Wishing Your Life Away on Pensacola Beach

A Pensacola Beach friend we have mentioned before -- someone in her mid-fifties who beat breast cancer a few years ago -- wrote us the other day in distress. Her husband is on Medicare, and so she maintains a single-person health insurance policy:

Remember that friend of yours you reported to have a health insurance premium resembling some people's mortgage payments? Well, that friend's premium just jumped another blankety-blank 24-1/2 percent, from $848 to $1052 a friggin' month. I will go through the motions of calling the Florida CFO's consumer protection office tomorrow to verify the rate is legal, but have no hope of its changing -- and, as you know, I'm locked in, helpless, by virtue of my pre-existing condition.

I remarked to hubby tonight that I hate to be in the position of wishing my life away at my age, but feel as if I'm scrabbling up a rocky hill desperately seeking to reach age 65 so I can go on Medicare... . Meanwhile, I have no choice but to fork it over every single month. None. And I hate to think what next year's premium will be.

What a revolting development this is.

She did call the so-called "insurance consumer protection" people, and then she wrote us again. This is what she learned:

In my experience under company HMO plans in the past, there were typical age rating groups (e.g., 50-54, 55-59, 60-64) that wouldn't likely have caused my big increase since I'm in the middle of a normal and usual age grouping. But what I wanted to know was whether or not the increase I was being charged had been approved as a general rate increase.

It had. The State guy was able to search a database and confirm that my carrier (Vista Healthplan, Inc.) had applied for and been approved, in July, for an "average" 22.9% base rate increase on my specific class of policy. The gentleman I spoke with said the exact same thing I'd been told by someone in Tallahassee last year... . [T]hat in my position I had two choices: pay up and keep my existing carrier, or go back to work somewhere and get on a company-sponsored health insurance plan.

Great advice from our state consumer protectors, eh? Not just, "Get a job." But, "Get a job with health insurance."

As our friend points out, the chances of finding a job at her age are slim to none. Moreover, as she writes, "fewer and fewer employers even offer health insurance these days." That's especially true in Northwest Florida, which she reports "is one of the worst in that regard."

Just as bad, some of the group employer plans available -- even if she could find a job that has one -- impose "a pre-existing condition exclusion for a defined period." Woe to the poor sucker who gets sick during the exclusion period -- or has to fight the insurance company a year or two down the road when it tries to avoid paying benefits by claiming the cancer really came back during the exclusionary period.

As our friend also points out, "aside from all that, there's the fact that no job is guaranteed to last." Indeed, Florida is one of the worst states in the Union when it comes to job protection laws.

This is thanks to years of conservative state legislators and antediluvian courts that still worship at the alter of "at will" employment, where an employer can promise you the moon and then arbitrarily fire you for a bad reason or no reason at all -- without suffering any legal consequences. In Florida, unlike the majority of other states, employers are free to lie their heads off to employees.

So even if I were insured, if the job ended I'd only have 18 months of policy availability under COBRA at my sole expense (and no guarantee of the rate), and then I'd be on my own, hoping to make it to Medicare.

Our friend's story can't be unique. Not if this is "an average rate increase" as she has been told. How many more Floridians are getting those notices of astronomical premiums increases? And what are our two senators and congressman in Washington going to do about it?

Lucky Day

Good thing we didn't have to visit the John Pace Library at the University of West Florida today, or we'd probably still be there.

Political Damage Control, The World Over

Dept. of Local Comparisons

"The good news is that we are treating the effluent at much higher standards, and we've tried every way from third base to fix that copper problem. With changes to the plant, we have our discharges more under control."

-- Santa Rosa County Administrator Hunter Walker, on the subject of an 11-year long sewage spill into Santa Rosa Sound at Navarre Beach.

The Wrong Side of Right

We get emails. This is from someone using the name "south90":

You probably have heard this before. I vote for the person, not the party. I happened to see this article yesterday about a Republican governor who is sorry he opposed the national park program: http://firedoglake.com/2009/10/03/im-glad-i-lost-because-i-now-know-that-i-was-wrong/ I may be changing the way I vote.

It is not only about a great national park. It is also about doing the right thing by people and the politicians who are for and against it.

It got me to thinking how almost every modern law that makes life better happened because of a Democratic president and Democratic congress. Social Security, minimum wage, unemployment compensation, the G.I. Bill, FHA mortgages, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act, fair housing, federal college loan programs, Medicaid, handicapped access, the Family Leave Act. Maybe a few moderate Republicans voted for some of those things. But the main Republican Party was violently against them. They only happened because of Democratic presidents and a Democratic majority in Congress.

