We Care How You Care

Many years ago, my late mother became a resident of a long-term care facility.  While it was hours away from where I lived, over three years I still spent dozens of hours visiting her.

More recently, my wife's parents have also been, let's say, voluntarily relegated to a similar long-term care facility.  This time, it's quite near where I live, and in a short time I've already spent many hours there.

These care facility visits have made me, in my own mind, enough of an expert to know a few things that work and don't work -- not for the residents, but for the loved ones who visit them.

First, we want to have enough caretakers there to help.  Finding employees to work at these facilities wasn't easy before the COVID-19 pandemic, and it's even harder now.  But figure it out -- no resident should have to wait too long for help the basic activities of daily living.

Next, we want everyone to show kindness.  Of course, there will be days that workers there are stressed, and short of time, and basically don't want to be there.  Let's just keep that to a minimum, and be as pleasant as possible to those who have no choice but to be there.

Finally, an overlooked on one for a financial-focused person like me -- let's have staff that understands the health care provider / insurance administrative labyrinth.  By this I mean a staff that can understand and explain it, and doesn't allow it (or them) to make obscene profits off of the elderly.

I have more knowledge about how medical providers and insurers operate than most, and I still struggle to understand the rules and costs.  The residents of care facilities are already losing their independence, let's not let them unnecessarily lose their money.

Irony Is Wasted On The Stupid

Since the start of the year, states have been grappling with the procurement and end-user delivery of COVID-19 vaccines.  (States are doing this because there was no national plan, thanks to the incredible collection of dumbasses in the prior presidential administration.)  It's very similar to how the entire pandemic has been handled, which I've compared to the Wild West.  There are no laws, only unenforced guidelines that many people simply choose not to follow.

Most states / governors have tried to establish sensible vaccine distribution guidelines that seek to inoculate frontline healthcare workers and older-aged Americans.  However, some states have now decided to open vaccine eligibility to those under age 65 if they have an underlying health condition that heightens the risk of severe illness from COVID-19.  This seems benign enough until you look at what is considered (by our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) to be a qualifying health condition.....

The most objectionable condition has to be those who currently or previously smoked cigarettes.  Those who choose to pollute their lungs, not not mention the air that we all breathe, get bumped up in this line.  What a travesty, spending a life-saving vaccine on people who are willingly shortening their lives every day of the week -- plus increasing everyone's health care costs while they're at it.  Bravo, CDC.

Another questionable condition has to be obesity.  Yes, I realize there are illness-based and genetically-based reasons why some people may become clinically obese. Even conceding that, this means many others who became obese simply by eating too much of the wrong things and not exercising, will be able to get a vaccination before others who made healthier choices.

Leave it to the government to nudge people away from living a healthy lifestyle by rewarding those who don't.  They should call it the 'anti-survival of the fittest' policy.

The bigger irony is, this pandemic would have hospitalized and killed many fewer Americans to begin with if its citizens had healthier diets / lifestyles. Now to add insult to injury, anyone who has spent a lifetime staying fit by eating right, not smoking, and being active, is going to pay a price for that by being made to wait to be vaccinated against a deadly virus.  Who knew that being healthy could be such a vice?

In the words of the great playwright Oscar Wilde, “Irony is wasted on the stupid.”

I (Religiously) Object

Last week, there were a couple of Supreme Court rulings of major interest.  The most interesting, and polarizing, one was Burwell v. Hobby Lobby.

In brief (pun intended), the court struck down the contraceptive coverage mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  It further ruled that closely held for-profit corporations could be exempt from a law they religiously object to if there is a less restrictive means of furthering the law's interest.

As expected, this ruling sent progressives into a tizzy.  The basic themes were 1) corporations are not people, and 2) now every employer will be able exempt itself from federal laws by saying they have a religious objection.

Anyone who looks back at this blog knows that I generally side with the socially liberal viewpoint.  I even posted an entry about the self-righteousness of some groups opposing the mandate.  And yes, it does seem crazy that 5 Catholic males on a court could make far-reaching decisions that affect only women.  (On second thought, not only does that seem crazy, it IS crazy.)

However, anyone who looks back at this blog will also know that I generally side with fiscally conservative capitalism.  While there's nothing specifically fiscally conservative about this ruling, generally speaking, I don't believe that employers should be federally mandated to provide medical coverage of any kind.

So, I'm having a hard time getting worked up about the Burwell ruling.  While I disagree with it, I also think the one absolute problem with the ACA is the employer mandate.  While everything else about the ACA may turn out just fine, including the individual mandate, the employer mandate is dumb.

