Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

People are weird.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

T R E 4 5 O N

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

We still have time to mess this up!

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Delay, Deny, Defend

Delay, Deny, Defend

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Monday, December 16 has loomed large on my personal calendar for a while now because that’s when I was scheduled to get a post chemo/radiation scan to see how effective my treatments have been. I had follow-up appointments with a couple of docs to discuss the results.

Got a call a short while ago from someone at the doctor’s office that issued the imaging referral to let me know that the facility hasn’t received authorization for the scan yet, so they had to push it back to 12/31.

I don’t know what your New Year’s Eve plans are, but this is exactly how I’d hoped to spend the last day of this wretched fucking year: fasting before a scan that will let me know whether I should bother buying green bananas next time I’m at the grocery store or stick to fully ripe bunches since I’m likely to croak before the green ones are edible.

But who am I fucking kidding? My shitty, expensive health plan will probably find a way to kick the appointment into 2025 so a new annual $9K+ deductible will be in force again. I mean, that’s cash money that could form an infinitesimally small fraction of an executive bonus, so I’m sure they’ll at least try.

Shooting the people who are responsible for setting up these endless goddamn hoops for sick people to jump through prior to receiving clearly necessary medical care isn’t the solution. I know that. But boy do I understand where all the “fuck that motherfucker” energy came from when the UHC CEO got murdered in broad daylight. He was a cog in an evil fucking machine.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

189Comments

  1. 1.

    PaulWartenberg

    the political and media elites still don’t get it.

    they’re worried this is going to be some sort of “class war” uprising when the problem has been the rich waging that class war for the past 50 years and winning.

  2. 2.

    Steve LaBonne

    My wife’s 34 yo daughter in law is in remission from colon cancer, in a position where surgery would mean a permanent colostomy. Luckily radiation and chemo knocked it back. But the doctors want her to have a PET scan to make sure all the cancer cells really are gone. The insurance (she’s a Federal employee- NASA Lewis) has repeatedly refused to approve it because she’s “too young” to need it. WTF.

  3. 3.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Apparently many of the UHC guy’s colleagues talked about how wonderful he was. I don’t know if they specifically called him “kind,” but it wouldn’t surprise me. Some of my neighbors are kind. They’d help you if they could. And yet they voted for Trump. How do I reconcile these personally nice moments with the evil things they do or enable? I’m not quite sure how to think or speak about this contrast.

  5. 5.

    Jackie

    the facility hasn’t received authorization for the scan yet

    Isn’t your doctor responsible for getting the authorization to the facility? Like calling your insurance company and raising hell?

  6. 6.

    sab

    Yes. Shoot them all.

    I am reading the alleged shooter’s book list and I wish we had read it before husband’s back surgery that almost killed him.

    I am feeling a bit stabby myself.

    My dad was a pathologist. He admired surgeons a lot but strongly recommended against any surgery.

  7. 7.

    Suzanne

    Ugh, Betty, I’m so sorry.

    Failed systems will result in outcomes that our social betters won’t like. That’s not a threat, it’s not a hope, it’s a certainty. It’s a statement of fact.

  10. 10.

    ArchTeryx

    @Steve LaBonne: I had that problem too with my grad school junk insurance from 2005-2008, way before the ACA was even a glimmer in Obama’s eye. I had to get constant colonoscopies and they didn’t want to pay for them, because I was too young. However, my doc was experienced at dealing with these people, and knew exactly what threats to issue if they didn’t cover them. They eventually acceded, but I paid a steep price in the interim.

    Cleveland Clinic told me up front I had to pay my co-insurance before they’d schedule the surgery to save my life, but that’s an entirely different story.

    “Kill all the health insurance CEOs” may not be a solution, but I wouldn’t be sorry if it happened. They need to be afraid. They need to be very afraid. The lack of fear on the part of the rich is part of why we’re sitting on the edge of fascism.

  12. 12.

    raven

    I’ve had two appointments for Jan 2 and the Dawgs don’t kick off until 8:45 New Years night! No than ks.

  14. 14.

    ArchTeryx

    @Steve LaBonne: If it was not for the help of friends at the time, and Medicaid much later, I would be dead right now. Believe me, I was quietly celebrating when that CEO got bumped off. I don’t care if it was a rich techbro that did it. He’s nobody’s hero, but he did the country a solid.

    They aren’t the only villains, though. The Republican congress in 2017 damn near took away my access to healthcare, the healthcare that was sustaining my life. Watching them throw a kegger on the House floor celebrating millions of upcoming preventable deaths – essentially, mass murder – is an image that will be FOREVER burned into my head.

    The only good thing is that a LOT of the ones disgracing the House floor in 2017 were voted out in 2018. Their mass murder party did not go down well with the voters in the midterms, and that footage popped up again and again in attack ads

    I will never stop mentioning that. These people are absolutely evil, and that was proof positive of how evil.

  16. 16.

    Motivated Seller

    My post-election analysis says “fuck that motherfucker” energy is directly correlated to the “burn-it-down” vote.

  18. 18.

    ArchTeryx

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: And this CEO dude was a family man, even as he murdered tens of thousands of people with the stroke of a pen or via corporate spreadsheets. “Murder by Spreadsheet” was a big slogan back before the ACA passed.

  20. 20.

    Leto

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Murdered Insurance CEO Had Deployed an AI to Automatically Deny Benefits for Sick People

    Just over a year before United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered this week in Midtown Manhattan, a lawsuit filed against the insurance giant he helmed revealed just how draconian its claims-denying process had become.

    Last November, the estates of two former UHC patients filed suit in Minnesota alleging that the insurer used an AI algorithm to deny and override claims to elderly patients that had been approved by their doctors.

    The algorithm in question, known as nH Predict, allegedly had a 90 percent error rate — and according to the families of the two deceased men who filed the suit, UHC knew it.

    Yeah, “kind.” We can “tsk, tsk” this all we want, but the 1% are creating the conditions for this to become more common. Ofc they could fix this by altering their behavior, but I’m sure they’ll simply get more security, like that Sauron home security system. They’re allowed to murder us every day, and we pay them for that luxury.

  23. 23.

    Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    As a yoot I was out walking one morning.  The day had started out warm and accelerated quickly from there, and it was getting to me.

