Wordless Wednesday
Unhealthy Thoughts
“I had occasion to visit another blog for the first time in months,” my friend Dean “Dino” Russell said. “Either he has gone onto a tangent or else I have lost cognitive ability but I guess that is what bloggers do.”
I never do that. Last week, for example, I wrote about gas price gouging. This week, I shall share recipes for making cheese from mouse milk.
“Unfortunately I do not have access to lactating mice because I have them fixed almost at birth,” quoth Dino. “Now, if you ever do an Arts-and-Craft posting about tanning and using the tender skin of mouse scrotum for making everyday undergarb, then I’ll tune in.”
Coming soon, but that requires some high precision research and a government grant.
Meanwhile, speaking of high precision research and government grants, Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield of NH became the Granite State (Slogan: No Choice or Die)’s only medical insurer on Saturday. The lack of insurance choice disappoints consumer and small business advocates, not to mention many actual patients, but it surprised no one. Only one company will sell insurance through the new online marketplaces required under the Obamacare “overhaul” of the healthcare system.
Hang on to that one thought: The lack of insurance choice disappoints patients, consumer advocates, and small business owners. The lack of insurance choice was driven by Obamacare, no matter what the politicals tell you.
Looks like New Hampshire employed the same strategy that didn’t work next door in Vermont.
Vermont laws whittled our choices down to one several years ago to force consumers onto a state plan. Voters rebelled but now, 21 years later, Gov. Peter Shumlin is poised to deliver a rout: no choice in insurance.
The history: The Vermont legislature created the Vermont Health Care Authority in 1992. That mostly-political body was to chart the course for health care reform. One of Vermont’s first reform actions was to pass laws that chased insurers out of the state. Then-state Sen. Cheryl Rivers (D-Windsor) and then-Gov. Howard Dean (D-VT) aggressively championed ideological health care changes.
The VHCA was the most highly centralized and powerful state agency in the country. They had regulatory and policy authority. They issued certificates-of-need and cut hospital budgets. They could change non-group community ratings of insurers. They expanded Medicaid access, developed uniform benefit rules and a global budget, and prepared two universal access plans.
Oddly, Vermont’s General Assembly failed to pass anything from VHCA in 1994. Or 1996. Or 1998…
Some on both sides of the aisle say they dumped a bunch of bad law. I believe the idea of giving the VHCA at least half a billion or as much as a billion 1994 dollars every year scared them all off. That’s more than the State of Vermont spent on everything else.
Vermont has bounced back, over the objections of the No-Choice Democrats who want one single one-size-fits-all plan with one payer for every man, woman, and child in the state. There are half a dozen companies offering a variety of private PPO and HMO plans now. As an aside, conservative Arizona still has 15 private plans plus a couple dozen more operating under Medicare/Medicaid.
Perhaps New Hampshire can bounce back.
I find it interesting that the “Pro-Choice” party is so determinedly No-Choice on every other issue. Don’t you?
Wordless Wednesday
Tuesday Trippin’
I tweeted Leaving the land of $3.94 gas! Woot & Heeeeeeyyyyyyyyyooooooooo! on Thursday as I drove over the bridge into Vermont from New York State.
Bob and his friend Brad created the tradition of shouting Heeeeeeyyyyyyyyyooooooooo at the top of their lungs on road trips. They started it the first time they drove to the Winter Star Party in the Keys as “a cry of exaltation as each state line was passed.” Usually they are in closed cars, so it hurts only them. I have to admit that I expanded into yelling into everyone’s ears via social media.
I drovedrovedrove last week. Then I drovedrovedrove some more. Crossed a number of state lions so I did a lot of Heeeeeeyyyyyyyyyooooooooos.
Road trips are cool. Where else would I get my car detialed (that’s fonetic pronounsation) or discover that Woodstock has a brand new water tower. I shouted it for Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and West BG Virginia.
And then, Heeyyyooooo? How did I get back in Virginia??? And then Heeyyyooooo? Maryland? MARYLAND??
Huhroh?
My GPS is schizophrenic. It told me I was in Pennsyltucky.
This was a visit-old-friends-and-shoot-photos trip. The Laurel Grove Cemetary and the Forsythe fountain. Robertville and Estill which may be pronounced E-stull. Harper’s Ferry. I stopped at a couple of beaches at the Delaware Water Gap and even waded in the river to take some bridge photos. I didn’t take (many) pictures of the friends.