Regardless of whether it's the 'job-killer' conservatives want to believe it is, employers (and other related third-parties) should not be in the health care business.  The ACA should mandate that employers NOT provide coverage, instead of the other way around.  Employers will then have to compete for quality employees solely on the basis of pay.  (I've just solved the minimum wage issue, too!)

Let the people be responsible for getting their own coverage, as with other forms of insurance.  If that sounds like it discriminates against the poor, that's why we have Medicaid.  (I know, I know, this attitude means taxpayers like me might be paying for more indigent medical care.  But on balance, I think it would still be no worse, and probably better, than it is now.)

Suffice it to say, I think the Burwell ruling is illogical, and anti-female, but I don't think it's the end of the republic.  Corporations surely aren't people, but even corporations should have some protections from the law, e.g. tort reform.  Too bad Hobby Lobby didn't focus on that.

Still More Unthankfulness

It's time for the 5th annual edition of my Thanksgiving-time list of things for which I am not thankful. You can get to the trail of prior lists here.

As usual, this list is in no particular order:

Sub-zero weather in November.

Iowa allowing smoking in its casinos, when it's banned everywhere else.

Government shutdowns.

Parents who don't hold their children accountable.

The botched heathcare.gov website.

Humble-braggers.

Bad football played by the teams for which I am a fan.

Ted Cruz.

Twerking.

Those still in denial about social movements that are irreversible (e.g. gay marriage, marijuana legalization).

Anyone who cares more about what I do, than they care about what they do.

Literally, It's Figuratively Hyperbole

There's a famous scene in the movie The Godfather, Part III where Don Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) laments not being able to operate his 'business' empire more legitimately by saying, "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"

Enter this week's latest Whacked Out In The Head moment from Michele Bachmann, who had gone quite some time without making national news for saying something stupid.  Just when I thought she was out, she pulled me back in with this quote, from a speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives about repealing Obamacare:

"That's why we're here.  Because we're saying, let's repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens."

Literally?  So she believes that a law/regulation, basically words on paper, will somehow animate and act to take a life.  Either she is very stupid about what inanimate objects can do, or very stupid about the definition of the word 'literally'.  (I say both.)

Makes me wonder why extreme conservatives like her even bother with the old, "Guns don't kill people" routine.  Guns literally can kill people, but if paper can do it too, we ought not be wasting time worrying about guns!

The sad thing is, the content of Bachmann's statement is already dumb enough.  How much more time will conservatives like her waste on repealing Obamacare?  Congress passed it, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld it, and voters re-elected the president responsible for it.  But she insisted on going the extra mile to expose herself as being stupid beyond the regular dumb, and used the word 'literally' where it made no sense.

Unfortunately, the incorrect and overuse of the word 'literally' these days is almost offensive.  I frequently correct both family members and strangers on how they use it.  These days, people commonly use it to intensify what they're saying, as opposed to actually using it properly.  In other words, it's being used as hyperbole.  Literally.

So thank you, Michele Bachmann, for allowing me to write about the misuse of the English language, while at the same time ridiculing you again.  Good to have you back.  Figuratively.

Night At The Hospital

I recently spent a night as a visitor as a hospital.  This was my first hospital overnight since I was an inpatient at one over 12 years ago.

Outside of selected complimentary beverages, there are very few good things, if any, about spending the night at the hospital.  However, there are a number of bad things, beyond just being around sick people:

1) The random noises that interrupt the quiet.  Forget about a sound night's sleep.  If it isn't the beeping of the various medical devices, it's the nurses coming in every couple of hours to check vital signs or give medication.

2) The light pollution.  No matter how hard you may try to keep the light low, the above-mentioned nurses are going to walk in from the well-lit hallway.  Sometimes, if they have something to do, they're even going to turn the lights on in the room.

3) The antiseptic aroma.  Combine hand sanitizer, alcohol pads, and every other purification or cleaning agent known to man, and you might have a basic idea of what it smells like the entire time.  Not awful, but not potpourri either.

So in summary, a night at the hospital is going to be a benevolent assault on the senses of hearing, seeing, and smelling.  This is the sacrifice made to help get people well.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Assuming I labeled my posts properly, I went the entire calendar year of 2012 without an entry on religion.  Hard to believe, because it isn't as if there weren't religious controversies worth blogging about.

Regardless, that streak is over.  Some news today pushed me over the edge, that being a new proposal from the Obama administration that would allow religious groups to opt-out (sort of) of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) mandatory contraceptive coverage.

Religiously affiliated groups, especially the Catholic Church, have been going nuts over this mandate.  When this topic was at its hottest this past summer, and preachers were crusading against the mandate during church services, an acquaintance of mine had a letter published in the Des Moines Register that complained about those tactics.  After all, she wasn't going to church to hear those white men telling her what she should believe about her reproductive health care.  The next thing you know she was getting letters from strangers, telling her how wrong she was to feel that way.

