The other post I blogged about Another Victim Of The Health Insurance Industry, Me Part I still hasn’t been settled, but I’m just dealing with it. I guess my body got used to the forced medication from my health insurance company.
Another incident happened. This time with my ChoiceCare Card. Don’t let the name fool you, there is NO CHOICE.
I had signed a HIPAA Substantiation form which gives CareFirst the access to my medical records so they can pay the doctors without me having to fax them 3,973 things proving I went to the doctor… typical things insurance companies are supposed to automatically do.
I went to one doctor this year, one. My OBGYN… way back in August. In late October they emailed me and sent me a nasty gram saying they denied my claim. My copay of $30 to my ChoiceCare card. I was told by HR I can use my card to pay my copays. ChoiceCare card threw a fit.
After receiving the nasty gram, I talked to the HR about it. They told me what to do. Call my doctor, ask if they filed the claim, if so did it go through, and could they fax it to me. That was the easy part. I got the detailed patient log. The problem was getting in touch with them to fax it. I tried calling them before like 10 times, all the time being put on hold for periods of 15 minutes. I eventually gave up since I have other things to do (my fault since I have to make a living).
A few weeks later I received another nasty gram saying my card had been FROZEN. I tried to resolve the matter quickly, you know, in case something happens to me that I would actually need my health insurance. I called directly at 8:00AM. That seemed to get me to a representative pretty fast. They told me to fax it to them, so I did. I also emailed them later in the day to make sure it went through. No response.
I called earlier today to make sure they got everything they needed so I can have health insurance again. I was only on hold for 16 minutes! What a surprise! Anyway, they were able to unfreeze my card so I have health care again.
It’s a comfort to know in the event of an emergency, my health insurance company can freeze my card over a matter of $30… that of which they already had permission to view my claims.
If you haven’t heard, Obama is planning to implement a “surge” in Afghanistan. He’s going to announce his plan to send more than 30,000 additional troops (and who knows how many government contractors) to the war next Tuesday.
My prediction for Obama’s speech is another “Bush” like speech:
- The war is necessary
- We need to change the strategy in Afghanistan (meaning things remain the same)
- Our security as a nation relies on it
- This war is not open ended
- This war is the “good war”
- We want to hand responsibility to the Afghans ASAP
- Benchmarks (that probably won’t matter nor will they be met)
- How we plan to work with other nations to ensure a stable Afghanistan
- We need to “finish the job”
- The next few months (or years) will “demand more patience, sacrifice, and resolve”
The speech will also NOT contain the following:
- An exit strategy
- A time line
- How much more this war will cost
- The goal
- How much strain this war is putting on our already strained military
- In what way this war is tied to our national security
This war is a drain. Obama is sending every other brigade left to Afghanistan leaving us with very few units. We need to cut our losses, end both wars, and send our troops home where they belong.
It never ceases to amaze me how the Congress and the president can be so willing to escalate a war with all the problems we’re facing here. We’re told we have to accept cutbacks on health care and our infrastructure in order to help balance the budget, yet every time there’s a war bill, Congress rubber stamps it. I don’t understand how we have to compromise on health care yet the wars have no compromise. They can be funded open endedly.
I wrote to my congressmen, Ben Cardin, asking him to help push HR 676 (Universal Single Payer Health Care for the US). He wrote back to me:
As a member of the Senate Budget Committee, I firmly believe that any reform proposals we enact must be fully paid for, and the budget resolution passed by Congress requires that.
What about the wars, Senator?
I’ve been taking Ortho Tri-Cyclen Low birth control since as long as I can remember. I started taking it probably in 1998 to help regulate things. In college, I didn’t have the privilege of having health insurance so I relied on Planned Parenthood to supply me and to give me my yearly check up.
Since I got a job, I’ve had CareFirst Blue Cross, which, up until a month ago has been pretty good. I was able to get the prescription with ease and it was cheap.
A few months ago I had to switch my plan since the POS plan got way too expensive. I switched to the cheaper plan. It required me to fill out a bunch of forms to do simple stuff that the POS used to do automatically (like paying the doctors). I now have this card I use.
The problem I’m having with them is that they changed my birth control on me. I order from Walgreen’s Online Pharmacy, so my prescription is shipped to me. My doctor prescribes me the name brand (Ortho Tri-Cyclen Low) since it’s what I’m used to and what I’ve been taking for years.
