quote from Regence for our company?  Their administration fees ALONE were 25 cents/ every premium dollar spent.  Compare this to Medicare - a government run program - that somehow manages to do the trick with only a 5 cent/premium dollar administrative overhead.

So when our family's GP began to offer direct contracting, we signed up Mr. Stang and MickeyD in a heartbeat.  More on this new "trend" in the next post.

How to kill one's journalism career in one easy Tweet

Just go viral with President's  "Off the Record" comments. : Obama calls Kenye West a "jackass" for stealing Taylor Swift's spotlight after winning VMA.   West has personally apologized, that apology has been accepted by Swift.  Yes, undisputably, he was an ass. (like one of my favorite scenes in Much Ado About Nothing - Michael Keaton, as the constable: "Forget not, that I.  Am.  An   Ass."  - about mark 7:07 in this video).    I'm glad the Pres. didn't tiptoe around calling him to the carpet even though West was a HUGE supporter of his during the election. Yes, it is damned Presidential in my book to hold your supporters to a higher moral standard.  It's going to be interesting to see what negative spin the conservative blowhards try to put on Obama's comment.  Then go back and see how they spun Cheney's infamous (and unrepentant) "Fuck Yourself!" outburst to Sen. Leahy on the Senate floor - and Pres. Bush's "eh - stuff happens" reaction to that comment.  (Note - I'm the last kettle to criticize any pot for swearing - it's the hypocricy of the self-styled "family values" crowd that gets me.)

Health Care Reform - Perspective

I'm working on several posts regarding various reform options  (specifically, what's a Co-Op?  Direct Contracting with Docs/clinics, why doctors leave primary care medicine, and others) and will get them up when I fine tune them a little. 

In the meantime, Sarahlynn, proud parent of a gorgeous daughter with Down's Syndrome, has already done a lot of heavy lifting on the subject.

Part 1 - Down Syndrome is a Pre-existing Condition
Part 2 - It Pays to Work for the Insurance Company
Part 3 - But We're the Best! Why Fix What Isn't Broken?
Part 4 - What Does "Reform" Really Mean?

Swooning over Sotomayer

From Shakesville today. "In her first appearance as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor questioned the concept of corporate personhood, which endows corporations with constitutional rights that persons enjoy."

Woohoo! 

Friday Critter Blogging

Tiger Whinger..

Is being surgically emasculated today. I don't know what he's going to be most pissed off about - losing his testicles or not being able to eat for almost 24 hours.

In other news, Mr. Stang is cleaning out the garage so we can get the pottery "studio" up and running again. He just called to ask if he can throw away old paperwork from a box of mine that's 10 years old. 

In the box was my passport.

I've been looking for that damned thing for 8 years, 4 moves, and one honeymoon cruise.  I had visions of taking off on a whim to see Europe on one of the new direct flights Lufthansa began offering from PDX to Frankfurt in 2003.

The irony?  Earlier this year Lufthansa announced they were cancelling that direct flight due to the shitty economy. The last direct flight is tomorow, Sept. 12.    And the passport expires in November.   At least Delta/NW is still offering a direct flight to Amsterdam.