09:54 – Barbara is off to the gym and bank. Later today we’ll be doing more kit stuff. We’re down to half a dozen forensic kits in stock, so building more of those will be first priority. That means we need to make up chemical bags for them, which means I need to make up several of the chemicals and get them bottled first.
Email from Jen, who decided to take advantage of the Augason Farms Labor Day sale to stock up on more powdered eggs. She ordered another dozen #10 cans, about 72 dozen worth, to add to the 30+ cans she already had in their pantry. That gives her something like 250 dozen worth. As Jen said, at about $3/dozen, the powdered whole eggs are three times the price of fresh, but they don’t keep chickens and she has no intention of doing so. A lot of people store powdered eggs only for baking purposes, but Jen has scrambled eggs on their LTS breakfast menu. She’s tried making scrambled eggs from the powder, and says it works just fine. None of them could tell much if any difference between scrambled eggs from fresh and from powder. With more than 40 cans in stock, they’ll be able to have scrambled eggs once or twice a week for the six of them for a year, and still have plenty for baking. It’ll make a nice break from pancakes and oatmeal.
Speaking of baking, Jen said they had one #10 can of baking powder in their LTS pantry, but she decided to back that up using my method of storing the ingredients separately. So she added a 13-pound bag of baking soda from Sam’s and a 5-pound container of citric acid she ordered on Amazon. Both of those ingredients have essentially unlimited shelf lives, while baking powder, once opened, can have a shelf life of only six months to a year, or even less. The problem is that any moisture, even atmospheric water vapor, reacts with the baking powder to activate it and render it useless. One can instead mix the baking soda and citric acid to make up baking powder on-the-fly, either single- or double-acting depending on the proportions you use.
I’ve started re-reading Eric Flint’s 1632 (Ring of Fire) series, which I last read probably 12 or 15 years ago. It’s about a contemporary small West Virginia town that is physically and temporally displaced from 2000 West Virginia to 1632 central Germany, plopped down right in the middle of the 30 Years War. It wasn’t written as a PA/prepper series, but that’s what it is. The first volume is free for the download on Amazon.com. I think the series is up to 16 or 17 titles now. I have the first half dozen already, and may grab the others eventually.
.
I got a paperback copy of 1632 at GenCon for free. Now I’ll have to read it when I find the time.
More evidence that the Obuttwad Administration and Cankle’s State Department are aiding and abetting:
https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2016/09/06/new-isis-military-commander-was-trained-by-state-department-as-recently-as-2014/
http://nypost.com/2016/09/07/us-trained-sniper-now-minister-of-war-for-isis/
Too bad there is no one enforcing the Constitution or the Oath they took.
They just don’t remember.
For those wishing to read 1632 online, check out baen’s free library at: http://www.baen.com/catalog/category/view/s/free-library/id/2012
I finished reading it, the first ones were good, but the last are too far stretching the series
IMHO this presents not just an historical view but also what is the best we can expect things to be in a few years as we roll ourselves back:
http://countrysidenetwork.com/daily/homesteading/homesteading-homesteading/how-simple-homesteading-was-done-in-the-1800s/
BTW, this describes how I know my grandparents on both sides lived most of their lives. My paternal grandmother lived this way up until the 1970s, she would be considered an “off-gridder” today. I spent 2-weeks every summer with her living without running water and only enough electricity to light a couple of light bulbs and a fan. At least she let me change the water in the wash basin and tub.
Yee haa, let’s go back to the land….
n
I think it will be more like some kind of combination of back-to-the-land and overlapping urban and suburban utopia; we’ve got three to four times the population that our grandparents and great-grandparents lived among. 40% of the pop in the coastal metropoles, and the whole kit-and-caboodle dependent on fossil energy. We also have many tens of millions of Murkan derps armed with modern firepower.
Just back from VA outpatient clinic and my primary care doc; MRI next week and probable epidural shot to the spine thereafter.
Now I’m waiting for the windshield replacement mobile tech guy to show up here.
