prep « Robin Writes

Oh, I still hear a lot of prepper ideas and plans and things, but has anyone else noticed that the sky doesn’t appear to be falling these days?

We had some tense moments in 2015, like Jade Helm and the economy and the Pope’s visit with Congress and the UN and whatnot, but it’s now 2016 and there haven’t been any dramatic differences.

Huh. Maybe ISIS just settled down for the holiday or folks are still chugging holiday spirit . . .

As for me, I’ve been watching and waiting. Watchful waiting. Whatever. I never expected, really, to have to throw stuff in the truck and take off, but I could have if it had come to that. But, while my Facebook feed has slowed down a bit, as well as the media, both mainstream and otherwise, I’m still plugging along.

I have a garden planned for the spring, and the means to get it planted and fenced.

I have alternate power sources.

I have plenty of stored consumables and other things.

I’ve been hoping all along that things will hold off until we’re “ready,” and it looks like that’s going to be the case. Or not. But I am at the point where that “or not” doesn’t seem as scary.

And you know, while writing and researching my book series was enough to scare the bejeezus out of me, I’m still convinced that things—in general, I mean, politically and economically—are going to get worse.

And that’s what prepping is about.

Then, too, I’m at that point in life where I want to do what *I* want to do, and be out in the woods and be self-sufficient. That’s the plan, and I’m sticking to it.

And, too, when something happens, I’ll be ready. I’m not going to scour the Internet for the crazies and report on every single conspiracy theory, but I’m still checking my sources, the ones I trust, and I’m still keeping an eye out.

You probably should, too.

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.