I want to wish you all a happy and prosperous 2015. There’s just something about those multiples of 5, isn’t there? They just have to be special. I want to thank all of you who read Arlo & Janis, whether in the newspapers or online. You make my life as I know it possible. You probably don’t think of it that way, but I do. I will continue to do the best I can. Also, I thank those of you who come here to my own Web site. I’m tempted to say, “the usual gang of idiots,” but I don’t want to offend those of you who were not readers of “Mad Magazine” in your youth. As for the Web site, I think I can promise this will be the year of bigger and better. Please stick around.
Not Again!
By Jimmy Johnson
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203 responses to “Not Again!”
TruckerRon: Insurance costs have been increasing insanely since long before the ACA. School boards have been using those costs as an excuse for not giving raises or for cutting benefits for decades. The whole system is a mess, greed drives too much of it and the people who might be able to fix it are insulated from reality. (For example – state legislators in Florida can get family coverage for a monthly payment that is about half of what a teacher at my school would pay every two weeks to cover one other person, either spouse or child.)
My opinion is that the ACA should be repealed and replaced with a package of smaller bills, each dealing with one aspect of health care so that there’s time for Congress to read, understand and debate each one. That way, you can change or remove one thing that doesn’t work without tipping over the entire rickety apple-cart.
I agree that the ACA should be repealed and replaced with a package of smaller bills. Also I submit that all bills should be limited to 18 typed pages since that’s the approximate length of the US Constitution. The idea that trillions of dollars in the annual budget should be handled by just 13 (I think) omnibus spending bills of thousands of pages is insane.
And, once upon a time, the only health insurance was for catastrophic events. The idea that all healthcare activities should go through the hands of an insurance company is stupid… imagine having to get pre-approval for new wiper blades from AAA or getting your house painted from State Farm!
Ruth Anne:
I had read the same thing about medical insurance premiums.
Lately, what I have read is that the increases were leveling off several years before the ACA.
Final question to everyone:
Is the idea of medical coverage for everyone Constitutional?
Is making others pay for others Constitutional?
Healthcare has one major flaw; it is measured based on inputs not outputs. We measure only what we give the patient, not if the patient has a positive outcome.
OF has a new viewpoint. Well, at the moment anyway. 🙂
http://www.nps.gov/features/yell/webcam/oldFaithfulStreaming.html
and another one!
Donna Douglass, (Ellie Mae Clampett) died yesterday. Changing of the guard in our entertainment lives. Seems like more and more of the icons of my youth are disappearing.
Ghost, I made only one resolution this year, and it was just making a formal statement of something I was already planning: gain an average of one pound per month this year.
When I was being prepped for my colonoscopy last month, I told the tech that my weight was gross. After he failed to understand it three times, I took pity and told him that I weighed 144 pounds. (Some people have no sense of humor and no imagination.) Being that I’m 5’7″, that’s badly underweight. On New Year’s Eve, I was up to 150, probably mostly water weight gained back after the prep had sucked a lot of it out of me. 162 won’t be quite up to what I want, but close enough to be acceptable.
And, Jerry Pournelle will probably be back home in a week or two, although he’ll still need more help than his wife Roberta can give him. He’s typing again, with one or two fingers, and the mind’s all there so we have much hope for the future.
I found it hard to believe that Ellie Mae was 82. Then I look at my own age and I guess that it is true.
Maybe it was Ellie May. I had the clerk at the Pharmacy tell me that she could not find my prescription. Turned out that she was an extremely poor speller.
She probably eat a bad golf egg. 😉
Ate not eat, Siri, Siri, Siri; I am taking you back to the Apple store.
just woke up from a ‘cat nap’ to the movie with Huey Lewis and Gweneth Paltrow…and this song was playing in the background…..I thought, and thought, and thought and I couldn’t think who, what and vaguely who, what and why…..and you know what….we’ve all been there…..
Love Bonnie: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=you+tube+I+cant%27+make+you+love+me&ei=UTF-8&fr=chr-greentree_ff&ilc=12&type=714647
manana……………………
Well, sideburns, now if we could just come up with a way to transfer body weight…
If you have the opportunity, tell Dr. Pournelle one of of many fans sends best wishes.
The joys of retail:
My Christmas gift cards were burning a hole in my pocket, so today I cut out of work early to do some shopping. I found what I wanted, and proceeded to the check out. Now this store only has two registers. One lane had a lady with a return, and the other …. one of *those* customers. This little old lady was questioning EVERY element of the transaction. The price, the clerk’s bagging technique, how the store was going to use her zip code, how the stupid card reader was supposed to work … EVERYTHING. Meanwhile, the line was just backing up further and further. She insisted on speaking to a manager THREE times. Finally, she paid for her stuff, and looked like she was ready to leave … only to notice something behind the counter, and demanded to look at it for possible purchase. I thought the other customers were going to shoot her. The clerk was near breaking. Mercifully, MY line was moving again, and I got out of there – leaving the lady to annoy the manager yet again. Poor guy.
Another reason we want to become part of Alabama: if you can’t afford homeowners insurance and/or you live someplace you shouldn’t, like on the beach, don’t worry. The rest of us are paying premiums to an insurance company, not ours, so that you can rebuild your house for the third time. A big we’re number one to all of our red-faced governors.
The short line syndrome. I guarantee that it will never fail. Try it. Get in the shortest line. It will immediately stop moving. Every time.
Mindy/Indy:
Two sons and their wives + me = 5. I should email them that I’m safely home.
Peace, emb
Jerry in FL, amen to your comments on short line syndrome. Whether cash (what’s that?) registers, traffic lanes or restrooms, the situation you describe always happens.
sandcastler, among the new healthcare regulations is one that penalizes the hospital for a poor outcome including too many repeat visits for the same problem. It does not take into account the patient’s own responsibility for the continued problem, such as COPD with smoking, infections in patients with IV drug use, etc.
And these days the insurance companies are also trying to whittle away the reimbursement paid to providers while Medicare payments shrink as the cost of everything the doctors and hospitals need goes higher. I am afraid that if the ACA is not reined in, in about 4-5 years the providers are going to start closing their doors.
A major hospital nationwide will not take Medicare patients already. Many of my specialists are reducing their patient loads and not accepting new patients, especially Medicare ones. I have excellent coverage but hope to keep it.
Flowers at mom and Mike’s service are truly beautiful and everything going well so far. Florist coordinated it all in red roses, beautiful foliages, natural materials and pods. twigs. I could not have done it better, just lovely.
Cold and dreary, fog and rain. Stream outside motel is rising and my Houston daughter thought she heard evacuation sirens for motel. Last major flood here put water over roofs, so motel is newly remodeled.
Kids insisted on Chinese. I knew better but let them find out. This town was catfish capitol of Louisiana for about 50 years but part of them refuse to eat any seafood. Their loss. I had a huge plate of tiny fried oysters and baked sweet potato, in Mike’s memory. NOT in the Chinese restaurant but at Boogalee’s where we ate all the time. I am missing all three of them I lost.
Love you ALL, intelligent conversation every day.
Jackie Monies
Dear Jackie, I’m so glad the florist did the flowers so beautifully, just as you wanted. Were there a lot of people? I’m betting a good crowd came through. Hoping for better weather tomorrow. Ooohhh the fried oysters and sweet potato sound heavenly.
Dear eMb, I’m relieved to hear that you are safely home from the long trip. It seems long to me, anyway. Take it easy now, best wishes for a Happy New Year.
A video that you have to see: astronaut Chris Hadfield actually on the space station does an excellent version of “Space Oddity”. (Ground control to Maj. Tom) Seriously.