Hypocrite Series: Giuliani's (Lack of A) Health Care Plan

Today was the big day. Giuliani made the rounds announcing sweeping health care reforms he would implement as President washing away all of the problems without even breaking a sweat. That's right folks. Giuliani treated us to some real moments of genius today as he REITERATED THE SAME GARBAGE HE'S BEEN SAYING IN THE DEBATES. It's a lot like reading Obama's plan. It's the try-not-to-offend-the-base-but-act-like-I-am-actually-doing-something plan.

"So Hap, what's this amazing plan," you ask. To sum it up, it's Bush's plan from his first run for President:

• $15,000 tax credit for health insurance


• Technology this, FDA that


• Malpractice Reform this, HSA that


• Happy Happy Joy...the market fixes everything

"But Hap," you say, "you like market solutions, tax system equity, malpractice reform, HSAs, and all of the rolly, polly goodness of the Rudy plan."

Alas, tis true, I do like those, but none of it matters if I can't get any ###$#@#$#@$ insurance in the first place. How ridiculous is it that my family's best option in the current health care climate outside of working at a big business with a group health plan is to move to Massachusetts and partake of plan Romney?????

By the way, did anyone notice the little attack on state's rights in Rudy's plan? I certainly did...

Diet Soda Bad For You?

So says a recent study:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070723/us_nm/heart_softdrinks_dc

Note to self...finally follow through on quitting soda, diet or real, for good.

If you want to be disgusted by politicians yet again...

...read this.

Hypocrite Series: Calling Out Giuliani on Health Care

On his blog, Giuliani gives this "Bad Medicine" FUD-fest about Moore's Sicko and Clinton's health care plan. Whether this diatribe is true or not doesn't matter much to me. What matters is that Giuliani and others Republicans (save President Bush, oddly enough) refuse to say anything substantive about how they would fix the problems with our health care system. Now that Giuliani has fired a couple of shots across the socialism bow, I think we deserve more than free market this and competition that. Get specific...how are you going to deal with pre-existing conditions in the private health care market? How can small businesses compete to hire workers if they can't offer health benefits? How are you going to handle pharmaceutical companies abusing patents to keep drugs like Lovenox at $50/dose?

Answer some of these questions or shut the hell up about health care.

Heath Care: Reading Policies for Fun

Reading insurance policies never ceases to amaze me. In a quick scan of the private insurance landscape, I decided to peruse a Humana policy as I had heard some good things about them. Here's the last item on their exclusion list:

Charges incurred for a hospital stay beginning on a Friday or Saturday unless due to emergency care or surgery is performed on the day admitted.

You've just gotta love 'em, right? In other words, we know they probably won't let you out over the weekend so we're just not going to pay for it. Go home and die instead, please.

Health Care: Untie Insurers' Hands

To date in the 2008 campaign, we have yet to see any candidate recommend eliminating the insurance companies from the health care equation. Everyone seems to remember what happened to Senator Clinton's plan during President Clinton's tenure, and they're unwilling to go out on a limb. So if insurers are to remain a part of the system, let's cut them loose from regulations that are doing little to protect consumers and more to hurt them. In my own insurer's FAQ, I found this little gem:

Are the underwriting guidelines the same for all states?

No. Every state has certain guidelines that we must follow. Some states will allow us to exclude, rate-up or decline. Certain states only allow us to accept or reject with rate-ups and others are just accept or reject. Finally, there are states that we cannot decline or issue with exclusions or rate-ups.

Though I haven't researched it, I'm guessing my state is one of the "accept or reject" states as nobody would even discuss exclusions with me when I pursued private insurance. The reason states like mine did this was likely an attempt to protect their citizens, but in the end, all they did was make it impossible for those of us affected to get any coverage, much less bad coverage.

So...to the states. Stop regulating so damn much.

HealthCareSoundOff.com

I just found HealthCareSoundOff.com via a post at Crooks and Liars, and it has some truly useful information on it related to the health care status quo.

Benedict's Thoughts on Non-Catholics Believers

From the AP via Yahoo, Pope: Other Christians Not True Churches

What's that quote our parents always use at a time like this? Something about not having anything nice to say...

Upgrade to Firefox 2...It's Worth It

On my pathetic little Powerbook G4, web browsing has become almost painful. Some of my favorite sites like Filmstalker bring my machine grinding to a halt. To make matters worse, I recently became a Google Reader fan, and my computer can't really keep up. I end up missing articles as the background Javascript server calls bog the processor down.

Not so with Firefox 2. Google Reader no longer bogs down to the point of doing big scroll jumps. I'm not sure what they've done, but they've breathed a bit more life into my aging G4.