That says a lot about who to trust on health insurance reform.

Crazy Crying

HT to Digby. Film by Mister Movies. Diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association:

Symptoms

The symptoms of antisocial personality disorder include a longstanding pattern (after the age of 15) of disregard for the rights of others. There is a failure to conform to society's norms and expectations that often results in numerous arrests or legal involvement as well as a history of deceitfulness where the individual attempts to con people or use trickery for personal profit. Impulsiveness is often present, including angry outbursts, failure to consider consequences of behaviors, irritability, and/or physical assaults.

Some argue that a major component of this disorder is the reduced ability to feel empathy for other people. This inability to see the hurts, concerns, and other feelings of people often results in a disregard for these aspects of human interaction. Finally, irresponsible behavior often accompanies this disorder as well as a lack of remorse for wrongdoings.

Prognosis

People with antisocial personality disorder typically see the world as having the problems, not him or herself, and therefore rarely seek treatment. If progress is made, it is typically over an extended period of time.

Text Message This

We plead guilty. When we were younger and dumber -- say, about four months ago -- we used a cell phone while driving. Maybe more than once. We just can't recall for sure, officer.

In mitigation, we hasten to add that we've never used our cell phone as much as the really young ones do, since it's too much trouble for us to put aside the walker, shift the colostomy bag out of the way, swallow the nitro pills, pat down a half-dozen pockets to find the trifocals, and then discover where the hell we put the cell phone.

Even so, we're in favor of saving others, from people like us, by a federal ban on text-messaging while driving.

In fact, we're in favor of banning all hand-held cell phone use while driving a moving vehicle, including talk, GPS, picture-taking, microwaving lunch, simulated sex, and whatever other tools and applications modern cell phones may have these days. If it were within our power, we'd even ban calling or texting anyone who happens to be in their car at the time. That would cut down really fast on the problem we've been contributing to.

So we have something in common with CNN Cable News. Both of us have short-term memory loss. That, alone, makes us plenty dangerous enough on the road.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Warns Against Texting While Driving
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Olympic Decision Makers

Over the years, we have been personally acquainted with two members of the International Olympic Committee. One of them was completely and irretrievably corrupt.

We'd guess that's about the right for the Committee as a whole -- only 50% of them are crooks.

Dept. of Reasonable Alternatives
10-2 pm

Our neighbor Bryan at Why Now? thinks it isn't corruption. It's impatience with our continuing national xenophobic paranoia. Sensible explanation. Maybe we're both right.

Olympia Snowe Falls; We Pick Up Her Doctor Bills

Rising Hegemon: "[S]she's not sure YOU deserve a public option but you are providing her excellent health insurance." (It's called the "public option" -- and lucky for her, she took it.)

Grayson's Guts Go Viral

The videos of Central Florida's congressman, Alan Grayson, taking down Republican "No-It-Alls" on health care reform has gone viral. Imagine that! People like a Democrat with guts.

You probably don't know most of these smaller blogs, but every one has its own clutch of faithful readers, many with thousands -- and some with tens of thousands -- of readers every day. Here are just a few of the hundreds of web sites applauding Grayson's guts:

• Open Left - "Now that's what I call a Better Democrat."
• The Plum Line - "What’s really going on is the Dem rank and file... just want to see Dems show some fight and some fearlessness... ."
• A Comfortable Place - "Alan Grayson deserves every minute of airtime he can get."
• Down With Tyranny - "Candor and honesty... ."
  
• BarbinMD - "How refreshing to have a Democrat who doesn't cave to Republican whimpering."
• Hullabaloo - "Teaching Democrats how to neutralize a hissy fit is all the more reason to support Alan Grayson."
  
• Ontd Political - "Alan, keep this up and half of Ontd will wish to ... marry you in a second."
• Brilliant at Breakfast - " We need more Democrats like this."
• Antemedius - "Alan Grayson... speaks his mind no holds barred... ."
• Disinformation - " I didn’t think anyone in the Democratic Party had a backbone."
• White Noise Insanity - "Man, I love Rep. Alan Grayson."
• Manifesto Joe's Texas Blues - "A Democrat with Juevos."
• Democratic Underground - "People Like a Democrat with Guts."
  
• El Brigadier - "He's a Democrat with balls. Lately... that's about in as short supply as Republicans with decent human standards. "
• Think Humanely - "I’d like to see every one of the... cowardly, bought and paid for, acquiescent Democrats take the floor of Congress and apologize to the 122 families who lost their loved ones today."
• Hicktown Press - "Two thumbs up."
• It's My Right to Be Left of Center - "Bravo Dude!"
  