Being name brand is more expensive for my insurance company so they took it upon themselves to switch me to the generic version WITHOUT TELLING ME. It’s their policy that if there is a generic form of the prescription, they have to dispense it rather than the name brand.
Much to my surprise when I got my prescription in the mail, it was stuff I haven’t even heard of. I asked my doctor, I asked anyone I could think of who would know if this changed anything. They basically all said no.
However, I found out last month when I started taking it that it wasn’t the same. I got sick. It also didn’t have the same effect that the name brand had. I don’t want to be gross in a blog post, but let’s just say a lot of weird things happened.
Now I’m faced with… well… weird things still happening. I called my doctor. He’s going to try to talk to CareFirst to tell them to put me back on Ortho Tri-Cyclen Low… not that it should be their decision but that’s the kind of health care system we have in this country.
I’ve noticed a lot of unenthusiasm for our upcoming holiday, Halloween. It’s pretty sad. I remember when I was a kid, all the neighborhoods would be well decorated in Halloween stuff. There were even a lot of really scary looking houses where the owners went all out.
My neighborhood, I’m sorry to say, isn’t like that at all. There are a few houses here and there that have a few Halloween decorations, but it was nothing like when I was a kid. There were some pretty awesome houses where people really went all out. My neighborhood is dry compared to what I remember.
Is it just my neighborhood? I’m pretty sure I live in a middle class area. There are lots of kids who play on the streets. I’m not in an old folks community or anything. (Although my one coworker lives near me and he is pretty old, OHHH, DISSSS!)
Is this happening in other neighborhoods? This lack of interest in Halloween?
I talked it over with Brian, since money is tight right now, next year I want to totally do up the entire house Halloween. Be one of those houses that everyone looks at, you know? My only hesitation is people stealing Halloween decorations (which honestly I’m not too worried about) and lack of children to enjoy it. I’m not sure how many trick or treaters I’ll get this year, but I want to be ready with lots of candy for them. I’ll be dressing up for Halloween to hand out candy. I plan to have a get together to watch scary movies and drink beer since it’s a Saturday night.
Halloween should be every kids favorite holiday (besides Christmas). It was such a happy time for me and I’d hate to see our society and people lose interest.
Since I’ve been staying very current on the health care reform debate, I thought I’d post some of the best articles I’ve found in my months of research on this subject. These articles prove to be much ammunition for those who are against HCR or those right wingers who think our system is better than single payer or socialized medicine country.
Oregon Live – Five Myths About Health Care Around The World – Probably one of the best articles I’ve ever read. It debunks the five biggest myths about single payer and socialized medicine.
Blast The Right – Transcript 152 – Debunking Conservative lies about the health care debate.
Blast The Right – Transcript 154 – Debunking more lies from the right about HCR.
Blast The Right – Transcript 155 – Part III of debunking the right on HCR.
ABC News – How Health Insurance Companies Hurt Policyholders – The real death panels of the health insurance industry, as told by an insider.
Newsweek – What’s Not To Like About Our Health Care System – A view of our current health care system.
Huffington Post – GOPers Decrying Socialized Medicine – Some Congressmen from the GOP have actually used government run hospitals for their surgery, yet they are against it.
US Health Crisis – What Real Canadians Think Of Their Health Care – A video of actual Canadians and what they think of their health care system.
IPPF – How Our Health System Screws Over Women – A look at what women are put through thanks to our messed up health system. Sheds some light on our shamefully high infant mortality rate.
Families USA – Dying For Coverage In Maryland – A PDF of the suffering Marylanders go through without insurance. Some good facts on why insurance matters.
Maybe reading these will convince some that a single payer system is the way to go… The very least being a public option.
Of late I’ve been pretty depressed about the state of the US. I think I figured out why.
During the Bush years, I knew there was no hope in solving our big problems like global warming, health care, the national debt, the wars, etc. Bush did so much to hurt the United States. I genuinely believe him to be a “T” word (not “tyrant”, by the way).
When we overwhelmingly called for change and progress via electing Obama, I cried. I was so happy. I had so much hope for our country. It was finally going to turn around, I thought. The Democrats had won power back and now had an overwhelming majority. Nothing could stop the progressive movement… I thought.
