Category: Health Care

Massachusetts now requires health insurance.  If this is not unconstitutional it should be.  People without insurance of course don’t do their patriotic fair share in supporting the big pharma industry.  All this is going to mean though is a rapid downslide of an ever increasing list of not covered “procedures”.

It’s “open enrollment” time at work.  In the past representatives of the prospective health insurers would come to the workplace to explain their benefits.  This year it’s down to a read the intranet page and then click on the black hole of computing benefit selctions page.  We are down to Guido’s health care.
http://www.zwire.com…

This year I found the company benefit selection page most profane and offensive.  They tout your “opportunity” to set up an account, which you have no control over, in order to pay for medical expenses.
The second part goes on to extoll the virtues of preventive medicine and actually states “only 1/3 went to the doctors for annual checkups”.
Yes, I did save the pdf file.  Let me illustrate the point here clearly.  The company said only 1/3 of you went to the doctor for an annual checkup.
In general with every word in this health brochure I can envision the focus group of evil HR minions agonizing over each and every word trying to make a turd look like a silver spoon.

Oh, I see, that must mean this is total bullshit right?
http://www.hhs.gov/o…
Privacy of medical records?  I didn’t authorized the company to ask my doctor if I went last year.  The marriage of the most Satanic memes in business are now going to be coupled to and reinforced through government.
You will buy our crappy insurance, take our unproven drugs and if you go blind as a side effect tough shit.
http://www.commondre…

Now when I get fired for being a Deek, I’ll post the entire pdf and more here.
http://www.surfingth…

How’s your health “insurance”, watch as in time it’s going to wither away into corporate nothingness, kind of like dealing with the IRS or your cell phone “plan”.

Here’s my first IAB diary. This is a collaborative effort. I am going to try to post as much as I have and keep updating this as I go. Positive suggestions and critiques only, please.

DemFromCT is all over this one, so this is great, but let’s get more specific.

The vote is October 18th.

Democratic leaders scheduled the showdown for Oct. 18 to allow two weeks for pressure to build on Republicans. A union-led organization said it would spend more than $3 million trying to influence the outcome.

Still working on finding out exactly how many votes are needed in each house of Congress to win this, and what we know about who’s voting how. If you have that available, post in comments and let me know.  I’ll update.

This is an attempt to unmask the paucity of thought implied in political “realism” as typically portrayed on DKos and elsewhere.  It concludes with a plea for “unrealism” in politics.  Realism has punted in Iraq, civil rights, health insurance, and education; can we expect it to do any better with climate change?

(crossposted @ DKos)

We can talk all we want about freedom and opportunity, about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but what does all that mean to a mother or father who can’t take a sick child to the doctor?

That, my fellow Democrats, is our frontrunner for our party’s nomination for President of the United States, Sen. Hillary Clinton.  Sen. Clinton made that statement in presenting her plan for health care reform which, like that of former Sen. John Edwards, would compel all Americans to enroll in a health insurance program.  Citizens would have an option of many private insurance options, or a public option similar to Medicare.  Tax credits would ensure that no American is forced to pay more than a certain percentage of their income on health insurance.

I’ve long been a fan of found objects.

They could take the form of a discarded piece of still-functional furniture hauled out to the sidewalk, and quite possibly with a hand-written “Free! Take Me!” sign affixed to it with masking tape. Perhaps a photograph. A plastic toy whose time on the street has left it gravel-scratched, and therefore, to me anyway, somehow more appealing. On a morning walk to work back in June, as schools were letting out for the summer, I happened upon a rather elaborate, hand-drawn, construction and manila paper game board that some youngster presumably crafted for a school project. The name of their invented game, delightfully, is Osos Locos, and while I was disappointed that my surruptitious treasure did not include the game cards as well, I was pleased enough with my find to share it in the office–an online retailer of games, ironically–for all to enjoy, which we still do.

For some parts of this colorful chunk of the planet I now call home, I employ an advisable look but don’t touch rule. Off-puttingly soiled or otherwise unportable items upon which I stumble may only come back home with me in memory or photograpic form.

And some found objects are truly unsettling, such as the scrap of paper that I’m going to put into the shredder imminently.