    I passed a barbershop as the barber was opening up for the day.  He called out to me, “are you OK, kid?” (I guess I looked overheated) — then suggested I come on in, sit for a little, and have a glass of water, which I did, and we chatted briefly.

    When I got up to continue on, I thanked him for his kindness, and he smiled back at me.  “You be careful out there,” he said, “there’s a lot of n*****s around this area.”

    What do you do with something like that?

  25. 25.

    Chris

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I’m sure he was perfectly kind in the day-to-day human interactions he had with the people at his workplace.

    The manager of the gift shop I was working at nine years ago was a perfectly nice old lady.  The Boss Hogg figure who owned the shop, most of the street, half of the nearby island, and various buildings all over town, was also a perfectly likable character the couple times I interacted with him.  They still refused to offer their employees any health insurance coverage, and it still got one of my fellow employees killed.  Even though they could have covered all of our monthly payments out of a couple days’ worth of sales, and still had twenty-eight days of profit rolling in.

  26. 26.

    hueyplong

    Objectively, I’m not sure we can say one way or the other whether killing insurance executives will “work.”  It’s logical to think a second killing is required in order to test the theory under circumstances that really focus the minds of decision makers.

  27. 27.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I guess what I don’t understand is how people divide themselves like that. Is the kind part fake? Does it come from some other part of the self?

  28. 28.

    Jeannie Hill

    Betty C, I have followed you from your days at Rump roast, etc. I never comment; only read. My  background is healthcare/insurance. Please consider phone calls/emails to all parties involved. Your Oncologist, PCP, Insurance provider, State Insurance Commissioner, and CC all of these entities for response. Nobody gets to pretend they were not aware. State your course of treatment and the fact that your scan is standard protocol. I suggest that your complaint be equal health and financial burden.

    Best,

    jhill

  33. 33.

    sentient ai from the future

    @Leto: this was always going to be the play for AI, because the sole difference between AI and regular ol algorithms and code is that the former is not debuggable without the entire training corpus. It’s entire function is to obscure the logic of a decision, and the places that an obscured rationale are most valuable is in denying i surance claims.

    Obscuring legal liability is the entire purpose of AI from the corporate perspective. Cause further delay, so that you profit more on sorting out the liability.

  34. 34.

    Bupalos

    Yeah, as per usual folks are starting to do the “he’s no angel” thing on the avenging angel, and of course it’s all true. Almost seems to be a case where extreme privilege and back pain soaked his brain to where he just thinks he gets to decide who deserves what.

    Also, this evaluation of the shooter is almost completely beside the point. As a massive cog in an inhuman system that ruins thousands and thousands of lives for fun profit, that CEO pretty well deserved the ultimate penalty. Only a lawless asshole would deliver that penalty, and we can’t have lawless assholes running around deciding these cases. But I don’t think anyone really needs to be shy about the reality that the guy that got shot was one of the functionally worst people on planet earth. There are only a handful more deserving of death, and apart from retribution this terrorism has a realistic chance of trimming some of the most visible excesses of the inhuman system.

    also people need to stop conflating for profit health insurance with “the healthcare industry.”

  35. 35.

    Chris

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: To quote Robert B. Parker’s Spenser, Hitler liked dogs. (Point being that he was still, well, Hitler.)

    That quote weirdly took on a whole new meaning for me in the last decade, once people started pointing out that Trump didn’t have a dog, and not only that, but was clearly incapable of caring for or forming an emotional connection with another living creature at even the level required to be a normal pet owner, let alone a normal husband or father or friend or otherwise functioning human being.

    It’s hard to express what that means.  It isn’t that Trump is worse than Hitler – twelve million dead people in the concentration camps, before you even get to all the other dead, makes a pretty compelling reminder that (so far) he doesn’t even come close.

    And yet it feels meaningful somehow that, even as pathetic and meaningless a metric as “Hitler was nice to his dog” was, to the point that it’s been a punchline for most of a century – Trump isn’t even capable of that much.  It’s not just that his redeeming qualities are so meager they can’t possibly make up for his bad traits, it’s that he literally has no redeeming qualities, however small.

  37. 37.

    Percysowner

     

    I hear you. I’m in a similar, but much better situation. Slightly before Thanksgiving I got diarrhea that just wouldn’t clear up. So my PCP ran all the tests for bacterial reasons, viral reasons and a c diff, a particularly bad bacteria. All came back negative. His next step was to call for an emergency colonoscopy including a biopsy, just in case and to check for a form of colitis. The Gastroenterologist called and said they wanted to do it within 2 weeks, since it’s an emergency. The good part is I’m on traditional Medicare with gap coverage,so there is absolutely no problem being covered. The bad part is the only day they could schedule it was Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas, I guess?

    The worst part is purely psychological. December has been a HORRIBLE month for me throughout my life. My mom died on Christmas day when I was 11. My dad died 2 weeks before Christmas 15 years later. My first cat that I had as an adult died between Christmas and New Years. In the month of December near Christmas I have had at various times a lacerated cornea, pneumonia, a ruptured appendix, my ex deciding to disappear one Christmas day (he was seeing another woman, which I had NO CLUE about). I was perfectly fine with the colonoscopy when my doctor ordered it, I’ve had them every 5 years since I was 40 since my dad died of colon cancer, but hearing that it would be performed on Christmas Eve completely through me off. My sensible brain says I’ve had them every 5 years with no sign of cancer and this is likely to be no big deal. My “monkey brain” as my daughter puts it has me absolutely terrified, because it’s Freaking December! and I HATE December. I go between calm and complete panic. Oh, well, Happy Holidays? Maybe?

  38. 38.

    Harrison Wesley

    I was very fortunate that the nonprofit I worked for in 2015 had excellent insurance for employees. There was no way I could have paid for the surgery and follow up I needed, and I wouldn’t have lasted another six months without it according to the doctor set things up for me.

  40. 40.

    dexwood

    Stay strong, Betty, I’m in your corner and have enormous admiration for you in the Fuck Cancer fight. My, hopefully, last of six chemo infusions is scheduled for 12/26. Each has been worse than the one before with cumulative side effects. Fatigue and brain fog have been profound just to name two. I’ll be back on a nasty, near toxic, daily oral chemo staring on 1/10/25. PET scan scheduled for 1/23/25 to track my progress. There has been some talk of radiation to follow. In late August, I was told if treatment doesn’t help I likely will be dead by next Summer. If treatment helps, I could gain three years. There is no cure for me, only delay.

