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From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Good Morning! I'll Be Your Guinea Pig Today.
They call it the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Also known as Obamacare, aka Romneycare-gone-nationwide. See also: Socialism, Tyranny, Government intrusion, Death panels and/or injecting a modicum of sanity into our predatory health insurance system, aka the Industry of "No!" Whatever you call it, the final piece is gonna plop into place real soon. Like next week soon.
Ever since my COBRA plan ran outta juice from my previous employer four years ago, I've been the proverbial uninsured American. I could be on my partner's plan now, but the premiums are obscene. I could've signed up for my own coverage, but holy shit, no. If they wanted to screw me that bad they could at least buy me dinner and a movie first.
I've already got my eye on
a primary-care physician.
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In short, if I have a major health event---say, if I get hit by a bus or my liver writes me a Goodbye Cruel Billy note---I'm financially screwed whether I have coverage or not. So, knowing Obamacare was coming, I decided to go, temporarily, without insurance. To compensate, I've taken better care of myself via vegetables, vitamins and a bubble-wrap body suit. So far, so good.
But now that Obamacare is finally on the cusp of full implementation, I'm ready to prostate…er…prostrate myself on the altar of this Grand Public-Private Experiment In Quasi-Universal Health Care. I'm here to be sold, so go ahead…lay it on me, Ron Popeil!
For the next "x" number of days, weeks and months, I'll update this space occasionally with the results of my tire kicking, fine-print reading and, ultimately, my signing-upping for Obamacare. I've deliberately avoided diving into the weeds (much) the last few years because I want to experience it as a newbie. As of now I know that there's a bronze plan, a silver plan, a gold plan, a platinum plan, and a titanium plan that involves surgically grafting your own personal physician to your hip.
What I want out of Obamacare is pretty simple: decent coverage for a decent price, and a deductible that totals less than one of Mitt Romney's Cayman Islands accounts. Yesterday I read this via ericlewis0 that gives me hope I won't be laying out too many Franklins:
Premiums before tax credits will be more than 16 percent lower than projected:
The weighted average second lowest cost silver plan for 48 states (including DC) is 16 percent below projections based on the ASPE-derived Congressional Budget Office.
That's a good start. I'd do a cartwheel, but it might put me in the hospital.
The exchanges go live Tuesday. Then the fun begins. Meanwhile Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Turn yer head.] RIGHTNOW! [Cough!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, September 26, 2013
Note: Sorry, no note today because I'm too busy. Wait a minute…I think that qualifies as a note. Excellent!
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8 Days!!!
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Obamacare exchanges go live:
5
Days 'til the
Stone Lake Cranberry Festival in Wisconsin:
8
Increase in home prices between July 2012 and July 2013:
12.4%
Increase in home prices in Las Vegas, the city with the largest increase:
27.5%
(Source: Standard & Poor's Case-Schiller Index)
Percent of online Americans who say they listen to Internet radio and traditional AM/FM radio, respectively:
53%, 90%
(Source: Edison Research)
Number of cities in America that still have a municipal pipe organ:
2 (San Diego & Portland, Maine)
Amount spent to restore Portland's
Kotzschmar municipal organ:
$2.5 million
(Source:
Portland Daily Sun)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
Sometimes you have to connect the dots, and sometimes the connections just hit you over the head.
Congress is on the verge of taking a final vote on the bankruptcy bill, the product of a five-year effort by credit-card companies to stack the law in their favor and against average citizens. But you will be relieved to learn that our lawmakers have thoughtfully included a loophole that leaves six states, including Florida and Texas, free to continue providing extraordinary advantages to rich citizens from all over the country who need to shelter their gelt from bankruptcy proceedings. The millionaire protection amendment.
---September, 2002
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Saved!!!
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CHEERS to easy work days. Here's what Democrats needed to do yesterday to make the Republicans look even more petty, oxygen-starved, disorganized and flat-out foolish than they already are:
.
Sorry. I should've asked if you wanted to see the abbreviated list first.
