{"id":4046,"date":"2013-11-21T11:28:07","date_gmt":"2013-11-21T18:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/?p=4046"},"modified":"2021-01-08T19:36:57","modified_gmt":"2021-01-09T03:36:57","slug":"lies-more-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/2013\/11\/21\/lies-more-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"Lies! more Lies!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I wasn\u2019t going to comment any more on this Obamacare debacle but each day there are yet more revelations that just cannot be allowed to pass.<\/p>\n

In addition, yesterday I got the letter I\u2019ve been waiting for.<\/p>\n

My other half got a similar letter last week describing that their group policy was being cancelled as well. We\u2019re both scrambling to figure out if it\u2019s better for us to have separate policies or to combine our coverage.<\/p>\n

Apparently, our insurance policies are so called \u201cCrap\u201d policies according to wondrous Obamacare.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got time until my policy is gone, and I have to figure out what to do.<\/p>\n

I spent some time on the phone with the insurance company and I found out a couple of interesting things.<\/p>\n

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The first is that MY PPO plan may not allow me to go to my Doctor of many many years because he\u2019s in a different county and therefore in a different provider net called EPO.<\/p>\n

The implication being that unless you\u2019re very careful you could find yourself having to see only physicians, specialists, and going to hospitals that are in your county if you don\u2019t have compatible provider networks.<\/p>\n

I told the lady at the insurance company that if my choice was to go to my doctor OR to have insurance\u2026 I choose my doctor, I\u2019ll pay out of pocket, insurance be damned.<\/p>\n

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How does restricting my coverage to a specific geographical area benefit me? Would I have insurance coverage if I was traveling out of state?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written before about my preference for doctors whose First language is English. <\/span><\/p>\n

I have vivid memories of waiting in my Kaiser hospital waiting room in Fontana believing I was having a heart attack, and not hearing a fucking word of English. <\/span>\"NewImage\"<\/p>\n

I might as well have been in a hospital in another country. Then when I finally got to see a Doctor (if that\u2019s what he was) I couldn\u2019t understand him due to an unbelievable and unintelligible heavy accent.<\/span><\/p>\n

He finally called a nurse in who explained in Spanish what was going on. <\/span><\/p>\n

My Spanish is poor at best, but since I have some scientific grounding I was able to \u201cget\u201d most of the medical stuff that she was talking about \u00a0because I remembered the rudimentary Latin I\u2019d learned as a kid. <\/span><\/p>\n

Really<\/strong>? <\/span><\/p>\n

My only choice was to rely on my understanding of a dialect of Spanish that she wasn\u2019t speaking (Mexican versus Castillian) and routing the medical jargon through a dead<\/strong> language?<\/span><\/p>\n

My Kaiser plan was cancelled the very next day! <\/span><\/p>\n

I paid out of pocket for medical care until open enrollment at my company, then I went PPO.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are those who would say I\u2019m racist. <\/span><\/p>\n

I disagree! I\u2019m about survival! <\/span><\/p>\n

If I can\u2019t understand what the doctors or nurses are even saying how can I possible be engaged in my medical care? <\/span><\/p>\n

If I don\u2019t understand their instructions how can I comply?<\/span>\"NewImage\"Worse, if these folks don\u2019t understand my complaint how the hell can they make a diagnosis?<\/span><\/p>\n

This is still America, like it or not The Defacto spoken language is English. <\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think it\u2019s racist at all for me to insist on speaking the language of my birth, the language I was taught in school, and the language printed on all the streetsigns.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m even less charitable when it comes to medicine. The wrong shit, taken the wrong way\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CAN KILL YOU!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Now it looks like PPO no longer has the advantages it once had.<\/p>\n

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It looks like I\u2019m not alone in discovering a certain \u201cRegionality<\/em>\u201d to the coverage plans. Reports are cropping up of hospitals and doctors being excluded from networks. Ostensibly this is a cost cutting move. The reality is far more sinister.<\/p>\n

