The Very Rich Hours of the Lambrights

In yet another sign that Kaylee is growing up, we removed her basket swing from the swing set today.  She does OK as long as she remembers to hold on to the ropes.

I just found out that one person who read my post on health care reform felt that the author (me) was “obviously mentally imbalanced”.  While the person who passed this on to me was angry about it, I mostly find it amusing.

It also makes me curious, however.  I think that we need more discussion (and less yelling) about this whole thing.  So I would really like to know what, exactly, makes him think I’m imbalanced.  Hell, I didn’t even discuss, let alone advocate, any of the proposals.  All I did was spell out why I think we have a problem.

So I would ask anyone who strongly disagrees with this post to tell me why.  Do you disagree with the studies and articles I cited?  If you sincerely believe that all those Harvard studies are just plain wrong, your position becomes more understandable.  Doesn’t mean I agree with you but understanding the sides of a debate is the first step towards having a rational, mature conversation.

So let’s hear it!  You can comment by clicking where it says Comments just under the title of this post, next to the date.

For weeks now, I’ve been trying to get my head around the whole health care mess so that I could write a long, comprehensive, well-thought-out post.  I figure that would be the best way for me to contribute to the process as our democracy sorts this out.  Problem is, it’s complicated.  And the situation is changing rapidly.  So I’m just going to start throwing out short posts on different bits and pieces of the issue.  After awhile, my position will emerge.

I guess the most the fundamental question is why we are going through this in the first place?  Why does the President want to push this at a time when we already have two wars (three if you count the war on terror outside of Afghanistan) and a nasty recession on our plate?  I cannot speak for the President.  But I can tell you why I think we need to tackle this issue now.

1)  People are going bankrupt in the US due to the cost of health care.  And I’m not just talking about poor people without insurance or people who made bad choices with their health and/or personal finances.  I’m talking about middle and upper class people who had health insurance and did everything you’re supposed to do but got nailed by a chronic health problem and were abandoned by their insurance company:

• February 03, 2005 – The journal Health Affairs reports that Harvard researchers found that half of all personal bankruptcies declared in 2001 were caused by illness and medical bills.  “Surprisingly, most of those bankrupted by illness had health insurance. More than three-quarters were insured at the start of the bankrupting illness. However, 38 percent had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy.  Most of the medical bankruptcy filers were middle class; 56 percent owned a home and the same number had attended college. In many cases, illness forced breadwinners to take time off from work — losing income and job-based health insurance precisely when families needed it most.”
• June 04, 2009 — BusinessWeek reports on a study in which Harvard and Univerisity of Ohio researchers found that 62% of all personal bankruptcies declared in 2007 were caused by health problems.  “Medical problems caused 62% of all personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. in 2007, according to a study by Harvard researchers. And in a finding that surprised even the researchers, 78% of those filers had medical insurance at the start of their illness, including 60.3% who had private coverage, not Medicare or Medicaid.”

2)  The cost of employee health insurance in the US is getting harder to bear, especially for small businesses:

• January 28, 2009 — CNN and Fortune report that small businesses are struggling to provide employee health plans, particularly in a weak economy when they cannot pass the cost on to consumers while staying competitive.  “Premiums on group policies have soared by as much as 30%, on top of double-digit increases in each of the past five years. Coverage is shrinking. Thanks to insurer consolidation, policy choices are more limited than ever. And in a seller’s market for insurance, small business owners have little room to negotiate prices or terms.”
• March 04, 2009 — The Council on Foreign Relations reports that health care costs in the US are undermining the competitiveness of US businesses in the world marketplace.  “Factoring in costs borne by the government, the private sector, and individuals, the United States spends over $1.9 trillion annually on healthcare expenses, more than any other industrialized country. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical School estimate the United States spends 44 percent more per capita than Switzerland, the country with the second highest expenditures, and 134 percent more than the median for member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). These costs prompt fears that an increasing number of U.S. businesses will outsource jobs overseas or offshore business operations completely. U.S. economic woes have heightened the burden of healthcare costs both on individuals and businesses.”
• February 11, 2005 — General Motors CEO Richard Wagoner tells the Economic Club of Chicago that “Failing to address the health care crisis would be the worst kind of procrastination, the kind that places our children and our grandchildren at risk and threatens the health and global competitiveness of our nation’s economy.”

3) The insurance company is not your friend and cannot be trusted.  If this last point seems more emotional and less impartial than the others, that’s because it is.  Right around my first birthday (1968), my dad was diagnosed (at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester) with Multiple Sclerosis.  The disease moved fast; by my eighth birthday, he was paralyzed from the waist down and had lost the use of his right hand.  That year, 1975, he left the workforce and lost his health insurance benefit.  The plan allowed him to maintain his coverage but he had to assume the full cost of the premiums.