JEERS to algae-blooming water under the bridge. One of the many reasons we need to ditch our tea party governor, Paul LePage, next year is his willful disregard for environmental protection. He stuffed the DEP with cronies, made life miserable for longtime employees, and now the neglect is coming home to roost:
Rachel Carson would be giving
Gov. LePage a wedgie by now.
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The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is systematically and deliberately dismantling successful programs designed to protect Maine's lakes, environmental advocates said Tuesday. … Internal emails and audits of staffing and departmental activities demonstrate a pattern in the DEP to disrupt and eliminate lake water-quality programs and impede collaboration with academic, scientific and public information efforts, the report says.
The message of the council's report was supported by Matt Scott, the retired chief biologist for the DEP who created the department's lakes program in the 1970s.
After hearing of the report (cuz he doesn’t like to read), Governor LePage responded: "Hey, more legs on frogs means more frog's legs. Them's good eatin'." Disclaimer: LePage did not actually say that. Yet.
He looks like
the least evil James
Bond villain ever.
JEERS to close calls. On Monday, September 26, 1955, stocks dropped like a rock…the fastest rate since 1929. The numbers sound positively
quaint today:
The Dow Jones dropped 6.5%, 32 points, to 455, with a total paper loss of $14 billion, the largest ever.
Reason: Eisenhower's heart attack. Stocks quickly recovered, though, when the country realized he was
still the president. Or, to be perfectly accurate, when the country realized that Richard Nixon wasn't.
CHEERS to mental gymnastics. This is pretty cool: people can now operate their bionic legs by using their minds. The success of the experiment has given scientists such a boost in morale that they've decided to tackle their toughest project ever: getting a House tea party caucus member to operate their mind by using anything but their ass.
CHEERS to the new kid on America's block. On September 26, 1789, Thomas Jefferson was appointed America’s first Secretary of State. Actual transcript of Day 1:
President Washington: Here's your employee ID badge and key to the executive shite house. Sexual harrassment training parchment---be sure to sign and return it to Human Resources by 5. There's your office. Quills are in the supply closet---get the key from Gladys.
Jefferson: Anything else?
Washington: Yeah. Don’t park in Adams' spot or he'll have your horse towed.
History. Gives ya chills.
CHEERS to pretty pictures. September is on the cusp of getting disappeared, and you folks in the southeast will find this suitable for framing:
Only two months to go. Have a nice day.
CHEERS to making a joyful noise. In 1892, John Philip Sousa and his band ("The Beatles," I think) performed publicly for the first time at the Stillman Music Hall in Plainfield, New Jersey. Also on this date, the first appearance of the "Is that a Sousaphone in your pocket or are ya just happy to see me?" joke.
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Five years ago in C&J: September 26, 2008
JEERS to misplaced hysteria. Oh my god! People suffered 600 adverse events, including five deaths from dietary supplements last year! Oh Henny Penny, the sky is falling! How could anything be worse than that??? Oh, yeah...
Always after me lucky charms...
[E]ven when legal medications are taken as prescribed, they are too often dangerous and even deadly. In fact, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), an estimated 1.9 million adverse drug reactions occur each year, and up to 180,000 of them could be life threatening or even fatal.
Translation: they'll have to pry the horny goat weed out of my cold dead hands when I die from an oxycodone overdose.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a feat out of the oardinary. Sorry, ladies…but this record is now taken:
"...gently down the streeeeeeam..."
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A 28-year-old British adventurer, Sarah Outen, has become the first woman to row solo from Japan to Alaska, arriving at a small town in the Aleutian Islands after 150 days at sea. "I have had some of the most intense and memorable months of my life out on the Pacific. It has been brilliant and brutal at the same time," Outen said in a statement. […]
Outen celebrated with a bottle of champagne in Adak, Alaska, and greeted locals and supporters, her first human contact in nearly five months.
Well, now the Russians know how to sneak into Alaska under Sarah Palin's nose without being seen from her house. Rowboats.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Would you cheer and jeer
in a box?
Would you cheer and jeer
with a fox?
Not in a box.
Not with a fox.
Not in a house.
Not with a mouse.
---Dr. Seuss
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