Rush is right as usual, so don’t dismiss him out of hand, read his monologue and the link:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/09/07/the_shaming_of_the_never_trumpers?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RushLimbaugh-AllContent+%28The+Rush+Limbaugh+Show+-+All+Content%29
If you have no patience for Rush at least read the link (it may be slow to load as the site is being overloaded with Ditto Heads):
http://www.claremont.org/crb/basicpage/the-flight-93-election/
I didn’t think he had much of an audience nowadays.
http://www.baen.com/catalog/category/view/s/free-library/id/2012
You can download from the free library also. AND if you happened to buy hardcover Baen books in the long ago, they used to have a cd/dvd included in some titles that had
several books on each for free, and the caveat on the cd/dvd you could burn copies and hand them around.
Also at: http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/ you can either d/l the .iso for the cd’s or the individual books of your choice.
I didn’t think he had much of an audience nowadays.
Rush just signed up for another four years. I read recently that he still has a 20+ million member audience that listens to his radio show at least once per week. No one else even comes close.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/02/media/rush-limbaugh-renews-talk-radio-contract/
Saw the claremont.org link and posted it myself the other day. Rush the cockpit, lol.
I remember Rush from his earliest days on the radio and then his crappy tee-vee show on at night. He was entry-level “conservatism,” and if nothing else, gave the libturds and the Left in general, plenty of headaches and bowel evacuations, but OTOH, could he not have just been a foil, a token “conservative” allowed to bloviate on the media all these years, as a phony counterpart to the Left’s media idols? They used to use Pat Buchanan and Bob Novak and a few others for that on various CNN and PBS shows back in the day. Who knows?
But if he and Coulter and a couple of others really do give the libturds shit-fits, all power to them and my blessings upon them.
If you have no patience for Rush at least read the link (it may be slow to load as the site is being overloaded with Ditto Heads):
http://www.claremont.org/crb/basicpage/the-flight-93-election/
“2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how to fly or land the plane. There are no guarantees.”
“Except one: if you don’t try, death is certain. To compound the metaphor: a Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.”
Wow. Russian Roulette with a semi-auto. That is a visual image.
‘Jen has scrambled eggs on their LTS breakfast menu. She’s tried making scrambled eggs from the powder, and says it works just fine. None of them could tell much if any difference between scrambled eggs from fresh and from powder. ‘
Not surprising. Lots of horeca places serve reconstituated powdered eggs as ‘scrambled’. OTOH, many, if not most, people wouldn’t recognise or appreciate proper scrambled eggs if they saw them…
“U.S. Spends Another $10 Mil to Register New Immigrant Voters”
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2016/09/u-s-spends-another-10-mil-register-new-immigrant-voters/
“Months after the Obama administration spent $19 million to register new immigrant voters that will likely support Democrats in November, it’s dedicating an additional $10 million in a final push as the presidential election approaches. The money is distributed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Homeland Security agency that oversees lawful immigration, to organizations that help enhance pathways to naturalization by offering immigrants free citizenship instruction, English, U.S. history and civics courses. Officially, they’re known as “citizenship integration grants.””
“Since 2009 USCIS has doled out $63 million in these grants to prepare more than 156,000 resident immigrants in dozens of states for U.S. citizenship, according to the agency’s figures. Besides the free classes, Uncle Sam also offers immigrants free “naturalization legal services,” the latest USCIS grant announcement states. “Recipient organizations serve both traditional immigrant destinations and new immigrant getaway cities in 21 states,” the USCIS document reads. The latest $10 million investment will prepare approximately 25,000 residents from more than 50 countries, according to the agency. More than a dozen states—including California, New York, Florida, Washington and Ohio—with large resident immigrant populations are being targeted as well as cities with huge immigrant populations such as Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington D.C.”
I wish that I could get my legal services for free. This is shameful.
And the RINO idiots in Congress probably allocated the money willingly.
They fed us powdered eggs (probably 1945 surplus) at Scout camp and I recall that most of the guys liked them.
Besides the free classes, Uncle Sam also offers immigrants free “naturalization legal services,” the latest USCIS grant announcement states.
And the RINO idiots in Congress probably allocated the money willingly.
When are these idiots going to figure the USA is broke ? We are spending our seed corn now. When that runs out, whoops. It will boomerang right back in our face.
I think it will be more like some kind of combination of back-to-the-land and overlapping urban and suburban utopia…
I vote for suburban utopia. Made it to Chicacgo which is definitely not utopia. It is the city of suckassedness.