  41. 41.

    Leto

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I feel like there’s been a shit ton of studies talking about sociopathic behavior among CEOs, and the 1% in general. Idk, I just don’t care anymore. I don’t care about their reasons/rationales/logic. They’re trying to tell us why the divine right of kings is in our best interests, and I would like to hope more people are not buying it. Guess we’ll see.

    Again, it really feels like we’re entering the Oryx and Crake phase, with a helping of The Handmaid’s Tale.

  46. 46.

    Jackie

    @Bupalos: The doctor CAN call the insurance company and ask why the approval/denial hasn’t been sent to the facility performing the scan.

  48. 48.

    Martin

    This advice won’t help Betty, but it might be of use to folks in CA.

    When Ms Martin got cancer earlier this year, we didn’t get such runarounds with Kaiser in SoCal. The ‘when’ for almost everything was ‘tomorrow’, maybe a week. There isn’t an insurer to deny as the doctors own the insurer.

    My dad’s Medicare experience wasn’t so great. After his heart attack the doctors wanted to put in a pacemaker and the insurer denied it wanting them to manage it with medication. A code blue later he was getting an emergency pacemaker, and then it got approved, and then a better one got approved 6 months later requiring another surgery. That all could have been avoided, and we’ll never know how much more that may have cost the insurer over just approving it when the doctor first wanted to do it.

    I’m not looking forward to Medicare…

  50. 50.

    Another Scott

    One of the most infuriating things about the US medical system is the built-in assumption that the patients (and everyone else) have unconstrained time and nothing better to do with it than wait.

    Similar stories as the following were going around Mastodon a few days ago:

    McNadoMD
    @[email protected]

    Hate your health insurer? Not into assassinating the CEO yet? One thing you can try if they deny a claim is asking for the name and state of licensure of the doc who denied your claim. Know that often there isn’t actually a doc doing the denials, but if there is, and IF they give you the info, you can file a medical board complaint against that doc. Rules vary widely by state, but for instance here in CO the board is required to open an investigation for every report.

    Dec 08, 2024, 02:34 PM

    4d

    FirstFish
    @[email protected]

    @mcnado This worked for us with two Insurance Companies for several years. Our ‘following through’ with the investigations and reporting to the State Boards cost the companies involved so much in red tape that we were ‘automatically approved’ for over a decade. It was not an easy battle by any means. I still cannot hear a phone ring without a panic attack. But it does work.

    Good luck BC and everyone!

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  52. 52.

    MattF

    It’s also the fault of system itself— the system designed to do damage, regardless of who is in charge. See the recent book by Dan Davies, The Unaccountability Machine.

  53. 53.

    laura

    When forced into retirement, I went back to school to take art classes (Sac City College Represent!) because I needed a new, non-verbal form or self expression and fuck these fucking fuckers just seemed too limiting. I was wrong and I intend to leap into 2025 full on fuck these fucking fuckers with every fiber of my being.

    Sending all manner of positive vibrations to you Betty Cracker.

  56. 56.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    You don’t deserve this BCrack.

    Per #28, Jeannie Hill said above, go to the phones and start calling.

    You shouldn’t hafta do that either, it’s another sympton of the fuckeduppedness of Our Health Care system but might as well channel the frustration into doing something that will benefit you.

    @Bupalos:

    But I don’t think anyone really needs to be shy about the reality that the guy that got shot was one of the functionally worst people on planet earth.

    The sad thing is that there are soooooo many more just like him.  We live in a “Murder By Capitalism” world.

    It bears repeating WaterGirl’s thoughts (I think these are hers) shortly after this happened:

    Here’s what I care about: Children massacred in their schools, people massacred while grocery shopping, praying, or enjoying a concert; women routinely murdered by men who think they possess them; people who are denied healthcare based on the financial gains of corporations; the poisoning of our planet in the name of profits.

    Some random CEO whose bonuses are based on the company routinely denying coverage to people in the name of profit, gunned down on the street? Not so much. Spare me the outrage until we are outraged by every person whose life was made worse by his company’s policies. Let’s hear their stories with the same detail we are going to be subjected to about this man.

    I wonder how many people he murdered or injured. How many thousands might still be with their loved ones. But he did it all “legally” under the guise of capitalist greed. He got to go home everyday and take his 10 million dollar salary with him and enjoy freedom.

    The reason this is being cheered is because of how much this points out how skewed EVERYTHING is in favor of the rich. He’s a stand-in for the system. And you’re not going to make any headway on fixing anything until you realize that.

  59. 59.

    Soprano2

    I’m so sorry you’ve having to deal with this, Betty. The medical system in general can make you crazy. I called the gerontologist’s office to get a refill on the calcium acetate that the hospitalist prescribed for hubby when he was in the hospital in October. For some reason it’s taking over a week to get it filled. His insurance doesn’t pay for it, which I already knew, but it’s not that expensive. (I don’t know why they don’t pay.) For some reason the pharmacy is having a problem getting it. I’ve had two different calls from his insurance “risk management” people. The last time I called them back, the person on the phone had no idea why I was calling or what it was about!!! Makin’ me crazy…..

  60. 60.

    Kelly

    The annual deductible is a scam. The idea that we need skin in the game to avoid recreational medical care is ridiculous.

  61. 61.

    Leto

    @laura: *clapping and cheering* I’m in school as well, and wanted to do an art minor. But after transferring all my credits, I started as a junior and only have the required courses left. Whomp whomp.

  63. 63.

    Martin

    @Steve LaBonne: Yeah, I suppose ‘insurer’ is the wrong word. I suspect the hospital itself denied the surgery because they knew they wouldn’t be compensated, and were requesting an exception which didn’t come before the code blue did (3 days, I think).

  64. 64.

    Suzanne

    @Another Scott:

    One of the most infuriating things about the US medical system is the built-in assumption that the patients (and everyone else) have unconstrained time and nothing better to do with it than wait. 