Here we are entering October. Obama’s been in power eight months. Nothing major has changed.
My friend said go easy on Obama, give him some slack, he has a lot up against him. I can’t on major issues that need to be solved ASAP and bad Bush policies that he promised not to resume. He wants to be bipartisan when sometimes it’s not worth it.
Health Care. When a majority of the country wants a public option, Obama wants to try and be bipartisan on an issue all Republicans have stated they would not vote for. The Republicans have basically come out and said they’re not voting for anything health care related. Obama started with a compromise and look what we have now. A bill that probably won’t have apublic option. If he proposed universal single payer health care from the start, the compromise would have to be the public option. Obama needs to stop pandering to the Republicans. Get universal single payer health care enforced… or be a wimp and just have a public option. Honestly, I think they should resort to an old Bush tactic and call the bill something like the “Health Care Patriot Bill”. Just throw in that word “patriot”. Then if the Republicans don’t vote for it, Democrats can bring that up the next election and call them “unpatriotic”. The Republicans did the same things the last eight years.
Global Warming. Obama’s Clean Energy And Security Act Of 2009 is weak at best. It doesn’t stop the problem, rather it gives us reason to prolong the problem and tackle it another day. Scientists say we needed to stop pollution and reduce our greenhouse emissions yesterday. Read what Dennis Kucinich had to say about the bill. Obama should put harsh restrictions in place for polluters and give tax cuts to companies who go green. Start enforcement of restrictions sooner, not in 2016, now, cause we need it now. Be honest with the American people and tell them to sacrifice and do common sense things like recycle, buy fuel efficient cars, and eat less meat.
The Economy. Corporations and their strength and greed ruined our country and we let them get away with it. The richest 1% of Americans more than doubled their share from 8.5% to 22% from the early 80’s to 2006. CEO’s earn over 500 times what the average worker earns, versus 40 times more like in the past. Obama, I thought, was going to be a true leader and put corporations in their place and impose restrictions and not let them walk all over the American people and their government. Obama hasn’t done this. I want Obama to be a strong president, like (I hate to say it) Bush. Bush, for all the bad shit that he did, he was actually able to get what he wanted done… almost every time. Obama needs to impose and enforce restrictions on companies with strong penalties. We’re a year after the financial meltdown and not one restriction has been put on Wall Street. There is nothing stopping what happened last year from happening again. Business’s will continue to make risky ventures full well knowing if they fail, the government and us tax payers will back them up. We need Obama to stand up and send a clear message to Wall Street that we will not have their back anymore. Another idea would be to force a split of these big institutions that are too big to fail.
Torture. I voted to condemn the act of torture and to finally get justice and accountability in the United States. We signed the Geneva Conventions for a reason, to condemn torture. It was my hope that Obama would come through on this and investigate past acts of illegal activity by the previous administration. However, Obama has chosen not to look into past (proven) acts of torture and illegal activities. You prevent future torture by prosecuting past acts of torture. Obama needs to do this and hold everyone accountable as well as follow through on his closing of Guantanamo Bay.
Afghan & Iraq Wars. Obama needs to follow through on his promise to get us out of Iraq… that goes without saying. Bush put us in the middle of two big, useless wars. We don’t need to be over there, just like we don’t need to be in Germany and Japan anymore. Iraq and Afghanistan are two examples of the Military Industrial Complex at work in this country. Blackwater, Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, etc have made billions off of these wars. And they continue to be awarded no-bid contracts by our government. There once was a time in our history where being called a war profiteer was considered a bad thing. These contractors have literally gotten away with fraud, arms dealing, and murder. It started under Bush and, unfortunately, continues under Obama. Obama needs to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan as peacefully as possible. Since we shifted our focus to Afghanistan now, it has become more and more violent. Both countries don’t want us there and as long as we’re there, we’re wasting billions of dollars and lives. Also, Obama should bring charges against Blackwater, KBR, DynCorp, ArmorGroup for fraud, child prostitution, murder, etc.
Gay Marriage. I applaud states for finally standing up and admitting that it is unconstitutional to not allow same sex couples to wed. I really don’t think Obama has done much at all to advance the GLBT community. He hasn’t repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell like he promised. Obama should make a public statement about this and encourage more states to allow same sex marriage and repeal the Defense Of Marriage Act. Also, repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell so gays can openly serve in our military.