“We are spending our seed corn now.”
Very appropriate and accurate description. +20,000,000,000,000 (there is no pun in that number)
Just spoke to my Sister-In-Law in Detroit. Her husband took early retirement and she is 5 years away from Medicare with hubby’s health coverage running out next year. She will vote Hillary because she has been convinced that only Hillary will give her and her children FREE health care. I pointed out that she couldn’t afford the deductible of an Obamacare plan and her replay was “Hillary will take care of me”. OUCH !! She would vote for the devil, but I repeat myself, just to get the government to force other people to pay her medical bills. OTOH: I am an American Indian, immune to the Obamacare penalties with excellent medical from my tribe.
I never cared for the powdered eggs at Scout camp, but then I’m not much of a scrambled eggs kind of guy. I like mine poached or over-medium. We always joked that scrambled eggs were for people who couldn’t cook an egg without breaking the yolk. 🙂
Yeah, give me a egg over easy or soft boiled, please…
Still, a nice omelet with onions and peppers and such can be very tasty,
presumably with powdered eggs or EggBeaters.
“We always joked that scrambled eggs were for people who couldn’t cook an egg without breaking the yolk.”
I have found over the years that if I had planned to do my eggs poached or sunny-side-up, the yolks would break. But if was gonna do an omelet or scramble them, nope, they wouldn’t break. Minor demons just messing with me, probably. I’ll get them back later.
“…“Hillary will take care of me”. OUCH !! She would vote for the devil, but I repeat myself, just to get the government to force other people to pay her medical bills.”
There is just no reasoning with peeps who think like that; where do they get the idea that Cankles even gives a fuck about them??? If it came to a choice between losing one thin dime from her gigantic piles of loot or seeing an entire family gutted like fish and then burned alive I have little doubt as to what she’d choose. Regardless of that family’s political affiliation or whether or not they voted for her.
[snip] They fed us powdered eggs (probably 1945 surplus) at Scout camp and I recall that most of the guys liked them. [snip]
Probably because the Scouts put food coloring back into the powder when they were reconstituted. Otherwise, they come out green. My dad used to talk about how repulsive they were to look at in the chow hall in Korea, but eating them anyway because it was much better than the usual dogface diet of C-rats. It’s almost certainly where Theodore Geisel got the idea. He might not have eaten them, but he certainly heard about them.
And instead of ham we got Spam. Green eggs and spam. Except back at the base chow halls, where they had real stuff; I used to eat four or five meals a day on-base, including two breakfasts. Scrambled eggs piled high, piles of bacon, sausage and biscuits, grits, French toast, fruit, etc. Out in the sticks off-base we had the usual C-rats and did a lot of trading and bickering for various items, but I eventually got to where I was mostly eating in-country foods.
In dumbo IT nooz here at home; sound works OK in FF for everything but Netflix wants Silverlight to work. In Chrome, Netflix will work without Silverlight, but there is no sound.
Otherwise all is good so far with Linux Mint 18.
Give me c-rat ham & eggs or give me death. My favorite c-rat.
I remember that stuff. It was pretty amazing.
Anyone else seen the clip of Cakles hacking up green globs in her water? Is it real? Yuck!
There was a C-Ration that was a canned cinnamon roll or something like that.
What was it called? I recall considering it a treat.
The thing about looking for conspiracies everywhere is that you find conspiracies everywhere, even where they aren’t.
There was a C-Ration that was a canned cinnamon roll or something like that.
I believe that was the name on the can.
“Anyone else seen the clip of Cakles hacking up green globs in her water? Is it real? Yuck!”
It’s like I keep saying but no one believes me or takes me seriously….what is the stuff spewing outta Regan’s mouth in “The Exorcist”? And more importantly, WHY is that stuff coming outta there?
“The thing about looking for conspiracies everywhere…”
Oh sure, I get that; I just remember how on all those talk shows like “Crossfire,” “Capitol Gang,” etc., it was always three or four libturds and one “conservative.” The token. On the PBS “NewsHour” show, they’d have Mark Shields there, and then David Brooks on as their token right-winger, only he’s about as right-wing as Harry Reid; and he’d be outnumbered anyway by Shields, who usually appeared half in the bag, and the two anchors. On “The McLaughlin Group” it was Pat Buchanan and three libtards, not counting the host, recently departed from us, and still working two or three days before he checked out.
