Another week has gotten behind me

How did that happen?

I guess some of the time was chewed up dealing with trying to find health insurance. What a nightmare!

Transitioning from the Obscenely expensive COBRA Plan to something less obscene isn’t as easy as you’d think it would be.

I can’t imagine what people do. I’ve been quoted as much as 1200 a month.

I’m Healthy!

But due to my age and the fact that I’m actually addressing some of the age related issues, health insurance feels that they need to rape me.

When one of them quoted me $1200 I lost it. I mean really? That’s my house payment! It’s also 600 a month more than COBRA.

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Then theres the HIPAA plan which is supposed to make sure that everyone has access to health insurance. And it does that…. At rates that are more obscene.

Basically I’ve been quoted rates form 202.00 a month to 1200 a month.

How the hell is that reasonable? I’m looking for nothing more than the ability to go to my doctor, keep getting the prescriptions that I need, and have hospital coverage. I see my doctor maybe twice a year and haven’t been in a full on hospital since I was 16.

I’ve had minor outpatient surgery once in the last 4 years and that was to tend to an issue before it became a problem… You know, the way it’s cheaper and easier to replace your brake pads before they destroy your brake drums or rotors on your car. No reason we shouldn’t look at our bodies the same way. Fix minor stuff while it’s minor. Dental care is a prime example. Get the filling… before you need the root canal. It just makes good sense.

I find myself wondering,  is this yet another situation where my having been a responsible individual is screwing me? 

Because I’ve taken care of myself and work at remaining healthy, am I paying the price for all those people who haven’t? 

I can’t even explain how frustrating this is. 

Ironically, the most expensive of the insurance options is the HIPAA plan. HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.

In what reality can someone coming off of COBRA possibly still unemployed, or returning to the workforce in a part time position or to a company that  doesn’t provide group insurance afford 700 – 1200 a month in health insurance?

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COBRA and HIPAA are the two main reasons that I question the efficacy of the Obama Care plan.

Both of these “services” are made available and administered due to government intervention and regulation.

Yet they are without question the most expensive options. It’s a pretty funny racket too. Before you’re eligible for HIPAA you have to exhaust your COBRA benefits. After exhausting your COBRA benefits then you get to pay higher rates to maintain a  HIPAA plan.

It doesn’t make any sense at all since our politicians run around wringing their hands about how “Our Children” don’t get the care they’re supposed to.

Those same politicians seek to criminalize the lack of health care insurance but at the same time they do nothing to reduce the cost of the government mandated plans. 

Better questions are why does health insurance cost so much? What is driving that cost?

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Why can I go see a doctor pay cash for his services and pay less than the negotiated insurance rate? Why do doctors and hospitals always charge the maximum negotiated rate to Insurance providers?

Is it really all about the administration costs that doctors incur, while insurance companies screw around trying to deny claims?

If that’s the case then the problem isn’t the cost of services being rendered. The problem is that the patients, AKA consumers are caught in the middle.

Perhaps the solution isn’t a 16 trillion dollar health care plan that just stokes the fire allowing more and more abuses driving the cost of even basic services up. Perhaps the solution is to terminate all health care insurance.

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We’ve seen what happens when an artificially inflated price for goods or services collapses. It was called the housing bubble. Maybe it’s time for a similar “correction” to happen in healthcare and health insurance.

I can tell you that if my only choice is a 1200 a month health care policy, the insurance companies can put it where the sun don’t shine.

I’ll go without insurance pay straight up for my doctor, and the prescriptions I need and if it comes to me being hospitalized I’m guess I’m going to die.

After all I’m just a useless, misogynistic, testosterone poisoned, moronic, dumbshit, racist, republican, gun totin, white man, who’s responsible for the oppression of all the other races, global warming, inflation, and who deserves to die horribly.

Isn’t that the Über Liberal party line? Did I get it right?

If Obama wants to criminalize me for not having medical insurance… well he can come and arrest me. 

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At least then, I’ll have 3 hots & a cot… ohhh and state supplied health care.

Time for journalistic responsibility.

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I couldn’t resist the Reagan poster. But you have to admit if anyone aside from James Brady could speak to the subject it’s Reagan. 

CBSNews Is reporting the New York paper responsible for publishing a map showing the addresses of registered gun owners in two NY counties has added to their grandstanding by hiring armed security guards to protect one of their offices.

The so called “journalists” are kinda missing the point.

I love the irony in that they’ve turned to armed security to protect them.

Registered gun owners are law abiding citizens which by default means that these people aren’t likely to go to the newspaper to exact revenge.