    Agree.
    Adding time and complexity to any process — even if the ultimate outcome is the same, or if there’s not someone’s life on the line — is a really bad thing. It undermines social trust, wastes resources, and creates an impression of incompetence.

  65. 65.

    schrodingers_cat

    The kiiler was a scion of a wealthy Baltimore family. So wealthy, that swimming pools in Universities are named after them. Vigilante justice is going to do nothing for bringing down insurance costs

    I hope you are able to get your scan soon. Fingers crossed.

  67. 67.

    Hilbertsubspace

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: The kind part of these people is (likely) fake.

    In college, I knew a sociopath that was an obviously awful person.  When I was told that he sexually assaulted someone and was banned (persona non grata) from the campus, I said “That’s easy to believe.  He was scum.”  Shockingly, I was alone in seeing this.  Everyone else on campus (except my girlfriend) thought he was wonderful.  This was a very, very long time ago, so it’s probably okay to mention he was the son of a business man/local politician.

    I have some “mental differences” that makes everyday life a bit more challenging.  But a nice side effect is decent resistance to sociopathic charm.  I can perceive the charm, but it comes across as phony.

    Trump has always reminded me of that scumbag from college, but much more clumsy and ignorant.

  69. 69.

    Old Man Shadow

    Reducing human beings to income sources and data and building an elaborate bureaucracy allows people to insulate themselves from the very real consequences of their decisions.

    I have little doubt that the man was nice to his coworkers and good to his family and very well liked.

    His murder of thousands was so buried in bureaucratic bullshit and spreadsheets that he probably never thought of the people he hurt and killed. And it’s all perfectly legal and socially ignored.

  71. 71.

    WTFGhost

    Friend, to delay your care by a single day is *EVIL*. We know that. Pushing it to EOY just to try to shove it into a new year is *beyond evil*.

    You have every reason to be afraid, to want information, to be ready to all-but LITERALLY wring the necks of the people pulling this shit – and I’m including “if you’ve ever literally wrung the neck of a bird before plucking the feathers, etc..”

    You should be managing those emotions, see, but you should be having them, and those that care about you, and people like you, should be feeling them too, because these people are doing evil, horrible, things to make money, and that’s not right – it never is, it never has been, and it’s unacceptable.

    There’s *boatloads* of money to handle this stuff. The only thing there isn’t, is enough will to say “you’re providing health insurance, the name of the game is *acceptance* of all necessary care, swiftly and efficiently.”

    Fuck the election – that we’re here, even under a Democratic administration, is closer to making me despair than what stupidity went down in November. (I mean that in a general sense – we should have health insurance *FIXED* by now, and we would, if Republicans hadn’t decided they couldn’t let 20+ million extra people have health insurance in the face of an oncoming pandemic. Not saying seeing bad news ruined my day *that* thoroughly, though I’d rather see happy news instead.

  73. 73.

    Martin

    As this is an open thread – Hank Green has a video about people having ‘inner monologues’ and notes he doesn’t have one. Ms Martin and I both have one, but he described it as a ‘stream of words’ and I asked Ms Martin if hers was a stream of words, and she said yes. Mine isn’t, mine is a stream of ideas, concepts, etc. and is rarely words, and it’s nonstop. I had never considered that ‘inner monologue’ was, you know, a monologue.

  74. 74.

    Rose Judson

    Oh, Betty, this makes me so FURIOUS. I can only imagine what you’re feeling right now. I hope someone somewhere pulls their fucking finger out and makes it happen faster.

  76. 76.

    different-church-lady

    @MattF: No no no, it’s not designed to do damage: it’s designed to squeeze people out of more and more of their dollars by making it so difficult to comprehend the cost of of something so vital and non-optional that they just give up and pay.

    And if the side effect of that is damage, then [shrug].

  77. 77.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Martin: I’ve seen that discussion of inner monologues. I wondered if people without them have an easier time falling asleep. Because mine will not shut up.

  78. 78.

    different-church-lady

    @Hilbertsubspace:

    I have some “mental differences” that makes everyday life a bit more challenging. But a nice side effect is decent resistance to sociopathic charm.

    The only upside to being bullied as a child is having a seriously advanced radar system against the mean and manipulative.

  81. 81.

    Betty Cracker

    Thanks for the kind thoughts, all. I guess should feel lucky my insurer isn’t delaying care in a way that endangers my physical health. The scan results will be what they are regardless of the delay. I’m mostly furious about being forced to endure another two weeks of limbo for no good reason. I try not to obsess about things I can’t control, but waiting for answers has been incredibly stressful.

    @Percysowner: & @dexwood: Hoping for the best outcomes for you.

  82. 82.

    WTFGhost

    @Old Man Shadow: I do believe you’re describing Eichmann to a T.

    Kinda scary that you’ve probably also described middle management (at least, those that hope to rise above middle management) in most corporations.

  85. 85.

    Martin

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Yeah, I really struggle with that – because it’s never quiet and it’s jumping all over the place.

    Writing and discussing things are the only ways I can focus it. Nothing seems to turn it off – except when I’m pretty sick.

  87. 87.

    TONYG

    @PaulWartenberg: It’s only called “class war” if the violence is being done by the people who are not extremely wealthy.  Otherwise, it’s the Invisible Hand of the Free Market.

  88. 88.

    Baud

    You might want to take down this post, Betty.

    Florida woman used “delay, deny, depose” to threaten health insurance company, police say

    Good luck with your test.

  92. 92.

    TONYG

    @different-church-lady: That’s the “beauty” of the system.  The medical insurance executives never personally deny anyone’s coverage — in fact the top executives are probably not even aware of the details of the coverage policies.  They’re just keeping the cash machine moving.  The low-level clerks who deny the coverage are just doing their (relatively low-paid) jobs and following the rules that other people have made.  That way it’s “nobody’s fault”.

  93. 93.

    different-church-lady

    @TONYG:

    They’re just keeping the cash machine moving.

    I mean, what’s even the point of insurance if you’re not gonna do that?

  94. 94.

    Fair Economist

    @Martin: My inner monologue is mostly words, although not entirely. I have pictures too, but they usually get narrated. I kind of wonder how a writer writes without one – when I write, it’s essentially putting my inner monologue on paper, with a lot of editing. If I didn’t have one, I don’t know where the words would come from.