The run along the Delaware Water Gap was nice although the overcast means the photos I shot there were fairly dull. I’ll still get a couple out of that series.
The rest of the trip was boring except for the rain. There were some serious deluges through which I flat out could not see. I need new wiper inserts — they are pretty worn and I had to push the stiffener down into the arm again when I stopped at lunch time. Can’t find refills anywhere so I guess I’ll end up buying complete new wiper blades. That irritates me.
The (topless)(white) car averaged a skoch over 30 mpg on the trip but I still paid between $3.229 and $3.459/gallon for the privilege. I could have paid $3.169 in one of the Carolinas but I had already filled up at $3.22. I saw $3.949 in Champlain but Stewart’s in Rouses Point was $3.629/gallon. Right across the bridge in Vermont, both the Mobil and Irving were $3.639. It’s $3.679 in Swanton. That came to more than $200 in gasoline alone.
That’s price gouging. Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-VT) got his sound bite about gouging last year, though, so we don’t have to worry about that any more. See, after he “launched an investigation into unusually high gasoline prices in northwestern Vermont last summer, gas prices in Chittenden, Franklin and Grand Isle Counties became much more competitive.”
Of course that lasted about a nanosecond after the TV cameras (and Sen. Sanders) went elsewhere.
Our neighbor, Captain Gib, sells gas at his country store. He was moaning the other day that he “only makes about four cents a gallon.” For the record, each gallon of gas sold in northwestern Vermont last year made the seller 31.6 cents in average profit; this region turned in the 10th highest profit margin in the U.S. which means I really, really don’t want to drive in the number one market.
Meanwhile, I have to mount the mower deck on the tractor and do the first cutting (the grass is more than a foot tall). There are some other chores waiting on me. Two toilets need repair parts and the hot water pipe to the upstairs bath burst over the winter. That made a mess. I have to bleed the air out and refill the furnace with water and anti-freeze. Memorial Day Weekend. It snowed a little just a few miles from here.
I didn’t drive over to see, though. Gas is even more expensive today. And the diesel juice for my tractor is even worse.
Did I mention that this column is about price gouging?
Memorial Day
Today is Memorial Day in the United States. The holiday once known as Decoration Day commemorates the men and women who perished under the flag of this country, fighting for what sets our America apart: the freedom to live as we please.
Holiday is a contraction of holy and day; the word originally referred only to special religious days. Here in the U.S. of A. “holiday” means any special day off work or school instead of a normal day off work or school.
The Uniform Holidays Bill which gave us some 38 or 50 Monday shopaholidays moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. Today is not May 30 but perhaps we can shut up and salute anyway.
Lest we forget, the Americans we honor did not “give their lives.” They did not merely perish. They did not just cease living, check out, croak, depart, drop, expire, kick off. kick the bucket, pass away or pass on, pop off, or bite the dust. Their lives were taken from them by force on battlefields around the world. They were killed. Whether you believe they died with honor, whether you believe our cause just, died they did.
Today is not a “free” day off work or school. Today is not the big sale day at the Dollar Store. Today is a day of Honor.
“All persons present in uniform should render the military salute. Members of the Armed Forces and veterans who are present but not in uniform may render the military salute. All other persons present should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart, or if applicable, remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Citizens of other countries present should stand at attention. All such conduct toward the flag in a moving column should be rendered at the moment the flag passes.”
The American flag today should first be raised to the top of the flagpole for a moment, then lowered to the half-staff position where it will remain until Noon. The flag should be raised to the peak at Noon for the remainder of Memorial Day.
There are those in this country who would use today to legislate the man out of the fight. They can do that but the men and women we honor today knew you cannot legislate the fight out of the man. They have fought and they have died to protect us from those who would kill us. And perhaps to protect us from those who would sell out our birthright.
There is no end to the mutts who would kill our men and women in uniform even faster than they would kill their own. And there is no end to the mutts in our capitol who would let them. If I had but one wish granted on this day, I wish not another soldier dies. Ever. But die they did around the world again this year and die they will. For us. For me.
Because those men and women died, I get to write these words again this year. And you get to read them. Please pause and reflect as you go to a concert, stop at an artist’s studio, grill a burger, or simply read a book in the sunshine the price we pay to keep our right to do those things. Thank a soldier today. And then do it again tomorrow.
Editor’s Note: This column is slightly updated from one that appeared first in 2008.