Law abiding citizens are going to choose weapons of mass destruction…. LAWYERS!

The Lawyers will be far more devastating to the newspaper than anyone with a gun.

If I were one of the people affected I’d be seriously pissed off. Not because now the world knows I have guns, but because of the invasion of privacy for no good purpose other than headlines.

Essentially this newspaper has stigmatized the gun owners of these counties. What they’ve done is tried to equate gun owners to sex offenders. “Who are the gun owners in your neighborhood?”, Who are the sex offenders in your neighborhood?”

I’m sure that the editors of the newspaper have gotten some really negative mail and deservedly so.

The gun owners affected have committed no crime, they’ve done absolutely nothing that should have resulted in the forfeiture of their privacy and yet… They’ve lost their privacy. Their homes may be targeted for potential break-ins by criminals who would like to steal guns and resell them to other criminals.

Now the newspaper is trying to look like the victim, and spin the story that they’re scared of the gun owners. 

I have a few things to say to that;

1 Buck up. You published the piece, you must have thought about the invasion of privacy you were enabling and if you didn’t well you’re not very good journalists. You need to accept the consequences and responsibility for your actions.

2 You have nothing to fear from the registered gun owners. You need to fear their attorneys.

3 In the years to come you need to fear the criminal element that breaks into these houses and manages to steal the weapons. They’re the people that are going to mug you, rape you, and shoot you. The blood of innocent victims, and the blood of the home owners occupying these houses will be on your hands.

In my opinion, a single injury or god forbid a death caused because a criminal targeted these homes should result in prosecution of the journalists involved in the story.

I’m for freedom of the press, but with that freedom also comes responsibility. 

There’s a quote from one of the Star Trek movies. “Just because we can do a thing, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we should do a thing.”

Yes, it wasn’t said by a statesman, or a scientist, or a politician. But it’s nonetheless a wonderful cautionary statement.

I suspect that the movie quote is based on something Robert Oppenheimer said;

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb. – J. Robert Oppenheimer”

The point is, sometimes it’s important to take a step back to look beyond your ability to act and decide if the ends are really justified. 

How many wars, how much harm would have been avoided if people had simply considered the ramifications of their actions?

Wow! Who didn’t see that coming?

Lance Armstrong’s luck is nothing but bad these days.

I personally don’t think it’s right for him to be stripped of titles dating back to 1999.

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That is the same year by the way that the United States Anti-Doping agency was created.

I suppose the USADA needed to have a trophy on their wall and they decided that Lance Armstrong would do nicely.

I look at the almost 13 year investigation as a nothing but a witch hunt.

After all if you went back 13 years into a lot of folks pasts you could find evidence of drug use.

If we threw out all the actors, sports figures, business people, senators, and members of congress who’d had drugs, or been treated for drug abuse, or were still using during the past 13 years…. well television and the halls of the government would be a lot emptier.

The thing I find most interesting is that quick search of statute of limitations on drug possession in a random sampling of states is anywhere from 2 to 5 years.

Even in Colorado where the USADA is based… the statute of limitations is 10 years so why didn’t they just let it go?

Armstrong has been retired from the Tour de France since 2009. And… they didn’t find any evidence of him doping IN 2009! Of course Lance didn’t win in 2009 so they probably weren’t looking too hard! 

It doesn’t matter to me if Armstrong did it or not. I’ve never watched or much cared about the Tour de France or any cycling races for that matter. 

What bothers me is that you have an independent agency that was ANYTHING but impartial. The USADA apparently kept subjecting samples from Lance Armstrong to better and better testing and analysis procedures, with the intent to find something amiss. It’s almost a given that if you go into a situation expecting to find something… you will. (Check out youtube and look for UFO videos!)

I was reminded of the old inquisition techniques to identify a witch.

Tie the arms and legs of the suspected witch and throw them into a deep body of water… If they floated then you retrieved them and burned them at the stake. If they didn’t float well… you were wrong, they weren’t a witch and now they’re with God.

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It’s pretty obvious that the USADA is nothing more than a Grand Inquisitor who is determined to find something wrong. 

So the lesson to any of you budding Cyclists, Triathletes or Olympic hopefuls is this…

DON’T WIN!

Mediocrity is King now and we have the agencies to ENFORCE IT.

Riddle me This?

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A recent report from Bloomberg reports that Oil Prices (Meaning Crude Trading) is currently at a Two month low, and that as the US output has risen, the Demand has eased.

So Why are we still seeing gas prices that are 4.99 for a gallon of regular?

Really?