Here's the problem with all of this.  The outrage of those religious leaders and their followers over the contraceptive coverage mandate, while somewhat understandable, would have a lot more credibility it it weren't for at least two really big things:

1) Religiously affiliated groups, and here again especially the Catholic Church, completely supported the passage of Obamacare.  I'm sure much of that support was at least indirectly financial, via PAC contributions.  Then once the rules were written, and they realized the rules apply to them, snap! they suddenly wanted to be excepted from a major part of Obamacare.

2) It's laughable to see the outrage of so-called religious leaders over this issue, when it is a fact that many of the organizations they oversee have been including contraceptive coverage in their health care plans for many years.  Apparently, they think all of the young female teachers in their schools are using abstinence as their birth control method.  Classic old white men group-think.

Who knows if this new 'opt-out' rule will pacify the mandate-haters.  It probably won't.  But that has more to do with the out-of-touch religious hierarchy, and its culture of thinking they can and should govern themselves.  (Ask any former church pedophile victim how well they think that self-governance thing has worked out.)

The Taxpayer Warrior Strikes Again

On July 2nd, The Des Moines Register smartly published another letter to the editor I sent them.  It went like this:

So Polk County supervisors are going to start paying part of their health insurance for the first time ever, effective July 1? It sounds like a great victory for taxpayers – until you consider it’s expected to save less than $3,000 annually.

In fact, those affected will only being paying between $15 and $25 per month for insurance premiums. While that’s more than zero, it’s hundreds of dollars less per month than most private sector employees pay.

Regardless, Supervisors Chairwoman Angela Connolly crowed, “We all have to pay our fair share in terms of insurance costs.” This is just another example of how far out of touch elected officials are with their constituents, and with the economy.

This took me all of 15 minutes to write and email to them, but I can confirm that I got a lot more than 15 minutes of enjoyment out of embarrassing a bunch of wasteful politicians!

Indoor Tanning Gets Burned

One of the items jammed into the new health care reform law is a 10% tax on indoor tanning services starting July 1. I rarely say this about new taxes, but in this case, Bravo!

I've stated many times before that taxes are generally bad, and should be opposed unless they are used to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, or promote the general welfare. Granted, that last one is way too flexible, but I take "promote the general welfare" to mean good roads, schools, water, etc, AND that we should not be encouraging people to voluntarily harm themselves in a way that requires society to pick up the tab.

That's exactly what tanning salons do. They drill a body with harmful UV rays that promote skin cancer, which eventually leads to increased medical care, the costs of which eventually will be borne directly or indirectly by society through higher private medical premiums and/or indigent medical care from taxpayers.

The con argument is the same crazy one that smokers use to complain about the cigarette tax. Instead of "I have a right to smoke," it's "I have a right to tan." Well then, society has a right to tax you because it will be paying for your dumb decisions later.

Another con argument out there sounds more logical, but is actaully even more ridiculous. That's the idea that we don't tax people who don't wear helmets when riding motorcycles, which is a lot riskier. But the thing is, when motorcylists crash without helmets, they usually die, and society bears no ongoing medical cost.

To be fair, I think we should slap the same tax on some other things. Fast food restaurants come to mind. If we're keeping it real, the fatty foods and soft drinks they sell are enablers for everything from diabetes to heart disease. Ingesting that stuff is a choice to have an unhealthy lifestyle, just like smoking and tanning, and choices have consequences that should not be socialized.

So for all you indoor tanners out there who feel like it is better to look good than to feel good, thank you for your vanity, and thank you for the new source of federal tax revenue!

Health Care Reform and Sheep

To put it nicely, people are showing a lot of passion at these congressional 'town hall meetings' on health care reform. I think it's funny for two reasons:

First, when politicians schedule these things, they think they're going to draw a few mostly friendly folks to chat, just so they can say they met with their constituents, maybe even pickup a campaign contribution or two. You're going to see a lot fewer town hall meetings in the future.

Second, and this is more sad than funny, I'll bet if you asked any of these angry folks against health care reform, you'll find that almost none of them understand how their existing health plan works. Outside of the premiums they pay, they have no clue what a deductible is, or how coinsurance works, or ultimately how much they'll have to pay for a hospital stay. So how can they possibly know if change will be more expensive?

That's right, they don't know. It's just that someone else told them it was that way, either in person or on TV or the internet, so they believe it. (See my first post, lather and rinse.) We are a country of sheep, and there are currently more wolves than any shepherd can handle.