Ah, “cinnamon nut roll” … although some of the foo shows up in the 1970s,
long long after my ingestion of this substance. Had nuts in it, I fondly recall.
It was dangerously dry, not very sweet.
I pointed out that she couldn’t afford the deductible of an Obamacare plan
Indeed. Premiums for my wife at $731 a month for $2,500 deductible with a maximum out of pocket of $4,500. And I am basically out of work. Only income is about $1K a month from my job at the church.
Seems the system does not use your current income, but what you have made in the year. Thus my salary before I retired is what is used. The fact that I was covered by a plan during those times is irrelevant. New premiums based on what you have made this year, not what you are currently making.
Here is the real problem. When you sign up during the renewal period you have to use your best guess for income for the coming year (my application was off cycle). Now two months into the new year you get laid off. Guess what? Your premiums are still based on what you estimated your income would be. So you have a $900 premium for a family, get laid off, premiums remain. How does someone laid off pay that kind of money?
Supposedly it will get resolved when you file your taxes. But that may be eight or ten months away. Meanwhile the family becomes destitute because they pay the premiums, or don’t pay the premiums and have no coverage. What a fucked up system.
The company I used to work for has premiums that are skyrocketing. They are thinking of abandoning healthcare altogether and letting people get their own insurance through the exchange. The company would pay the people a specific amount to offset the premiums.
Now with exchanges leaving the system entirely, and states deciding how they participate, there is only one provider in TN that I can use. Of course they are setting their own rates as there is no competition. And they are asking for a 40% increase in premiums next year. That would take coverage for one person at over $1100 a month. And the company is reducing what they cover and reduced number of facilities and doctors.
Did I mention it is a really fucked up system.
No, what we had before the {Un}Affordable Care Act was a really fucked up system. The Democrats replaced that really fucked up system with a really, really fucked up system. Their ultimate goal is to transform what we have into a single payer system like NHS which is a really, really, really fucked up system.
CommunismSingle-payer health care is a really great idea. It hasn’t succeeded, but that’s only because it hasn’t been done right yet.Not to worry, they’ll get it right next time.
I’m being treated by the VA so far, but not sure how long that’s gonna last, even with disability. Wife has zero coverage and can’t sign up again for ObolaCARE up here until January, assuming they’ve fixed the sign-up shit and web site by then, having already blown $2 million of our tax money, so far for nothing. Now they wanna ditch it entirely and go with something else; wife knows more about it than I do, having been a public health professional for thirty years.
But like I say, not to worry; it’s just like communism and socialism; the right mix of stuff just hasn’t been applied correctly yet and ya gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet, amirite?
Oh wait; we’re on powdered eggs now.
Sound now OK again in FF after a reboot. Not sure what the deal is, unless it’s the new graphics card (Nvidia). Will now try Chrome for laughs.
From the Cities You Don’t Wanna Move To Department:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nGYkEBDjX8
I’d be cautious about the various authorities’ crime reporting stats, though, knowing from first-hand experience how those figures can be screwed around with six ways from Sunday.
I do note that three or four of the twelve listed cities are in Kalifornia, home of the biggest libturd zeitgeist.
Baking powder doesn’t have citric acid in it. It is either baking soda and (for single acting) cream of tartar or calcium acid phosphate. For double acting, some of the other acid is replaced by sodium aluminium sulfate, sodium aluminum phosphate, or sodium acid pyrophosphate. I guess citric acid would work, but cream or tartar is cheap….
And from the Cities You Don’t Wanna Move To in TEXAS Department:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrxYKuqaVhI
Sugarland didn’t make the list, nor did Houston or Dallas or San Antonio or Austin. Say, youse guys got any hills or trees down there???
And one of my brothers responded to my bitching about Netflix and told me about:
moviego.cc
More recent and current stuff there; not a HUGE selection but they fire up OK with sound and good video and they’re FREE.