The oil futures and price per barrel jumps if there’s the slightest change in the breeze, or a Congressman farts. Driving the cost of a gallon of gas up…

So why isn’t the converse true? More supply means that the cost of gas shouldn’t be as high, isn’t that economics 101?

This leads me to think, contrary to what the Oil Companies have reported for years… Gas prices are directly tied to the cost of crude and the anticipated supply that there’s really a far more insidious conspiracy of artificial controls actually keeping the gas prices up.

Lets see…

Obviously, Obscene Profits are a huge motivator.

Keeping fuel prices artificially high would play out nicely for Corporate America in an election year, since fuel / transportation prices directly affect every aspect of the economy.

Think about it, If a cabal of American or International businesses were to decide that they didn’t want a particular President in office, one way to get that president out of office would be to strangle an already weak economy.

When the preferred candidate was elected, then fuel prices drop and the economy spins up again. People go back to work, new jobs are suddenly created and voila… The new President has turned things around!

I don’t know if this line of reasoning is anything but a trip down conspiracy lane… but I do think that EVERY American should remember that regardless of what the press tells us, and regardless of what the Oil companies tell us…

There is no direct causal link between the cost of a barrel of crude, and the cost of gasoline at the pump… At least not anymore.

When the Oil Barons are testifying before congress and poor mouthing that they have no control over the prices of fuel, I pray to GOD that at least one congressional committee member has the balls to stand up and call BULLSHIT right to the Oil Executives faces on CSPAN!

What would be even better would be if the Oil Executives were clapped in Irons and dragged out of the hearing chambers for lying to congress.

Hell I’d PAY to see that!

Occupy Wall Street should be Occupy EXXON, British Petroleum, Atlantic Richfield, ConocoPhillips, and all the other bastard Oil companies as well as Wall Street futures traders…

Again, the Sacramento politicians use “The Children” as Pawns

No on Prop 30 California 2012

Here we are again.

Proposition 30 in California is nothing  short of yet another tax hike designed to close a budget shortfall caused by the incredible mis-spending in Sacramento.

One of the talking points of this proposition is 

Preventing Deep School Cuts,

However, the very first line on their web site says “After Years of cuts, California’s Schools, Universities, and local public safety services are at the breaking point.”

So which is it?

Are they saying that they’ve been cutting from the schools to fund other programs for years and have depleted the funds and NOW they need to raise taxes to cover the shortfall that they created?

Is it just me or does this make no damn sense?

The Sacramento Politicians want to raise the sales tax and… wait for it… Impose more taxes on the rich.

You know the rich… those evil bastards!

The ones who have been taking money from the schools (not), the wealthy who’ve not been paying their share of taxes.

Those successful motherfuckers who’ve made all that money and who are making donations to charities or starting charities that support research or the arts, or the environment.

The bastards that are building new larger buildings for their filthy money making companies. So that they can employ yet MORE filthy workers and keep the construction businesses busy.

YEAH! Those rancid thundercunt FUCKS!!!

When you think about it that way… raising taxes on just the wealthy starts to seem a little stupid.

I’m not saying that all business people or wealthy people are saints… in fact a lot of them are cut throat bastards. BUT you really have to remember that without them we’re all pushing tacos at the local taco stand for 1.98 an hour.

I’ve said it before, the wealthy have the means to bail out.

They can leave this state and this country any time they want to.

What will Sacramento do if the wealthy leave California and take their businesses with them?

How long would it be before someone puts a proposition together to authorize a sign saying “Will the last educated person please shutdown San Onofre before you leave?”

And this isn’t even the worst of it…

The politicians are going to THE CHILDREN Again. Essentially, they’re attempting to hold every single child in the state hostage to force the people of California to vote to raise taxes instead of responsibly spending the money California currently receives in revenue.

If you’re interested… Head on over to CalTax.org. This is a watchdog organization that researches how California spends it’s tax payers money. On that site is an interesting report that details the waste between 2000 and 2010. This is very interesting reading. It’s doubtful that anything in California’s spending pattern has changed.

Instead of raising taxes and threatening the school system… Why doesn’t Sacramento clean up their spending before going back to the taxpayer?

The document is linked in PDF here.

201003_CalTaxResearchBulletin_Decade of Waste.pdf

After reading this… If you still think that these politicians really need more of our money you go right ahead and vote for Prop 30.

The rest of us will be voting no… 

After all how many times can Sacramento expect us to fall for those scare tactics? Especially when in the past we have fallen for it and found out well after the fact that the money allocated to the schools got cut anyway…

Tell Sacramento to KISS OUR COLLECTIVE ASS and vote a resounding NO to every single measure that seeks to raise taxes!

Force Sacramento to actually be responsible for their spending.