I’m worried about Cobras.  There are King Cobras, Asian Cobras, Egyptian Cobras, and the most deadly, Healthcare Cobras.  These COBRAs are financially deadly.  They slither through the healthcare jungle to bite you in your financial butt just as you are about to recover from your “qualifying event” (re: you got fired or laid off or got smart and quit BEFORE the layoffs) and trying to get your finances squared away so you can pay bills like, say, a mortgage or utilities. 

These COBRAs are huge, enormous, deadly creatures.  Their fangs are sharp and sink deeply into your wallet.  Once they have a hold they begin to suck out your cash and MAN is it painful.  I’ve been attacked and bitten twice, most recently in May of this year.   

When one is employed, one has the benefit of, well, benefits, the most important of which are medical benefits.  With all the layoffs and with downsizing/outsourcing of American jobs, these benefits are getting to be a burden.  How?  Well, let me tell you.

According to HIPAA laws (those laws which make it illegal for an employer to simply cut you off from your benefits, which they do anyway), you, the former employee, have the right to continue your medical coverage…at your expense, of course.  No problem.  …unless, like most living human beings, you have a pre-existing condition.  My pre-existing condition happens to be that I am a woman with “woman’s issues” (you figure it out).   

Now, here’s the problem:  when one experiences a “qualifying event”, one no longer has an income.  This makes paying one’s mortgage/rent, utilities, auto insurance, and various other sundry bills difficult.  BUT, since you have a pre-existing condition, you need to continue taking your medication so your pre-existing condition doesn’t worsen, in which case the cost of medical attention would be prohibitive.  So, the government, in its wisdom, decided to force employers make available to you the same benefits you had while you were a contributing employee.  No problem, say the employers, you can keep your bene's...at a price. 

My price?  $372 a month for ONE person.  Me; not a family of four, but just me.  This, of course, doesn’t include the approximately $200 a month I need to cough up (sorry, couldn’t resist) for meds.  $572 a month out of pocket…an EMPTY pocket because there was no INCOME.
 

Now, if one does NOT pay for one’s own health insurance, one will have a “gap in coverage” and not a “HIPAA Certificate” showing continuous coverage with no break. Big deal, right?  Nah.  You knew there had to be a catch.  If you have a break in coverage, when you finally do get a job, your new employer’s insuring company can deny your benefits for up to one (1) year, which means you’d better not get sick and loose your new job due to the pre-existing condition that you can’t fix without medical coverage! 

The answer isn’t socialized medicine, but the Healthcare Cobra isn’t the answer either.  C’mon.  If we can lay down 2-3 million plus for a new bridge to nowhere in Alaska, we CAN come up with a better way to insure people in the richest nation on GOD's green earth.

‘Nuff said.  Kat

Just a thought, but….

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that the press wants everyone else to spill state secrets but they are “outraged” when asked by the government of the people, by the people, and FOR THE PEOPLE , to come forward with the name or names of collaborators blabbing classified information?

GOD forbid.

I understand that the Bush Administration asked opinion editor, Bill Keller, of the New York Times, to refrain from printing the story.  Well, apparently Keller believed himself supremely overqualified to make the judgment call to print or not to print and, as we all know now, he printed. 

Why?  The Times believes that they DO know more than all the rest of us.  “Hey, we’re The New York Times and we know how secrets work and you don’t…so shove off you ignorant jingoist!”

I’ve heard and seen many “journalists” on talk shows in the past few weeks.  When asked why they support the New York Times for giving the hand to the Administration, they blanch, fall backward onto their collective fainting couches, lay an arm over their eyes, and proclaim that they are offended by the “attack” on the first amendment.

“You mean the “fly-overs” actually believe ‘the Times’ SHOULD have bowed to the wishes of the government?”

Heck no!  Don’t restrain yourself!  Don’t think about the guy sitting next to you on the bus or train who might be blown up on his way home!  Screw all my fellow citizens of the world; I’m finally going to get my Pulitzer Prize! 

For-geddaboudit.

Their arrogance is a tacit implication that I, a mere citizen of this country, America (say that with derision, like a European), who doesn’t live in a big city like, oh…say, New York or Paris, am entirely unable to understand that telling the world how the FBI finds and kills terrorists won’t aid and abet the enemy.

Why?  Because OBVIOUSLY upon entering the newsroom, the New York Times’ “journalists” are suddenly endowed with god-like omnipotence to KNOW what is “all the news that’s fit to print” and we don’t.

Just a thought….