I guess the plan’s rules didn’t allow them to kick him out because of his disease.  There was nothing, however, to keep the insurance company from increasing the premium.  Which they did.  Every six months.  After a long, expensive progression of premium hikes, my folks had to give in and “voluntarily” withdraw from the plan.  Of course, getting another policy somewhere else was out of the question due to the now pre-existing condition.  For the last 10 or 12 years of Dad’s life, he was without any health insurance at all.  I remember very clearly heart-breaking discussions of what we could do should Dad need hospital care.  I was just getting old enough to understand what was happening and the possibilities were scary.  In the end, Dad never needed to go to the hospital and he quietly passed away in 1994.  We avoided financial armageddon.

The free market is supposed to use competition to get services to the most people for the lowest cost.  Insurance works by spreading risk out amongst as many people as possible to minimize it (risk) for everyone.  Neither of these principles is working in the American health insurance industry and something needs to change.  That’s why I think we can’t afford to do nothing.  Of course, that raises the question of what, exactly, we should do.  That’s another post.

Addendum:  Although I stand by my opinion of insurance companies, I have to say that I have known individual insurance agents who were good, honorable people.  I think the evil happens higher up at the corporate office.

I haven’t posted anything since July 11.  And that post was just a quickie that I wrote off the top of my head.  It has been a busy summer and I cannot believe that it’s almost over.  Here’s a few highlights:

In June, we went down to Missouri to visit my Mom for a few days.  It was a great visit, marred only by the 100 degree, 99% humidity weather.  The girls loved seeing “Grandma Lambright”, who was a bit of a mystery to them, in the flesh.  Rayna still is talking about wanting to go see Grandma Lambright again.  Other highlights of the visit included seeing my old friends Vince and Droid, along with their families, and a trip to see my Dad’s resting place in St. Joe.  The swans and fish were out in force at the cemetery’s pool and the girls had a wonderful time tossing bits of bread into the water to be devoured.

Shortly after we returned from Missouri, Nicole and I decided it was time for Rayna to make the transition to a full-sized bed.  She did really well in the hotel bed on the trip and there didn’t seem any reason to wait.  So, we went to the furniture store and got her a new bed.  We didn’t get a headboard; the side of her toddler bed was designed to function as a headboard when the child moves to a bigger bed.  We then went to Wal-Mart and let her pick her own bedding.  It was a close race and I thought for a minute that she was going to opt for Micky Mouse; in the end, however, it was the Princess gear that got the nod.  Rayna loves her big bed; even now she occasionally thanks me for putting it together.

Kaylee got a little grumpy at all this.  When it dawned on us that she was jealous, we went ahead and converted her crib to a toddler bed, which immediately brightened her mood.  She loves getting in and out of bed on her own. She can’t open the door yet but she’s trying and it’s just a matter of time.  It’s hard to believe how she’s grown.

Speaking of Kaylee, she continues to come into her own.  All her teeth seem to be in, save the four eyeteeth which still give her fits sometimes.  Her vocabulary has exploded this summer and it seems like she’s coming up with new words every day.  She really gets a kick out of saying Rayna’s name and uses it every chance she gets.  Some of her other favorites are “juice”, “Elmo”, and “naked”, which gets used a lot at bathtime.

This year marked Nicole and my fourth wedding anniversary, which doesn’t seem possible.  The time has really flown.  We treated ourselves to a day trip to the Twin Cities while the girls stayed home with a babysitter.  Nothing fancy, just a little shopping and lunch.  It’s just nice to get away by ourselves occasionally.

Speaking of Elmo, we all went to Sesame Street Live last weekend and had a great time.  Kaylee had never been to anything like this and she really likes Elmo so she spent the whole show entranced.  It was fun watching her try to figure out cotton candy.  First she tried chewing it, which didn’t really work.  Licking like a sucker was even less successful.  Finally, she figured out how to just let it dissolve in her mouth.  We got her an Elmo pendent which is up in her room.

We have a massive backlog of photos, which I need to organize, tag, and get loaded to our page on flickr.  I posted a bunch yesterday (including Christmas 2008) and will continue to work on that in the coming days.  Our photostream isn’t in strict chronological order anymore, which offends my sense of the linear, but it’s more important to get stuff up.  I’ll post here when the particularly choice bits go up.

Interesting article in the NY Times about the “new” GM.  The “new” corporation is emerging from bankruptcy and everyone is excited about the direction the giant automaker is going.  I have to say that I’m skeptical and a bit troubled by this whole thing.  GM was allowed to sell all it’s valuable assets to a “new” GM while it’s old liabilities stayed with the “old” GM that that will continue to go through bankruptcy.  Creditors of the “old” GM will likely get very little, while those of the “new” GM will probably do alright.  Since when is this how it works?  We didn’t force the banks to go through this kind of process; we just shoveled obscene amounts of taxpayer money at them so they could keep up their old, criminal tricks.

Not that this new approach is much better.  Pardon me for saying that it doesn’t take a Harvard MBA to resurrect a corporation that is allowed to cherry-pick the assets and liabilities it keeps.  Wish someone would let me do that.  I’ll keep the car loan and the mortgage, please.  You can take the credit card debt.

What really troubles me is that the liabilities that the “new” GM is shedding include a ton of lawsuits and settlements from consumers who got hurt in defective GM cars.  Looks like they are just going to lose.  That is seriously wrong.

