It’s a good idea to remember that your Health Maintenance Organization is just an insurance company. Don’t be fooled by the classy billboards that advertise that there is always a doctor in their house, or that you can get one ASAP.

Your HMO is a for-profit corporation with very highly paid executives and numberless stockholders, all of whom expect their wages and dividends to continue on a regular basis.

If you are of  medic-age, the government may be buying medical insurance for you from an HMO. The nut is $587 a month, or $7044 a year and for that the HMO agrees to take care of all your doctor and hospital fees, and some prescriptions, less a small co-pay.

On the face of it this seems like a good deal. We all understand insurance, because we have for years bought fire insurance, auto insurance, business insurance and so forth.

Unfortunately, health insurance is a very special case. You may drive your whole life long without ever having an accident, losing your house to fire, or being ripped by a dishonest business partner.

But everyone your HMO insures is going to get sick someday.

Therefore, if you’re an HMO it’s to your financial interest to see that the provision of health care is limited to people who are not as likely to need it; or to pay out as little for it as possible; or pray that we all die on the couch. Why?

The obvious answer is that the health these organizations are ultimately set up to maintain is their own financial health. They don’t have nearly as much interest in maintaining your physical well-being or the financial health of doctors and hospitals.

In the long run this can’t be good for medicine or the nation’s health.

A couple of months back I was knocked off my motorcycle by a momentarily distracted car driver and made a trip to the urgent care center of my hospital.

I got excellent care: Two x-rays of a battered ankle, happily not busted but severely sprained; road rash disinfected and bandaged; consultation with both a doctor and a nurse on how to speed my recovery.

On the way out I paid a seven dollar co-pay,  my HMO kicked in 23 dollars, but the hospital wrote off 129 dollars.

Am I happy to have paid seven dollars? Of course. Is the hospital happy to have written off 129 dollars? Hardly. And I wonder if, in the long run, this is a good thing for the hospital system. Hell, I don’t wonder at all. It’s not good.

I don’t believe that hospitals should be profit-making operations, but I do believe that they have to be well-enough paid for their services to provide for capital improvements, new equipment, and adequate staff.

Nor is the current situation good for people without insurance, or who are paying hefty deductibles. They end up paying…if they can pay at all…far more than would be fair in order to make up some of what’s lost by underpayment from my HMO.

We certainly need to maintain a system of health insurance, especially for our poor and our elderly, but we need to stop these insurance mega-corporations from what some of us view as meddling in our relations with our physicians.

Incidentally, I’m old enough to remember when the clerical staff at a doc’s practice didn’t out-number the medical staff. Boy, those are the dear dim days beyond recall. Maybe healthcare costs would go down if docs and hospitals didn’t have to hire an armory of insurance experts, clerks and accountants to do the paperwork and fight for their fees.

Let’s all be thankful that fire insurance companies don’t run fire departments the way HMOs seem to be making medical decisions and running medical services.

Your house is on fire. You dial 911 and hear:

“Fire Prevention Maintenance Organization”

“Quick, send the fire truck, my house is on fire”

“Just a moment, Sir, have you called your fire evaluation gate keeper to determine that yours is an eligible fire?”

“No I haven’t, for God’s sake send the fire truck!”

“Oh, Puleeze! We can’t spend money sending fire trucks out willy-nilly. Is yours a pre-existing fire?  Are you requesting a merely elective fire extinguishment service?”

“No of course not…hurry.”

“Certainly, Sir, We’ll send one out immediately. Would you care to make an appointment?

“What do you mean would I care to make an appointment? Of course not, my house is on fire. Do something now!”

“Well I’m sorry, sir, but  some of the fire departments  are no longer with us, because we didn’t pay them enough. We have an excellent department in Casa Grande, shall we send it?

“Yes, anything, please…koff koff.”

Pretty scary, huh? Can anything be done? Apparently not.

Good Grief.

Most property owners know what CC&Rs are; Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions are the rules and regulations that stipulate what you may and may not do with your property. Violation the CC&Rs is a legally punishable offense. You may not paint your house bright red, perhaps, or drill for oil, or park your car in your driveway for more than two hours.

If you do, your Home Owners Association may impose a fine. Don’t pay the fine and they’ll place a lien on your property such that you won’t be able to sell it until the fine is paid.

Two items, still included in the CC&Rs (but happily not now enforceable) provide us a picture of how we used to be not so very long ago.

“No part of said property shall be sold, conveyed, rented or leased, in whole or in part to any person of Negro or Mongolian descent, or to any person not of the White or Caucasian race.”

CC&Rs eventually expire after a time fixed. My friend’s CC&Rs all expired in 19** (date illegible.) Well, all except the following:

“The aforesaid conditions and restrictions shall remain in full force and effect until January  (19xx), except that the restrictions referring to persons of Negro and Mongolian descent and persons not of the White or Caucasian race shall be perpetual, and any breach of the said restrictions shall cause the real property upon which such breach occurs to revert to the grantors herein, their heirs or assigns.”

Good Grief!

