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Will We Drown In Denial Or Face The Sea Change of Climate Reality

November 1, 2012 / / Comments Off on Will We Drown In Denial Or Face The Sea Change of Climate Reality

Of all the searing images in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the one that I find most disturbing is this picture of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier which remained throughout the storm at great personal danger. That we must honor our military dead even at the risk of completely unnecessary loss of life speaks volumes about our priorities in this country.

I rarely watch cable news, but I found myself obsessively switching between a local news channel, CNN and The Weather Channel for much of the storm.  There was much valuable and urgent information shared although much of it looked like a contest between reporters to see who could report while standing in the deepest water and stay standing (and I absolutely need to say that throughout the storm, I consistently found critical information being disseminated on Twitter well before I saw it on television). But not once did I hear any mention of the many nuclear power plants in the storm’s path, or a discussion of what to do if your house is flooded with toxic waste or the lack of plans to protect oil and gas facilities. No analysis of what climate change denial and inaction has cost us.

Nor was there mention of the fact that we’ve known that storms like this have been an event waiting to happen.  Instead, as I pointed out a few days ago, we have continued to beat the drum in the fight against “terrorism”, pouring billions of dollars into destroying other countries, killing innocent civilians and creating conditions in which terrorism ferments and while we’re at it doing an ace job of brainwashing ourselves into being perpetually paranoid and terrified while at the same time allowing the infrastructure of our own country to go to hell.

As Chris Mooney pointed out in Grist, NASA warned about an event like Sandy in 2006:

Scientists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York have been studying that city’s vulnerability to hurricane impacts in a changing world, and calculated that with 1.5 feet of sea level rise, a worst-case-scenario Category 3 hurricane could submerge “the Rockaways, Coney Island, much of southern Brooklyn and Queens, portions of Long Island City, Astoria, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, lower Manhattan, and eastern Staten Island from Great Kills Harbor north to the Verrazano Bridge.

And of course, that wasn’t the only warning.  WE KNEW IT COULD HAPPEN.  And we did nothing.  As a result we are now contending with this:

Consider what Kathy Waters, American Public Transportation Association vice president for member services had to say about the New York subway system,

The New York system, although there are some components that have been upgraded over the years, has a lot of antique components where the vendor has been out of business for 50 years. (emphasis mine)

And then there is this from NRDC’s Amy Mall:

Under the Clean Water Act, there is something called the Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) rule which includes requirements for oil spill prevention, preparedness, and response to prevent oil discharges to navigable waters and adjoining shorelines…Sounds like a no-brainer. But in Fiscal Year 2011, EPA officials visited 120 sites oil and gas development sites and found 105 were out of compliance– 87.5%…Almost every single oil and gas site inspected lacked a mandatory spill prevention plan meant to protect our rivers and streams. (emphasis mine)
 

Internet, cable and phone services were also significantly disrupted and yet two days later with thousands of people still without access, I heard a report of a FEMA official telling people to file claims on the internet.  And he expects people who are stranded in flooded buildings to do that how?

And,

Raw sewage, industrial chemicals and floating debris filled flooded waterways around New York City on Tuesday…

…The best officials could do was urge residents to steer clear of the contaminated waters.

Incidentally, they sent that warning out by email.  To people who obviously were going to have trouble accessing their email.

The storm also precipitated numerous problems at various nuclear power plants, all of which are aging quickly past the lifespans they were designed for and some of which are the same design as the Fukushima facility in Japan,

Storm-related complications were blamed this week for forcing three nuclear reactors offline – Nine Mile Point Unit 1 northwest of Syracuse, N.Y., Indian Point Unit 3 about 25 miles north of New York City and the Salem plant’s Unit 1 on the Delaware River in New Jersey.

Meanwhile, rising waters along the Barnegat Bay prompted officials to declare an “alert,” the second-lowest in a four-tiered warning system, at Oyster Creek in New Jersey…

…NRC officials reported that other plants continued operating but reduced their electrical output as a precaution, including the Millstone plant’s Unit 3 reactor in Waterford, Conn., Vermont Yankee south of Brattleboro, Vt., and both reactors at the Limerick nuclear plant about 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The storm also appeared to knock out emergency sirens used to notify residents who live near the Oyster Creek and Peach Bottom plants in Pennsylvania, according to NRC reports. (emphasis mine)

These are the kinds of issues we need to confront if we are to stand a prayer of survival.  They aren’t theoretical or in the future.  They are real and they are right now.  We need to see this as literally the moment for a sea-change in attitude.  It is not acceptable for the media to continue to ignore climate change,

Last year at least 7,140 journalists and opinion writers published some 19,000 stories on climate change, compared to more than 11,100 reporters who filed 32,400 stories in 2009, according to DailyClimate.org…

…Particularly noticeable was the silence from the nation’s editorial boards: In 2009, newspapers published 1,229 editorials on the topic. Last year, they published less than 580 – half as many, according to DailyClimate.org’s archives.

And it is not acceptable for our politicians to continue to chest thump  the drums of war while maintaining a deafening silence on climate change. Protecting symbols of military prowess while our cities drown isn’t honorable, it is an act of national suicide.

The Day Before The Day After Tomorrow–Meditations On A Storm And A Young Friend Who Wants To Serve His Country

October 28, 2012 / / Comments Off on The Day Before The Day After Tomorrow–Meditations On A Storm And A Young Friend Who Wants To Serve His Country

In the pre-hurricane calm before Sandy hits, I am sitting by a window (where I probably don’t want to sit tomorrow), watching the skies darken and thinking of a young man that I’ve known since he was in diapers.  After high school, he joined the army and last week, he left to serve in a war zone.  All we can do now is pray that he comes back alive, hopefully without his body or mind broken.