And from the Cities You Don’t Wanna Move To in TEXAS Department:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrxYKuqaVhI
Sugarland didn’t make the list, nor did Houston or Dallas or San Antonio or Austin. Say, youse guys got any hills or trees down there???
First, that video was shot in the winter. There was freaking snow on the ground in Jacksonville and that does not happen often. So the trees were bare or close to it. I worked in Jacksonville for a month at the Stryker Creek plant back in the 1980s and there is no way that the town was that dilapidated.
http://www.luminant.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/StrykerCreek_Facts.pdf
And we’ve got more trees and hills in Texas than any other state in the lower 48. Count them ! Alaska don’t count because that is a freaking wilderness.
And, we’ve got more climates and micro-climates than any other state. “Texas’s weather varies widely, from arid in the west to humid in the east. The huge expanse of Texas encompasses several regions with distinctly different climates: Northern Plains, Trans-Pecos Region, Texas Hill Country, Piney Woods, and South Texas. Generally speaking, the part of Texas that lies to the east of Interstate 35 is subtropical, while the portion that lies to the west of Interstate 35 is arid desert.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Texas
And we will give you Vidor, Texas. You just gotta move it to Vermont.
Driven thru a lot of those cities down south.
Galveston shocked me the first time I visited. Boarded up shitholes, FSA standing on corners drinking in daylight, scary neighborhoods, really poor school district. I always thought of it as a beach community, and based my preconceptions on what those 2 words mean in Cali. NOT THE SAME AT ALL.
When we go there, we go to the beach you have to pay to use, and you can carry. Nice beach.
n
Maybe Galveston never recovered after that hurricane nearly a century ago, plus some big explosion, IIRC. I can recommend the book “Isaac’s Storm,” by Erik Larson.
I’ve only been to the San Antonio area of TX; wife has been there and Austin and probably Dallas and Houston a long while ago.
We got lake beaches up here and by Jeezum, yeah, you can carry.
The explosion was in Texas City. A freighter full of fertilizer let go, 2300 tons of ammonium nitrate. 581 dead, over 5000 injured.
@Dave
A poached egg on toast is my favorite breakfast. I didn’t eat them often because it was such a nuisance. Until a friend gave me this:
Sunbeam electric egg cooker
They are perfect if a bit uniform.
It also turns out a great hard boiled egg.
Some info on baking powder, and also a question for RBT…
First the info: According to this site, you can make your own baking powder with either citric acid or cream of tartar, but in different proportions.
Recipe: either 2:1 baking powder:citric acid or 1:2 baking powder:cream of tartar
Now the question: How can this possibly substitute for “double acting baking powder”? I thought that included aluminum sulfate, which (somehow?) causes a second round of leavening at higher temperatures?
that video was shot in the winter
That narrows down the time frame of the video to about three days, generally late in January. I lived in SA for 15 years. Have worn shorts at Christmas and seen six inches of snow. North part of SA was OK, south side you avoided if you could. Just like every city of size there are areas you avoid. Knoxville the closest large city has the east side where it is run down, crime ridden, and generally to be avoided. Move west or north and it is just like any other city.
Best thing about Texas is there is no income tax. TN is sort of the same except for the tax on dividends and interest. But sales taxes are high to compensate.
I can see it’s time I write a short article on baking powder.
A twofer article; baking powder and powdered eggs.
Ironically, I had some of these for breakfast, although they were made with fresh eggs. I never thought of using baking powder in an egg recipe until I saw the video I linked.
Well I’m just a California boy. Scrambled eggs, bacon, hash brown potatoes and cheese all wrapped in a tortilla. Plenty of hot salsa on the side.
It was dangerously dry, not very sweet.
Yes, I remember the extreme dryness. You usually had to shovel it out of the can it was so dry.
How old are you, sir? Your taste in c-rats runs in my direction.
Dave Hardy wrote:
“I used to eat four or five meals a day on-base, including two breakfasts.”
Did you go straight back in the line after eating your first breakfast or wait an hour or two?
Over there I imagine I would need to drink 20 litres of water per day.
Went straight back to the line and they kept loading me up. Not many cooks would argue with a guy my size toting the Pig and belts of ammo.
Yup, after getting used to the local water, I drank gallons of it. I still drink a couple of quarts a day throughout the year.
