Following the medical money (or lack thereof)

 

A few weeks ago I wrote an article titled "From 'Medical Care' to 'Medical Couldn't Care Less'."  In it, speaking about conflicting medical bureaucracies with whom I'm having to deal at present, I said:

Neither bureaucracy cares about me (or any other patient) as a person.  They're just ticking off the boxes on their forms, checking their reams of regulations, and putting their organizations' interests ahead of anything and anyone else.

That's being driven home yet again by the latest medical shenanigans.  I'm in pretty severe pain (all the time) from a deteriorating spinal condition, but no doctor or nurse seems interested in speeding things up to get to a point where that could be alleviated.  Instead it's fill out this form, get that test, make follow-up appointments (which they then cancel because I haven't yet completed all the tests they want - but they don't tell me that until less than 24 hours before my appointment), and so on.  What's worse is that medical insurance is an integral part of the problem, in that they won't discuss further treatment until a series of tests are completed, even if those tests have nothing whatsoever to do, medically speaking, with the specific health issue under discussion.  The forms have to be completed, with all the boxes ticked off, even if some of those boxes apply to other conditions.  If I complain and argue about it, I'll be frozen out of the process until I knuckle under.

The problem is, all of this costs money - and with competing bureaucracies arguing over who is or is not responsible for the bills, I have to pay for everything up front, in the hope of getting at least some of the money back from one or the other agency in due course.  The fact that such costs run into thousands of dollars is irrelevant, as far as the bureaucrats are concerned.  I have to get the tests done;  if I can't afford to have them done, I won't be approved to proceed to further treatment options (for which they still won't pay, at least at present) through their bureaucratic processes.  If I can persuade doctors to offer the treatment(s) I need without medical insurance pre-approval, it'll have to be on a cash basis, in the hope that subsequent discussions with my lawyer might persuade the insurers to contribute something towards them.

I'm going to have my right kidney removed towards the end of this month (the culmination of the kidney problems I had last year, with four lesser surgeries having failed to correct the situation).  It'll take me a couple of months to get over that, I'm told, so back surgery will have to be on hold until I've fully recovered my strength.  If I can raise the money for that, it should happen late this year or early next year, if I can get my medical ducks in a row.

I'm going to be launching a fundraiser within the next week or so to ask for help in meeting these expenses.  This is a very costly situation for us. We're in the process of taking out a second mortgage on our home, and we've saved what we can to meet initial expenses, but we're still looking at a looming fiscal cliff in the not too distant future.  I know we're far from alone in facing that sort of problem:  I've mentioned others' fundraisers in these pages on occasion.  Thank you to everyone who's already been generous.  We couldn't have made it this far without you.

Peter

Boom, or impending bust?

 

Ted Gioia is worried about the state of the economy, and the mixed signals from higher levels that are conflicting with data "on the ground".

Are we entering an AI-driven boom time like an out-of-control Monopoly game? Or will we be too broke to eat breakfast?

Let’s try to answer this question—because a lot is at stake in getting the answer right.

I see signs of economic turmoil everywhere in the real world:

• Starbucks sales are down and they are closing 100 stores.
• KFC and Pizza Hut sales are down in the US.
• Dozens of other restaurant chains are closing locations.
• Las Vegas tourism is down sharply and visitors describe it as a ghost town.
• In fact, the entire hotel and hospitality industry is shrinking.
• There are now a half million more homes for sale in the US than home buyers.
• Credit card debt is rising—and is now back at its all-time high.
• US unemployment is the highest it’s been since the pandemic.
• The jobs data was so bad that the person compiling the numbers got fired!

Companies are getting desperate, and they can’t hide it. A friend reports that Pizza Hut sent him a promotion on Tuesday morning, offering a two dollar pizza. He wondered how they could possibly make money on this deal.

And then that same day he got a notice from competitor Papa John’s, also promising a two buck pizza.

Two bucks for a pizza? Really?

This is how businesses respond when customers totally disappear. They will do anything to bring them back. Otherwise they have to shut down.

And this is a reality untouched by promises of an AI boom time. It’s everywhere in the real world where flesh-and-blood people live and work.

Mr. Gioia goes on to note five important points about the so-called AI "boom":

1. Half of the gains in the stock market are due to just five stocks.
2. These companies are betting everything on the buildout of AI data centers.
3. There’s no indication that consumers are willing to pay for this enormous infrastructure.
4. The reality is that nobody can afford the proposed AI data center buildout.
5. And there are all sorts of other warning signs—energy usage, water consumption, etc.

He concludes:

By any reasonable measure, the current trend is unsustainable. And there’s one thing I know about unsustainable trends—there’s a day of reckoning, and it’s not a happy one for the people who caused it. But, even sadder, they take down a lot of others with them when the bubble bursts.

There's more at the link, including some informative and worrying graphics to illustrate his points.

If you've followed our discussions in these pages over the past few years, you won't be surprised by any of this.  Previous administrations have spent us into near-bankruptcy, and papered over the fiscal cracks with almost unlimited treasury bond sales and other measures.  Our deficit is so high it's almost impossible to visualize:  and as always, excessive debt becomes a drag on the economy as a whole, both for those who caused it and those who simply happen to be in the same country.  Sooner or later, our economic chickens will come home to roost, and some (like myself) think that won't be long delayed.