———-

They are now saying that 10 million people could lose power from Hurricane Sandy.  One of the reasons that may happen is that for decades now, we have done far less than we should to protect our utility grids.  Water may be compromised and communications systems too.  Some of that would be inevitable with a storm this size, but proper upgrading and maintenance along the way might well have mitigated that.

What few are talking about and which may be a far larger worry is the potential danger to the 16 nuclear power plants that are in harms way.  After Fukushima, we should have no illusions that these plants can withstand catastrophic weather.  And we should be mindful of the massive amounts of toxic materials that may blow into our water and onto our shores as the storm blows through.

———-

I began by mentioned the young family friend now serving in the military, in a continuing war that serves only to continue to destabilize the world.  Yes, there will always be a few that will want to bomb and destroy us, and perhaps they will get away with killing some of us.  But no terrorist can ever hope to accomplish what climate changed weather has and most certainly will continue to do when it comes to wreaking havoc and destruction.

Yet throughout this presidential campaign, it has been business as usual with the war talk–why we must use drones and must fight terrorists without even a peep about climate change or the environment.

My young friend is a patriot.  He wants to defend the country.  Imagine if instead of fighting wars of empire that serve only to destroy and bankrupt, we brought our soldiers home and asked them to help secure our aging and  dangerous nuclear plants as best we can?  What if we asked them to install solar and wind installations?  What if we asked them to help trim trees off power lines and replace aging water pipes and roads. What if we put the formidable force that is the U.S. military to work doing things that would actually protect the country?  And if we still wanted to send some of our troops overseas, we could help other nations do the same, making them safer and less likely to hate us.

It is too late for this storm, but how many more times does this need to happen before we finally say no more to business as usual and start using our resources to address the real needs of climate change and stop the destructive foreign policy that drains us of our economic resources, destroys other countries and puts our troops in harms way?

Voting With Eyes Wide Open

October 24, 2012 / / Comments Off on Voting With Eyes Wide Open

It was not until the night of the first presidential debate that I fully understood the degree to which these absurd chest thumping, facts optional charades of democracy have been corrupted.  It frankly never occurred to me that the commission that runs the debates was a private entity.  But as Amy Goodman reported that evening on Democracy Now, they are orchestrated by a “commission” that in reality is a small group of lawyers, corporations and lobbyists with very vested interests. As Lee Fang writes in The Nation, the Democratic co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, Mike McCurry, is,

…a former White House press secretary for President Clinton, works as a Partner at Public Strategies Washington, a Beltway lobbying firm.

McCurry doesn’t disclose all of his clients, but his website lists a number of corporations, including Bain Capital, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, Lockheed Martin Corporation, the US Chamber of Commerce and Anheuser-Busch…McCurry’s company is also currently being paid over $132,026 to lobby for the Mexican government on issues relating to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations. Wonder why none of the debates have covered the TPP—which could have huge implications for the economy?

Frank Fahrenkopf Jr, the Republican co-chair, is the head of a lobbying coalition of major casinos and related gambling industries. Fahrenkopf—who was paid $1,920,561 in 2010, according to IRS records—represents major firms like Las Vegas Sands Corp, MGM Resorts International, Morgan Stanley, KPMG and Goldman Sachs.

The light begins to dawn.

There is no transparency in how the debates are structured. The format of the debates is agreed to by the candidates in secret memorandums that are so absurd that the one for this year’s vice-presidential debate specified that Vice President Biden could not address Paul Ryan as “Congressman Ryan”.  Really.

But what is even worse is that it is all but given that third party and independent candidates will not be allowed to speak at these forums.  While it is unfortunate that she waited until the last debate to do so, Green Party candidate Jill Stein filed a lawsuit challenging her exclusion from the debates and we can only hope that this leads to a thorough examination of the blatant exclusion of important voices in the political discussion.  Serious candidates such as Stein deserve to be heard and it is to our detriment as a country that we are refused that opportunity.  As the lawsuit points out,

Due to the fact that Dr. Stein is on the ballot in all of the largest states in the country and nearly all of the mid-size states, her name will appear on 85% or more of all ballots cast. As such, 85% or more of the American populace is currently eligible to vote for Dr. Stein in the upcoming Presidential election…

…Dr. Stein has reached a level of support among the American populace such that her campaign has qualified to receive matching funds from the federal government to seek the Presidency…

…Further, and most decisively, due to the cumulative allocation of Electoral College votes designated to those states in which Dr. Stein is on the ballot,[1] she has a “mathematical chance of securing an Electoral College majority in the 2012 general election”, a current prerequisite to participate in the Presidential debates under the current system.  [See Exhibit A: Commission on Presidential Debates 2012 Candidate Selection Criteria: Evidence of Ballot Access]…

…On October 16th, 2012, less than one week ago, the United States Presidential Green Party candidate, Dr. Jill Stein, and her Vice-Presidential running mate, Ms. Cheri Honkala, were arrested for being on the grounds of the site of the Presidential debate which was scheduled to take place approximately seven hours later…

…Dr. Stein arrived on the grounds of Hofstra University at approximately 2:00pm in order to speak with defendant Commission for Presidential Debates to request that she and other “third party” candidates be allowed to participate in that evening’s Presidential debate. Fifteen minutes after making that request to a representative of defendant Commission, Dr. Stein and Ms. Honkala were approached by local police and the Secret Service, at which time they were handcuffed, taken to a remote detention facility/wharehouse/ especially set up to house “protestors”, where they were forced to remain for over eight hours while tightly handcuffed to metal chairs until such time as the debate between the only two candidates “invited” to participate in the debate was over…

