09:23 – Barbara’s recovery continues. She’s frustrated because she can’t do everything she’s normally capable of doing, but the visiting nurse and physical therapist both tell her she’s recovering far more quickly than most people do after knee replacement.
Meanwhile, she can’t stand just sitting doing nothing, so I have her labeling and filling bottles for the science kits. Yesterday, she used our last kilo of agar filling 10 gram bottles for biology kits and our last two kilos of salicylic acid filling 15 gram bottles for chemistry kits. Today, she’ll be labeling and filling hundreds of more containers.
What happened to #snowmageddon2015 ? Are these the same guys modeling Global Warming XXXXXXXX Climate Change XXXXXXX Climate Disruption ?
I wonder what the 2015 term will be for their lies ?
Gonna be 74 F and idyllic here in the Land of Sugar today. Might be turning on the A/C later.
Haha, AC. LOL.
We got some we can send ya.
10 degrees with strong winds and of course the good ol’ chill factuh well below zero. A dusting of snow expected later, BFD.
I just wish we could save this awesome weather until August and September. We will be dying them of heat and mostly humidity. Makes my daily walk a sweatfest.
Hey Ray, here you go:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/nyregion/to-collect-debts-nursing-home-seizing-control-over-patients.html?_r=0
I seem to remember that your aunt’s nursing home did this also. Taking care of people in the final stages of life is very cumbersome and expensive. My wife’s father pays his nursing home bill of $3,000 each two weeks and luckily has the resources for the same.
I’m betting that 75% of the USA population does not have the resources to pay for their own care. Medicaid spending is probably getting ready to double over the next ten years and is the second largest item in the Texas state budget.
I seem to remember that your aunt’s nursing home did this also.
Nope, not me. My aunt had exhausted most of her funds in assisted living and thus required Medicaid. Medicaid will only pay a nursing home, not assisted living. The way the system worked was screwed up and made no sense.
What Medicaid, not the nursing home, tried to do was take my aunt’s VA benefits. It was not much, only $90 a month. The state thought they were entitled. A conversation with the VA and a couple of phone calls and the state admitted they were incorrect. I suspect they knew that all along but rely on people not knowing the rules.
The stupid part was when my aunt would have a medical expense. My aunt was getting retirement of which she was allowed to keep $50 a month plus her VA benefit of $90. I think her retirement was around $500 so I would send the nursing home a check for $410 (my numbers are wrong as I no longer remember the amounts but serve the purpose of illustration).
If a medical expense was $300 the state would increase their payment to the nursing home by $300 and I would pay the medical bill. The next month the rates were back to normal. This caused problems because the nursing home was set up for electronic payment. I would have to log in to the website and change the amount for the one payment. The nursing home hated the system because it was a constant changing of numbers for them. Why Medicaid did not pay the medical provider directly is a mystery.
I also found out that the last payment from the VA had to be returned. She got her VA money for the month and then died. The VA will not pay benefits for the month that you die regardless of what day you die. I could have told the VA the money was used for her cremation and the VA would have not required payment. However her cremation was paid by a prepaid funeral policy.
I’m betting that 75% of the USA population does not have the resources to pay for their own care.
That may be true. And there is one thing that people are not aware when dealing with Medicaid.
The state will look back five years for any assets they can claim. Sold a vehicle threes ago. Boom, the state will want the money. Sold some property 59 months past, boom the state will want the money. Donated $10,000 to a charity in the last five years, boom, the state will want that money. There are a few exceptions but they are few and difficult to prove.
If the spouse is still living in the home the spouse can stay. The state will put a lien on the house for the amount that the state pays to the nursing home. They may also put liens on vehicles if there is significant value in the vehicle.
If the spouse has income the state will decide what the spouse needs to live on and will attach the rest of the earnings.
Even assets that were held before marriage are fair game once a couple is married. Anything the state can find the state will go after. The trick is to keep the state from finding the assets. Significant has to be taken in this process such that you do not lie on the Medicaid application.
Because of this I have decided that when I get to be about 75 I am going to transfer all my assets to my son. There will be an understanding that the assets are mine and he cannot touch them except to withdraw money for me. My name will not appear on any of the accounts. I explained to him that this would be to protect his inheritance. Can I trust him and his wife? I believe I can but it is a gamble. Then when I go into a nursing home I will have zero assets that can be attached.
The state will look back five years for any assets they can claim. Sold a vehicle threes ago. Boom, the state will want the money. Sold some property 59 months past, boom the state will want the money. Donated $10,000 to a charity in the last five years, boom, the state will want that money. There are a few exceptions but they are few and difficult to prove.
What if the money is long gone?
One of my friend’s older brother invested their mom’s money in four oil wells in Colorado. All went bust. When the nursing home started calling for money, my friend went and moved her mom to Texas. Her mom, an Alzheimer patient, is now broke and on Medicaid.
I’ll have to do the same thing; I’ll be damned if the State keeps on thieving from us after I’m dead, sons of bitches. Unless I can find another way around it. I’ll be watching to see what happens when my MIL checks out, ditto my own mom.
