Chicago is as flat as my singing, but with a warm lake and cool air above, we sometimes get a feel for what its like to have mountains in the distance. Observe:
Author Archives: Jean-Paul
Now I Want A Spongebob Squarepants Gravestone
I am in the minority that thinks Spongebob Squarepants is decidedly unfunny. I am also in the minority that thinks burying bodies in a giant field filled with other bodies and markers identifying who the body was when it was alive is a decidedly silly idea. Combine the two and it somehow seems to work. It’s a shame that the cemetery changed their mind and decided to remove the gravestone. It’s good to see that they seem to have acknowledged their mistake and are paying for replacements.
So let it be known that if I can get a Spongebob headstone, I give my full permission to bury my body underneath said headstone in a cemetery somewhere. If not, I want my family to completely disavow any knowledge of me and let the State do whatever it wants with my remains (donated to science!). They should then throw a giant party inviting all who know me. There should be lots of food and even more drink. New relations should be forged and old rivalries forgotten. As many hookups as normally happen at weddings should also occur. In short, it should be a grand celebration of life instead of a doleful mourning of death.
Oh Noes Snows!
Flurries have been spotted in the Chicagoland area raising the ire of its residents who are still grasping at the last wisps of the summer that was. Suck it up, Chicagoans! You’re embarrassing us all! I’d swear I lived in Atlanta or something.
Many seem to think that it’s way too early for snow to be spotted in Chicago, but that’s not true at all. The average first snowflakes in Chicago fall on Halloween so we’re a little earlier than average. It’s not until mid-November that we normally get any measurable precipitation and it’s not until December 1st that we get our first inch of snow.
So this is a perfectly normal occurrence in what has so far been a perfectly normal fall in Chicago. Unlike South Dakota which had a freak blizzard at the beginning of the month which may have killed over 100,000 cattle and dropped over 19 inches of snow in the area. The cattle were without their winter coats and inches of rain has already fallen on them before the temperatures dropped and the snow began. Hypothermia because of the 70 MPH winds and suffocation from getting caught in snow drifts were the two leading causes of death for the cattle.
Book Review: Hard Times: An Oral History Of The Great Depression by Studs Terkel
Jean-Paul’s Rating: 5/5 stars
A quick note about typography. I read “Hard Times” in ebook form. By the amount of typographical mistakes, it was obvious that minimal effort was put into converting it from book form to ebook form. It’s as if they simply scanned it and never edited the ebook version for errors. There were so many mistakes it was actually distracting. So many misspelled words and 1’s in place of I’s. Ugh. I greatly appreciate the effort of The New Press for bringing old books deemed insufficiently profitable back in print, but please put just a little more effort into your ebooks.
The premise of this book is quite simple. Find a whole bunch of people who lived through the Great Depression or are children of those who lived through the Great Depression and ask them their thoughts on the time. All walks of life are represented from those hit hardest to those who barely even recognized the Great Depression was even happening. This method of history keeping is both informative and eye opening.
There is the old expression that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it and boy, howdy are we repeating much of the Great Depression now in the Great Recession. The same people who were blind to the bread lines of the Great Depression are blind to the necessity of Food Stamps now. The banks who are robo-signing foreclosure notices illegally taking away people’s houses without due process were doing so during the Great Depression. And the beat goes on.
What I found most intriguing about reading “Hard Times” was how completely the Great Depression shaped the American identity for generations to come. Families came out of it determined for their children never to “have not” again. Our present day overconsumerism can likely be tied to the “never again” attitude that was installed in many individuals as a result of living through the Great Depression. And who can blame them?
It also should be noted that politics hasn’t changed much since then either. Much of Roosevelt’s plans for getting the country out of the Great Depression were fought with just as much ferocity by Republicans then as the present day Republicans are fighting now against Obama’s Great Recession agenda. The only difference is today Republicans are resorting to drastic measures to fight against Obama whereas then Roosevelt resorted to drastic measures to fight against Republicans.
Another surprising similarity between present day and the Great Depression is the amount of people that are simply unwilling to see that things are wrong with society. A few of the people Studs Terkel interviewed got through the Great Depression without even recognizing that things like bread lines even existed. How do you do that? That these same people are the ones that also tend to have a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality is hardly surprising. Such is the life of those who live with blinders on.