I hope I'm wrong.  I really do.  It would be wonderful to think that President Trump will be given enough time to stave off the crisis, and do what's needed to begin restoring our economy . . . but I somehow suspect that the damage is already too great.  He'll paper over the cracks as best he can, but no matter how good his policies may be, he's not a miracle-worker.  (He also contributed to the problem by not controlling deficit spending during his first term of office.  He gets a great deal of credit for his current policies, but also a share of the blame for the mess leading up to the present situation.)

Go read Mr. Gioia's whole article.  Food for thought.

Peter

So where's the justice in this sentence???

 

I was infuriated to read about an extraordinarily lenient sentence in a child sex abuse case.

Just hours after her first day of high school, a 15-year-old girl sat in a Fremont County courtroom and told a full gallery of people, both known to her and not, about her life from the ages of 7 to 12, when she was being sexually assaulted.

Candon Dean Dahle, 22, was sentenced by District Judge Steven Boyce to a minimum of five and a maximum of ten years in prison. Boyce then suspended the sentence and placed Dahle on probation for eight years.

He was also given a 180-day local jail sentence that began on Tuesday. After that, he will be required to complete 200 hours of community service.

There's more at the link.

The source article contains sickening evidence from the victim and her family of what this man's abuse did to her, the psychological effects of which will probably continue for the rest of her life.  I won't publish that here, because I try to keep this blog family-friendly, but if you can stomach that sort of thing, I urge you to click over there and read it for yourself.

For the life of me, I can't understand how such a monster in human form could be let off with so light a sentence.  There are parts of the world - including many in Africa, from where I come - that wouldn't have left him alive after doing things like that.  People there wouldn't wait for the courts to give him a slap on the wrist.  They'd administer rather more than a slap on the wrist to make sure he never did it again, and so that anyone else with ideas like that would be given a graphic example of why they should never, ever even consider putting their ideas into practice.

Furthermore, I've never yet seen a single case where a child abuser was "cured" of his "disease" by any therapy, program or punishment.  I've had to deal with far too many of them as a prison chaplain.  Even those who'd sincerely, genuinely repented of their sin would tell me that they didn't know if they could refrain from doing it again after they finished their sentence.  They said that for them, temptation sometimes grew so great that it amounted to an irresistible compulsion, so much so that some of them actively considered suicide as the only way they believed they could avoid acting on it.  I somehow doubt that Mr. Dahle will prove any different.

I'd call him a complete and utter waste of oxygen, except that I'd then have to apply the same description to the judge who let him off so lightly, and the prosecutors who plea-bargained his offense down so greatly.  I suspect society would be better off without any of them.

Peter

The day they blew up a river to save Yellowstone

 

I came across a very interesting article about the 1988 wildfires in and around Yellowstone National Park (the biggest and most dangerous in the Park's history), and how local farmers, ranchers and residents partnered with the National Park Service to save West Yellowstone from the encroaching flames.  Here are some excerpts.

The plan was to surround West Yellowstone with irrigation pipes and sprinklers to dampen the ground, stopping any flames before they reached homes and businesses. As the park’s busiest gateway community, ensuring West Yellowstone’s survival was critical.

Howell and several other farmers hauled all the industrial-sized irrigation pipe they had available to West Yellowstone, but that wouldn’t be enough to stop the fire.

The critical factor was finding an adequate water source to feed the pipes.

To pump water through the pipes, they needed a hole — and fast.

There wasn’t time to excavate the bank of the river, so they blasted it with explosives.

. . .

Bryers ... cut any trees that had fallen or were leaning into the trail to ensure large vehicles and their irrigation pipes could reach the river.

There was a surprise waiting for Bryers when he emerged from the forest at the riverbank: Yellowstone District Ranger Joseph Evans.

“Joe was scratching his head as I came out of the opening in an orange Ford truck,” Bryers said. “He said, ‘You can't be driving in here and using chainsaws.’ So I go, ‘I can't believe you haven't heard. I'm clearing the way for a big line of diesel trucks hauling pipe.’”

Despite having the full permission of the NPS and Clyde Seely, the fire commander, nobody had informed Evans that Bryer would be cutting through Yellowstone’s trees to get to the Madison River.

“He went off to see what in the world was happening,” Bryers said. “There was a lot of miscommunication back then.”

. . .

Soon, an unassuming Ryder rental truck arrived at the western bank of the river. Inside was a large amount of detonating cord, supplied by the federal government, that would be used to create the crater.

“They did one blast, and it turned out it wasn't quite enough to make the crater they needed,” Bryers said. “So, they put a bunch more of it in there for a second blast.”

. . .

After the second detonation, [Bryers] noticed that a 7,500-pound boulder had crashed through the top of the Ryder truck, landing on a massive coil of detonating cord.

“I wish that I would have got a picture of it, but I didn’t have my camera,” he said. “That rock was just sitting there on top of all the explosives.”

. . .

The fire got concerningly close. Bryers was laying out a line of pipe from Duck Creek to the Fir Ridge Cemetery north of town when the fire caught up to him.

“Me and another fella stripped naked and jumped into the deep part of Duck Creek,” he said. “We wanted to come out and dry off, but there were a bunch of surprised Idaho farm boys watching from the bank.”

. . .

The crater blasted into the Madison River is long gone, slowly filling with sediment until it disappeared completely a few years after the fires.

However, Bryers said the crater was a fishing hotspot until it was filled in.

“Trout liked to find a nice, deep, slow spot in the river, so I told my fly fishing friends about the crater,” he said. “They caught some big fish out there.”

There's more at the link.

It's a great story of ordinary folks working together to save a vital part of America's natural history.  It must have been utterly exhausting for all concerned, but they got the job done.  Highly recommended reading.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 276

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.