Galveston shocked me the first time I visited. Boarded up s***holes, FSA standing on corners drinking in daylight, scary neighborhoods, really poor school district. I always thought of it as a beach community, and based my preconceptions on what those 2 words mean in Cali. NOT THE SAME AT ALL.
When we go there, we go to the beach you have to pay to use, and you can carry. Nice beach.
Galveston is still recovering from Hurricane Ike in 2008. Ike had a 24 ft storm surge. Something like 90% of the homes in Galveston had three foot of water or more in them. Several of the men in my church were going down there on the weekends for a year, just randomly helping people out. It was a total mess and did I mention that the island is beloved by rattlesnakes ?
I can recommend the book “Isaac’s Storm,” by Erik Larson.
I loved that book. Does an excellent job of telling you how your life can turn upside down in 48 hours with little or no notice.
https://www.amazon.com/Isaacs-Storm-Deadliest-Hurricane-History/dp/0375708278/
Just remember when you climbing up in a tree to escape the flooding, a bear, or a crazy neighbor, there might be something waiting for you who was there first. Like 12 rattlesnakes.
Your wife could get short term coverage from here to cover her until January. It’s the “crappy” insurance which existed before the Unaffordable Healthcare Act passed with restrictions on existing conditions and lifetime caps. With the added bonuses that you still have to pay the penalty for not having insurance and you can only get coverage for six months at best.
Best thing about Texas is there is no income tax. TN is sort of the same except for the tax on dividends and interest. But sales taxes are high to compensate.
Texas sales tax ranges from 6.25% to 8.25%. I believe that several states are above including California. Yup, Kali is 7.5% to 10.0%.
http://www.salestaxinstitute.com/resources/rates
The biggest blessing of not having a state income tax is not having to fill out all that &%^%$#$# paperwork !
BTW, Texas does have a corporate income tax that ranges from 0.5% to 1.0% of a modified gross income. My business escaped it last year for the first time. Most people call it a Franchise Tax.
http://comptroller.texas.gov/taxinfo/franchise/rates.html
I looked at the eHealth site Dave mentioned. Cheapest plan for me is $151.80 “(Estimated cost)” per month.
Max Duration 180 days
Office Visit for Primary Doctor 30% after deductible
Office Visit for Specialist 30% after deductible
Coinsurance 30% after deductible
Deductible Individual: $10,000
I’m sot sure how the 30% part works. Is that what I pay or what they pay?
So, for six months I can pay a total of $910.80 plus some where I saw something called an “application fee”. Another $20 or $25. I have to pay the /first/ 10K and then we deal with the 30% thing.
Why would I do this? In my head the math does not work.
The last time I went to the doctor was for a check-up. I had BC/BS from HEB and I still had to pay $85 to enjoy (not really) their attitude of me wasting their time because I wasn’t sick. I thought it was a good idea to get some numbers… being a bit past 50…
The time before that was for an ear/sinus infection. That’s what happens three days after if you sneeze while eating a tomato. 1990 or so. I had PruCare from my job with the State of Texas. $5 co-pay plus drugs. Three days later I had a major runny nose and hey, this is interesting, there’s a tomato seed in my kleenex. 🙂 That was the end of the problem. Don’t know what happened to that bottle of Tylenol3. Vanished.
“Your wife could get short term coverage from here to cover her until January.”
Thanks, Mr. Dave, but no dice; after punching in the info:
“We currently do not offer Short-term Health Insurance in your zip code.”
We’re all, or mostly, subject to a massive criminal racket in public health care and insurance schemes. Period.
@paul, for a couple of decades I was “self insured” or not insured at all…..
I paid for everything out of pocket. Rarely cost more than a couple of hundred, and certainly not the $12k / year in premiums.
I had a dentist that was willing to write me what I needed for a $25 office visit, or I could cross the border.
The current situation is the worst of all with the high cost, low value, big out of pockets, and penalties. Oh, and subsidizing the others.
n
I paid for everything out of pocket. Rarely cost more than a couple of hundred, and certainly not the $12k / year in premiums.
One of my employees was in the hospital earlier this year and even with our Silver Level BCBS insurance, generated a bill of $12K. She got meningitis and went to the Sugar Land Methodist ER. They ran a few tests and transferred her to the hospital who put her in the isolation room. The next day they told her it was viral, not bacteriological, and she went home AMA (against medical advice).