This is one of those books that should be required reading for everyone. It gives first and second hand accounts of the most economically devastating time in our history. It is unbiased and straight forward in its presentation. I sincerely hope someone is working on a similar book for the Great Recession.
We’re Still In A Pretty Big Hole
If you’re reading this blog post, chances are you can count the number of ways you were affected by the recent Great Recession on one hand with all its fingers cut off. This makes it very hard to grasp how serious of an event it was and still is. At the bottom of the Great Recession, the United States lost around 6.2% of its jobs. We’re talking 10 million job losses in about two years.
Well, the bottom of the recession was over three years ago now and we’re still not back to the number of jobs we had when the Great Recession started. Despite adding 7.5 million private sector jobs since the bottom, we’re still 1.4 million private sector jobs down from when we started. And that doesn’t even include the 700,000 public sector jobs that were lost and will likely never return.
The jobs that were lost were about 60% mid-wage jobs. Only 27% of the job gains were in mid-wage jobs while 60% were in low-wage jobs. So not only are down in the number of jobs, the jobs that have been created are much lower in value than the jobs that were lost originally. This is what’s happening to the middle class.
What I am hopeful for is a silver lining in all of this. With mid-wage earners who have a modicum of political support being shifted to low-wage earners who generally have zero political support, we’re finally seeing some attention paid to how impossible it is to live on a low-wage job. While the high costs of low wages at Wal-Mart has been looked into for a long time, the same is finally being done at fast food restaurants. We’re starting to see instances of workers organizing at this level. If this organization continues, we may finally see some sectors that have been traditionally low-wage pushed into the mid-wage range bringing millions out of poverty as a result. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll see a living wage law come out of all of this.
Movie Review: Captain Phillips
Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 Stars
Bottom Line: An intriguing story of a real life event. More Somali pirate background should have been included. Some editing would have been nice. Damn, Tom Hanks is a good actor.
“Captain Phillips” tells the true story of a massive container ship hijacked by Somali pirates and the ordeals that the ship’s crew and the eponymous Captain Phillips endure. The movie starts with two opening sequences that establish the main characters.
We see Captain Phillips getting ready for his trip to take command of the Maresk Alabama and driving to the airport with his wife. He’s just an everyman going to his job discussing issues of the family with his wife. It’s a beautiful scene and the interactions with his wife make you believe the two have beem married for years. Captain Phillips’ life is familiar to us so it doesn’t take much time to establish his character and it certainly helps that you have as talented an actor as Tom Hanks doing so.
We also see Muse, a Somali pirate gathering a group of men to go looking for ships to hijack. You get the feeling that almost none of them want to be doing this. But threats of violence from the local warlord and a bit of drugs and a bit of competition and they are raring to go. I wish they had spent more time establishing Muse’s background. What does he do when he’s not hijacking ships? What is his family situation? Barkhad Abdi does a really good job of establishing Muse’s humanity throughout the movie, but his life in Somalia is so foreign to us he and his fellow pirates might as well be aliens.
The events leading up to the eventual hijacking of the Maersk Alabama are fairly taut as are the events that take place on the ship as well. When the pirates escape the ship taking Captain Phillips hostage, things kind of slow down. A good ten or fifteen minutes could probably have been cut from this portion of the film without any loss of cohesion.
The ending scene is absolutely riveting. Tom Hanks will just blow you away when you watch this part of the film. After everything that has happened, Captain Phillips is understandably in shock. Tom Hanks captures this so heart-achingly beautifully. I don’t think this is an Oscar caliber movie, but if they could give an Oscar for a single scene performance, Tom Hanks would win it hands down.
As with all movies that claim to portray real events, there is a bit of a controversy if things happened as they did in the film. A lot of people blame Captain Phillips for putting the ship in the position to be kidnapped in the first place. This is somewhat portrayed in the movie, but kind of glossed over. It just goes to show, history is not only written by the victors but by the heroes on the winning side.
Well, It’s Something
A month later and there has FINALLY been some more progress on the house. The flatwork is finally done. That means I have a basement floor. Things are supposed to move pretty quickly for here on out but we’ll see.