  96. 96.

    Martin

    @Old Man Shadow: Reducing human beings to income sources and data and building an elaborate bureaucracy allows people to insulate themselves from the very real consequences of their decisions.

    We had this problem when my university admissions shifted from being a machine that was designed to find qualified students to a machine that was designed to deny qualified students. There was a clear decline in morale across the folks implementing it, and we had a sense that in time, those people would eventually get replaced with folks that wouldn’t be bothered by it. I mean, it contributed to my retirement.

  97. 97.

    different-church-lady

    @TONYG: Love thy neighbor.*

    (*Unless thy neighbor is a black family living in the next cardboard box over with no sparrow or curtain rod.)

  99. 99.

    TONYG

    @different-church-lady: The point of insurance is to deny coverage.  I’m reminded of the scene in “Casino” where the Robert Di Niro character freaks out because some of the customers were winning.  Can’t have that!

  100. 100.

    Fair Economist

    @TONYG:

    That way it’s nobody’s fault

    This is a crucial feature of capitalism – spreading out responsibility so no individual can be blamed, even though the deeds are heinous. Everybody is just “doing their job” and if they didn’t do it “somebody else would”.

  102. 102.

    WTFGhost

    @Martin: I’ll throw this back at you: Buddhists believe that you shouldn’t have a monologue, and that it’s harmful to have-to-have-one.

    If you’ve ever heard of meditation as “blanking your mind,” it’s not that. It’s shutting up what Buddhists call your “monkey brain” that chitters and chatters and OOO, SHINY!

    What they want is for you to do that thing you do while driving, where something happening behind you causes you to change your lane position slightly, while slowing down due to brake lights ahead, while having a sip of coffee and listening to music.

    All on automatic – all without *conscious* thought.

    So you should be able to go to the kitchen, with a picture of a PB&J, and come out, without having *thought* “getting the peanut butter; getting the jam; getting the bread”.

    Buddhists feel, if you’re locked into your monkey brain, you can’t detach enough to handle some of life’s challenges.

    (I say “Buddhists” but, Buddhism is many sects, of course. I’m only speaking of those whose writings taught me.)

    So it’s not that it’s *bad* to have a monologue, but, the meditation guides I’ve seen said “you’ll feel so much better when you’re *free* of that monologue.” Like, if someone finally turned off Fox News, and you want to see the end of *that segment*, but you’re glad it’s now *your choice*, you’re free of the need.

    A monologue IS NOT a sign of a problem with thinking and memory, but it *can be* if it’s new. It doesn’t mean you’re getting stupid – it means a misfiring brain isn’t behaving, and might be fixable.

    So if you realize you’re talking yourself through stuff you haven’t had to in the past, and you can’t just *not* talk your way through the stuff, don’t be scared, don’t be in denial, just, it might be time to figure out what’s got you so beat down you need to talk your way through easy stuff.

    Sometimes it’s just depression, forcing you to say “come on, now MAKE the sandwich. EAT IT!” Everyone can use a pep talk sometimes. But it could be low thyroid, you’re tired, you need a pep talk to keep moving, too, right?

    So, the range from “no thought” to “monologue” covers some fascinating ideas.

  103. 103.

    Fair Economist

    @Martin:

    We had this problem when my university admissions shifted from being a machine that was designed to find qualified students to a machine that was designed to deny qualified students.

    Wait, what? Why would they want to choose the unqualified?

  104. 104.

    Professor Bigfoot

    I believe it was Hannah Arendt who coined the German word, “Schreibtischtäter:” literally “desk criminal,” or even “desk-killer.”

    For all the nameless faceless people– and the formerly faceless, like the UHC CEO– people condemn other people to suffering and death from the climate controlled comfort of their offices.

    “What are you talking about ? I was just doing my job!!”

  106. 106.

    Gin & Tonic

    Two years ago I spent Christmas Eve (Orthodox calendar) getting a PET scan. Not a fun way to celebrate the holiday.

  108. 108.

    TONYG

    @TONYG: Old song by a very young Bob Dylan — “Who Killed Davey Moore”.  A boxer died in the ring and it turns out that it’s everybody’s/nobody’s fault.

  111. 111.

    different-church-lady

    As I said in an earlier thread: yes, we’d all like to live in a world where health insurance executives don’t behave in a way that makes people glad they’ve been murdered.

  112. 112.

    Jeannie Hill

    @Jeannie Hill:

     

    @Ramalama: it’s a frightening and inhuman approach, almost like designer shopping for those who think they have choices, but find it doesn’t fit and it is a “final sale”. I fear for us.

  116. 116.

    Phylllis

    @Martin: I’m 2.5 years away from having to make a decision about picking it up, and I’m leaning towards….not. Especially if the norm at that time is pushing people into Medicare Advantage-type plans. My concern is getting caught short if for some reason my current primary insurance as a state retiree becomes unavailable.

  118. 118.

    TBone

    @Martin: is that straight Medicare?  My hubby had the opposite experience with heart surgery (triple bypass and all follow up care to this day AND meds approved immediately) on straight Medicare.

  119. 119.

    JaneE

    One of the good things about Kaiser healthcare is that if one of their doctors orders a test there is almost no way that it will not be done.  Doctor ordered a test “just to make sure” and said they would call me to schedule it.  He was not even out the door before the PA announced that the earliest they could get it in was (you guessed it) the 31st.  New Year’s Eve?  Oh, yes, that is New Year’s Eve.  Do you  want early or mid morning?

    There are things to complain about with Kaiser, but having something your doctor wants you to have is almost never one of them.

    Betty, it probably won’t do any good, but try writing to your state’s insurance commission.  Delaying any treatment is bad enough, but doing it deliberately to shift more of the cost to you really ought to be a breach of contract.

  121. 121.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:  Ah.  Be well soon, Nancy Smash.  Hope it does not include a head injury.  That is what took out Kay Graham.  We need our courageous matriarchs and heroines.

  122. 122.