If I\u2019m on a Bronze plan, then presumably I\u2019ll be limited to Bronze plan network providers. If I\u2019m on a Gold plan, I\u2019ll be limited to Gold plan providers.<\/p>\n

Dollars to doughnuts those lines and restrictions will draw rather stark lines between rich & poor.<\/p>\n

The practical application of this could mean that all the poor folks from South LA get sent to Martin Luther King Hospital, which in recent years was on the verge of being closed due to inferior care. The rich folks in the gold plan will be sent to Cedars Sinai.<\/p>\n

You want to talk about something hideously wrong? There\u2019s your talking point. Wasn\u2019t Obamacare supposed to be egalitarian?<\/p>\n

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Obamacare in it\u2019s current implementation lends itself to government sanctioned and enforced Classism.<\/p>\n

Taking that thought to an obscene conclusion\u2026 Obamacare could enforce and create an underclass of people for whom inferior medical care will be the norm. A \u201cWorker Class<\/strong><\/em>\u201d if you will.<\/p>\n

The most frightening thought is that this system eventually creates a dystopian world of \u201chaves\u201d and \u201chave nots\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u201chave nots\u201d are disposable and always underperforming because their health problems will be greater in number.<\/span><\/p>\n

They\u2019ll be absent from their jobs more. Their survival rates after an accident will be lower than their wealthier counterparts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leading to elites asking,\u00a0\u201c Why spend a lot of time or money training them, they burn out like lightbulbs and are replaced just as easily. ”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I doubt we\u2019ll see this in the next 10 years but what about the next 50?<\/span> We already have\u00a0people\u00a0on both sides of the political aisle who\u2019re telling the American people in effect\u00a0\u201c We\u2019re better educated than you.\u00a0We know whats best for you<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0<\/span> \"NewImage\"<\/p>\n

You could argue that to some extent we have this classism now. You\u2019d be right.<\/p>\n

However, hospitals must take anyone in an emergency today. A person who needs specialized care, even on the lowest tier of a \u201cCrap\u201d insurance plan typically is allowed to go to the hospital where they can obtain the care they need.<\/p>\n

They pay their insurance deductible and 20%, 30% or 40% of the treatment bill and that\u2019s it. Yes there\u2019s a financial hardship component to this system, there is no denying it.<\/p>\n

Being OUT OF NETWORK<\/strong> means that even with insurance, I still have to pay 100% of the specialist bill. This is not an improvement over the current system. In fact, this is beyond reprehensible.<\/p>\n

When someone manages to explain how this works to the poor, Obamacare and the presidency of Obama will be over. The Presidents already low approval ratings could well drop to zero (That would be interesting to see from a historic perspective<\/em>.) Any Republicans or Libertarians reading? Here\u2019s your chance, to engage across class boundaries.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Then as I pulled at the frayed threads of the new policy offering I discovered this\u2026<\/p>\n

My monthly payment will probably go up, as will my deductible. My RX coverage even for Generic drugs will be reduced or eliminated.<\/p>\n

WTF? I thought Obamacare was supposed to make insurance more affordable – not less.<\/p>\n

I think that Obamacare will break the back of the insurance companies and the medical profession.<\/p>\n

When the experiment is finished we\u2019ll all be worse off than before, and Americans may well be dying in their beds from simple treatable illnesses because they can\u2019t afford the costs of insurance AND treatment.<\/p>\n

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Then I think about the Obamacare web site and my head explodes again.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve worked in Banking, and Mortgage Insurance. We, and by \u201cWe\u201d I mean relatively small groups of developers, testers and analysts built systems that facilitated the earning, control, or transfer of literally BILLIONS of dollars per year.<\/p>\n

It was not uncommon for the teams I worked in, to have 4 major projects per year and those projects interacted with customers and in many cases various governmental agencies.<\/p>\n

