Healthy America?

OK, a weird thing to choose to post about, but hey, it is my blog.

Welcome to the new future of healthcare in America.

You now live in a country where you are required by law to have health insurance. Well unless you can't afford it. Then the government will buy it for you. Or if you're not poor, you can choose to pay a penalty instead of getting coverage. What is this penalty that will be "forcing" 32 million Americans to purchase health insurance? A whopping $95 in 2014. It grows to $695 by 2018.

$695? Seriously. That won't even buy health insurance for my family for one month. It's madness. For all of the chest-pounding and back-slapping, it doesn't solve anything. It certainly doesn't fix what is wrong with our healthcare system.

Oh, yeah, and now health insurance companies can't refuse to cover you AND they are not free to decide what to charge you. They must offer you "affordable" coverage. Not based on your risk. Not based on what they decide makes them a viable business. But instead on some government definition of affordable.

If you are a small business, the heart and soul of the American economy, the engine that generates the vast majority of jobs in this country, watch out. If you have more than 50 employees, you are required by law to provide health insurance for your employees. According to msnbc (hardly a bastion of conservative journalism), this requirement will likely eliminate an additional 1.6 million jobs in the country.

Every economist in the world will tell you that increasing tax burdens (and make no mistake about it, this is a new form of taxation) during an economic downturn will prolong the downturn and delay recovery.

Here was my healthcare reform wish list:

1. Separate health insurance from employment
Nope, not included. In fact, this fundamental flaw that in many ways is at the heart of consumers not acting like consumers, is now required by law.

2. Require (as California has done) all healthcare providers to publish a price list for services provided.
Maybe it's in the massive 2000+ page bill, but if it is, no one is yet talking about it.

3. Separate catastrophic healthcare insurance coverage from health maintenance coverage.
Nope, instead of recognizing that one of the fundamental problems with the healthcare system is that "insurance" is being asked to do things insurance was never designed to do, this bill perpetuates the status quo in so many ways. No real change except that we the tax payers have a new deficit legacy to pass on to our children's children.

4. Medical liability limits and reforms.
Nope, going to the doctor is still an entry in the malpractice lawsuit lottery.

5. Allow health insurance companies to compete across state lines.
Nope. Further evidence that special interests and lobbyist rule Washington and this bill was not actually in the best interest of consumers, but of the businesses that were originally the "bad guys."


Thomas Paine: Governement, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

Things you didn't know about name brand cereal

Ahhh, it's the day of the sixth-grade science fair. That means last night was science fair eve. I'm not sure if all of you celebrate science fair eve. But if you don't, you're really missing out.

Things I've learned over the years on science fair eve.

You can soak a bean seed in Clorox, then plant it, and it will still grow.

Scalded milk and unscalded milk will putrify at the exact same rate when left out on the counter.

Excel spreadsheets are not very intuitive for an eleven year old.

Carefully measuring, marking, and gluing pictures and graphs on a science fair board takes way longer but doesn't really look any better than a good-ol-fashioned eyeball and slap it down.

I could go on and on. But I really wanted to tell you the dramatic revelation from Nate's science fair this year. He found that if asked, most people will say they prefer name brand cold cereals. But in a blind taste test, name brand cereals were hardly the most preferred.

There you have it. Your money-saving tip for this year.

With great trepidation and very little fanfare

Life is funny, isn't it?

It's so easy to get caught up in the thick of thin things. But it's also easy to get swallowed up by the really big things in life as well. And I'm not talking about big things like "Will American Idol even be watchable without Simon?" Or "Will the Cougars finally, finally get out of the stinking first round of the Big Dance?"

While those questions are definitely biggies, I've been thinking more about the only big things that really matter in the end. These gigantic monstrosities can make us truly happy or wrenchingly heartbroken, lifted to see new heights and cracked wide open to a world of horrifyingly unpredictable new possibilities. The big things in life are always relationships. Person connected to person.

Parent to child. Brother to sister. Friend to friend.

And so, after a long hiatus, these thoughts have brought me back to the blogging world.

I know I'm not the greatest about keeping in touch. I know I take many of the relationships in my life way too much for granted.

I hope that if I come here and share a few thoughts with the world, there might be one or two stronger connections in my life. And that, in the end, is the best thing of all. Freaking huge, really. If you think about it.

So ... do you think Idol can survive post Simon? I mean really.