• Progress for a More Perfect Union - "Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire."
• Tennessee Guerilla Women - "[I]sn't it refreshing to hear a lawmaker talk about radical things like caring about people?"
• CJ's NWI Opinion - "My hero."
• Health Insurance - "Yes, Virginia, spines exist."
• These People Are Animals - "Alan Grayson is an American hero."
• Sideon's Santuary - "One man lately has cajones. Huge cajones."
• Arianna Huffington - "He has the truth on his side."
• No Agenda - "Alan Grayson was trying to get people to WAKE UP."
• The Political Carnival - "He is our new hero."
• Positively Barack - "After all the crap we’ve had to listen to about health care reform, this guy is a breath of fresh air!"
  
• Oliver Willis ("Like Kryptonite to Stupid") - "Oh no, someone in Washington told the truth again."
  

There are more encomiums to Alan Grayson being published every minute.

Diogenes' Ghost Can Rest, Now - A Video Serial

An honest man has been found, at last. His name is Alan Grayson. He's a congressman from central Florida.

The shade of Diogenes shined a lamp on him, thrice, these past ten days on the floor of Congress, of all places.

First, Rep. Grayson delivered one of those 3-minute speeches on the floor of the House if Representatives that no one watches. He was reacting to a sad but typical story of specific health insurance abuse and how it killed yet another American.

[1]

Naturally, Rep, Grayson was ignored by the corporate media, didn't get invited onto any Talking Head Shows, and the video of his effort all but disappeared.

[2] Then, earlier this week he again delivered one of those short floor speeches, this time attacking Republicans who "just say No" to health care reform. Grayson had charts, like everyone else these days:

Naturally, Republicans suddenly discovered the Marquess of Queensbury rules of public discourse (they'd misplaced them, somehow, over the summer months during the "birther" and "town hall" rallies) and demanded an apology for hurting their feelings.

[3] Grayson gave it to them, right between the eyes:

After all this, Congresssman Grayson still couldn't get invited onto Corporate Con Network or any of the other bloviating TeeVee talk shows. He's not on the Corporate Media approved list, you see.

[4] Uninvited, he walked on anyway!

If you want to see the whole thing, including how Grayson burst into the studio like an eager Greek philosopher rushing to correct his errant students, Crooks & Liars has the full video.

You Have To "Go Through Fire" To Reform Health Care

When it comes to health care reform, we have a lot to learn from our neighbors to the north. In Saskatchewan, many decades ago, they went through much the same kind of wrenching, dirty, name-calling, scar-i-fying political fight over health care reform.

So how did it turn out? Listen for yourself to this podcast from an interview broadcast today on the radio program, The World.

Light on News

Can't understand why home deliveries of the Pensacola News Journal are down. Maybe it has something to do with this:

We are assuming the Pensacola News Journal was light on news again, today, since the brisk morning breeze seems to have whisked the paper out of the receptacle attached to our mailbox and blown it all away. This is happening more and more frequently.

Today, we found only one pathetic page, trapped beneath the tire of a parked car a quarter block away. We know it was ours because we are now the only daily newspaper subscriber in our neighborhood. The only one.

If the publisher of a dying newspaper insists on saving money by shorting the news pages every few days, the least he could do is give what little remains some added heft by attaching something heavy to it -- like a lead fishing weight, maybe, or a leftover toy from the McDonald's kid's meals they'll be serving at the next Gannett Publishing Co. annual banquet.

Be Glad You're Not a Hoosier...

... with a cold.

How to Save $85 Billion

Want to save $85 billion in health care costs? Enact a public option as part of health care reform. So says the CBO:

The public plan saves money because it pushes down premium prices. Lower premium prices across the country would mean the government would have to pay less in subsidies to low-income people who buy insurance through the exchange, according to CBO. Medicare rates are typically lower than those paid by private insurers, so using that formula would allow the public plan to charge considerably lower premiums to stay solvent. If the government has to negotiate the same way insurance companies do, public plan premiums likely won't be as low -- hence less savings.

Economist Duncan Black sticks his tongue in cheek and says, "I look forward to the Villagers pressing the fiscally responsible 'centrists' on why they'd rather waste money."

If he's waiting for the dead tree press and D.C. establishment, he'll wait a long time. The fact that a public option is cheaper than paying 40 percent more to pharmaceutical and health care corporations does not fit into their predetermined narrative, so it will be ignored.

Give a Little Love to Your Health Insurance Company

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell