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Created by: Medical Transcription

Inanities in the Health Insurance World #2

A person is quitting the group insurance to get individual right now. Getting the individual plan would save her $12 a month. It's the same EXACT friggin' plan.

Just because of this savings, the person will waste a bunch of administrator's time (NOT DOCTORS) just to save $144 a year. And this process will probably repeat itself next year, wasting more time and money.

What, you thought your insurance premiums was going to the doctors? Nah, it's going to feed this process/status quo. After all, this employee will probably go see a doctor twice next year. But in the meantime, they probably make at least $1k off her next year. Paying a couple of brokers fees and admin time will justify the profits.

But this is how the system works. Every year two or three major insurers in your area compete. And every year they switch off being the better deal. And every year your employer switches. It's the name of the game, baby.

Inanities in the Health Insurance World #1

A client's employee moves out of state to expand their business. The employee goes to a doctor about 3-4 times in the new state, making sure to visit a doctor that was under the company's carrier. Employee gets a bill for $3k.

Why? (Here comes the inane part)

Carrier considers anything out of state, including its own doctors, out of network and therefore nothing applies.

They generously have a visiting plan, but certain restrictions apply. You know how that goes. Anything that isn't an emergency/life & death situation, well too bad.

For those of you who don't get the inanity in this, umm, do we live in the UNITED States of America? How does going out of state constitute going out of the service area? We are AMERICANS. These states are OUR states. A comprehensive UNIVERSAL plan would pretty much eliminate this possibility, doncha think?

Tumultuously Happy Beginnings

Today was the final day of the most important class at the school, Final Project. Everything we've been going to school for, summed up in one thirty-second to two minute package. A demo reel. It's important! A visual resume; look what I can do. 

Our ideas, abilities and pieces of our lives wrapped up and delivered, today... at 10:00am... no... 10:15am? uh huh... instructor has yet to arrive come 10:30am. How delusional we all are, thinking that maybe we would put something forth that was worthwhile. Maybe there would be something to be excited about, to be moved by, to at least show up on time for.

The inability of key people to 'stick around' long enough to view everyone's work spoke volumes. One by one we laid our dreams at their feet. One by one they apologetically left the room. It's boring and redundant, but at the very least feigned interest would have been a better end to our school career.

I've been on the verge of several emotions, instead of choosing one, I'm experiencing them all at once. On the edge of extreme emotions. Petrified between two emotions. Excitement wrestling just behind my eyes with tears of sorrow. Paranoid stress holding prolonged discussions with flawless contentment. Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's the surge of true and utter passion to experience all emotions so extremely, all at once, you can't focus. Maybe it's the lack of sleep. Maybe it's my world mingling with reality, disorienting me. In either case, I am distracted, sensitive and tired. But it wasn't just me. I wasn't the only one hurt and for once I wasn't the only one to notice it.

I wonder if I should be thankful of the disinterest experienced. The school has always excused its odd hours, as preparation for the work environment. The key people have been around the school long enough to know what gets produced by it. They would know if it was worthwhile to stick around for the entire class' demo reels. Perhaps they were just preparing me for what it is really like to package my passion, and creativity and then peddle it out, asking busy people for thirty seconds of their time...

I am not so bitter, promise I'm still sweet. I'm happy and impressed with my first draft. I'm not going to let it bother me that other's don't necessarily see it worthwhile enough to spend forty seconds of their life with. Who am I to blame them, it's only a first draft and it's not like they have any reason to care specifically about me. The people that matter to me think it's trippy, interesting, amazing, and leaves them wanting to see more. Which is precisely what this trippy, interesting artist desires! 

Then occupied with the act of making art, I was unable to sleep, now I find myself unable to sleep, because I'm full of ideas with where to take this first draft, so that it'll become a second.

-> i wrote this June 26, 2008

iPhone Blogging

I'm trying out a new app to help me blog more. Can you tell I'm blogging from the bed? That's Bratworse asleep beside me. Heeee


-- Posted From My iPhone

CitiMortgage

Remember that at the beginning of March, I asked Citimortgage aka Shittimortgage to correct what THEY had sent in to the credit bureaus? Okay, to refresh your memory, 2-1/2 years ago, we got into a dispute with Shittimortgage. We had thought we made all our payments that year but due to changing banks and whatnot, we had actually missed a payment.

We got into a dispute with them, then realized our mistake, made the payments and lo and behold, we are NOT IN DEFAULT with them.

So along comes this blurb on our credit reports that we got into a dispute. Well, I asked Citibank ... ahem Shittibank to take the dispute off the records and they said, okay, all you have to do is write us. So I did.

And what did I get in the mail today, 20 days after I had written them?

