author « Robin Writes

Yeah, yeah. New year, new me, blah, blah, blah.

New me who is apparently not going to have health insurance.

Let’s talk about that.

The very definition of insurance is protection from catastrophe. Back in the old days, if you had health insurance, it was in case you ended up in the hospital for surgery or had a heart attack or whatever. If you went to see a doc, you paid him. Period.

Now, of course, the almighty government, in collusion with insurance companies, has decided that you MUST HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE or you will have no health care.

That is bullshit.

Health CARE is not the same thing. ACCESS to health care is NOT the same thing.

Anyone in the US can call up a doc and make an appointment; or go to the ER; or go to a clinic. ANYONE. Sure, in rare instances, there are no docs, and sometimes even your regular doc will not have an opening for weeks, at which time your illness will have resolved or you’ll be dead.

So.

I don’t mind paying, say, $100 a month “just in case” and maybe $50 to see a doctor. Not at all. Heck, even ramp that up to $75 for a specialist. Docs schedule something like 8-10 patients per hour, and that comes to $500 per hour, using that $50 as a basis.

But wait, you say, they have expenses too—student loans, office rent, equipment, employees, malpractice insurance. There’s that word again . . .

Yes they do. They have a business, just like many people. Let’s take an 8-hour day: $4500 income per day, at 50 weeks out of the year, equals well over one million dollars.

All that aside, because I don’t begrudge anyone making money, quite a few of those employees are present for the sole purpose of dealing with billing and INSURANCE stuff! And the other side of this is, again, that word: insurance for malpractice.

Basically, they’re raking it in and paying it right back out. I’m not blaming doctors.

I’m blaming the insurance scam.

They scare you. They jack up prices. Case in point, my blood pressure medicine is Inderal. It’s been around for decades, as has its generic. It was $4 a month, and this fall it zoomed up to $100 a month.

There is not one single thing you can say to me about research and development driving costs. For DECADES this drug has been on the market.

If the government wanted to actually help, they’d put a cap on drug costs.

If the government wanted to actually help with healthcare, they’d make sure everyone could get an appointment at a reasonable cost per visit.

I’m going to stop now. I feel my blood pressure rising, and since the only way to have even sorta/kinda affordable meds, I’m going to have to pay over $900 per month for so-called insurance instead of the $22 I’ve been paying over the last couple years.

When I use even three visits per year, and three lab tests, paying out-of-pocket would cost me around $75 a month.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. President.

I’m no stranger to flooding, having grown up in the Missouri River bottoms. One of my earliest memories is down on the family farm looking at the high-water marks left from 1953 onward. In 1986, I was no longer living at home, but we drove in to see the devastation. That one dampened the basement, but the flood of ’93 came up several feet into the house.

Since we moved into our current home, we’ve had a little sogginess in the bedrooms and garage, but then in June a couple years ago, we had to pull three rooms of carpet and replace a lot of drywall. Inches in the bathroom, and all over the edges of the living areas.

Basically, floods seem to follow me.

Now, this year, this month, Missouri is underwater. Mostly. Our plan today was to drive to the farm to drain the water pipes in the house before the freezing temps in a few days. Typically, if your pipes are in insulated walls, you’re fine unless the mercury dips below 20.

We’re not taking any chances, not with new tile and cabinets all over the place.

However, the best laid plans and all that . . .

My husband left an hour ago for the farm. His new plan is to heat up the house, drain the pipes, and head back tomorrow. Going down there has its challenges, as part of the interstate is very, very close to flooded roads, but the rivers are still rising in spite of the rain stopping yesterday.

Well over flood stage is expected over the next few days, so the timing of his trip back may be questionable.

Funny how, when prepping, we don’t often think of floods as an impediment to bugging out. Since most of the weather around here, and between here and there, is generally moderate for at least 9-10 months of the year, we usually think of manmade obstacles.

This is kind of a wake-up call, and I’d urge everyone to not only think about and plan for typical disasters, or even some expected ones, but really—who knew we’d be flooding in December?

Again, the getting there isn’t the problem, at least today; so, if we were bugging out now, we’d go. No questions asked. The time is now, as the rivers are still rising.

Kind of feel like I’m playing Oregon Trail.

In a snowfall situation, same thing. Sometimes you have to make a decision right away, and act on it. No dilly-dallying. Much, much better to leave and maybe come back than to wait until it’s too late.

Of course, you also want to know that where you’re going is safe. Our farm house, for instance, is on a hill. We have great visibility and good drainage, once you get there. That part can be tricky, but once we’re in, we’re in to stay and we have no worries about surviving from that point on.

And it makes it more difficult for anyone we don’t want there to actually arrive.