An Election Of Some Note
There was a special election in New Jersey yesterday to fill the U.S. Senate seat of Frank Lautenberg who died earlier this year from pneumonia. New Jersey, you may remember, is currently run by Governor Chris Christie who was the Republican flavor of the moment prior to Ted Cruz. Christie took a bit of heat for calling the special election from pretty much everyone. He refused to appoint a Senator which pissed off the Republicans and he called for a special election instead of holding the election on the regular election date which pissed off Democrats since voter turnout would be much more difficult. The special election also cost New Jersey millions of dollars more which pissed of governmental waste hawks like Chris Christie. Ha! Just kidding, there are no governmental waste hawks in government.
Anyway, the special election was between Democratic Newark Mayor Corey Booker and Republican perennial candidate for something Steve Lonegan. The fact that this was a special election usually puts the Democratic candidate in a tough position since turnout for off cycle elections like this generally favor the Republican. Corey Booker fairly handily beat Steve Lonegan with 54% of the vote despite this. That means that Corey Booker is only the fourth African-American to be elected to the U.S. Senate. He is also the first African-American to be elected to the U.S. Senate via a special election. That may not seem like a big deal, but it is. It reflects the changing political landscape in New Jersey, but I would also argue in the whole country.
A black man was able to bring enough people to the polls in an off election. This should strike fear in the hearts of the Republican party. Without significant minority outreach, they will just continue to look more and more like the fringe political party they are.
Adventures In Obamacare 3: Electric Pricingaloo
As I hinted at my previous Adventures In Obamacare post, healthcare.gov, the government one stop shopping center for insurance quotes still sucks. My current insurance company’s web site (BCBSIL) sucks less. I have always HATED their website. It’s designed well for people shopping for insurance but incredibly poorly for actual members. For instance, it’s nigh impossible to figure out how to make a payment online. Also, instead of giving you a list of doctors in your plan, they send you to another site where you have to enter in your plan information all over again which is confusing because the name of your plan can be different from the list of plans you can choose.
Since I can’t compare plans on the government site, I will compare my options with Blue Cross which is who I’ll likely go through in the end. I am assuming that various other insurance companies’ offerings will be similar.
Blue Cross offers 18 different plans in Illinois. The prices listed below are for me, a 40 year old male. They range in cost from their bare bones Bronze plan which would cost me $152.24/month to a Gold plan that costs $383.14/month. Due to the weird pricings that go into deductibles and coinsurance and copays, the one Platinum plan that they offer comes in at $357.13/month.
I will compare only three plans for the sake of brevity. They will be the three that I briefly mentioned in my previous blog post. They are: the cheapest plan (Blue Choice Bronze PPO 006) at $152.24/month, the one closest to what I pay now (Blue PPO Bronze 006) at $225.40/month, and the one closest to my current benefits (Blue PPO Bronze 005) at $227.69. A chart of the comparisons will follow at the end of the post. But to begin, Blue Cross screwed up when they sent my letter. I currently pay $303/month which is not close at all to the one they say is closest to what I pay now. The issue there was I just switched to a higher deductible plan ($5,000) and I paid less than the $303 for the first cycle because of the pricing differences when switching plans. Somehow, Blue Cross quoted me that lower price per month instead of my actual price per month.
As far as coverage is concerned, all three plans are exactly the same. The cheapest one is a Blue Choice PPO plan and the other two are Blue PPO plans. As far as I can tell, the Blue Choice PPO plans offer a smaller network of doctors to choose from than the Blue PPO plans. For that added ability to choose, they charge $73.16/month. That’s a 48% premium. It’s funny that the Blue Choice plans actually have less choice. They are obviously steering people towards those plans based on that name. I’m sure they’re somewhat more profitable than the others.
Besides the added ability to choose, the Blue Choice Bronze PPO 006 and the Blue PPO 006 plans are exactly the same. They all have a $6000 deductile which is $1000 more than my current deductible and require no copay. Despite the fact that they both state a 100% coinsurance, they both have an out-of-pocket maximum of $6000 so coinsurance shouldn’t ever actually come in to the equation. So really, the coinsurance should read “not applicable” but I guess programming wise it may be easier to just say 100%. The Blue PPO Bronze 005 plan costs just $2 more than the similarly named 006 plan but coinsurance actually comes into play here with only a $5000 deductible and a $6250 maximum out-of-pocket cost with a coinsurance rate of 80%.
