Morning Feature: I fired my health insurance

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Sunday August 23, 2009 · 6:31 AM PDT

2009/08/23 · 06:31

This is a meta-diary. NCrissieB is too disheartened by the general vitriol of the discussion on Health Care this morning to feel like posting Ask Ms. Crissie.

So, in the interests of giving the Kula Krew our morning gathering place, I am standing in and will explain something that I left hanging in the wind yesterday, something which, unfortunately fits with the Health Care debate. <sigh>

Sorry I can't do the humor. All I can do is try to explain the rationale of firing my health insurance company.

winterbanyan

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Tuesday August 11, 2009 · 4:01 AM PDT

2009/08/11 · 04:01

In my mail Saturday I received the latest BlueCross/BlueShield scam. And oh, yeah, it's a scam. You only figure out the great parts by the time you finish reading the fine print.

Want health insurance? BC/BS has a plan for you.

winterbanyan

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Tuesday August 04, 2009 · 4:04 AM PDT

2009/08/04 · 04:04

I know everyone's all wound up tight about health care. That's probably part of the reason I'm going insane. But there's another reason, too. So what I'm going to try to do here is take you with me to the grocery store to consider the reality of another one of the most pressing issues facing us:

Global climate change.

Come laugh at me, please. It's not every day you can read about a woman who is beginning to lose her mind!

(In the spirit of recycling this is a recycled diary about recycling. Try saying that out loud ten times.)

winterbanyan

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Friday July 24, 2009 · 7:16 AM PDT

2009/07/24 · 07:16

The real terrorists this country needs to fear are the health insurance industry. Each day at least 47 million Americans live in terror and take huge risks because of them. Others live in fear that if they use their "benefit" they'll lose it, or that their claims will be denied.

Meanwhile, United Healthcare, the very company that put me in bankruptcy, is reporting record profits.

This is just one story, and I'm beating my horse to death again. But this is one horse we can't beat enough. (Apologies to horses for an old saying that is, unfortunately, apt.)

(This is an updated version of my very first DKos diary, from March, 2008. And yes, I have some new information in here.)

winterbanyan

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Wednesday November 05, 2008 · 1:48 PM PST

2008/11/05 · 13:48

The divisions in this country have been turned to cement in just the past few weeks. My daughter had a horrible day at school, my neighbor down the street seems to have decided the election didn't really happen, and the right wing pundits are claiming we all just got a huge temporary warm fuzzy for black people, but we really didn't vote the issues.

Ummm... and is someone really suggesting Sarah Palin start a "government in exile?" How UNAMERICAN can you get?

We just had an election, folks. I had to suck it up in 2000 when you repugs stole it, so how about you do the AMERICAN thing and suck it up now that a landslide has carried Obama to the White House?

winterbanyan

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Sunday October 26, 2008 · 8:10 AM PDT

2008/10/26 · 08:10

The Greatest Nation on Earth. How many times have we heard that? Yet I'm here to tell you we're not the greatest nation on earth, certainly not now, and maybe never. What we used to be was the greatest dream on earth. The torch on the Statue of Liberty symbolized the light we were supposed to be, with justice and equality for all.

winterbanyan

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Friday October 24, 2008 · 6:09 AM PDT

2008/10/24 · 06:09

Unions saved us from Communism and Fascism. I do not exaggerate. Back in the 1920s and 30s, with wealth in the hands of the few, and most workers in the position of being wage slaves, and then with the Great Depression making life almost impossible, Leon Trotsky, a Bolshevik who wasn't afraid to enforce obedience through use of military force, predicted that American workers would create a communist state. Though he often used the word "democratic", his actions proved otherwise. Equally busy at the time were the fascists, seeing the unrest as a good time to take control of the frightened, battered people. (Some even admired Hitler as their model.)

What saved us from that? What defanged the growing Communist movement? What stopped the Fascists? The unions, my fellow Kossacks, the unions.

winterbanyan

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Monday October 20, 2008 · 6:58 AM PDT

2008/10/20 · 06:58

I've had it with Sarah Palin and her repeated insistence that only small town Americans are hard-working real Americans. Why? Because her version of small town is about geography and some fantasy in her head, when the real small towns are about people. In fact, I've finally concluded that Sarah doesn't fully know what a "small town" is. She leaves "heart" out of it and uses a map to define America and patriotism by isolation and her preferred version of ignorance. Great balls of fire!

Given a list of the addresses of the first responders on 9/11, Palin would conclude they weren't small town people (they lived in New York City, by G-d) and thus they aren't real, hard-working Americans. Wrong on both counts.

Those of you who live in "cities" and "suburbs" know what I mean. Most Americans are small town Americans. Come with me past the fold as I introduce Sarah to the lifestyle of those of us who live in the "small towns" of the lower 48.

winterbanyan

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Friday September 12, 2008 · 9:50 AM PDT

2008/09/12 · 09:50

I know everyone's all wound up tight about politics. That's probably part of the reason I'm going insane. But there's another reason, too. So what I'm going to try to do here is take you with me to the grocery store to consider the REALITY of one of the most pressing (and often overlooked) issues in this campaign.

Global warming.

Come laugh at me, please. It's not everyday you can read about a woman who is beginning to lose her mind!

winterbanyan

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Tuesday August 26, 2008 · 1:07 PM PDT

2008/08/26 · 13:07

I know in the midst of the convention and election, all conversations lead to politics, the economy, foreign policy, and who has made us mad. This isn't an issue that will even come up in the campaign. But it's one my dog is forcing me to think about:

Euthanasia.

winterbanyan

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Thursday July 24, 2008 · 7:06 AM PDT

2008/07/24 · 07:06

Yesterday my dear friend in Germany called me. She's been through all the ups and downs of the Bush years with me (well, there must have been some "ups" but I can't recall them) and has oftened sympathized with the disappointment I feel in my country's direction.

She, like many Germans, retains a different memory of the USA, one from her childhood. One from when we were a country that did extraordinary things sometimes, things to be proud of.

She told me about "The Raisin Bombers."

winterbanyan

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Tuesday July 22, 2008 · 8:50 AM PDT

2008/07/22 · 08:50

Indulge me, please. One of my favorite Jimmy Buffett songs is A Pirate Looks at 40. Somehow it reaches out to that part of me that sometimes longs for a different world, different challenges, different opportunities. And sometimes you look back at a bright moment of opportunity and wonder if it'll ever come back.

Yes I am a pirate
two hundred years too late.
The cannons don't thunder
there's nothing to plunder
I'm an over-forty victim of Fate.
Arriving too late....
---A Pirate Looks at Forty
from Boats, Beaches, Bars and Ballads,
Jimmy Buffett

I'm looking at 58 this week and it's got me thinking about the miracles of the past year, from the candidacy of Barack Obama to the Peace Prize for Al Gore and the ICCC.

Maybe I get to be a pirate again after all.

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RSS

Morning Feature: I fired my health insurance

Morning Feature: Insurance Jujitsu

Morning Feature: Going Green and Going Insane

The Real Terrorists: Beating the health care horse again

It ain't over, sadly.

I shouldn't diary this: Moments of Magic

How unions saved America

Hey, Palin, You don't know what a small town is!

Going Green and Going Insane

Why couldn't my mom have what my dog MUST have?

Obama, the "Raisin Bombers", and my German friend

A Pirate Looks at 58