Why Insurance in America sucks pt. 4 (this time I'll be brief) and...

Actually this isn't so much about insurance as medical care because in general the problem is medical care- which includes dental. Part of the reason that medical care sucks in the United States of America is that there are too many hidden costs and you don't find out about them until after the fact.

You don't find out that your insurance won't pay for a new dentist in the office you've been going to for years until after he's done a full round of X-Rays on your mouth because you assumed that the office took your insurance when in fact it apparently depends doc by doc. You have to ask! Buyer beware!! 

You can't find out the doctor's office is going to charge you for the experimental treatments they offered (or how much!) so that you can decide if you want to buy the device the doctor is recommending (not covered by insurance) until weeks after you had the appointment because in some cases the front office doesn't even know- their billing office makes those decisions.

You can't find out the difference in cost of one emergency room visit from another- so unlike other markets you can't shop around. But that's not how the "free market" is supposed to work: i.e. I can go from one car dealer to another to find out who is going to offer me the best deal or if Argonaut Liquor is offering a wine on sale I can get Keg Liquor to give me the same wine for the same price. But you usually won't/can't find medical care costs up front and can't choose which is going to be cheapest or ask them to give it to you for the same price. And no, you don't always get the best value for your money. I mean after all, a urine analysis is what it is. Do you need to pay $500 more for it at one hospital than at another?

So that's all I'm going to say about that. For now. Except that I think we are all suckers for not screaming at our government to give us a single payer option and giving it to us now. They can pay for wars that go on and on and on without any kind of result and not bat an eye but doing the right thing on healthcare is too expensive. Well, that's not the reason, I know, but I am not going into a political rant right now.  :)

Quack, Quack.

It's been pretty dry and fairly warm here (except for a couple of days when we dipped down with the whole country into the ungodly cold temperatures a few weeks back) and there's not a whole lot of snow around. We could go on some nice walks except for my shoulder still makes it difficult so these are pictures taken from last year...

What I'm reading? 
I've finished reading a friend's novel right now and giving him some feedback. It's a good solid literary work and I hope he finds a publisher although it's a struggle out there as we all know. 
Hope things are going well where you are!

GOODBYE TO 2013! & why not promote literature and defend free expression?

Happy New Year!! And just to get things started right I thought I'd share a few thoughts... so 2013 is finally leaving and I for one am happy to see it go. Goodbye to the worst year I can ever remember. There are a few challenges ahead because 2013 brought the loss of a colleague at work from domestic violence, a frozen shoulder which I am still recovering from (6 weeks of Physical Therapy and making some progress but a ways to go), migraines that intensified to a ridiculous level, some difficult challenges for my

daughter which I've described here and some frustrations at work which are not ending but I hope I will either adjust to, the changes ahead will make things better or... maybe I'll find a new job? At any rate, there are still things to deal with but it was a pretty bleak year.  

But the sun is setting on all that (get it, the picture is of the setting sun?- haha) Sorry.

 Since the shoulder is on the recovering end, I know that I am on the upside of that and the migraines seem to be improving with my new device which I've also told you about here. My older daughter is having a baby in January so there are some good things coming and I am just crossing my fingers “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well."  Hope springs eternal as they say.

I'm just full of cliches today.  

So let's have a glass of champagne and hope for a better year together!

 From the Library Journal tumblr site: "Librarians at Oakland’s main library have collected the scraps of paper ephemera left behind in returned books, shoved into nooks in the library shelves or secretly slipped to librarians."

Finally as an FYI... 

 Support PEN American Center

Any amount you donate to PEN by December 31 will enter you in a drawing to receive two full-access tickets to PEN's Tenth Annual World Voices Festival, April 28-May 4, 2014.

PEN American Center is a global community of writers working to promote literature and to defend free expression.Check them out at www.Pen.org
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Merry Christmas!

I hope you're having a lovely day where ever you are!

literary conspriracy theory countdown

I won't say I'm a proponent of all of the theories I will post in the days running up to Halloween but this first one has always been a mystery and a bit horrifying considering who the victim was...

So, let’s just look at the facts shall we?

On October 3, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe was wandering the streets of Baltimore delirious, he was later described as being "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to the man who found him, Joseph W. Walker. Rushed by carriage to the Washington Medical College, he died alone that hospital on Sunday, October 7, 1849, at 5:00 in the morning.  Odd enough that Poe was in Baltimore (he was headed for Philadelphia) but the author of the macabre was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition or... why he was wearing clothes that were not his own? According to witnesses, Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death although it was not clear to whom he was referring.  Newspapers at the time reported the author's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common euphemisms for deaths from disreputable causes such as alcoholism. Though Poe was known to drink to excess he was not a hopeless alcoholic[1], it is unlikely that his drinking him brought him to a strange city in strange clothes where he would die for unknown reasons. 

I have always thought, since I wrote a paper on Poe in high school, that there was foul play but since all medical records, including his death certificate, have been lost since that time and Poe’s death remains shrouded in mystery.

image: ChicagoPublicLibrary.tumblr.com

What do you think?  

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[1] http://www.eapoe.org/geninfo/poealchl.htm