Total whiteout here now, but not much accumulation expected; wind chill factuh for the week will be well below zero every night, per usual.
Siblings report close to 30 inches in central MA and it’s still coming down, with lotsa blowing and drifting.
Because of this I have decided that when I get to be about 75 I am going to transfer all my assets to my son. There will be an understanding that the assets are mine and he cannot touch them except to withdraw money for me. My name will not appear on any of the accounts. I explained to him that this would be to protect his inheritance. Can I trust him and his wife? I believe I can but it is a gamble. Then when I go into a nursing home I will have zero assets that can be attached.
What happens if he ends up in a nursing home before you? Or dead? Sounds risky to me.
Mr. Ray got to play them odds, just like me here; the actuarial odds of our kids being gone before us are kinda small. That is preferable to the damnable goons of the State’s apparatus continuing to leach from our corpses when we are gone and send our survivors to destitution and squalor as is evidently their goal.
A link for you TurboTax users.
Intuit (INTU), the company that makes TurboTax, maintains a database containing users’ Social Security numbers, names and other personal data — even for customers using the desktop version of the software who save their files on their own hard drives.
And wot’s funny about that, if you can dig the hew-muh, is that our local IRS Gestapo recommended us using Turbo Tax for our returns. Gee, thanks, Reichskriminaldirektor!
As one of my political party colleagues sez, “We’re all of us already made.” Ja, that’s right; all our chit is all over the State’s databases and networks and has been for a long time. While the head honcho of Google brags about how their net will be everywhere and in everything in such a way as for us to not even notice it in the course of our day.
“O brave new world. That has such people in’t!”
Thus spake lovely Miranda.
Update on my LASIK procedure.
BLUF: I’m delayed a month due to a slightly dry right eye. The docs want to be sure the eyes have good tears since we live in the desert. I’m taking BioTears and using Systane Balance, Restasis, and Lotemax for a month. The tears should be good by then.
The pre-op exam consisted of:
Measure pupil diameter.
Measure cornea thickness by no-touch.
Simple map of retina.
Complex map of retina.
Check prescription the whole works (is 1 clearer, or 2 …).
Another technician checks prescription the whole works (then compare notes).
Stain eyes and check cornea condition.
Check tear flow with paper strips in lower lids.
Anesthetize eyes.
Check cornea thickness with a probe in several places.
Dilate eyes.
First tech checks prescription again, the whole works.
Ophthalmologist examines complete inside of eyes.
Reviews everything and makes recommendation
I have a coloboma of the left retina that I knew about. When I first got specs in the Army, that doc found. I was grounded with an immediate waiver since my vision wasn’t affected. This doc is the only other one who spotted it. I did give them a nice picture of it I saved from my medical records when I first filled out the LASIK paperwork. Here’s a picture of it.
I discussed the “mono vision” procedure with the doc. Since I work a lot now behind a screen, read and do closeup electronics hobbying, I wanted to be sure there would be no strain. He said there shouldn’t be, and since I’m not flying anymore, the mono vision will still be good to watch movies and pass the DMV vision test. The right eye is set for better far vision, the left better near vision. Only mildly. If it doesn’t work out (about 15% don’t like it), I have up to a year (free with the LASIK plan I’m getting) to get the left eye set for better far vision and use mild reading glasses. I’m probably already using “mono vision” since my eyes near vision are different L/R and I don’t wear glasses for ‘puter work, but yes for real close.
What if the money is long gone?
Then it’s gone. But Medicaid at the state level because the state is really the one that is paying, will want proof.
What happens if he ends up in a nursing home before you? Or dead? Sounds risky to me.
It is. But playing the odds I have a better chance than him of winding up a bumbling idiot due to brain rot.
In my aunt’s case her assets had to be below $2200 and her income less than some amount a month (I don’t remember), which they were. When I knew she was running out of money I applied for Medicaid. But she had about $6K at that point. In one month she would be down to $4K. Medicaid advised me to buy her some clothes and a prepaid funeral policy and provide proof of the policy. I did that and got her assets down to $1800. The insurance policy for funeral could not be cashed out without the permission of the state unless my aunt was dead.
One of the problems I had with the income was the state counted her VA money which was about $950 a month. I explained to the state that when she goes on Medicaid her VA money would drop to $90 a month and her income would be below the income level. I was amazed the state office did not know that, or maybe they did and were just being jerks.
“The tears should be good by then.”
Why wait? Just read the papers and watch the nooz for a couple of hours every night and tears ought to flow like the Mississippi. Alternatively, the last few minutes of “Breaker Morant” does it for me.
“…since I’m not flying anymore…”
What??? Say it ain’t so! I had my haht set on strafing runs over Mordor-On-The-Potomac!
“….I have a better chance than him of winding up a bumbling idiot due to brain rot.”
I’m already there so no odds involved here at all.
Well, we had us some flurries blowing around and it left maybe a couple of inches on the ground; now the deep freeze kicks in again, ten below zero.