…When Dr. Stein and Ms. Honkala were finally “un-hancuffed” from the metal chairs and released, they were sent out into the cold night in a remote location with no notice to their lawyers or staff of their release…

…Dr. Stein’s comments concerning her arrest, handcuffing, and incarceration are, in essence, the basis for this injunction. Upon her release, Dr. Stein stated: “It was painful but symbolic to be handcuffed for all those hours, because that’s what the Commission on Presidential Debates has essentially done to American democracy.”…

…On October 3, 1988, the League of Women Voters withdrew its sponsorship of the Presidential debates for the very reason articulated by Dr. Stein almost a quarter of a century later. As reason for its withdrawal, the head of the League stated as follows: “The League of Women Voters is withdrawing its sponsorship of the presidential debate scheduled for mid-October because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter…The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American people.”

Unfortunately, we are indeed being hoodwinked, or to be a tad less polite, lied to and sold a bunch of bunkum.  It is beyond understanding how we could have made it through four debates without any discussion of climate change which Dr. Stein would most assuredly have addressed, including the dangers of nuclear energy and the sham that is “clean coal” and it is a sure bet that she would have challenged both Romney and Obama on their stands on the use of drones and insisted on discussing the role of big banks in the foreclosure crisis and on and on.

That Dr. Stein was excluded speaks to the mockery of democracy that our two party system has become.  Yes of course Democrats want to exclude her because they rightly fear she will draw votes from Obama, but right leaning candidates have been excluded by this private commission as well and the real truth is that neither party dares let us lay bare the corporate purse strings that dictate their positions.  George Farrah has detailed the story of the debate commission in his book, “No Debate”.  It’s worth a read.

———-

But the exclusion of legitimate political contenders is only part of the electoral nightmare.  This year we are facing highly orchestrated well funded efforts to disenfranchise huge numbers of voters.  And we are once again facing the counting of our votes by machines that have been proven time and time again to be vulnerable to hackers and manipulation.  The problems with electronic voting machines have been known since the 2000 election and there have been problems with them in every election since and yet our politicians stupifyingly refuse to mandate a verifiable paper trail.

In recent days, mainstream media pundits like NBC’s Chuck Todd have said the idea of electronic voter fraud is a conspiracy theory.  But it isn’t.  As people like Brad Friedman, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman have painstakingly documented, it is entirely possible. And it is very scary that the votes cast on these machines are tallied by private corporations run by strong Republican allies.  That the Romney family has investments in these companies is an arrogance so supreme that it should erase any doubt as to the corruptability of these machines.

Not so many years ago, my grandparents, Ida and Herbert Besser volunteered to work at the polls every election day.  And when the votes were finally cast and the polling places closed, the votes were counted by government officials and citizens, not by machines and corporations.  Yes there was always corruption, but the level of fraud that is possible now would have boggled Ida and Herb’s minds.

—–

Which leads me to this.  Yes I will vote for Barack Obama, but I am tired up the wazoo with being confronted with having to chose between the lesser of two evils.  Yes, Obama has done some excellent things when it comes to women’s rights, an issue dear to my heart.  But make no mistake, nevermind his Nobel Peace Prize to the contrary, this is a war president, not a peace president.  And his lack of leadership on environmental issues can only be explained by looking at the huge political donations that he receives from energy companies.  And there is no doubt that banking and other large corporate contributions were significant factors in shaping his economic policies.  That is not the kind of leadership we need, but there is little doubt that a Romney presidency would be far worse.

Regardless of what happens election day, the American people are the losers.  And before another 4 years go by, we need to bring an end to the horror that Citizens United has brought.  We need to get rid of the antiquated electoral college system and we need to demand a verifiable vote count and we need to reclaim the debates and allow candidates outside the two party system to be heard.

Spirit Trees

October 23, 2012 / / Comments Off on Spirit Trees

In the course of my wanderings over the last few months, I have come across several instances of spirit trees–the dead remains of what once were clearly mighty trees, now vulnerable, bare of their leaves, only the trunks and a few fabulously expressive branches remaining, standing strong, still firmly rooted in Mother Earth.

Spirit Tree at Sunset Crater, AZ

And as I gazed upon these defiant trees, I realized that it was well past time to start populating this blog with words again.

Spirit Trees in Little Seneca Lake, MD

Stay tuned, more to follow.

Where’s The Blog

August 23, 2012 / / Comments Off on Where’s The Blog

Some of you have asked why there have been no posts lately and the answer is that I am working on some other projects, but I will return to this.  Eventually.  Promise.

Self-Inflicted Terrorism

July 20, 2012 / / Comments Off on Self-Inflicted Terrorism

I remember the morning of the Columbine shootings–can you ever really forget… Running down to get my morning paper at the curb, reading the story in horror as I walked back up the drive, blinking back tears as I walked back in the house, not wanting my children to see, taking them to school and walking them in, gripping their hands a little too tightly, other parents walking in with us, doing the same thing.  And now, another young man, a boy really, white (the sex and race of the most empowered in our country), in another Denver suburb, another senseless shooting spree.  But in a way, in an awful way, it does make sense…

In the coming days, as we learn more about the young man who went on a killing spree in a Colorado theater, a lot of questions will be asked about what caused his actions.  But is it really so hard to understand?

Our children now grow up in a world where it is impossible to turn on the television at any minute of the day and not find a show about people solving their problems by killing each other.  They grow up in a world where the military is given free rein to roam our school lunchrooms extolling the virtues of the armed forces.  They are told that we must defend ourselves against ‘the enemy’. They grow up in a world where guns are a god given right but enough food, housing, jobs and healthcare can prove hard to come by.