A letter DATED March 2, 2009 that was MAILED OUT on the 23rd that informed me, sorry, Shittimortgage won't remove the dispute but if I wanted to, I could contact the credit bureaus.

FUCK YOU SHITIBANK! FUCK YOU SHITTIMORTGAGE.

Thanks for delaying my loan two weeks! Thanks for making me PAY MORE INTEREST to these firms that I have high interest rates from. GODS I didn't think anyone could make me hate more than insurance companies but the banks are SURE competing for this hatred!

BAH!

Update on the Loan

The appraisal we had gotten was missing some information so my broker gets in touch with the guy who did the appraisal. Turns out the poor man had a stroke and of course couldn't fill out the missing parts.

So NOW, we have to get a different appraiser, have them come to the house and inspect it and now, with prices falling so much between Jan. and now, I wonder if the places nearby are still selling for as much as it had been in Jan. (Shit, I'm getting stressed thinking about it.)

The loan is now pushed back to next week and well Tahoe's now out.

Our broker keeps saying, just borrow from your savings so you can afford Tahoe. You can pay it back later but doesn't he realize this is EXACTLY the attitude that got the U.S. economy in trouble. We will not borrow from our savings to pay for a vacation now.

Bah! I hope all bankers/loan officers/assholes get papercuts on their tongues and eat jalapenos afterwards.

An Exercise in Frustration for Getting a New Loan

Around December 16th or 17th, I talked to a mortgage broker about refinancing. Told him our situation: I have a condo, very little left in the mortgage, my wife has student loans about to be due and I have a ton of equity in the house. Adding it all up, the broker was ecstatic. This was a gimme. Our mortgage is about less than 1/7th of what our place is worth (I bought in 1993 and never refinanced), our school loans added the debt up to about just over half of the equity and I make about 1/4th of what our loan amount was going to be.

Should've been a cakewalk, right?

Well, now it's March 18th, exactly three months later and do we have the loan? No. Are we throwing good money into the ether by paying interest rates on loans we're planning on paying off with the new house loan? Yes.

Here's what happened with the first guy. Yes, I'm on my second broker and that was part of the problem but in a Karmic kind of way, we were blessed when we changed brokers.

In Jan. the first lender calls me up to say that we're locked in at a 5.5% interest rate. "Huh?" I asked, knowing that rates were about the 4.75 to 5% range. He convinces me that this is the absolute lowest we can go (This entire time, I distrusted what he was saying) then tells me what I need to do. I go ahead and do what is needed and then waited. And waited. And waited.

Two weeks after I was supposed to have gotten the loan docs, I called him up and asked what was going on. He replied that the association was slow in getting the paperwork to us. I asked why didn't he call me and enlisted my help since he knew the student loans were coming due and that I didn't want to pay interest on those loans. He just hemmed and hawed.

Two days later, he calls me up and says "Umm, trouble. Because your condo has a 29% tenant occupancy, this lender won't give you the loan. However! I can get you another loan."

I gave him until noon the next day to tell me there was a solution. He called me at 12:02 and tells me that there wasn't a solution, BUT he's working on it. I fired his ass and called up my senators to complain about the arbitrariness of assigning 25% tenant occupancy as a condition for giving out loans to OBVIOUSLY qualified individuals.

My new broker then gets me a 4.5% rate. This confirmed to me that first broker was full of shit.

Everything is chugging along decently when, due to a DISPUTE I STARTED 2-1/2 years ago, which OBVIOUSLY had been settled because the property didn't go into foreclosure and we are current with our payments, my credit reports get flagged and the loan stopped dead in its tracks. I call up my mortgage company, get them to rescind that little blurb in the credit reports and then find out that two of the three credit agencies DIDN'T remove the dispute notice.

So two credit agencies (Experian and Transunion) are holding my loan hostage due to the fact that they can't update credit reports in a timely manner.

My broker just called me up a day ago to say that the account manager at the lending co. has figured out how to bypass this little hurdle.

It turns out that Fannie Mae's underwriting program cares about these little items but Freddie Mac's underwriting program doesn't. (We're talking SOFTWARE programs here). And apparently even though HUMANS can see the dispute as something to be disregarded (for it makes no difference), software cannot be bypassed by humans. However, there was a debt to income ration that Freddie Mac cared about.

Someone had entered in the student loans as debts that still will be incurred AFTER we get the loan, so that made my debt skyhigh. It's now fixed and supposedly, I'm to get loan docs tomorrow or Friday.

You know, I'm not going to hold my breath. I should've just declared myself a bank holding company. Bah! Oh and if this loan doesn't come in, there goes our vacation in Tahoe next weekend.

