No Need for Healthcare Reform? Really?

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Two months ago our daughter was in Myrtle Beach for beach week and while there make the regrettable decision to drive a jet-ski.  The result was an accident that led to a trip to the ER in an ambulance.  Initially our health insurer denied the claim because we hadn't cleared the trip to an out of network ER with them, but once we appealed and pointed out that she was already at the ER before we even knew about it they reversed the decision. That's a good thing, because if they hadn't I'd be writing this from the poorhouse.

The final bills just came in and this is what they show:

  • The original hospital bill totaled: $21,214
  • Our insurer paid $4,151
  • We owed $150
  • The ambulance ride cost over $800, mostly due to a non-resident fee imposed by the county where the accident happened.  We owed $400.

A couple of thoughts here.  Our daughter was discharged hours before we could even get to the beach.  She was in the hospital's care for maybe 2 1/2 – 3 hours, so even taking into consideration that  due to the nature of the accident they treated her in the trauma unit and ran the various MRI-type scans, how can that possibly total over $21,000?  Also, what happens to the poor schlub who doesn't have insurance?  Does $16,000 magically disappear from his bill too?

Believe me, we're very thankful for the care our daughter received.  I'm also not so bitter about the insurance premiums that are deducted from my paycheck because, frankly, our insurance is getting a workout this year.  In addition to this accident we've had a surgery and an illness in our family so we've gone from hardly ever using our insurance to being uber-users.  Of course our premiums are likely to go up again next year, but at least we aren't being bankrupted in the process (at least not yet).

Still this episode drives home the point that there are many people out there who ARE bankrupted by our health care system.  I'm not going to sit here and point the finger at any one person, company or industry, but I am going to say that anyone who thinks our health care system doesn't need fixing has a head full of rocks.  

Harper’s Weekly

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One of my favorite reads is a free weekly email newsletter published by the folks at Harper's Magazine. Basically it's a bunch of disparate news items crunched into a few paragraphs, and instead of trying to describe it the best I can do is share one paragraph that I think is representative:

Despite having overestimated the U.S. federal debt by at
least $2 trillion, Standard and Poor's downgraded the
Unites States' long-term credit rating from AAA to
AA-plus, prompting one market analyst to warn, "This
crisis will run and run, and could make Lehman look like
a Tupperware party." In session for a total of 59
seconds, a skeleton crew of Senate Democrats ended a
partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration,
putting 4,000 employees back to work and allowing the
government to resume collecting $200 million per week in
airline-ticket taxes. Former New York gubernatorial
candidate Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is Too Damn High
Party and Oscar-winning actress Faye Dunaway faced
eviction from their rent-regulated apartments. "You
don't tell an American how to live," McMillan said to
reporters. "I hope you have a terrible life," Dunaway
said to her landlord. Governor Rick Perry, whose April
entreaty to his fellow Texans to pray for rain failed to
alleviate the state's devastating drought, led some
30,000 worshippers in the Response, a Christian prayer
gathering at Houston's Reliant Stadium. Though Perry and
others urged attendees to fast, concession stands sold
nachos and smoothies throughout the seven-hour event. A
San Angelo revivalist skipped lunch but bought a hot dog
around 4:00 p.m. "That's the agreement I made with God
earlier," he said.

You can get your own subscription here.

Alternative Housing

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Our son isn't the only one getting an education by heading off to college.  For instance Mom and Dad discovered last week that his school of choice has some communication issues.  As in the school was quick to let our son know that he'd been bumped off the housing list because they hadn't received a $200 deposit, but in the two months they'd had his registration and zero dollars they'd said nary a word about a deposit not being in hand.  That included two days spent on campus by our son and his mom for a mandatory orientation that ran a couple hundred bucks.  The result was that Mom and Dad ended up spending a Sunday looking at off campus apartments while their son was at work.  That led to the next lesson.

Off campus apartments are not what we had back in the dark ages of the 80s.  These apartments feature three or four private rooms (lockable) with private bathrooms attached to a common area that includes a living room, a full kitchen (granite counters and stainless steel appliances), and a laundry room. Free wi-fi comes with the cable and utilities that are all-inclusive.  The community's clubhouse has a game room (foosball, ping pong, pool), a computer lab, a fitness room (real weights and nicer cardio equipment than we have at our gym) and a pool.  In other words we're worried he won't come home.

BTW, the cost is comparable to the cost of the on-campus housing with the exception of the lowest end dorms. But since the lowest end dorms looking like something out of 60s-era Soviet Russia and smell like feet I'd say that's not a bad deal.

Wallpaper

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I found the following in the excellent "Now I Know" free email newsletter:

Bonus fact: In 1990, Rickey Henderson signed a five year, $8.5 million contract with the A's, which included a $1 million signing bonus.  About a year later, the A's were trying to balance their books, and kept coming up $1 million short.  The team called Henderson and asked him what he did with the check.  His answer: He put it up on his wall, uncashed, as a daily reminder that he was a millionaire.

Maybe You’re a S***ty Cameraman!