This young man had no trouble amassing a veritable arsenal,

Holmes was apprehended within minutes of the 12:39 a.m. shooting at his car behind the theater, where police found him in full riot gear and carrying three weapons, including a AR-15 assault rifle, which can hold upwards of 100 rounds, a Remington 12 gauge shot gun, and a .40 Glock handgun. A fourth handgun was found in the vehicle. Agents from the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms are tracing the weapons.

But he had a right to bear arms…and politicians on both sides of the aisle could not even wait 24 hours to proclaim that this would not precipitate a change in our gun laws.

If this had happened in Pakistan or Indonesia or in Afghanistan or Iraq, we would call it terrorism and send in drones and troops and respond in vengeance without a thought of how that perpetuates the cycle. We don’t even blink when even our own citizens become collateral damage in these attacks.

But when an American kid, a boy, a white boy, goes on a shooting spree in the suburbs, we recoil from calling it out for what it is (although I’ve no doubt our narrative about this would be quite different if it was an Hispanic or Black man).  What after all would that say about us and our way of life?  And suffice to say, retaliating by bombing a suburb would not play well in Peoria.

In any given year, more Americans die at the hands (and guns) of other Americans than are killed by any terrorist.

The media is quick to tell us  James Holmes was a “loner” and that this is not an act of terrorism. But as David Sirota writes so eloquently,

In this, we are expected to be sedated by such reassurances, to ignore the ever-growing list of such “lone wolves,”and to reject a much wider definition of terrorism, no matter how much the reality of shooting after shooting after shooting screams at us to accept it.

But with bodies strewn across an Aurora movie theater and a nation clearly terrorized, we must ask: what is terrorism, if it is not a man in a riot mask and bullet-proof vest, armed with tear gas canisters and weapons, meticulously executing a military-style assault on a crowded movie theater?

Indeed, but fighting this very real terrorism requires us to look deep inside and re-examine the truth of the reality we’ve created.  And that I fear we cannot do.

 

The Media’s Failed Look At What Is Happening On The Streets And A Personal Reflection

October 9, 2011 / / Comments Off on The Media’s Failed Look At What Is Happening On The Streets And A Personal Reflection

Occupation for Dummies

There has been no shortage of media confusion in DC this week regarding the OccupyDC and October2011 Stop The Machine actions. I got into a conversation yesterday with a reporter from a local television station who was interviewing people at OccupyDC, she seemed to genuinely want to understand the difference. I pointed out that it seemed like very few members of the Mainstream Media had bothered to check the websites for the two groups which would clarify quite a lot.

Isn’t this sort of like the opposite of the Tea Party, she wondered. I pointed out that these movements represented people who were out of work, had lost their homes, had no health insurance, and wanted an end to  militarism without end and the number of people impacted by those issues is a lot larger than the number of people who identify with the Tea Party.

But the most idiotic media confusion in DC this week has been who was where. It wasn’t so complicated–OccupyDC at McPherson Square, Stop The Machine at Freedom Plaza. Yet in Sunday morning’s Washington Post, with OccupyDC at McPherson for over a week and Stop The Machine in place since Thursday, the caption writer for this photo still got it wrong.

The WaPo caption erroneously reads, "A crowd gathers Thursday at Freedom Plaza for the first day of the OccupyDC rally..."

And the headline–hello? It isn’t the same as the one used online, but, “The common man”? Really? Which century is this? They also apparently didn’t look at the photo which rather clearly shows the common woman.

With this kind of media, no wonder many people are confused about what is happening in the streets.

The best way to understand the movement that is taking root everywhere is to go find out for yourself.  Yes, there is an Occupy near you.

Several people have said to me, oh it is just a bunch of kids.  No, it is not.  And it’s not just a bunch of hippie peaceniks either.  It ranges from toddlers who are there with their parents (there was a little area with toys and crayons at OccupyDC yesterday) to elders with plenty of folks in between.  I talked for a bit with a young man in an army uniform. It was very courageous for him to be there. He had been to Iraq once and was due to ship out again soon, but he said he wasn’t planning to re-deploy, what he had experienced on his first tour had made him realize that militarism was deeply flawed.  He looked sad and wise beyond his years.

And do not underestimate the numbers, it isn’t just a hundred here and a thousand there, it is far, far larger than that.

A crowd shot at Occupy Wall Street--that is A LOT of people

This isn’t about one issue, it is about the American people connecting all the issues and finally saying enough.  There are those who have criticized what is going on for not having a clear statement of purpose or intent.  What they miss is that people everywhere have decided to take back the commons, and that is intention enough.

There is more to say, much more, the time I have spent on the street this last week has been transformative.  I have re-connected with old friends, made new ones and for the first time in a long time felt genuine hope.  Don’t be afraid, come out and join us.

Addenda:  The amount of inaccurate reporting involving Occupy DC and Stop the Machine is becoming epic.  Today the Washington Post reports that OccupyDC may stay in Freedom Plaza past the time time they have a permit.  Sorry, wrong group.  Yahoo News is now calling the pepper-spraying of protesters at the Air and Space Museum on Saturday a riot and ABCNews7 tweeted this morning that at least one person planned to stay past the permit time in Freedom Plaza although the article they linked to actually says a number of people plan to stay.  And that is just today.  The amount of media stupid when it comes to reporting what has transpired over the last week plus in DC is to the point where it is hard to see it as anything but deliberate.

