Month: November 2014

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Old Stompy Foot is at it again

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I don’t admire the President’s policies or politics.

I do admire his single-mindedness of agendas. He managed to ram Obamacare down our throats apparently by capitalizing on weaknesses of the American people as Identified by Jonathan Gruber. 

Now, Ol Stompy is at it again. 

This time he’s intending to bypass Congress with an Amnesty plan which just a year ago he said wasn’t amnesty. We all know what this is and it’s got nothing to do with more voters, or helping the “Poor” immigrants. This is 100% about vindictiveness.

Obama ESB

The Democrats lost the midterm and got spanked pretty soundly. Stompy, is pissed off and he’s going to do everything in his power to punish the evil bastard conservative, American voters. Isn’t that what his whole administration has been built on?

Just look at the scandals

NSA — Spying on Americans (I’ll grant you that started after 9/11 but it shouldn’t have been continued.)

Weaponized IRS — Yeah Nixon was the first one to try that… As I recall that was part of what cost him the Presidency.

Isolation of certain members of the press for asking the wrong questions… Then subsequent investigation of those poor dumbasses by both the IRS and NSA. 

Now he’s talking about a flood of immigrants. Sure he’s going to say it’s just the folks who are already here.

But we all know that the flood gates will open and everyone will scramble to cross the border.  There will no doubt be a period of 30 to 60 days before the executive order takes effect, which will result in 1000s more unskilled people crossing the border. I mean how many gardeners, waiters, or fast food workers do we actually need?

(As an aside, when I wrote the line above, I thought, “jeezus man that’s a racist thing to say.” But I suppose if The President can refer to latinos as maids and fruit pickers I guess I’m not as far off as I thought I was. The irony is that when I was very, very, young in the South, we had orange groves and pecan groves full of migrant workers who happened to be black.)  

Of course The Presidents comment underscores for me just how out of touch he is with the average American. Maid? Really? I and most of the middle class wouldn’t know what to do with a maid if our lives depended on it. Hell, I can see myself cleaning up the house before the maid came in just so I wouldn’t be completely mortified. 

Maid? Yeah, right! Even when I was employed I had other things to spend my hard earned money on. Most of the time I was spending money just to make ends meet. I do my own yard work, make my own bed, cook my own food, and clean my own damn house, Mr President. I don’t come from the elitist background you apparently do.

Further, as I’ve asked before, what about the American kids of all stripes looking for that first job? Oh yeah, they don’t matter.

This seems to be all about reducing America to it’s knees, or creating a huge permanent Democratic voting block, or creating such racial polarization that the country tears itself apart. 

Does nationwide martial law suspend presidential elections?

Maybe this is just another stepping stone in Obama’s path to become a de-facto king.

Just one of those dark thoughts that flits through my mind sometimes.

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Tis the season…

NOSPAM

For my SPAM filters to get a hell of a workout!

Starting November 1 a wall of SPAM has been flooding into my system daily.

A lot of it seems to be associated with scams designed to look like insurance offers dealing with the ACA. But if you look at the links, these offers are originating in China (cn) and Russia (ru).

So Ask yourself why would ACA insurance offers be originating form either of those two countries when the US Government spent a fortune for a web site to sell you insurance?

In addition to these weird offers I’ve been seeing the offers for weight-loss, the usual male enhancement stuff, shitty bits of software, fax services, and even toilet paper. Toilet paper? Yep, some kind of coupon scam…

Clearly not targeted marketing, I have a Costco membership! I buy toilet paper on a pallet! 

I woke up this morning to 40 SPAMS and those are the ones that slipped past my SPAM filters. Checking the filters on the server showed over 100 rejected junk mails. A couple of them were in languages that I’m not even sure I can properly identify.

All of which is to say, be vigilant! There are a lot of scummy people trying to get their hands in your pockets.

No, not yet enough of a justification to run out and buy an iPhone 6 give me a couple of years.

 

 

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You know, I’m beginning to think this is all a SCAM

Healthcare Insurance Logos

Welcome to Open Enrollment! Your ACA plan is serving you… UP!

As I’ve chronicled over the past year I’ve been involved with a nightmare called Anthem Blue Cross of California.

A month or two ago I was told that I’d have to wait for open enrollment to change my health care, I’m still not even sure how that works, or how they think that is going to work. I can change my health care any time I want to, ALL I have to do is not pay the bill!

And speaking of bills… I understood having open enrollment periods when I was working for a corporation. That makes sense, it tends to allow the company to budget their expenses and keeps the employees from jumping healthcare providers each time they don’t like something.

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However, since I’m paying the bill, I’m the one buying the goods or in this case services, why do I have to screw around with open enrollment at all?

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Technically, as a consumer of the insurance service, I am the Insurance company’s employer. As such, I ultimately have the capacity (Or I would in a non-socialist country…)  to hire and fire a poor provider at will. Oh yeah, but NOT under Obamacare.

Anyway, I’m shopping.

I can’t see myself putting up with more of the same from Anthem and not being able to see my primary care physician, (Even though they said I could. Then when I found that I couldn’t, they told me he must have dropped out of their network. But I have a PPO plan, networks are irrelevant… Well apparently it’s not really a PPO and My Doctor was NEVER in the plan they sold me). Or not being able to find a dermatologist. (And neither could they within 90 miles of my location.) 

Assurant

You see, I’ve been paying through the nose for a policy that was at best only a catastrophic plan with prescription coverage because none of the doctors I wanted to see were in fact accepting the Anthem Pseudo- PPO. I could have saved about 1/2 of my medical costs per month by just having a catastrophic care plan, and paying for everything else out of pocket which is essentially what I’m doing anyway.  By the way, a catastrophic plan is one of the options I’m looking into.

Under the “Won’t get fooled again” premise I’m trying to compare companies based on how they’re rated by consumers. As I’ve been sorting through the data I’ve discovered a couple of interesting things. 

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1) Of five companies I’ve checked on thus far, only two will allow me to purchase their policies based on my zip code.

All of these companies appear to service California but apparently they don’t all service the county in which I live.  

Sorry folks I’m an all or nothing kind of guy. If you’re selectively insuring counties that means that technically I can’t move from one county to another until the next open enrollment period. Doesn’t that also mean that when I drive across county lines, I’m out of network? Either you sell in all of California or don’t sell at all. 

I recall speaking to some insurance agent last year. That person said that even though I could purchase their insurance policy, AND that my Doctor was in their network, AND that the policy and my doctor were compatible, I still would be unable to see my doctor. Their explanation for this was that since my doctor and I were in different counties, he would be considered “Out of Network”. I seem to recall not purchasing that particular policy.

2) I can’t narrow down if my county theory is correct without requesting a quote from each possible provider — this is significantly slowing down the shopping process.

More Logos

The upshot of all of this is that insurance shopping, which was always painful, has now become 100 fold more painful because there is no simple way to sort through the data to compare stuff. I have noticed that every policy seems to have an ACA metallic moniker;

Bronze, Silver, Tin, Rusted Iron, Busted Galvanized Pipe, Copper, Pyrite…

All of which mean the same damn thing…

I’m beginning to think we have no choice in policies, just a choice in the company administering them. 

In dealing with all of this bullcrap, I think that I’d rather pound my own testicles with a sledgehammer, (1000 FemNazis just came in their jeans) than shop for health insurance!

I just don’t think I have medical coverage for that…