Iran. I am glad Obama is exercising diplomacy. However putting sanctions on a country that hasn’t launched an aggressive war in modern history is a little ridiculous. I have always said who are we to not allow another country to develop nuclear weapons? We have them, and we’ve waged a lot of wars, two very recently. Why do we feel the need to defend Israel anyway? They have nukes and can take care of themselves. Obama needs to leave Iran alone. Please, for Gods sake, don’t invade. Don’t start another costly war.
Leading The Country. Obama has not shown us that he is a strong leader. Not one president since JFK has asked us to do anything! I want Obama to step up and tell me to make sacrifices. Obama needs to tell us to eat healthier, cut out fast food, drive more fuel efficient cars, recycle, stop relying on credit cards, etc.
Granted, I’m also mad at Obama for a lot of other issues like the national debt. If I were to give Obama a grade, it would be a D. So far I think he and his Democratic Congress have failed to do what we gave them power to do. They actually listen to Republican nonsense and not rebut it. So lies (like the illegal immigration coverage and abortion field trips in the HCR bill) will fester and become widely known as fact.
Frankly, I don’t see how his administration is in any way a Democratic one. Obama and his Congress need to get their act together and fix the country. We elected them and gave them all the tools they need to do what we want. If they can’t do it by next year, I predict the Republicans will gain back a lot of power fairly easily.
Bill Maher was on the Jay Leno Show last night and said a pretty funny thing. It’s too long for Twitter or else I’d tweet it.
“If you’ve voted for a guy who wouldn’t give you health care, as opposed to one who would, you should have your head examined… Except you can’t afford to have your head examined because you don’t have health care.”
Just thought I’d share it.
As some of you may have watched, Rush Limbaugh was on the Jay Leno show last night, talking nothing but trash. Leno got in there a few times to correct Rush on a few of his “misunderstandings”. Most of what he said, of course, were lies. I debunked a few as he was saying them on my twitter.
The one lie I loved the best was him claiming that there are no successful government run programs. I desperately wanted to tweet but, come on, my list would be well over the 140 character limit Twitter has.
I decided just to blog about it quickly here and list a few successful government programs. Some of these everyone uses in their day to day lives, without even realizing it:
Federal Highway Administration
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Environmental Protection Agency
Tennessee Valley Authority
National Park Service
Medicaid
Medicare
National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA)
Social Security
Family & Medical Leave Act
National Weather Service
Consumer Product Safety Commission
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention
Government Grants
Food & Drug Administration
Americans with Disabilities Act
Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI bill)
Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act (another GI bill)
Peace Corps
European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan)
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS or cash for clunkers)
Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act
Public Broadcasting
Public Schools & Universities
Public Transportation (it has a lot of faults but a lot of people need it to get around)
Public Libraries
Fire Department
Workers’ Compensation (ex Sate Compensation Insurance Fund of California)
Rural Utilities Service
Federal Aviation Administration
Community Development Block Grant
Housing & Urban Development (HUD)
It turns out there are a lot of successful government run programs, making this list rather incomplete.
So football is back, as you know. I’m already in. The problem is now that shows are starting to come back. My week is like packed.
Sunday’s
10:00AM – 11:30AM I try to catch The Chris Matthews Show and Meet The Press. It usually doesn’t turn out that way, though.
12:00PM – 11:00PM I watch all the football games I could possibly watch.
9:00PM – 10:00PM is Dexter… I’m going to have to watch it on demand or try to catch it another time. I can’t sacrifice football… I might miss something.
10:00PM – 11:00PM is the rerun of Realtime. I usually miss the live show on Friday cause Friday night I’m always doing something.
Monday’s
8:00PM – 11:00PM MNF. No way around it (unless the Suckles play).
9:00PM – 10:00PM House. Going to have to miss it to watch MNF.
Tuesday’s
Nothing
Wednesday’s
9:00PM – 10:00PM Law & Order SVU.
Thursday’s
9:00PM – 10:00PM Fringe.
Friday’s
Always hang out with buddies.
Saturday’s
Usually at Dad’s working… but it could be soon I won’t have to!
