publish « 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.

This week’s adventures will include planting a garden in the mud and trying to mow the pasture, which is something like three feet tall at this point. We’ve borrowed a trailer, and will just take our mower along.

Apologies for the weird tense—I’m writing this before we actually go to the farm this week!

So, back to the garden. The asparagus never got in the ground last time, so that’s a priority. I also picked up some blueberry and raspberry bushes. As an aside, I cannot be trusted at a garden store or nursery . . . I also made up some more verbena baskets for the front porch.

Of course, there will be more rocks ready for harvesting. Ha. And I have a tin of seeds, too: carrots and three kinds of beans and a few other things.

We’re kind of at a crossroads here: we have things now to maintain, things to make nicer and more comfortable for us, and we’re still—and will be for a long time—cleaning up and renovating and working on all kinds of projects. All at the same time.

So here’s what we’ll do, and what any prepper should do:

Animals
Food supply
People

It’s just good common sense that a farmer or homesteader take care of his animals first. They’re relatively helpless, they don’t get to make the decisions, and they generally don’t have thumbs. Fortunately, we don’t yet have animals.

Food supply, aka the garden. In order to harvest, and therefore eat, you have to plant and weed and care for your food. If you don’t get it in the ground, it won’t grow, and you’ll be hungry. Worst-case scenario, of course. Fish, too, are on the agenda—no, I don’t consider them “animals,” they’re fish and they take care of themselves.

And then there’s us. The peeps. Sure, we need shelter and water—we have those. It might not be exactly the way we want it, yet, but it’s there and we can certainly live with it. What else?

Security. Our boundaries are fenced on three sides already, and the fourth side adjoins some pretty rough terrain and woods. Some of the things we’ve found are rolls and rolls of rusted wire, mostly hog-wire but some barbed too. All of that is going behind the fences, in the undergrowth. The fences themselves aren’t livestock-proof, but they don’t need to be; our biggest concern would be someone coming in on foot. The only way in by vehicle is through the gate and down the drive.

Speaking of the gate, we’ll surely have it installed this coming week. The one we ordered is STILL on backorder, seven weeks now, but we found another place that has them in stock. Whew. Besides, those empty gateposts look pretty silly!

And we have Bob and his friends, the .22s and so forth. Just picked up some new targets too, self-sealing rubber that bounce and spin and roll. Fun! And we always make time for target practice . . .

So we’re pretty well set. But then I figured up the time available for the big move next year, and we might have to get our butts in gear. See, we’re splitting time between home and the farm, but that works out to just over a month this summer. Come fall, we’ll have less time, and that works out to about two month, or three total, until we’re living on the farm.

Yikes!

Before that happens, we have some build-outs in the barn for storage, re-doing the lean-to, and adding walls inside the house. Plus a slight kitchen and bathroom remodel—those will be fairly easy, compared to the rest. I do, however, want that done before we move furniture and other stuff.

So, let the games begin! Feel like jumping in the truck and leaving right now!