    TONYG

    @TONYG: About ten years ago I had a short-term “IT contract” job for one of the Blue Crosses, making maintenance changes to their software.  (Yes, I know — I needed a job and it paid the bills.).  The Blue Cross software linked through TCP/IP to something called a “McKesson Decision Engine” on a UNIX server somewhere.  The (non-human of course) “Decision Engine” would come back with “Accept, Deny, Delay” decisions on the basis of the data fed to it.  So, for that system, NO HUMAN was actually denying coverage.  I suspect that that was not a unique arrangement.

  123. 123.

    Lobo

    Default comment:

    The eight most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m a billionaire, and I’m here to help.”

  125. 125.

    Martin

    @TONYG: Oh, no, they are. My stepfather was a BCBS CIO. He was outside the policy decision making but he was in board meetings. He knew the details of the policies. Not each one, but he knew where they looked for squaring actuarial value with costs, including how many people would be denied. These things were discussed.

    They also had their share of sympathy with policyholders. Their ability to lower drug costs was almost nonexistent because they never had the necessary leverage because of the fragmented insurance landscape. Same with a lot of other costs. Obama wasn’t crazy to try and get insurers on board with ACA to put pressure on hospital and device costs.

    I’m not trying to defend the industry, but a lot of economic problems are power imbalances at various levels, along with policies designed to create or maintain those imbalances. Insurers can’t negotiate with drug companies because of that, so insurers seek to consolidate to change that dynamic, which we oppose, but we don’t break up the drug companies, etc. And consumers of course don’t stand a chance against any of this (well, unless they have a silencer).

  126. 126.

    WTFGhost

    @TONYG: To be brutally honest, no: the point of insurance is to get use of big piles of money, that are constantly getting refreshed, and growing due to sound investment, to pay proper claims and the salaries of all the people who account for each dollar of those big piles.

    Insurance should be a public good, and an insanely *dull* business. “If you thought being an accountant was too exciting, you could become an *ACTUARY*, the people who do insurance risk assessments.” (I maintain if I didn’t have me/CFS, I could have been an interesting actuary, but I imagine most people who might have been actuaries have the same, dull, “I would have been interesting” dream.)

    Insofar as the point of insurance is “to deny claims,” insurance is fraud. If I pay my life insurance, when I die, my family gets benefits – if not, I was defrauded, and in one of the worst possible ways, since the trust was one of the most sacred.

    Insurance companies didn’t become big business by denying claims, but by being *generally* trustworthy. Then, they realized those big piles of money could be used for longer, if they *delayed* claims, and if they (initially) DENIED claims, and of course, the care couldn’t have been *that* important, if the deceased stopped asking for it, amirite?

    And, of course, they’re not making dull, sound, investments any longer.

    I’m not saying your observation is incorrect, though: I’m saying, historically, *we really did know better*, both from the perspective of economics and public good, insurance should be boring and trustworthy.

  128. 128.

    WTFGhost

    @Lobo: Great default – I might be more terrified by “I’m a billionaire, and I think I see what’s wrong…” but yours holds truer to St. Ronnies.

  130. 130.

    frosty

    @Martin: @Dorothy A. Winsor: Continuing the OT: My inner monologue is music; or more specifically rhythm. Tapping toes or fingers, clicking teeth against each other. No words unless I get an earworm.

    I had Witchy Woman rolling through my head awhile ago. Looked at the Eagles album and it was the song after Take It Easy, which I’m trying to learn. The brain is a weird thing.

  131. 131.

    Memory Pallas

    I don’t know how to embed things from Bluesky but I’ll try just a plain vanilla link:
    Paraphrased dialog:

    Piers Morgan: What would you say to people who think L. Mangione is a hero because the CEO’s company killed so many people by denying them cover.
    Peter Thiel: I..I…um.. (about 45 seconds of perpexed huffing) I…I just think they should make an argument.​

  132. 132.

    Martin

    @WTFGhost: So, I do meditate, and it does help to settle that down, but also has the effect that I typically fall asleep as soon as that happens. Maybe the problem is I don’t do it enough so my routine sleep deprivation deprives me of enjoying the extended benefits.

    The upside to the monologue is that it solves a lot of problems. That’s typically what it’s doing – problem solving, exploring new concepts – and I’ll be doing something completely unrelated to the problem and the solution will just come through seemingly out of nowhere. Sounds like Suzanne’s might work similarly.

    It’s useful, but exhausting. Maybe I’ll try meditating more frequently, see if that helps.

  133. 133.

    Kay

    United Healthcare just started a huge PR effort to show they sympathetic to peoples frustration.

    US health insurance companies deny care at rates going from 9% to 32%, with 16% as the average. United Healthcare was at 32%.

    Instead of wasting tens of millions of dollars telling people they’re a good company – which is a lie, they rip their policyholders off- why not just actually become one and reduce their denial rate to 9%?

  135. 135.

    different-church-lady

    @WTFGhost: ​

    Insurance companies didn’t become big business by denying claims, but by being *generally* trustworthy.

    Trust is one of those things you can boil to death in a pot, as long as you turn the heat up very very slowly.

  138. 138.

    Martin

    @Fair Economist: We weren’t choosing the unqualified. We had so many qualified applicants we needed to deny 75% of them. Denying someone who was unlikely to complete the degree is pretty easy. Denying someone who is extremely likely to complete it is hard.

  139. 139.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Its the only thing anyone should want to hear from them! “We’re a bad insurance company because we steal from the people who buy our policies and we have decided to stop doing that”

  140. 140.

    Martin

    @Fair Economist: Writing isn’t exactly putting the ideas on paper – but it does focus the ideas to the thing I’m writing about (which is probably why you get the kinds of comments from me that you get). So it’s a way to get the monologue on task, so to speak. Otherwise, it’s off doing its own thing.

  142. 142.

    Ohio Mom

    @dexwood: Here’s hoping for a good long delay for you. As they say, Where there is life, there is hope. We can hope a great new treatment is developed in tne interim.

  144. 144.

    Shakti

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Were any of these comments anecdotal, vivid or memorable or did they give any kind of examples?

    I assume you’re talking about from the news reports and statements b/c the funeral was private.

    Perhaps it’s my personal bias and maybe some mores around grief, demonstrativeness, and speeches around people that are celebratory or grieving in the milieu I grew up…

    But non-specificity and just saying  wonderful or “kind” without anything is just synonym switching with “nice” without saying anything at all.