Monday – Friday
5:00PM – 6:00PM is Hardball… This show is the only show I watch religiously because it’s so nice. Just get home and put it on.
8:00PM – 9:00PM is Countdown.
9:00PM – 10:00PM is Rachel.
10:00PM – whenever is Leno.
Lots of quality programming available. I guess I’ll have to squeeze stuff in somehow. Or do what I usually do and watch KO and Rachel at work on msnbc.com . I can catch Dexter and Realtime on demand. I always rearrange stuff to hang out with peeps anyway… TV isn’t that important. I just wanted to list out all my TV stuff I would like to watch.
Here’s who I think will go to the playoffs in 2009:
AFC:
New England Patriots
Pittsburgh Steelers
Jacksonville Jaguars
Denver Broncos
Baltimore Ravens
Miami Dolphins
NFC:
New York Giants
Minnesota Vikings
New Orleans Saints
Arizona Cardinals
Dallas Cowboys
Chicago Bears
I can’t see any particular division being that hard like the NFC East has been for years. The most powerful division is probably the AFC South. There should be a lot of good games in the AFC North. It’ll be interesting who transcends this year. A lot of teams lost a lot of good players. I’d predict the NFC is a lot weaker than the AFC this year.
I was trying to remember the source… I believe it may have been Bill Maher or Chris Matthews… but I remember hearing how California and Texas both passed tort reform.
Some think that tort reform can solve this health care problem. Texas is a prime example that it can not.
Texas passed tort reform back in 2003 by capping payoffs from malpractice cases. One article said it increased doctors in the state. Yet today, Texas is the uninsured capital of the United States with 24.4% of Texans being uninsured.
What people think is tort reform encourages more doctors and lowers insurance costs. However, this data shows that tort reform does not work to lower costs. Insurance rates should have gone down, hence more people should afford to be insured.
If tort reform worked, Texas and California wouldn’t be that high on the list of uninsured states.
Side Note: Since this post will kind of be a health care debate post… sort of… and since I couldn’t digg the article yesterday since Digg was being stupid and not letting me submit it, I’ll link to an interesting article about how the health insurance companies hurt policyholders.
Now, I’ve heard a lot of arguments from the right (and some blue dogs on the left) these days of why a public option in health care would be a bad thing… like a healthy competition is a bad thing. It started me thinking of how public competes against private. Brian and I spent an hour coming up with a pretty good list of ways public competes with private:
- Public vs Private mail – For example USPS vs FedEx.
- Public vs Private schools – For example colleges can be public or private. Most private colleges (and schools) are more expensive. Wouldn’t private schools not be around at all if everyone put their kids in public since it’s cheaper? There are REALLY good public schools (example UMD)… yet there are still private schools out there… wonder why.
- Public vs Private airports – Here’s a list of public and private airports in Maryland. I don’t hear any private airports (or conservatives) wining how the public ones take all the business away. Private airports are still in business, oddly enough.
- Public vs Private space agencies – For example NASA vs Scaled Composites (which is a child of Northrup Grumman).
- Pubic vs Private hospitals – Thinking there probably shouldn’t be any private hospitals still around… oh wait, there are.
- Public vs Private radio – Ever heard of NPR? Nothing about the right crying “unfair” they’re competing with private radio stations.
- Pubic vs Private banks – This one really gets me. I don’t hear anything about people being mad at government run banks or credit unions. You’d think they’d offer higher interest rates on savings accounts (you know, since they don’t have to worry about profit). Which in turn, you guessed it, causes the private to go out of business. But none of that happens. Public and private are just as competitive. In fact, I bank with ING Direct and I get a much better interest rate than if I banked with NFCU.
- Public vs Private television – PBS versus almost anything else. How come PBS isn’t kicking butt on the ratings? Oh yeah, they suck. So people go to private… Hmm… apply that theory to healthcare… Case in point, if this public option sucks, people will flock back to private. Private just needs to be… what’s the word… oh yeah, COMPETITIVE.
Pretty sure this list is incomplete. Can you think of more?
Now, I don’t hear anyone on the right (or anyone for a “free market”) arguing against any of these. If public was so good, we wouldn’t be having this debate, would we? These major things would all be run by the government and there would be no private. And I’m guessing Obama’s socialism would be a much larger number than 0.21%.