 

Health Insurance–A Tale Of Two States (And A District)

August 21, 2011 / / Comments Off on Health Insurance–A Tale Of Two States (And A District)

Several days ago, I wrote about the ordeal I have been going through trying to move my health insurance from Kentucky to Maryland.  Because I had a health insurance policy with Anthem Blue Cross in Kentucky, the local Blue Cross was obligated to offer me what is called a guarantee issue conversion policy that does not require underwriting (a good thing since I have several pre-existing conditions that would otherwise make it difficult for me to obtain health insurance).

As I reported earlier, the Maryland conversion policy was almost no insurance at all so one of the options I wanted to explore was what kind of policy CareFirst (the Blue Cross company that serves the Washington, DC metro area, including the Virginia and Maryland suburbs) would offer me if I lived in the District instead of in Maryland. I asked CareFirst to send me the information and when it arrived it was a stunner.  We are talking about maybe a 15 mile difference in location and the same company.  But the policies were radically different, which CareFirst attributes to insurance laws which vary by location.

If you live in Maryland, there is a $250 deductible and  for most things, you pay 25%, the plan pays 75% up to a very unrealistic lifetime maximum of $250,000 (most plans have a $1,000,000 maximum or no limit).  There is no cap on out-of-pocket expenses.  Premium for a 55 year old woman? $443.22, less than my Kentucky policy but for a lot less coverage and substantial risk.

But hop on the Metro and move into the District and wowswers–the guaranteed conversion plan there has a $750 deductible, pays 80% instead of 75% and there is a $3500 cap on out of pocket expenses for an individual.  There was nothing that I saw about a lifetime maximum.  Sounds good so far, but there is a catch and it is a big one–the premium.  Are you sitting down? $1448.  Per month.  Aside from CEO’s of health insurance companies, not too many people can afford that.

For comparison’s sake, it is worth comparing these plans to the Federal Pre-existing Condition Pool, which incomprehensibly also varies from state to state.  In Maryland, the premium is as high as $354/month with a $1500 deductible and an out of pocket limit of $1500.

In the District of Columbia, the Federal Pre-existing Condition Pool is a bit more complicated with premiums as high as $436 and,

In addition to your monthly premium, you will pay other costs. In 2011, you will pay a $1,000 to $3,000 deductible, which varies by your plan option, for covered medical benefits (except for preventive services) before the plan starts to pay. A plan option may have a separate drug deductible. After you pay the deductible, you will pay a $25 copayment for doctor visits, $4 to $40 for most prescription drugs, and 20% of the costs of any other covered benefits you get. Your out-of-pocket costs cannot be more than $5,950 per year. These costs may be higher, if you go outside the plan’s network.

The kicker with the federal plans however is that in order to qualify,

  • You must be a citizen or national of the United States or lawfully present in the United States.
  • You must have been uninsured for at least the last six months before you apply.
  • You must have a pre-existing condition or have been denied coverage because of your health condition.

The first and third points seem reasonable, but requiring that you be without insurance for six months is absurd and causes unnecessary financial hardship and risk to public health.  When you have met the other two conditions, you should be immediately eligible.  There is no other country on earth that would require you to go without health insurance before you could qualify for it and that we, the richest country in the world should do so is beyond belief.

Fortunately for me, there is also a Maryland State pool where six months of state residency is required, but there is no requirement that you be uninsured before qualifying.

I am still trying to determine the best option for myself and will write more about that later. But as I was sorting through the possible scenarios, I wanted to point to the total absurdity that insurance plans should vary so drastically in one metropolitan area.  It is well past time for a federal single payer plan that makes health care expenses equitable, regardless of where you live or work or how healthy you are.

And finally, while Blue Cross guarantees you coverage if you move, that does not mean it will be adequate or affordable or even remotely like the coverage you had before you moved.  The result is that for people like me with pre-existing conditions, Blue Cross is effectively making it so you may have to go without coverage for 6 months because you can’t afford $1448 premiums (or if you live in a state like Maryland, have very minimal and inadequate insurance until you have lived here for six months)and then force you into one of the high risk pools.  Just because you moved.  But somehow I don’t think insurance CEO’s or the elected officials they’ve financed are losing sleep about this.

*********

Addenda:  Health insurance for all of us is under siege, whether you have an individual policy, obtain coverage through your company or have Medicare or are uninsured, etc.  Here is an important piece about what is happening to workers at Kaiser Permanente, which ironically is a health insurance provider.  The author compares what is happening there with what is happening at Verizon. She makes the point that we need to stand together, a point that should be true regardless of how you get coverage.  A lot less attention has been paid to those of us in the individual market than those who get coverage via employment or Medicare.  We need solidarity regardless of how we obtain health care coverage.

And addenda last–this story has gotten so absurd that I made it a whole new blog of its very own.  You can follow the continuing saga at Pre-Existing Pundit.

 

Have An Individual Health Insurance Policy And Pre-Existing Conditions And You Want To Move? Good Luck With That.

August 16, 2011 / / One comment

I recently moved from Louisville, KY to the Washington, DC area.  When you move, a certain amount of hassle is to be expected with such things as phone and cable service, getting new license plates, etc.  In the end those tasks all got done.  Moving my health insurance however, not so much.

The following is the letter I am sending to the appropriate elected officials in Kentucky and Maryland as well as both states’ insurance regulatory agencies and Blue Cross Blue Shield as well as health insurance reform advocates.  It documents the infuriating, scary, time-consuming and unconscionable experience I have had trying to move from one state to another without losing adequate health insurance.  When I receive responses, I will post them as well.