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Matt Damon is one of my favorite celebrities.  Not that I have any deep insights into the man – I don't know any celebrities personally – but based on what I've seen, read and heard about him I like the way the guy rolls.  Check out this excerpt from a press event where he takes on a reporter and camera man.  You have to watch to the very end for the kicker:

Independence

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I've never belonged to a political party and although I understand why belonging to political parties is attractive to some folks I just can't see affiliating myself with a group that I know I'm going to disagree with on a healthy percentage of issues.  Let's just say that in my lifetime I've been profoundly disappointed by both of the major political parties in America and amused/frightened by all of the fringe parties I've come across.

On the other hand I'm scared crapless of a no-party system.  Can you imagine how hard it would be to get anything done without the parties?  They do provide a structure for negotiations; people who are philosophically aligned on a majority of issues agreeing to negotiate through a representative with another group that is likewise made up of people who are generally in agreement on most issues.  So yes, I guess I'm a bit of a hypocrite because I do appreciate what the party structure provides but I'll be damned if I'm going to be a member of a party.

Today's news brings two stories that I think highlight the pros and cons of our party systems.  Here in North Carolina the General Assembly just voted to override the Governor's veto of a controversial abortion bill.  One member of the Senate Republican caucus originally voted against the bill before it was vetoed by the Governor, but when the override vote came along he abstained, which in effect enabled the override.  Here's what Doug Clark wrote in the Greensboro News & Record:

"He said the Senate Republican caucus made this abortion vote a 'caucus issue,' a vote where members would face sanctions if they voted out of line with other Republicans. Such sanctions could range from everything from being tossed out of the caucus or losing committee chairmanship to facing party-sponsored opposition in a primary."

Bingham yielded. He didn't vote yes or no, but simply took a walk. Without his opposition, the Republicans captured the necessary number of votes of "those present" to override the veto…

This kind of bullying — and it goes on in both parties — clearly is effective, but it wouldn't be if enough legislators would stand up for what they truly think is right. If the rank-and-file break ranks, the power of the leaders erodes.

Good legislators have backbone, and good legislation is not likely to be achieved by the threat of discipline.

I agree that legislators should always vote their conscience, but I also think that when you commit to a party you're committing to upholding the party's position and it would be difficult to turn the party for support on a bill you're sponsoring if you don't support the party's position on other bills. I'm not saying it's right, but I think that's one of the problems inherent to political party membership.

The other news item is the increasingly frantic debate in Congress about raising the debt ceiling.  The news du jour is that the Republican Speaker of the House can't get his party unified behind a Republican proposal in the House.  It seems that members of the conservative Tea Party segment of the Republican party, a group that swept into the House in last year's mid-term election, are refusing to budge from their own philosophical ground and are refusing to play ball with the Republican party leadership.  In other words they want to vote their conscience and they're being beaten up by the party bosses for it:

A frustrated House Speaker John Boehner had a blunt message Wednesday for his cavalier Tea Party colleagues: "Get your ass in line" behind the GOP's debt ceiling plan…

Boehner believes Senate Democrats will cave if Republicans in the House can rally behind his nearly $1 trillion proposal to raise the nation's debt limit ahead of an Aug. 2 deadline, when the Treasury will run out of money to pay all its bills.

So "get your ass in line," Boehner demanded.

His spanking of rank-and-file Republicans came after it looked like an all-out war was erupting within the House GOP, which has nearly 100 Tea Party fiscal hawks.

Many Tea Party-backed conservatives insist Boehner's debt plan is too soft.

The infighting has forced Boehner to postpone a vote on his proposal until Thursday.

When you think about it from the individual legislators' perspective they're damned if they do and damned if they don't.  Defy the party bosses and vote their conscience?  Well you're gonna be skewered by the party and risk losing their backing when you need it.  Toe the party line even if you don't agree with it on a particular issue? You risk being seen as a party hack who's more loyal to the party than the country (or state or county) and you could lose favor back home.  That, in a nutshell, is why I could never see myself belonging to a party.  Heck, even as a rank and file member I'd spend all my time defending why I was not with the party on particular issues and, even worse from my perspective, the minute people see that "D" or "R" next to my name they're going to assume I agree with the party's position on any given issue. I can't stand the thought of being labeled like that.  

A Tale of Two Cities

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I live in Lewisville and I work in Greensboro for a trade association that works with companies throughout the 12 counties of the Piedmont Triad so you could say I live the whole "regionalism" thing.  Because I'm paid to stay on top of what's going on throughout the Triad I track the news in Winston-Salem, Greensboro, High Point, Burlington, Mebane, etc. and every once in a while I'll notice an interesting contrast between the various municipalities.  Today after checking my news feed I came to the startling realization that if you went by the local blogs alone you'd have to believe that Greensboro is a graveyard for restaurants while Winston-Salem is experiencing a veritable renaissance of eateries.

From the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership blog in the last day or two:

Via Ed Cone's blog I found this post on 99 Blocks titled Vanishing Eateries – Can you help us out? about the restaurant closings in Greensboro.

As commenters at Ed's place pointed out the restaurant business is notoriously risky and in any given downtown you're going to see any number of restaurants come and go on a regular basis.  My point is that if you were to base your assessment of the health of these two cities' restaurant sectors on what you read online you'd think that the folks in Greensboro are going to all be burning up the travel lanes on westbound I-40 to get a decent meal. I know some folks in Winston-Salem who'd claim that's always been the case, but I'm here to tell you that there are some great places to eat in both cities.  If you feel like picking up the tab I'll be happy to take you on a tour.