The bottom line is I can get similar coverage under the Obamacare plan for 33% less than what I currently pay. If I am willing to accept a $1000 larger deductible and a smaller network, I can cut my insurance premium in half. Not bad. Not bad at all. As an added bonus, with the savings, I will likely add dental insurance which I have not had in the past.
My next Adventures In Obamacare post will be when I can actually get on the exchange and compare other companies.
|
Blue Choice Bronze PPO 006
|
Blue PPO Bronze 006
|
Blue PPO Bronze 005
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
$152.24
|
$225.40
|
$227.69
|
|
| Quote Profile | |||
| Effective Date | 01/01/2014 | 01/01/2014 | 01/01/2014 |
| Zip Code | xxxxx | xxxxx | xxxxx |
| Applicants | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Plan Features | |||
| Individual Out-of-Pocket Maximum | $6000.00 | $6000.00 | $6250.00 |
| Plan Features | |||
| Benefit Level | Bronze | Bronze | Bronze |
| Individual Deductible | $6000.00 | $6000.00 | $5000.00 |
| Family Deductible | $12700.00 | $12700.00 | $12700.00 |
| Coinsurance | 100% | 100% | 80% |
| Lifetime Benefit | No Limit | No Limit | No Limit |
| Well-Adult Care | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Well-Child Care | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Medical Coverage Details | |||
| Preventive Care | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Maternity Coverage | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Outpatient Physician Medical Services | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Outpatient Physician Surgical Services | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Inpatient Physician Medical/Surgical Services | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Outpatient Hospital Services including Surgery | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Outpatient Hospital Diagnostic Testing | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Inpatient Hospital Services Medical/Surgical Services | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Outpatient Emergency Care (Physician and Hospital) | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Mental Illness Treatment and Substance Abuse Rehab – Outpatient Hospital/Physician Care | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Mental Illness Treatment and Substance Abuse Rehab – Inpatient Hospital Care | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Mental Illness Treatment and Substance Abuse Rehab – Inpatient Physician Care | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Outpatient Prescription Drug Details | |||
| Preferred Generics | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Non Preferred Generics | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Preferred Formulary | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Non Preferred Formulary | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Specialty | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 100% Coinsurance after Deductible | 80% Coinsurance after Deductible |
| Cost Reductions | |||
| Tax Credit Eligible | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Cost Sharing Eligible | No | No | No |
| Health Savings Account Eligible (HSA) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Adventures In Obamacare 2: The Reinsurancing
The pooch-screw that is healthcare.gov continues. The website continues to have lots of problems and delays. I am still waiting for the website to officially declare me a human. But that’s not what this post is about.
I received a letter from my current insurance company (Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois) informing me that my current plan is being cancelled because it does not meet the minimum requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This was highly surprising to me given how comprehensive my coverage was supposed to be. What’s frustrating is that the letter is not very descriptive of what exactly was missing in my plan that the ACA requires. As best as I can tell, the only thing missing from my coverage that the ACA requires is pediatric dental care. One would think that it would be a much simpler matter to just add pediatric dental care to my plan instead of having everyone on my plan switch to something else. But maybe it’s not.
The interesting thing is the options that Blue Cross gave me as alternatives. They gave me three alternatives. All of them were considered Bronze level coverage according to the letter. The three options were: 1) a base Bronze plan, 2) a Bronze plan that was closest to what I pay now for my current plan, and 3) a Bronze plan that was closest to the coverage of my current plan. The base Bronze plan was noticeably, but not significantly cheaper than the other two plans. The Bronze plan that was closest to what I pay now was, shock of all shocks, right at what I pay now. The Bronze plan closest to my current coverage was only a few dollars more per month than my current plan.
I was shocked at a few things. First, that my current coverage fits neatly into a Bronze plan. I was fully expecting to find that my coverage was Gold level or higher. Second, I can get an ACA plan that offers greater coverage than what I’m paying now for only a few dollars more a month. Score!
I have yet to dig into the nitty gritty details of the three plans Blue Cross offered me. I’ll write another post about them later. Horrible website issues aside, Obamacare is looking pretty good so far for yours truly.