Dear _________,

I recently moved from Louisville, Kentucky to the Washington, DC area to better facilitate my work as a political activist and writer.  For a long time, I was afraid to make this move because of the risk of losing my health insurance, an individual policy through Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. Due to several health problems, I was afraid I would not be able to obtain insurance elsewhere.  Yes, there are now high risk pools but the Federal pools require that you be uninsured for six months before you qualify and obviously that would be a substantial risk if you have a major illness or accident during that period.

Then I found out that Blue Cross has an arrangement called an intra-association transfer group conversion which means that the Blue Cross company wherever you live has to offer you an insurance plan that does not require going through underwriting although it may have less benefits and cost more.  Armed with that information, I wanted to find out what coverage might be available to me depending on if I lived in the District or in a suburb in Maryland or Virginia.  Even though I’m a writer with more than passable research skills, I could not get anyone at CareFirst, the Blue Cross company for the DC metro area to give me that information.  The Sales Department wouldn’t talk to me because they only handle policies that go through underwriting and Customer Service said they couldn’t give it to me until I actually transferred my policy.

After multiple conversations and a lot of hold time, I finally called my agent in Louisville, who had always been quite good about answering my questions.  She sent me information about an HMO plan that CareFirst offered in DC that had open enrollment, no underwriting and better benefits and lower cost than the policy I had in Kentucky. I was ecstatic and relieved that I could move without jeopardizing my healthcare or financial well-being. At no point did she tell me that this was only available in DC and not in the surrounding suburbs in Maryland and Virginia or that the plan was not always open to new members.

After finding a house to rent in Rockville, MD, I was finally able to move.  When I transferred my insurance however, I got a major shock.  The policy my Anthem agent had told me about was only available in the District.  In Maryland, the policy offered me cost much more for a lot less coverage.  The terrifying part of the policy is that it has a $250,000 maximum benefit.  If you have a major disease or accident, that would be grossly inadequate. 

While this policy is completely different than my old policy and written by a different company, apparently it does not have to comply with the new healthcare rules on lifetime limits.  Getting a more comprehensive policy from CareFirst  will require underwriting and when I discussed this with a customer service representative at CareFirst, I was told that because of my health, I would be denied.  What I find incredible is that I’ve been repeatedly told that because each Blue Cross is a different company, they don’t have to offer the same coverage as my old Blue Cross company did but they still can get away with offering me a ridiculously low minimum because the policy is considered to be grandfathered, not a new policy.  It is outrageous that they can get away with this.

As I understand it, once I have lived in Maryland for six months, I will qualify for the Maryland state high risk pool as long as I apply for an underwritten policy and am denied or if the policy I’m offered is more expensive than what Maryland offers in the pool which would certainly be the case with the policy that CareFirst has given me. If however I were to have a catastrophic health event before that, once the CareFirst policy was used up, my medical care could bankrupt me.

What I find the most disturbing is that the misleading information that I was given by my Anthem agent has, at least in the short run, substantially raised my health care costs.  Had I known that while CareFirst administers Blue Cross plans in the entire DC area, the plans vary substantially, I would have made sure to take that into account before choosing exactly where to live.

It is appalling that, for people who buy their own insurance on the individual market at great expense (and this impacts women the most since they are less likely to work for companies that offer health insurance), insurance companies can decide whether you can move without jeopardizing your healthcare and financial well-being.  Given my health history, it would not surprise me at all if Anthem deliberately misled me about what would be available to me to get me off their policy.

After finding out that the group conversion policy offered by CareFirst in Maryland was seriously deficient, I spent a great deal of time on the phone trying to find out what my best course of action was.  Even though they would be involve huge cost, the options as I understand it include:

 

  1. Break the lease on the house I am renting and move into the District.  The fly in that ointment is that sometimes the Open Enrollment HMO that CareFirst offers there closes to new enrollment.  CareFirst is sending me information about the group conversion plan they offer in DC so I can compare that to the Maryland policy (information I was not able to get before I moved).  If it is better, I may consider doing this, although the expense would be huge.
  2. Apply for an underwritten policy and if rejected, which I’ve been told will likely happen, apply to the pool after I’ve lived here six months. It is however abhorrent that the simple act of moving effectively forces people into the high risk pool.  There is a lot of talk about the individual mandate that would require people to buy insurance.  Given the way insurance companies are treating people now should make it quite obvious that this is not going to be a good idea.
  3.  Maintain a residence in Kentucky with a second home in Maryland.  Had I know that I would not be given adequate insurance here, this would have been the best option even though it wasn’t really what I wanted to do and would be expensive.  Revisiting that route however would be a substantial hassle and expense at this point and given the double digit increases and continual decrease in coverage that I’ve gotten from Anthem over the years, there is no guarantee that this would be a good idea.
  4. Marry someone with great family health insurance benefits.
  5. Find a job with health care benefits even though I’ve been self-employed for almost 30 years.
  6. Move to another country.

I have not yet determined the best course of action; fully understanding the options takes a lot of time.  In a bizarre side note, when I called the Maryland high risk pool helpline, the woman I spoke to said that she saw that I had just spoken to someone else in her office a little while ago.  When I said that no, I had spoken to someone at CareFirst, she told me the office they worked for answered questions for both.  After asking her a few questions about the Maryland program I asked her something about the CareFirst policy.  She told me she couldn’t answer that while on the Maryland phone but if I called her at her CareFirst extension, then she could answer the question.  Given that CareFirst has de facto made it quite clear that they have no plans to sell me an adequate insurance policy, it would seem to me that there is a major conflict of interest here.

On a personal basis, I am angry and scared.  Because I work for myself and foot my own insurance bill, and because I have health problems should not be an excuse for being totally screwed because I want to move.  This would not happen if we had a single payer health plan.  It is immoral and unconscionable. When Congress was having their epic debate about health care reform, I wrote several times about the lack of attention to the problems faced by those on the individual market.  Despite all of my efforts, I am now mired in the impact of the neglect to address this issue.