    Especially given the polish you’d expect his UHC colleagues to have.

    Like if someone I liked  was murdered  and I knew that person was being villified, I’d find something more vivid to put out there.

  146. 146.

    sab

    @WTFGhost: Actually accounting (the tax variety) can be fun. It is like filling out crossword puzzles while watching soap operas. If you think it is dull , obviously you have never done it.

  147. 147.

    Martin

    @TBone: I suspect it was because his heart attack was coded as being pretty mild and then at discharge he code blued. They then requested the pacemaker after doing some more tests. He then code blued again a few days later (which caused the emergency pacemaker, and then again during the procedure).

    I wasn’t there for the first one, drove up and was there for the latter two.

    So much of this stuff depends on what ICD code you bang into the system. Because his condition appeared to change (he had a blood clot in his heart, and they think it shifted position when he was being discharged which is why he seemed good until he was not). I suspect the denial of the pacemaker was based on the earlier sense of his condition and not on the later one.

  148. 148.

    Ksmiami

    Piping in here as someone who is privileged enough now to just pay go as far as healthcare. We get 20-40 percent off visits, scans etc because we are quick pay cash AND we tend to know the costs per visit up front. My recommendation to ppl who need insurance is to join a university or hospital system insurance plan because even if they r slightly more per month, you won’t be denied. The main private companies involved in health insurance are scams. End of story.

  150. 150.

    WTFGhost

    @sab: It’s true, I’ve only kinda-done it (some bookkeeping, pension accrual valuation), and it’s not for me. But I *do* understand what while each tiny bit of work is dull, what you’re doing is taming a bunch of meaningless data and turning it into real, actionable, information that can make people’s lives better.  (It doesn’t always make lives *better*… but it *could* be used that way.) It’s information engineering, long before computers became a thing.

    I only made the joke to expose my near brush with actuarial science. To some people, accounting is dull, *because* it has to all add up to a single answer, so insurance/pension projections? You can’t even describe the job without people nodding off.

  151. 151.

    Bill Arnold

    @Martin:

    So, I do meditate, and it does help to settle that down, but also has the effect that I typically fall asleep as soon as that happens.

    Practice until you can get to that state and hold it for a bit (even just several seconds) without falling asleep, then just exit the uncluttered state (or explore it). You’re pretty close.
    I would not call what you describe a “monologue”; no words, or at least they do not dominate.

  152. 152.

    pluky

    @Hilbertsubspace: A big part of sociopathic charm is the ability to ‘read’ what other people want to see, and then project that. I surmise your ‘difference’ leaves you without any obvious hooks upon which a predator can grab

    BTW, love the nym. Math nerds, represent!!

  153. 153.

    No Nym

    @Fair Economist: “This is a crucial feature of capitalism – spreading out responsibility so no individual can be blamed, even though the deeds are heinous. Everybody is just ‘doing their job’ and if they didn’t do it somebody else would.”

    This was also a feature of Nazism, from what I read about the Nuremberg trials.

  155. 155.

    Fair Economist

    @Martin:

    We weren’t choosing the unqualified. We had so many qualified applicants we needed to deny 75% of them. Denying someone who was unlikely to co,mplete the degree is pretty easy. Denying someone who is extremely likely to complete it is hard.

    Ah, I see. That seems less problematic to me – certainly it’s more painful to deny qualified applicants, but if there just aren’t enough slots, it does have to be done.

  156. 156.

    bluefoot

    @Leto: 90% error, always in the favor of the company isn’t an error, it’s implementation of policy. The AI was working as intended. (I know we all know that, but I that it’s reported as “90% error rate”.)

    A friend is having their mental health care cut off since it’s the new policy to only provide short-to-medium term care and she’s past the recommended term. That’s despite the fact she’s struggling with suicidal ideation and her therapist doesn’t want to stop. She also has good workplace insurance. Unsurprisingly, the care group is Optum, which is part of United Health Care.

  158. 158.

    Shakti

    @Kay: Wait, they didn’t already have a series of bland, feel good, nonspecific ads to run periodically?

    I thought they did that along with home and auto insurance companies and hospitals.

     

    Like this one:

    Tagline:“We are United. We Care. We are United HealthCare.”

    lilting music. A motley cast of racially, ethnically and age diverse techs, doctors, nurses, claims agents, etc.  Montage of heroic number crunchers sequence while people look at screens. A waving corn field. A cheerful insurance agent action directing lady towards annual physicals. Random dude with a Livongo app. Extraneous people swimming.  A small city street with local businesses.  Happy kid getting an x ray and a cute sticker on the cast cutting to holding a UHC catchers mitt and catching a baseball. Massaged numbers about patient satisfaction flashing on the screen.

    VO: “With over blah blah fart plans, doctors, outpatient clinics, and hospitals, we united health care and together we improve everyone’s health.  We are United Health Care.  “

  159. 159.

    WTFGhost

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Those of us who see the invisible suffering of others are charged with making it visible.

    *How* one makes it visible… that’s the question.

    I know how one gunman made his own suffering visible, but it’s not the recommended method. Really, though, that’s the liberal job from day one: make suffering visible, decry it as unacceptable, people agree to make it go away.

    @No Nym: You’re actually more accurate. Capitalism isn’t hideously evil in concept – “I have a farm; I’m not going to farm it if I can’t sell my food; but, *I* need stuff, so, the money I make farming is going back into the community.” Small scale, it can work well.

    It’s when people all decide they can be a little bit evil – not too evil, just, a little – that capitalism starts to look like fascism, because people don’t like to be evil, so they start using the fascist excuses for evil, et voila, fascism.

    Capitalism is great for some things, like distributing luxuries (not that I don’t sympathize with those wanting Taylor Swift tickets, but, very few people have actually died from lack of concert attendance). It’s great in a free economy where, to quote King Of The Road, “two hours of pushing broom buys an 8×12 bedroom”, there’s work to be had, if and when a fellow wants something.

    But it’s precisely horrible when criminals can skulk in the shadows, and where even what’s *legal* is shocking. Europe understood this a lot better than the US.

  160. 160.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Martin:

    I had never considered that ‘inner monologue’ was, you know, a monologue.