Rather Handsome Fellow

Bratworse was asked to do a small silhouette of a male and female for her internship. She's despairing because well she feels she has to do a bang-up job for this, this being her internship. Me, I hear the words "small" and "silhouette" and I'm thinking, oh, like anyone is going to be able to tell from a SMALL silhouette what gender it is.

So knowing that my honey's having a bad day (there's been a sad fairy visiting our house lately. One day, she'll decide that I'm to be the one that's sad. For the last couple of days it's been Bratworse. The sad fairy is welcome at our house, Goddhas know it's not welcome at most houses, but I do wish someone else would welcome it for a while. We want some happiness, some time) I helpingly suggested to her the following:

Me: <--- thinks you should get a silhouette of a monkey and use that since it'll be shrunk and no one can tell what it is
Bratworse: if they end up going with the sillhouette stuff, it won't be good that they came from the public.
Me: Well I think you can just take one from the public and manipulate it, and put a milk mustache on the guy's silhouette just in case people can't tell it's a guy since it'll be shrunk

So then I do some searching around the public and found the above picture and IM it to her.

BW: rofl
Me: I made my honey laugh?
Me: Really?
BW: Really really.
Me: *dances around pleased with herself*
Me: I thought that was a rather handsome fellow

And what do I get for all my troubles?

BW: it's a good thing you like girls

Universe is Coming Together

Almost everything I've been looking at or paying attention to, is telling me to follow my dreams.

However, I've got a question.

What the heck IS my dream?

Charged Twice

Today, I hear of a case where a woman was bitten by a rodent. She calls up the advise nurse who tells her to go to "urgent care." However, when she was seen by the doctor, she was told that the rabies shot ISN'T kept there, there is none there, and she will have to go to emergency services, which she does, and gets her rabies shot there.

Fast forward to a month later when she receives a bill for the emergency treatment AND the urgent care visit. She's explained the situation to her carrier, but apparently the carrier has turned down her request to remove the charge for the urgent care visit even though she received NO TREATMENT there.

So, it seems that if you take the advice of an advise nurse, you can get dinged twice, even if the advise is WRONG!

Yet another episode in "Insurance Woes!"

Setting Down Limits

Last week, we helped out Lady Embalmer with babysitting chores as she took in six neighborhood kids. Since Art Teach's two were included in the mix, and we had already established a bit of relationship with the other four kids, we just thought four other adult hands would make the day just a tad better.

We watched with amusement when the kids, ranging in age between 2 and 5, asked permission to go upstairs. Lady Embalmer rattles off a litany of don'ts - "No kicking, no biting, no taking each other's toys, no hitting, no pinching..."

It appears adults are no better, are they? All those lessons about "Hey, don't take more than your share," or "Don't rob," apparently just doesn't take with some adults, as evidenced by these chief executives of companies who ask the U.S. taxpayers to bail them out.

Here, Senator Claire McCaskill is putting forth a sensible bill. If you are going to ask the U.S. taxpayer to bail you out, at least have the decency to not make more than the POTUS (President of the United States). But since they've pretty much shown themselves to be an indecent lot, Sen. McCaskill is putting this decency into law.

AFTER you pay back the money, you can do whatever the hell you want. Pay yourself 18 quadrillion dollars if you need to, but if you ask for bailout money again...

Time Wastin'

So, I've been reading Andrew Sullivan's site (shhhh don't tell people I'm actually reading a conservative albeit gay albeit who voted for Obama) and he leads me to this site today. It's call Pretty Loaded and well, it's a seamless panoply of loading animations.

You know, the animations that happen when your program/video file/website is loading?

My first thought before entering the site: "How good can this be?" Other thoughts of endless circles of death persisted.

And then the first animation happened and I thought, "Cool!" and before I even knew it was over the second one started, then the third one...

Five minutes of my life. Gone. Poof. Just like that.

Enjoy!

Cementing My Geek Street Cred

The fact that I actually laughed out loud at this, really cements my geek street cred, doesn't it?

FYI, I showed my boss the above picture and zip, nada, nothing. Meant absolutely nothing to him.

I've been neglecting posting up here because well, I find little links and post them on the facebook page and since I have a feed coming from here to there, I don't double-post. But today, I turned off that feed. So, anything that's posted here don't necessarily get posted on the Facebook. Which is good I think. It'll make me want to post here more often.

Anyway, I'm back and will be posting a lot more.

God Gave Me TWO Daughters

Called Mom today just cause. After her greeting, she told me it was okay that I wasn't coming to visit her for Christmas. "Oh?" I asked while thinking since when was I asking permission not to visit?

"Oh yes," she said almost triumphantly. "God gave me TWO daughters."

A soft snicker escaped me despite my best efforts. "I'm glad you're thinking that way, Mom."

"Yes, so you go and stay in Oakland. I've got two daughters."

"Yes Mom."