And regarding the argument: “oh well when one of the companies doesn’t have to worry about a profit…” Honestly? If your life depended on a decision from someone NOT in it for the profit or someone IN it for the profit, I can’t imagine why anyone would put their life in the hands of someone who’s only looking out for their profit.
Here’s the whole list from the previous post as well:
- Be more soft spoken, tone it down a bit and watch what I say (done, slipping but still that most of the time)
- Have more parties/go to more parties (I’m pretty social, need to host more parties though)
- Don’t feel the need to say how I feel all the time
- Get PHP certified (April 25 I received my PHP Certification)
- Get at least 1,000 quotes next year (I might make it)
- See Aunt Ruth and Aunt Janet more (once my dad’s stuff is worked out my weekends will be free again)
- Get over some things that bother me
- Keep off the 10 pounds I just lost (currently weigh 150), be healthier and eat healthier (I weigh 148, cutting back on meat and never eating until you’re full is the key)
- Treat Brian and Candi better (always a resolution)
- Do something good for the environment or humanity (starting to commute to work on an electric scooter but this is not enough)
- Buy a house
- Buy a new Prius
- Get Candi off the cone (poor puppy) (really wish I could mark this one off)
- Settle my Dad’s estate (not in my control) (done a little, need to order and sell Dad’s house then I’d mark this one off)
- See a doctor and dentist (seeing a doctor in August, saw the dentist)
- EDITED FOR SECRECY, IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, JUST ASK ME; CAN’T HAVE IT ON THE WEB RIGHT NOW (not really a goal anymore)
- Plant grass
- Buy a grill
- Buy a lawn mower
- Buy a plasma TV for downstairs (not really a goal anymore)
- Buy a sound system for downstairs (not really a goal anymore)
- Buy another TV for the bedroom (not really a goal anymore)
- Build a garage (in progress, check out flickr for pictures)
- Paint the basement (not really a goal anymore)
- Paint the bathroom (not really a goal anymore)
- Get insurance, tags, title for the Dodge Ram (problem is actually using the truck, it’s just sitting now taking up space)
- Get the Camero painted AND fixed (it broke, needs some work)
- Have a house warming party (a successful party)
So I’ll go rogue a little and get something off my mind. I don’t want this to be a depressing post but I sometimes get these waves of obsession where I can’t stop thinking of an old friend I used to hang out with. The last few times we hung out I don’t think it went so well or whatever. He doesn’t talk to me and I don’t talk to him. He’s got other friends and so do I. So many things I just want to say to him to kind of get it off my chest so to speak but I know if I do he’d probably not care. I just need to get over it. He doesn’t want to hang out or anything, he doesn’t invite me anywhere though I reach out to him sometimes. I guess I just want him to miss me like I miss him sometimes. I want him to know that I am enjoying my life as I’m sure he’s enjoying his. However I just miss him and wish things went differently so I could be a part of his life. Just part of me wants to say this.
I’m fairly certain this article is right leaning:
Five Reasons “Cash For Clunkers” Is A Joke
By now I’m sure you’ve heard Obama has passed a bill, Cash For Clunkers. I visited Yahoo news today like I usually do since Yahoo is my home page and I read this interesting, BS article.
- Not sure if the author of this article has ever traded in a car but you can’t get much for it. Nine out of ten times you’re better off trying to sell it on your own. Dealerships usually rip people off. In the article it even states that you’ll get MORE for it with the CFC bill than you would normally… Not really seeing why the bill won’t work if people are getting MORE MONEY from their cars.
- Yeah average price of a new car might be $24,000 but honestly, if you’re hurting for money and need a car, I’d go with a Rabbit or a Yaris. Even now with Ford and GM not doing so well, I’d go for a Focus. Much cheaper than the $24K this guy is saying a new car is. A Yaris costs $12,200 MSRP, negotiate a little, could get it down to $11,500 easy… CFC makes the car a whopping $8,000. Say you had to borrow $9K, that’s only $174 a month at 6%.
- Some people might not need their big SUV anymore, or their truck, or their minivan. And some trucks DO get better fuel efficiency than before. And if your truck is old and on its last leg, now could be the perfect opportunity. Furthermore, the bill states different qualifications for trucks.