It seems to me that the least we should do in conveying CC&Rs is to black out these passages. Or perhaps not, as they serve to remind us how deep and persistent our prejudicial impulses can be.

As Sanders says in his speech this ought to be obvious to anyone who takes even the most cursory look at the figures.

We are all the victims of this war, which is woefully under-reported by the main street media.

See also: Welcome To The Underclass

Operation Deep Freeze  (ODF) resumed last night, the fifth night of operation during the winter season. With temperatures overnight today and tomorrow scheduled to drop into the 20s the program will continue.

According to Salvation Army spokesperson, Tamara McElwee, ODF provides shelter for 65 persons per night on the nights it’s in operation; more when the the weather is specially severe.

The major location for ODF is the Salvation Army’s Hospitality House, located at 1021 North 11th Avenue. There are separate facilities for men and women at Hospitality House.

In the event that additional spaces are required homeless men are cared for at the Salvation Army’s North Richey location…1001 North Richey Boulevard.

Doors at Hospitality house open at 3 pm. Folks given shelter are furnished a bag of toiletries and a towel, a hot shower, a meal and a bed.

If you want more information about Salvation Army programs visit the Army’s web site.

The major disadvantage of working at home is that you are never out of the office. Twenty-four hours a day you could be working. You can’t say, “By golly, if I were at the office I’d re-write that character sketch,” because you are at the office, it’s just down the hall from you. Hence, your worry pendulum swings relentlessly back and forth between work, guilt at not working, and anxiety about unfinished assignments. This is not relaxing. Rats.

That’s the reason many writers are driven to find an office someplace else: anything to get out of the house. That’s what I’ve done, and it seems to me lots of foothills people have done the same thing. Unfortunately they have all chosen my office space, but I try to treat this as just another opportunity to get to know my neighbors.

From my office window I  watch  SUVs  and luxury cars as ponderous as elephants, gingerly swap parking places;  angling in and out of the lot. My motorcycle is there, because I’m working today. Writing this, as a matter of fact. It’s quite likely that the guy with the white K100 BMW will swoop down from Tierra Serenas, leave his helmet on the bike, and pop in to meet a friend. A Harley rider is an occasional visitor, too. A real rider and not just a weekend warrior, judging from the mileage on his odometer.

(Bike people tend to sneak a peek at the other guy’s odometer the way dogs sniff rumps.)

Friends and intimates criticize me for my office  choice. I am deaf to the criticism, which most often (and annoyingly) takes the form that I spend too much for a cup of coffee. But that’s absurd. I’m not buying coffee at all, I’m renting office space.

Starbucks rents me the space. I get a table, a chair, and an executive washroom. If I beat the guy  writing the novel to the corner table by the electric outlet, I get power for my laptop. Best of all the management throws in a cup of whatever is in the big urn behind the counter to say thanks for the business. Two bucks, change in the tip box. A deal.

We’re a varied group in my office complex. I see the two backgammon players are here today. The game is usually preceded by a discussion of what I assume are business documents, but now the papers have been stuffed into their purses, which are on the ground beside them, a cigarette is going and the game is on.

The novel writer is not here, but the distinguished older gentleman is. That’s the way I think of him, The Distinguished Older Gentleman. Always elegantly, if informally, dressed, razor-sharp crease in his slacks, polished shoes, shirt collar open but under a blue blazer with four gold buttons on each sleeve. Bent over papers, making a careful note or two with a pen and clearly thoughtful, he makes a fellow proud to be seen working here.

We do try to be reasonably discreet in our commercial activities so as not to disturb  the folks in the library… the man reading the biography of Churchill, the woman deep in a book of anatomical drawings, or the teacher tutoring a student for her SATs.

One day a young guy my grandpa would have called ‘a traveling man’ set up a complete office. He spread out over a table for four with cell phone, laptop, sample book, PDA, and calling list. Starbucks must have been very glad to see him because they gave him a super sized coffee-flavored beverage, a drink with a name six words long that ended in ‘latte’

Depending on the time of day we’ll see people who think this is just a place to buy coffee and visit, and that’s nice, too. It keeps you in touch with the community, rather like strolling around a busy village square: Three women planning  a gathering…geezers reading the newspapers… young people in hip huggers and  flip-flops…pretty much a fair sampling of who we are up here.

Now all I need is a time clock and a place to display my business cards. Need to write a proposal? The writer is in, but his coffee is cold.

The money pushing the Dow Jones average up today is not the result of the mythic “little investor” prudently setting something aside for the deluge.

It’s the result of major portfolio managers anticipating that taxes are not going to be raised and that stiff regulation of financial markets will continue to be a thing of the past.

And just in case you don’t believe we are engaged in an enormous class war that most of us are losing you might want to read Bill Moyers’ essay  at AlterNet.

This piece is pretty long so it might be a challenge to the attention deficient among us. I’ll summarize a bit and quote a bit, and then leave you to your own devices.

In sum, Moyers is claiming that since 1980 a systematic policy of wealth transference has taken place…and not the sort that Republicans accuse Democrats of. That is, it’s not an expropriation of wealth for distribution to the poor through tax policy. Rather it is the transfer of wealth from the poor to the financial elite.