For someone in my position, my head explodes with each new revelation about the manner in which the Healthcare.gov website was created, If ever there was an excuse to fire a group of people this is it.<\/p>\n

Best practices for web design and implementation are printed in books, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple. The first two vendors will sell you the books as a set, in hardcopy. You may not know how to code a website… but you damn sure can learn how to manage a website project.<\/p>\n

This is not new technology, webs sites, and e-commerce sites are well understood and there are literally millions of people in this country with the correct expertise for a project like Healthcare.gov.<\/p>\n

Many of the people with this expertise are\/were unemployed!<\/p>\n

The revelation this morning was that as much as 60% to 70% of the backend of the Obamacare site hasn\u2019t been written.<\/p>\n

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Screech!!! Wait! What!<\/p>\n

Primary accounting functions, Transaction functions haven\u2019t even been written!<\/p>\n

So what HHS is saying, is the website that has been broken from day one\u2026 doesn\u2019t actually connect the user to the insurers is a really useful way?<\/p>\n

Yet to interact and shop on the site you have to enter all kinds of personal data, Then the site is incapable of taking the consumers payment information, supplying the insurer with that payment and applying the subsidy if applicable?<\/p>\n

REALLY????<\/strong> \"NewImage\"<\/p>\n

What the hell?<\/strong>\u00a0Just what have these contractors been doing for the past 3.5 years?<\/p>\n

I know exactly what they\u2019ve been doing\u2026<\/p>\n

The various contractor groups and the HHS Department have been involved in a clusterfuck of inter-office politics. No-one was in control, yet everyone thought they were top dog.<\/p>\n

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Every one curried favor and allies and then tried to figure out who\u2019s was bigger.<\/p>\n

All the while saying that they were tightening budgets and hiring people who met EOE regulations even though the people they hired weren\u2019t the best people for the job.<\/p>\n

But there were no specifications about what the freaking website was supposed to accomplish and how.<\/p>\n

There were probably people like me asking why? Those folks were shusshed and told that they didn\u2019t understand the process.<\/p>\n

There were endless reports written, powerpoint presentations given and lots of self congratulatory back slapping.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the specifications were too specific about irrelevant issues like the manufacturer of the resistor at location g239 on board 12 of the servers being used to host the website. And not specific enough about what the button on the screen labeled “Submit” was actually supposed to do.<\/p>\n

The folks like me were \u00a0probably pointing out, in corporate America that heads would be rolling down the hallways.<\/p>\n

The govt contractors and employees all just looked at them astounded. The fundamental disconnect is that for govt workers the reams and reams of paper reports that no one reads, and endless uninformative powerpoint presentations and meets ARE working. Even though these activities rarely get things done.<\/p>\n

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The people actually doing the work were no doubt left to guess at what the government wanted, and how it was supposed to work.<\/p>\n

Then every six months, there would be a change in direction that required the programmers and technical people to start all over again.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we have a simple website that\u2019s all but useless.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why our government has pissed through a BILLION dollars and has a site that looks like a Junior High School kid built it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we\u2019ll spend another billion to get it right.<\/p>\n

Every single one of those people in government who were in control of this whole ACA (Obamacare) abortion\u2026 should be thrown out on the streets.<\/p>\n

Set an example at the ballot box.<\/p>\n

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Demand that your congressman take action and start firing, or impeaching, or recalling these people.<\/p>\n

Whatever it takes it\u2019s time to clean house and start fresh.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t promise I won\u2019t write about Obamacare again.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll try not to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wasn\u2019t going to comment any more on this Obamacare debacle but each day there are yet more revelations that just cannot be allowed to pass. In addition, yesterday I got the letter I\u2019ve been waiting for. My other half got a similar letter last week describing that their group policy was being cancelled as … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Lies! more Lies!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,84,3,104,153],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aca","category-bullshit","category-general","category-government","category-obamacare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4046"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4077,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions\/4077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}