I would appreciate any help you can give me in obtaining adequate, affordable insurance.

Sincerely,

Lucinda Marshall

**********

Former health care executive and Gov. Rick Scott (FL)

 

“The advocacy group Physicians for a National Health Program estimates that “private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume one-third (31 percent) of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer would save more than $400 billion per year, enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans.”” http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_97afa329-42f8-5f12-adb0-97fa305c3e4b.html

(Former health care executive) “Gov. Rick Scott, a critic of the federal health care overhaul, is paying less than $400 a year for health insurance for himself and his wife.”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/11/1005803/-Rick-Scott-Getting-Govt-Provided-Health-Insurance-For-Less-Than-$400-Per-Year

 

 

 

 

 

Ode To The Rotary Phone (Written While On Hold Due To The Usual Unusually High Call Volume)

July 6, 2011 / / Comments Off on Ode To The Rotary Phone (Written While On Hold Due To The Usual Unusually High Call Volume)

Relocating after living in the same place for 24 years is, to say the least, a major upheaval.  The packing and unpacking of a life is in parts exciting, sad, exhausting and surprising (“I was wondering where those snow boots had gone to”, uttered just this evening when I found them in a box labeled “wicker”).  I expected all this and I knew that the thing that was going to make me the most crazy was dealing with connecting new utilities and getting new phone and cable service.

That part of the process has surpassed my worst expectations. By my count, I have spent about 20 hours waiting and holding. Plenty of time to meditate on the the meaning of customer service and to write a blog about it (sweet revenge she said cradling the phone to her ear while she’s on hold).

As I sit here listening to muzak that should be considered a public nuisance, it occurs to me that the invention of the touchtone phone has had a significantly negative impact on our lives.  The beauty of the dial phone was that there was no way for a recording to tell you to dial one for more options, someone actually had to talk to you and ask you what you wanted.  And what with the cost of overseas calls back then, there was no chance of that person being at a call center in Bangalore.  No one asked for the last four digits of your “social” or threw trick questions at you like where you banked 10 years ago (information that is all too available in public records but which most of us have long since all but forgotten).

While I’m still on hold, I want to give a couple of special shoutouts.  First, kudos to the local sanitation department that actually had a “press one to speak to someone” option.  When I pressed the one button, someone actually took the call.  I almost hung up and did it again just to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

The worst service award goes to Verizon which gave me an 8 hour window for a service call and then showed up an hour after that.  All this to connect an old fashioned landline (not one of these new fangled digital phones that won’t survive an extended power outage yet is somehow supposed to be a huge improvement).  And at that, they screwed up and I had a phone that I could get calls on (I know this because it had not dawned on me to put the number on the Do Not Call list in advance and I got inundated with marketing calls within an hour of service being established.  But if I wanted to make a call?  Nope.  They had to come back the following day for that.

Second prize goes to Comcast.  After scheduling internet and cable installation, I realized I’d have to change the appointment day.  The phone number on the confirm letter didn’t work (I couldn’t make that up if I tried) so I decided to do it via the Live Chat option online.  Here is how the conversation should have gone:

Comcast:  How can we help you Ms. Marshall?
Me:  I’d like to change my service appointment.
Comcast:  Sure when would be a more convenient time?
Me:  Wednesday at 11.
Comcast:  Sure, no problem, see you then.

Suffice to say, my 45 minute conversation with Tricee didn’t quite go like that.  On the plus side, because it was online, I have the whole fricking transcript in all its absurdity which can be read below, but here is one of Tricee’s best utterances to peak your interest:

Tricee: I understand that you want to reschedule your service installation, Lucinda. No worries. As your Comcast service representative, I want you to know that issue resolution and your satisfaction are my top priorities for today. By the end or this chat we will be able to address your concern properly. Together, we can work this out, Lucinda.

You have to love her Rosie the Riveter-esque approach. Like Verizon, Comcast also missed their service window.  For this, the guy on the phone when I called to find out where the heck they were told me I would get free HBO for 3 months, but when the service tech hooked it up, no HBO.  I called again and was told there was no record of my being promised the HBO and that they never offered that.  But the next week I got a bill and apparently it was part of the package I got in the first place and now I’m getting HBO. Some deal offering me what I’d already paid for and then denying that they offered it.  They also told me they’d give me a router.  Yeah.  No.  Called about that and was told I’d have to pay for shipping and it would take a few weeks.  File that in the Another Hour On Hold Department.

Finally, there is a special place in hell for cell phone companies with their inexcusable return policies and 2-year contracts and the latest obscenity, tiered data plans (the best part of this is that phones can use up your data allowance without you knowing it, and you have no way to control it).  Before embarking on this move, I went to Verizon Wireless and replaced my older and sometimes erratic Blackberry with a new one, which of course got me stuck in another 2-year contract. All was well until 20 days later (6 days after the window to return it ran out) when it quit functioning and the battery heated up.  So I headed for the nearest Verizon store where I had to wait half an hour before anyone could help me (did I mention there wasn’t enough seating for all the people who were waiting?).

First they told me I could either upgrade or wait for a replacement via mail.  At that point I asked for a manager and told him I wasn’t upgrading a 20 day old phone and leaving me without a working cell phone until a new one arrived was not okay.  I think by that point I was looking a bit wild eyed, possibly even foaming at the mouth and the manager took the point and swapped it out.  Which is what should have happened at least 20 minutes sooner.  All told another hour and a half at Verizon.