    Until someone here – maybe it was you? – mentioned this, I had never heard the term inner monologue, but now that I know what to call it, I can say I have had one running in my head for my entire life and I really did think that everybody else did too.

    A quote from Jay McInnerny’s Bright Lights, Big City hit home back when I read it: “You are a republic of voices tonight. Unfortunately, that republic is Italy.”

  164. 164.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Lobo:

    The eight most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m a billionaire, and I know what’s best” because they got to be a billionaires by caring only about what’s best for themselves.

  169. 169.

    hitchhiker

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’m mostly furious about being forced to endure another two weeks of limbo for no good reason.

    I’m furious for you, goddamn. This sort of petty arbitrary cruelty always makes me WAY more upset than the more focused and deliberate kind.

  171. 171.

    TONYG

    @No Nym: That’s right.  My primitive understanding of the history of the Holocaust is that for the first few years of World War Two, the SS and Wehrmacht killed Jews and other “subhumans” the old fashioned way — by lining them up and shooting them.  This proved to be inefficient and it sometimes caused stress in soldiers that still had some vestige of a conscience.  The automated killing with Zyclon-B solved that problem by compartmentalizing the killing.

  173. 173.

    TONYG

    @WTFGhost: Well, yes.  “to pay proper claims” is what the goal of insurance SHOULD be and that’s largely what the U.S. socialized insurance system (for old folks) — the system known as Medicare — largely does.  (I’m an old geezer who’s been on Medicare for a few years now; and it’s a big relief to not have to fight with Medicare after decades of fighting with private insurance companies).  I was saying that “denying or delaying legitimate claims” is the standard tactic used by for-profit insurance companies in pursuit of the goal of these companies, which is maximizing profits and (of course) maximizing executive compensation.

  174. 174.

    TONYG

    @WTFGhost: … I’m not denying that “historically, *we really did know better*” regarding health insurance — but that era might have been significantly distant in the past.  I’m an old geezer of 68, which means that until I became eligible for Medicare a few years ago I spent almost a half-century fighting with for-profit insurance companies, and it’s always been a pain in the ass.  One thing that’s changed in my lifetime has been the proliferation of life-saving (and expensive) medical technology.  A hundred years ago most seriously ill people just died quickly and cheaply.  Insurance companies denying claims is a primitive way to control those costs.

  175. 175.

    Geminid

    @TONYG: I think there was an interim period when the victims were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning. Sometimes they’d be loaded into trucks with the exhaust piped inside.

    .I believe Sobibor and three other camps used this method in stationary death chambers. Sobibor and the three others like it operated for a few months. Then, after they had killed the local population of Jewish people, they were dismantled and erased more or less.

  176. 176.

    Betsy

    I am on your side. Cheering for you. Hoping you get everything you need.

    I wish I could make you laugh, comfort you with insight, and redeem dark or dull days just the way you have done for me and many others here.

  178. 178.

    WTFGhost

    @TONYG: David Anderson actually does a series on this, and the *crazy* thing is, almost all medical spending comes from, like, the 30% of the neediest, actuarially speaking.

    You might say “well, but they send you for a cat scan instead of an X-ray,” well, no, insurance companies clamped down on that – that’s the right kind of efficiency-finding, but it’s not limited to the private sector – I bet Medicare finds more efficiencies than any other program!

    Nowadays, the big deal now, is, the sickest people use up the vast majority of resources. Don’t think of “sickest people” like “cancer patients,” think of them as “trauma center admissions, high risk pregnancies, ICU admissions, and, yes, cancer patients, and other people with expensive diseases.”

    This should mean that you try to find the efficiency where the money is, and not try to treat the patient’s pocketbook like … something you over poke, and prod, and refuse to be gentle with, and I don’t know if it’s safe to make the obvious medical joke so I’ll stop there.

    Thing is, as long as you can hire someone to refuse treatments, and you make enough money to pay salary and benefits, insurance companies record that as a W. Twisted, twisted, incentives result in a twisted reality.

  180. 180.

    Kosh III

    About 20 years ago I had a pinched nerve between two toes.

    The Podiatrist said a $400 orthotic device would fix it(it did)

    Aetna fraking refused to do it because I wasn’t a diabetic. BUT they would authorize surgery which would cost at least 10 times more and would leave me flat on my back for month without enough sick leave to cover the time.
    I ended up paying out of pocket.  Frak ’em all!

    I don’t want the executives to be killed, instead give them a permanent vacation seaside on Ayon Island, Siberia. (look it up)

  182. 182.

    Tim in SF

    Shooting the people who are responsible for setting up these endless goddamn hoops for sick people to jump through prior to receiving clearly necessary medical care isn’t the solution

    That’s what people keep telling me, but I also hear the revolutions require blood. Lots of it.

  184. 184.

    Ramona

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Apparently many of the UHC guy’s colleagues talked about how wonderful he was. I don’t know if they specifically called him “kind,” but it wouldn’t surprise me. Some of my neighbors are kind. They’d help you if they could. And yet they voted for Trump. How do I reconcile these personally nice moments with the evil things they do or enable? I’m not quite sure how to think or speak about this contrast.

    They want the beneficiaries of their largesse to know that they are being kind to them and to adore them and they want to choose those on whom they deign to bestow their generosity. Their primary goal is not the welfare of others but to enhance their reputation.

  185. 185.

    Ramona

    @sab: I too got the impression that his field of study made Mangione over-enthusiastic about surgery to remedy his spondylisthesis.

    Much as I detest the ludicrous idea that profit making companies are the gateway between people and medical care, with the odds of back surgery relieving pain being so slim, I can see how best practices might dictate trying physical therapy with surgery as a last resort.

  187. 187.

    Ramona

    @Leto: their security need health insurance too and run a higher risk than most of getting injured on the job. What guarantee do these CEO’s have that they’ll be safe from their security?

  188. 188.

    Ramona

    @dexwood: I’m so glad that you are still with us and hanging in there. I hope you get far more than three more years and that they are good ones!

  189. 189.

    Ramona

    @Martin:

     

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I’ve found that falling asleep to an audio book fixes that because I suspect my mind mistakes the pleasant voice of the narrator for my internal dialogue. Before I discovered the audio book trick, I’d occupy myself with doing math proofs in my head.

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