- This argument is weak at best… and pretty funny. Don’t scrap your car because it MIGHT be a future classic? Pretty pathetic. Yeah, I’m going to hang on to my 1994 Chrysler cause it might be worth much more one day. And how do classic cars get value anyway? Because there are only A FEW LEFT. I honestly don’t think people are going to keep their junkers in hopes that one day (could be 20 years or 50 years down the road) it could be worth something. You know how much it costs to store a car? The guy who wrote this article certainly doesn’t.
- That’s a problem with Ford and GM, not with the CFC program. If they were hoping this bill provided a boost to the automotive business here, they would have put in the bill that the car must be traded in at a Ford or GM dealership.
Re People’s Participation: I actually know a few people that can benefit from this program. One of them is going to participate and trade his 1993 Mercedes in for either a Toyota Prius or a Toyota Yaris.
I usually have some pretty good debates with my fathers lawyer who is a Republican. He always likes to blame Democrats for the problems we face in our state and in our country (like all good Republicans, right).
Anyway, so he recently said how one third of the rich people in this state have since moved or changed their permanent residences due to O’Malley hiking up their taxes. So, what the Right likes to think is that it drove out rich people and increased taxes on the working. They’re correct, but let’s take a look at the numbers:
The increase on the rich of they “grinned and bared it” would be another $106,000,000 revenue to the state.
In reality it put us in the hole -$100,000,000. (Figures from the Wall Street Journal.)
So that’s a -$206,000,000 swing that we have to make up to (baring that the tax increase on the rich would balance the budget) keep the budget balanced for the year. In other words, Maryland needs to make up $206,000,000 MORE than last year.
According to Wikipedia, the population of Maryland is 5,633,600 people. Assuming that only half pay taxes, which is more than fair in my opionion, that leaves us with 2,816,800 tax payers.
Doing our math on this:
$206,000,000/2,816,800 = $73.13 per tax payer
So, the Right (and some Democrats no doubt) lead you to believe that increasing taxes on the rich will drive them away leaving only the middle and lower classes to make up the difference. Sorry but I’m a lot happier paying barely $100 more A YEAR than other alternatives… look what California is facing. Also keep in mind that inflation is a little more than 4% a year so an extra $100 per tax payer may not be so bad.
Of course this blog is assuming the rich were driven out because of higher taxes. One article from the Baltimore Sun actually suggests it’s due to the estate tax being so high in Maryland.
So I went a week without eating a single piece of meat… sorry Bri.
The results were fine. I lost two pounds. Some of it was really difficult, but I managed. And I did stay away from meat that I normally love to have.
Some meals included:
- Spaghetti with sauce and bread (had once)
- The pipe noodles with cheese, bread (had this twice)
- Panara cheese and broccoli soup bread bowl (had this twice)
- Grilled cheese and corn (had once)
- Pancakes, eggs, and biscuits (had once)
The hard parts:
- Eating spaghetti with no meat
- Being very picky as to where to go out to eat (ate at Panara and Bob Evans)
- Scrapping the toppings off the meat lovers pizza at work
- Not eating chicken that Monique brought in for lunch
- Not eating the same meal as Brian
The good parts:
- Sauce and bread
- Panera
- Caramel frapuchinos
It was a pretty positive experience for me. I never really ran out of food ideas because I was always willing to just eat a vegetable and something else small. And I wasn’t craving meat during or after.
My first meal on Sunday consisted of BK’s breakfast burrito which I love. We also did steaks that night. I really did miss meat but I never like craved it. Shawns steak after a week without meat was the best, though!
This experience probably did change me a little. I noticed I don’t eat as much meat now, since we had ribs last night and I didn’t eat them all. Bri and I will probably eat more sea food now, like shrimp and fish. Being away from fast food probably did my body good, too.
See my entry in 43 Things!
Sorry it took me so long to post but after over two years of wanting to do it, I finally took and PASSED the Zend PHP 5 Certification Exam!
Although this has nothing to do with what I’m currently doing now, I feel it will help me in the future, plus it’s pretty cool since I can use the logo! Anyway, I started preparing for the exam around the beginning of March. I had previously bought the two books by PHP Architect (Zend PHP 5 Certification Study Guide 2nd Edition and Zend PHP Certification Practice Test Book).