I spent another hour getting the settings on Son of Blackberry tweaked and then last night apparently its bad genetic makeup kicked in and it started acting like its predecessor. This morning I spent yet another hour and a half at Verizon and am now learning to use an IPhone.

To their credit, the store personnel did the right thing, the manager told me he would waive the re-stocking fee (for a phone that mal-functioned after a week?  Really?) . But it shouldn’t be that complicated, and having to stand at a counter with numerous other customers where everyone is trying to talk louder than the next guy to be heard for a long period of time isn’t customer service, it is deliberately designed to wear customers down which is the same rationale behind press 27 numbers to be put on hold to speak to someone who speaks an indecipherable version of English who tells you that a solution to whatever it is you called about if you can even remember why you called by that time will cost you an arm and a leg or there is no solution and you are shit out of luck but is there anything else they can help you with and would you like to hear about today’s special and take a short survey.

Wait, what happened to the muzak?  They disconnected me?? I miss my rotary phone.

———-

Transcript of my Comcast Live Chat (redacting and emphasis mine):

user Lucinda has entered room

Lucinda: I want to change my installation appointment but your phone number doesn’t work.  Please call me Wednesday to see if we can schedule an appt. for this Friday instead of next Monday.

analyst Tricee has entered room

Tricee: Hello Lucinda, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Tricee. Please give me one moment to review your information.
Tricee: I understand how frustrating this might be, I apologize for the inconvenience. Rest assured I will do everything within my means to address your concern today, Lucinda.
Tricee:  How are you doing today, Lucinda?
Lucinda:  I just want to change my appointment time
Tricee:  I understand.
Tricee:  May I know for what service will be installed and on what date was it scheduled.
Lucinda: internet and cable on June 20
Tricee:  Thank you.
Tricee: I understand that you want to reschedule your service installation, Lucinda. No worries. As your Comcast service representative, I want you to know that issue resolution and your satisfaction are my top priorities for today. By the end or this chat we will be able to address your concern properly. Together, we can work this out, Lucinda.
Lucinda: Also can you give me a real phone number, 800-266-2278 keeps saying the call can’t be connected.
Tricee: Our Comcast hotline is 1-800 XFINITY – 1-800-934-6489, Lucinda.
Lucinda: Can you reschedule it for June 17?
Lucinda: Thank you for the phone number.
Tricee: We will check for the schedule, Lucinda.
Tricee: Thank you for providing your account information. Would you please verify the information I received is correct?  First name Lucinda  Last name Marshall  Phone Number XXXXXXXXXX (for the obvious reasons redacted by me)
Tricee: Your’e welcome.
Lucinda: correct
Tricee: Thank you.
Tricee: For security purposes, may I have the account holders name and the account number.
Lucinda: Lucinda Marshall, acct. ends in XXXX, I have no idea what the rest of it is, it isn’t in the email they sent me, this is for new service.
Tricee: Thank you. It’s alright.
Tricee: May I have your complete service address.
Lucinda: (Removed to protect my privacy)
Tricee: Thank you.
Tricee: I sincerely appreciate your effort for providing me with all the necessary information that I need, Lucinda. Please allow me 1-2 minutes to verify your account.
Tricee: Lucinda , while waiting, I’d also like to tell you that music lovers and enthusiasts can now enjoy original shows, interviews, music videos organized by genre, 16 video and forty six audio channels, create customized playlists and music channels. To access all these simply log-on to www.comcast.net/music. 
Lucinda: I am not interested in any sales pitches, just changing my appt. which should not be this complicated.
Lucinda: Or take this long.
Tricee: I understand, Lucinda.
Tricee: Thank you for patiently waiting, Lucinda. I have successfully pulled-up your account.
Tricee: Let me check if June 17, 2011 is available.
Lucinda: Thank you.
Tricee: Your’e welcome.
Lucinda: So is it available? (A ridiculously long pause happened here)
Lucinda: Hello?
Tricee: Sorry for the delay, Lucinda.
Tricee: I am still waiting for the dates to load. (It took everything I had not to ask if he, she or it was using Comcast internet)
Tricee: Great!
Tricee: All is set, Lucinda.
Lucinda:  Can they come in the morning?
Tricee: Your installation date is now on June 17, 2011.
Tricee:  Yes, that’s 8:00 – 11:00 AM.
Lucinda: Excellent, thank you very much, will you send me a confirmation email please.
Tricee: Before we finish up, Lucinda, I want to remind you that we have rescheduled your installation date. I have left a note on your account for the next representative that will assist you.
Tricee:  You are most welcome, Lucinda.
Tricee: By the way, Lucinda, can you do me a little favor? At the end of this chat there will be a short survey. I would appreciate it if you would spare a moment to complete it so we can continue to improve the service we provide you.
Lucinda: Please send me a confirmation email.
Tricee: Will do, Lucinda.
Tricee:I’m glad I was able to help you. Do you have any other questions or concerns I can help you with today, Lucinda? I will be more than happy to assist you further.
Lucinda: Sorry, this has taken too long, I have to go to bed.
Tricee: It’s alright, Lucinda.
Lucinda: Goodnight.
Tricee: Lucincda  , (sic) it is with gratitude to have you as my customer on this chat and I appreciate the opportunity you’ve given us today to resolve your issue. Thank you for choosing Comcast as your service provider and have a great day! Comcast appreciates your business and values you as a customer. Our goal is to provide you with excellent service. If you need further assistance, you can chat with one of our Customer Support Specialists 24 hour a day, 7 days a week at http://www.comcastsupport.com/chat.
Tricee: Please click the `Exit chat` button to properly close the chat and take the survey. Have a great day! Take care, Lucinda!

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