As I hung up the phone, I found myself counting the minutes until next week when I surprise her on Thanksgiving. Part of me is being pure Chinese and thinking, Oh, so you're going to look down on me, eh? Well, I'll show you.

Trust me, it sounds *much* better in Chinese.

A Tale of Two Jewelers

So we have two jewelers as customers. One's retail, the other is one that handmakes jewelry... probably in the under $200 range. The retail store on the other, deals with jewelry in the thousands range.

I get calls from both of them today. One of them tells me to keep the plan going even though there are layoffs because well, the people need their healthcare. The other one tells me to cancel their plan for all their employees.

And guess which jeweler did which? And people wonder why I don't want to work for rich people.

so what's the song

on my iPod this morning? You really fucked up

Prop. 8

I've been looking at Idealist ever since this proposition was called, asking her why?

Numb with shock at what happened. It's been hard for me to understand.

Months into our marriage certificate and we're reminded just how much a dream it is. I had a really difficult day, cliched bittersweet. Proposition eight passed, they interrupted my dream. I cried on the phone to Idealist, to Verve, to Vito, as they expressed love, embarrassment and support. Then alone, rubbing my eyes to make sure I was really seeing what I was seeing. They were there, willing to hold my hand, to let me know that even though I have to check 'other' in a lot of cases, it's okay.

I'm still loved, and I don't know about everyone else, but all I want is to spread happiness in a way that makes me happy to. I am so thankful and in love with the people that love and support me. They remind me when I most need reminding that I'm not alone, they're right there with me. Accepting and inspiring the way I dream.

Lieberman on a Tight Leash

So Ranger Robb and I were watching Monday Night Football and discussing politics, as any two good leftist dykes are wont to do and we got to the discussion of Joe Lieberman otherwise known as Stinkpot, Asshole, and various other apt labels.

Ranger Robb wanted to see Lieberman stripped of everything. I did too, but then I told her the latest news I had heard earlier that day - that Obama was signaling to leave Lieberman alone.

"And you know what? Obama even CAMPAIGNED for Lieberman when he WASN'T the Democratic nominee! Ned Lamont was the nominee...." As my voice trailed off, I started to think, now why WOULD Obama 1) campaign for Lieberman, 2) let Lieberman hang himself with his own words without a single blowback, and 3) now signal hands off?

Light bulb goes off.

Assuming Obama is a fairly strategic and far-seeing in terms of goals, numbers were showing Obama in the lead. Why not let Lieberman shoot off at the mouth and hang himself? If McCain won, well, Lieberman showed his true colors. But if Obama won, then they had all these evidence and well, words can be swords of Damocles too.

Follow my logic here. Right now, the Democrats have 56 votes with two senate seats still up in the air - Alaska and Minnesota. With Lieberman, that'll make it 59 and Bernard Sanders would make it 60. And even if supposing that we don't turn over those two seats in Alaska, how hard would it be to get a Republican to switch votes in this current toxic environment? I'm sure there's a number of vulnerable seats in two years.

Anyway, all I ask of Obama is, yes allow Lieberman to stay in the caucus but please please please strip him of all chairmanships. Please. Especially the one that does investigations.

UPDATE: Kos is now saying that Obama's people are leaving it in Reid's hands, as are other democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton. Another relatively smart move. Reid is Senate Majority Leader. If he wants a headache, he'll keep Lieberman on as chairman.

A Couple of Observations

1) I wonder how the cities and counties of California feels about Prop 8, knowing that one of their FEW GROWING REVENUE STREAMS is about to dry up. Can you imagine what those cities and counties were feeling when the Supreme Court of CA decided to overturn the gay marriage ban? At a time of shrinking budgets, a sudden manna from heavens of a sort, dropped down on them with money to spend on weddings.

Now, California cities will watch those revenues flow to Massachusetts, Canada, elsewhere but here. Nice shooting yourself in the foot but then again, that's human nature.

2) Back when I thought I needed Jesus to save my life, I was always most impressed with the song "They'll know we are Christians by our love."

Well, between all donations for and against, there was about 70 million dollars spent to convince people to take away our rights or let us be.

Just imagine if those 70 million dollars had been used to help the needy right now who are being forced out of homes, or watched their retirement savings swirl down the toilet.

Can you imagine these people's day of Judgement? "When your countrymen was aching for relief, where did you spend your money?" "Umm... I spent it to do YOUR will" "Feed the poor, clothe the homeless, those were my instructions." "But but but... those gays! They wanted to convert our children!"

So now we know. We know they are Christians by their stupidity and ignorance and intolerance. And they wonder why I left. I left because I couldn't stand to be part of bigotry and small-minded thinking.

And yes, I AM talking about my family members. *sigh*