I first read through the Study Guide. Though full of mistakes, it really wasn’t too painful to get through. I took notes on stuff I thought I should know. All the while I was reading what others were saying about the test itself. I read any blog that I could in relation to the test. That’s where I got another recommended book (Zend PHP Certification Study Guide by Zend Technologies). I bought and read this book only to discover a few pages into it that it dealt with PHP4, not 5. I decided to skip the things that had totally been redone since 5, like OOP. I did steal a lot of the questions though.
Thinking I was pretty well prepared, I decided to take the tests in the Practice book. I burned pretty badly on a few topics (Dates, Security, Streams, and Regex). I also found a few free practice tests online. After wearing out all the test questions online, I pretty much decided to hit the Manual… hard. That was painful and grusom, if you have any idea how BIG the manual is. I spent most my days at work reading the PHP Manual and taking notes and preparing practice tests for myself.
After reading the manual, taking practice tests, and preparing my big ass function practice test, I decided to buy the practice exams offered by PHP Architect. On average I took two a week, starting March 29. I passed all of them, with the last three I took being EXCELLENT. It doesn’t give you the answers at the end, but it gives you the areas you need to improve. I was always bad at Design and PHP4/5 Differences. Google and Wiki helped me in these areas. All the questions I wasn’t sure about, I copied to a text file during the test. I really highly recommend these tests since it’s set up like the exam itself. 70 questions in 90 minutes.
I took the Friday before the exam off to study and took the test Saturday. It only took me about an hour and 15 minutes. They make it really nice for you since you can go back and review. My name was in the PHP Yellow Pages by Tuesday.
See my entry in 43 Things!
My Name In PHP Yellow Pages!
Tomorrow, May 17, 2009, I will begin my week of being a vegetarian. This choice is purely experimental and it’s basically just to say I did it.
I will not be eating meat of any kind, including fish or shrimp. I will, however, eat eggs, cheese, and milk (prohibiting those items means I would be a vegan).
Honestly, I think this decision is going to be hard and I’ll probably do it a crappy way and eat french fries, pie, biscuits and sauce, and basically B S my way through it.
It’ll probably be hard tomorrow because tonight I’m staying in Ocean City and will probably have to grab fast food tomorrow morning, but we’ll see.
My beginning weight is 154.
I’ve always had a conspiracy theory about weight problems in our country.
I was watching Bill Maher last week, he had David Kessler on his show, talking about his new book The End Of Overeating… basically confirmed part of my theory.
My beliefs are that the food companies/restaurants are causing us to be obese. They sell these huge portions figuring they can sell more food for more money. We don’t really have a choice in this matter. It’s not like I can go to one of the places at the mall and ask for half a serving, it’s all or nothing. We’ve become accustom to eating that much food. And when you buy a meal like that, not eating all of it is just a waste if you throw it away.
I’ve never had problems with my weight, however, but when I started to notice the scale going up to uncomfortable levels (155-160), I decided to cut back. I ditched the typical mall food ($6+ for more than a serving), and started to eat either a pretzel, a subway sandwich (6 inch), a steak sub, or an ice cream. (Also saved money too.) I also started doing a little exercising, but the big thing is cutting back. I think I’m a healthy weight now and tend to keep up with what I’m doing.
Stopping yourself from eating is always a hard thing to do but it needs to be done. I only eat until I’m completely full about once a week. Other than that, I really limit the amount of food I take. It takes a lot of discipline, but it is possible. Don’t eat until you’re full.
I could go on and on about SharePoint, for hours and hours. I will just share a little conspiracy theory I thought of today…
Suffering with this problem for months now (literally), we finally got some advice. Supposedly EVERYONE faces this problem with SharePoint about the User not being found when going to create an SSP. Anyway, got two pieces of advice, one being to install the SharePoint patches (they have like 12 of them in the past year!) Howard and I are currently doing that.
Anyway, my conspiracy theory is that Microsoft deliberately ignores problems and creates buggy programs and releases them so people will waste their money and call tech support therefore making Microsoft money. Their errors, ambiguous, therefore costing you money in tech support.
Ugh. I hate Microsoft!
For more rant and a special comment, visit my other Syntax Notes blog.
