Health Care Debate

There is a lot of noise going on about socialized medicine and bla bla bla. Jesus christ, can you think of anything more dumb than worrying about the red menace? Fucking hell, Glenn Beck recently asked someone if he liked Karl Marx! Why is nobody asking Glenn Beck the important questions, mainly "Where is your time machine and how did you get here from 1952?"

My point about health care is this...let's say that, hypothetically, it would cost me exactly the same amount of money to get my health care from the insurance company or the government. Let's say $5,000 a year. I pay $5,000 a year just in case I need to have surgery or something.

Now let's say that, hypothetically, I never ever ever have to go to the doctor's office. That $5,000 isn't ever coming back to me. In the current system, that money went to the insurance company, which means that my annual $5,000 went into some corporate insurance d-bag's pocket.

If it was a government run program, my $5,000 wouldn't be going to profit, it would be going into the system that was making sure my fellow American's were getting the medical attention they required. And that doesn't bother me at all. That makes me proud to be an American.

Hypothetically, of course...

"The Office"

I know I owe you guys the end of my "Traveling" blog, but I've been watching the office, and it's been blowing my mind.

Jim came back from his interview at corporate and asked Pam out to dinner?!?! WHAT? What's gonna happen?!~?!

I could just start season 4 and find out, but I enjoy just flipping out for awhile.

on the road...

I've never been a big fan of traveling. Well, actually that's a bit of a lie. I used to love traveling, but it changed at some point from something that totally fascinated me to an incredible waste of time.

I used to view everything past my block as having limitless potential for adventure. I harassed my parents constantly to loosen the leash they had me on. I wanted to get a job. I wanted to get a bike. I wanted to get my drivers license. I wanted to learn to fly a plane. At a very young age I packed a bag full of triskets and a pepsi and rode my bike exactly half a block away, found a cool spot under a tree and chilled out for a few hours. When I reached adolescence I started taking walks to the neighborhoods I was less familiar with around Brentwood, and as a teenager with a license I tended to enjoy getting lost in random outer LA towns and trying to drive my way back. I would be gone for hours and was happy as a clam so long as I had music and no one to answer to.

Then when I first went to go look at colleges I discovered what travel really was: I took a long flight to a place to pick up a car with my dad and we drove. And drove and drove and drove. I had no idea where I was going. I had no idea where I was. All I knew was that Dad would tell me where to turn, and after HOURS in the car listening to the same tapes over and over again we would arrive at a college where I would interview (awkwardly), then get back in the car and continue the journey once again. After my week of looking at schools around the east coast, I decided that I was done with traveling for awhile.

Each expidition after that was similarly annoying. The road trip across America was dominated by my brother and his douchey tendencies. The trip to Europe was tainted by a perpetually upset stomach, a lack of culinary expertise, and my miserable gay friend and his hag who liked me. Road trips had breakdowns. Flights were cancelled. It wasn't long before I only wanted to dig in somewhere and never ever leave.

I found a place in Queens, New York and stayed there for five years. I traveled as little as humanly possible and was happy as a clam.

Then came improv tour.

To be continued...

I BEAT HOUSE!

I was watching “House” the other day. It was the episode where they treat a homeless woman who is having seizures. About twenty minutes in I made a startling realization: I know what’s wrong with this woman.

“Sensitivity to light...violence and aggression...bats where she sleeps…she’s got rabies!”

(I had just recently listened to an episode of “This American Life” which talked about the symptoms of rabies.)

Now, I am not a doctor, so I gave the episode the benefit of the doubt. “Surely this team of professionals would have thought of, and already ruled out rabies as a possible diagnosis.” But low and behold, forty minutes later…

“My god…it’s rabies!”

I BEAT HOUSE TO A DIAGNOSIS!

You’re damn right it’s rabies, Foreman! If I existed in your TV world, that fictional woman would be ALIVE right now!

An open letter to health care in general

I do not know who is to blame. I do not know whether or not it is the fault of the insurance companies or the hospitals or health care providers or billing departments or doctors or what. I only know one thing...

You people are dumb.

I have spent hours on the phone over the past three months attempting to correct tiny mistakes which have the potential to cost me thousands of dollars. This is not my responsibility. This is your responsibility. It is not my job to hold your hand while you ask for payment from my insurance company. It is not my job to be the only communication that goes on between the hospital and the billing department.

I have just received bills for the following:

1) Over $1000 in charges that the hospital billed the wrong insurance company for.
2) A $25 copay that I have paid already. In my hand is a receipt stating such.
3) Around $50 in copays from eight years ago.
4) A $32 copay for a free office visit.
(Just in case you missed that last one, let me hammer it in for you: I went in for a COMPLIMENTARY office visit, and just received a BILL for the FREE office visit. I was CHARGED MONEY for a FREE office visit!?!?!?!!)

I am not getting paid to be your secretary. I pay an enormous amount of money to make sure that I have health care coverage. That money should be going to pay for competent people to handle things like billing, or insurance claims, or record keeping. My money should be used to train office administrators, managers, and customer service representatives so that they can do their job's correctly and handle all the bureaucratic nonsense that goes into the medical profession.

After I go see the doctor WHO IS COVERED BY MY INSURANCE, then they should bill my insurance company and that should be the end of the story. I am not an employee of the hospital or insurance company and therefore should not be put to work making sure that money exchanges hands.

I refuse to be taken advantage of. I refuse to pay for services that I have already paid for. I refuse to pay for seeing a doctor when I pay an insurance company to pay for my seeing a doctor. Get your fucking act together, you fucking idiots. I am currently filled with rage and it is all your fault. This is not my fault. This is your fault.

But that isn't what upsets me the most.

Sure, you did this, and you are forcing me to fix it. Sure, I do not have the time to waste on this bullshit. Sure, you owe me time, and money, and peace of mind. But that is not what really bothers me.

What bothers me most of all is that you are doing this to thousands of other people who are way worse off than me. I do not have any children to take care of. I do not have elderly dependents. I am not two steps away from bankruptcy. Many are, and you are taking advantage of them.

If someone out there has a solution to this mass mistreatment, please let me know and you have my full support.

Yours,

Jarret

Climate change.

There has been a lot of talk about climate change recently. It seems like more and more people are willing to accept that it is a problem and that we need to take drastic steps to do something about it. Which is great, because that means that we all won't die and shit.

Regardless of the fact that CFL bulbs are becoming the norm, SUV sales are plummeting, and Con Edison is offering a green energy service, one can still see occasional evidence that we have already done some serious damage. Take today for example, when I checked out the weather for my area and saw this:
WHOA! It's...HAZY out?!?! What the fuck is "HAZE"?!?! When did this become an accepted type of weather?!?!? Did I miss a meeting?

If the graphic is any indication, haze is when the sky is dirty, which can only mean one thing, people. We fucked up.

Clinging to my guns...

Remember when Obama got a lot of flack from those comments he made about people who are upset about their jobs and life so they cling to their values, religion and guns? Remember how everybody said they were elitist comments and were insulting to middle americans?

Um...isn't he right, though?

To me that's like telling a friend that they look like sick, and they get all upset at you for saying it, and then you're like, "But, are you?" and they're like, "Well...yeah, but still, you don't SAY that!"