Despite China’s poor human rights record and authoritarian government, US companies have fallen all over each other to do business with the Chinese.  The US government, under both Democrats and Republicans have encouraged this business on the grounds that prolonged exposure to Western goods and markets will undermine the authoritarian regime by showing the Chinese people the example of Western freedoms and democracy.  When I read news stories like this one, I have a hard time seeing how this plan will ever work. 

PC makers voluntarily supply Web filter in China

I will say right up front that I don’t know who actually won the election in Iran.  And I’m not sure anyone else does either.  In the aftermath of the election, the protesters have been out in force and the government has been cracking down harshly.  People all over the world have rightly condemned this brutality.

But some have gone further, concluding that the election was stolen and calling for sanctions against Iran.  So far, US official policy has not gone this far; President Obama is taking a “wait and see” approach.  And he is taking some heat for it.

CNN.com had a good article today giving background information on the situation, including the evidence that some say proves the election was rigged.  Politico.com has an equally good article presenting the viewpoint that, despite the deplorable crackdown, President Ahmadinejad could well have won fair and square.  If true, the protesters would have to be seen in a different light; rather than being on the side of justice, they would, in fact, be attempting to overthrow the results of a legitimate election.

That’s why I agree with President Obama’s wait and see attitude.  And why I chose not to tint my Twitter avatar green.

#27 from the 23 More Things on a Stick program is Twitter.  As you may have read a few days ago, I am on Twitter.  Just follow donovanlambrigh and you too can follow me as I wander about in the great cow pasture of life.  Someone recently asked me why I left off the T at the end of my name.  That would be because Twitter restricts user names to 15 characters.

     stupid twitter… can’t scale…  mutter mutter….

OK, I’m better now.  The 23 More Things page for this thing has a lot of information about Twitter so I’m going to assume that you already know what it is.  I use Twitter mostly at work.  At home, I don’t spend so much time sitting in front of my computer and thus can’t always write up the details of my life.  I can also use my smartphone to post and I do that from time to time but my poor, pre-Internet generation thumbs just aren’t strong enough to do all that typing.  I use the service to post what I’m doing and tasks that have been completed as a way to let the folks in the office know what I’m up to.

Here’s a few things I do to make Twitter more useful:

• Use it to update other webtools.  All my tweets, for example, also become status updates on my Facebook page.  Facebook provided the functionality to set this up; once in place, it just happens with no extra effort on my part.  Many Web 2.0 websites offer similar functionality; you can also get many scripts via Twitter that do the same thing for popular websites.
• Bypass the Twitter page.  If you start using Twitter, you will quickly learn that using the webpage to post and read is pretty lame.  There are many, many tools available to let you work with Twitter.  Personally, I use Twirl on my computer.  For my Windows Mobile smartphone, I use Pocketwit.
• Tweet to let people know about blog posts.  Whenever I update a blog, I mention it on Twitter and post the URL.  This is a little controversial; many in the Twitter community feel that this kind of self-promotion is unethical or at least impolite.  I don’t understand that argument.  It’s OK to let you know what music I happen to be listening to at a given moment but it’s uncool to say that I just did a blog post on the President’s speech or a project at work?  Really?
• When tweeting a URL, shorten it with one of the many URL shorteners on the web, such as TinyURL.  With only 140 characters, every single one counts.  Or better yet, use Twirl, which has this functionality built in.

Have fun tweeting!

I joined the 23 Things on a Stick Ning.  What’s a Ning?  Good Question.  Ning is a platform for creating personal online social networks.  Think of it as your own private Facebook.  To create your own network, you just go to the Ning website, register, and use the tools they provide to set things up.  Ning provides hosting and has free versions that allow you to get started at no cost.  Most Ning users set up social networks around a particular topic or community that wants an easy, no-cost way to enable communication between members.

So, I’m on the 23 Things on a Stick Ning.  As you might expect, it’s full of library folks sharing information.  It’s not all about 23 Things or Web 2.0.  There’s people discussing library careers, books read, and other interesting topics.  I’ve posted some information about myself and connected up with a few friends.  I don’t know if it will replace my Facebook account, but it’s a fun place to go and communicate with people interested in the 23 Things program.

A couple more thoughts before I move on to the next thing.  I use ScribeFire to post to this blog.  It’s a free add on for Firefox that really makes the posting process quicker. Once it’s setup, I just hit a button in the browser to call up a text box where I type the post.  It provides all the standard formatting tools and allows me to use WordPress-specific functions.  It’s not specific to WordPress, though.  If you’re a Firefox user, I recommend it highly.

I’ve implemented Outbrain to let readers rate the blog posts.  You’ll see that each post now has some little stars at the bottom.  Just click the stars to show what you think.  One star means the post was boring; five means you found it excellent.  I’m really curious to see if this feature gets used.  It’s free and supports itself by adding some links to (presumably) related websites who are no doubt paying for the service.  I’m not wild about ads on my blog but these are pretty unobtrusive and the company does need to stay in business.