What??? Say it ain’t so! I had my haht set on strafing runs over Mordor-On-The-Potomac!
Licensed, that is.
We don’t need no stinkin’ licenses in Vermont, hombre!
ZOMG! All the so-cons were right! This is the logical next step after gay marriage!
I have no sympathy for poor li’l Yasmin Eleby. Sounds like she didn’t find “the one” who would make her life complete and who would accept her and love unconditionally just the way she was. Sounds like she’s an eight-year-old in a forty-year-old body, unwilling to come to grips with the notion that “happily ever after” exists only if you work damn hard for it and compromise on some of your desires and consider the possibility that you’re not perfect and might have to change a bit for someone else’s benefit. Poor, poor Yasmin. She’s better off marrying herself because no one else is perfect as is.
And what does that achieve other than a tabloid news story?
“…Sounds like she’s an eight-year-old in a forty-year-old body…”
More likely a wacked-out teenager in an elephant’s 40-year-old body, and between them, that wedding “party” could give the Patriots’ front line a run for their money. All they gotta do is stand there. Vince Wilfork gon be jealous now.
No, the next step, since we’ve already had wacked out fems and their equally misguided enablers marrying bridges and buildings and trees and suchlike, is incest, legally sanctioned, with marriages accordingly. The ground has already been broken by that girl who is allegedly in love with her long-estranged daddy and of course he likewise. Marriage ahead for them, too.
Next up after that is legalized pedophilia and again, ground is being broken rapidly, judging from some of the pictures posted on the net recently admonishing us not to hate man-boy love.
From there, marriage to animals, and lastly, necrophilia, legalized relations with the dead, who, last I knew, were still incapable of exchanging vows or bodily fluids.
Those with long memories or as ancient as I am may recall that this all began more recently with the homosexual “civil unions” agitation, and further back with the wonderful and Glorious Sixties “sexual revolution,” with guiding spirits like the three femrad witch sisters from “MacBeth,” the pervert papa-san Kinsey, and of course long before that scumbags like Freud, Marx and Rousseau.
I hope and pray that I’m just dreadfully wrong here and that I really am just a paranoid fascist tinfoil hat homphobe/rayciss/misogynist/xenophobe/nativist, etc. who should probably be locked up somewhere.
Well, incest doesn’t tempt me at all, on account of my not being at all attracted to any of my relatives. Though I must say that when I was about 24 I drove from where I was stationed in New Jersey up to New York’s southern tier to meet a handful of relatives at the Duchess County Fair. My mom and brother weren’t at the designated place, so I got my flirt on with a cute girl. Yep, you guessed it, she was my cousin. Second cousin, so incest isn’t a significant consideration, but it turned out she was 15 or 16, which was a consideration.
As for the tinfoil hat, OFD, I can tell from the way you’re mocking them that you’ve never tried one. You should. They really work. They block the rays and sometimes even the voices. Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.
None of my relatives ever turned me on, none. Buncha cold English ice people anyway.
I’ll give the tinfoil hat a try if it will block those nightmarish voices and pictures from entering my head. One of the pictures was of that “wedding party.” Is it true that we can’t “un-see” what we’ve already seen? Damn.
Then we have the First Concubine:
http://news.yahoo.com/michelle-obama-navigates-limits-women-saudi-arabia-192549108.html
Wow. She wouldn’t cover her head. Hey, I’m with her on this one, and very little else, if anything. Fuck those bastards. Good one, Mooch, you rock. Today.
From there, marriage to animals, and lastly, necrophilia, legalized relations with the dead, who, last I knew, were still incapable of exchanging vows or bodily fluids.
When they get ripe, the juice doth flow. ewww!
Well, incest doesn’t tempt me at all, on account of my not being at all attracted to any of my relatives.
Gotta agree with you there. Of course, if I did go that route, I’d take care of the homosexual thing, too, since all of us were boys.
As for the tinfoil hat, OFD, I can tell from the way you’re mocking them that you’ve never tried one. You should. They really work. They block the rays and sometimes even the voices.
My personal experience is that tinfoil earplugs work best on the voices.
Especially if you keep readjusting them which makes a wonderful crackling sound.
When they get ripe, the juice doth flow. ewww!
You beat me to it, Mr. Atoz.
BTW, it appears the Las Vegas branch of the VA has provided some of the most expensive furnishings they could find for our vets.
Actual medical facilities, not so much…
http://www.ijreview.com/2015/01/238525-veterans-hospital/
That VA story doesn’t surprise me a whole lot; there are worse tales from other states, including where VA medical centers are being moved hundreds of miles away from the vets who’ve been patients there or gotten rid of entirely. Veterans in Vermont and New Hampshire are extremely lucky that we have our facility down in White River Junction, as I have zero complaints and was and am always treated like a prince. We are also fortunate to have Senator Sanders hacking away on our behalf pretty much constantly and he got a second facility built and expanded up this way in Burlington, where I also have zero complaints.