This is not the result of the free market at work, it’s “wage repression” and it’s been happening in our country since around 1980. I must invoke some statistics here, knowing that statistics can glaze the eyes; but if indeed it’s the mark of a truly educated person to be deeply moved by statistics, as I once read, surely this truly educated audience will be moved by the recent analysis of tax data by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. They found that from 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to everyone but the rich increased from 64 percent to 65 percent. Because the nation’s economy was growing handsomely, the average income for 9 out of l0 was growing, too – from $17,719 to $30,941. That’s a 75 percent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars.

In polite circles, among our political and financial classes, this is known as “the free market at work.” No, it’s “wage repression,” and it’s been happening in our country since around 1980. I must invoke some statistics here, knowing that statistics can glaze the eyes; but if indeed it’s the mark of a truly educated person to be deeply moved by statistics, as I once read, surely this truly educated audience will be moved by the recent analysis of tax data by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. They found that from 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to everyone but the rich increased from 64 percent to 65 percent. Because the nation’s economy was growing handsomely, the average income for 9 out of l0 Americans was growing, too – from $17,719 to $30,941. That’s a 75 percent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars.

But then it stopped. Since 1980 the economy has also continued to grow handsomely, but only a fraction at the top have benefited. The line flattens for the bottom 90% of Americans. Average income went from that $30,941 in 1980 to $31,244 in 2008. Think about that: the average income of Americans increased just $303 dollars in 28 years.

And finally, a note from and about Wall Street:

Meanwhile, Matt Krantz reports in USA TODAY that “Cash is gushing into company’s coffers as they report what’s shaping up to be a third-consecutive quarter of sharp earning increases. But instead of spending on the typical things, such as expanding and hiring people, companies are mostly pocketing the money or stuffing it under their mattresses.” And what are their plans for this money? Again, the Washington Post:

… Sitting on these unprecedented levels of cash, U.S. companies are buying back their own stock in droves. So far this year, firms have announced they will purchase $273 billion of their own shares, more than five times as much compared with this time last year… But the rise in buybacks signals that many companies are still hesitant to spend their cash on the job-generating activities that could produce economic growth.

That’s how financial capitalism works today: Conserving cash rather than bolstering hiring and production; investing in their own shares to prop up their share prices and make their stock more attractive to Wall Street. To hell with everyone else.

But, hey, it’s the American way.

Well, not exactly peaceful.

Roller derby isn’t dead. As a matter of fact it’s been growing in popularity for a number of years… in a slightly changed format that still has plenty of action.

Tucson Roller Derby is an all-girl flat-track roller derby league formed in 2003. Skater-owned and -operated, TRD is a 501(c)3 organization. It’s home to five Derby teams:

Copper Queens, FTW (Furious Truckstop Waitresses, Iron Curtain, Vice Squad and TRD Saddle Tramps.

The Copper Queens

Saturday’s rough-and-tumble is a double header. The Homecoming Queens and the Goths will be the opening bout while the featured bout pits the Tucson Roller Derby Copper Queens against the San Diego Derby Dolls.

The Tucson Convention Center is a great venue. Plenty of room and plenty of seats. We like to get there when the doors open to grab a seat, watch the skaters warm up, and watch the fans. Never been before? Watch this:

Just the facts:

Saturday, August 28th, 2010
Doors open at 5pm, first game at 6pm
TUCSON CONVENTION CENTER
260 S Church Ave. Exhibit Hall A
$10 advance / $15 at the door
Kids 10 & under free with purchase of adult ticket

Support Gay Marriage

It’s a good question.

The answer is: “No. Gay marriages are not a threat to traditional marriages.”

No one is keeping traditional couples from tying the knot. I cannot for the life of me see how the marriage of my gay friends is a threat to my marriage… any more than the marriage of the nice young couple who have just moved in next door.

When my gay friends marry they are, in fact, supporting the institution of marriage. They are standing up before the world and saying that their relation is a deep and abiding one; one in which they pledge to one another a lasting commitment that goes beyond the temporary and merely physical and reaches into the spiritual. They don’t want a “civil union” which, no matter what they are told, sounds more like a license to cohabit.

I think some of the objection to gay marriages is simply rooted in linguistic habit.

It sounds odd to say that John and Bill, or Mary and Sue are married. When my brother-in-law became a nurse it sounded like a gag to introduce him as “my brother the nurse.” I wanted to say “male nurse” because “nurse” sounded so feminine. I got over it.

I don’t intend to offend anyone, on either side of this debate, but I must say that I think objection to gay marriage is rooted in an excess of imagination; an excess of curiosity about what goes on in other people’s bedrooms.

Varieties of sexual expression are extensive enough to nicely cover behavior in both the gay and straight bedroom.

Same stuff going on in both, so curb your imagination. Good grief! I try not to imagine the comic grotesquery of the sexual encounters of my heterosexual friends.

I extend the same courtesy to my gay ones.

On the other hand, maybe the walk to the mailbox is your only Saturday exercise…something you’d miss.

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