How did she get the $12K bill ? $4K deductible and $2K copay. EACH FACILITY ! Methodist Hospitals have spun off their ERs into a separate company so BCBS treats that as two separate visits even though she never left the building.
We are screwed ! The only way to fix this nightmare is Medicare For All ™.
How did she get the $12K bill
Deductible should have only been applied once as that applies to the insurance coverage regardless of which facility is being used. Use the same insurance and you only pay the deductible once.
She should only have to pay the $4K plus $2K copy for each facility up to the maximum out of pocket. Maximum out of pocket should be less than $8K. Anything beyond the maximum out of pocket should be paid 100% by the insurance company.
With my wife’s hip replacement I reached my maximum out of pocket. After that I paid nothing to anyone. I had has much stuff done as I possibly could. Even refilled a couple of prescriptions that I no longer use but might need in the future.
Now the spousal unit is on obuttwad care and guess what? The deductible and maximum out of pocket starts over.
The system is really fucked up. The only real beneficiaries are the losers of society that refuse to work.
How did she get the $12K bill
Deductible should have only been applied once as that applies to the insurance coverage regardless of which facility is being used. Use the same insurance and you only pay the deductible once.
BCBS says that the deductible is per facility. Not annual. Somehow they got those weasel words into our policy without us noting it.
My Tricare Retired is $475/yr for the family until I hit Medicare age. I can’t calculate how much money I’ve saved since retirement.
My Tricare Retired is $475/yr for the family until I hit Medicare age. I can’t calculate how much money I’ve saved since retirement.
Isn’t Tricare only good for VA hospitals and doctors ?
My Tricare Retired is $475/yr for the family until I hit Medicare age. I can’t calculate how much money I’ve saved since retirement.
One of my employees is paying $850 per MONTH for his wife and two kids to be on our group BCBS insurance.
I wonder if Obola is enjoying this nightmare.
My wife had a ‘cadillac plan’ until ofuckstick got the democratic stool lickers and bike seat sniffers to mandate what everyone could have.
“now the trees are all kept equal with HATCHET, AXE, AND SAW!”
n
BCBS says that the deductible is per facility.
Well, ain’t that special. Next I suppose the facility will break each room in the hospital into it’s own facility. Seems like they have already started.
My understanding is that Obamacare looked real cool to the MBA spreadsheet crowd in the White House. My experience is that MBAs toting a laptop with a spreadsheet always ignore the harsh realities of life.
Anyhoo, the problem is that each AIDs patient costs the insurance company about a million dollars per year in drugs and hospitalizations. And the AIDs patients are now getting Obamacare for essentially free since prior medical conditions are now ignored. And there are about a million ??? people with AIDs in the USA. A million times a million is a trillion dollars per year. I suspect that the spreadsheet crowd ignored this factoid.
I have a fix for this. It is called Medicare For All ™. Then we get a whole new set of problems but at least the playing field is leveled.
Isn’t Tricare only good for VA hospitals and doctors ?
If I or family go to a military base (Nellis for us) all treatment is free including drugs. Any emergency room treatment (and amublance ride) and subsquent admission to that hospital is covered at any ER. If I go to any other place for routine stuff without Tricare permission I have to pay a deductible based on the old CHAMPUS system. Or no coverage for non-routine stuff like weight loss surgery, quack stuff, etc.
I’ve posted before, I make too much to get treatment at the VA hospitals and clinics. I’m a very low priority in the VA rating system (thanks to MrsAtoz’s income. If we divorced I could go to the VA). If you have a service related disability, and have it documented, any Vet including a billionaire can go to the VA for treatment. It’s very complicated.
My former USMC son had Tricare while he was in the inactive reserves. He never could figure out how to use it so he worked 30 hours per week for me and got on the company health insurance.
“If you have a service related disability, and have it documented…”
Working on it. Just jumped through another hoop last week. Need to either get it up to whatever percentage so that wife can use the system, too. Or, we pay out of pocket and either that way or through the current nightmare ObolaCARE system, and we’d need to jack up our monthly revenue considerably just to avoid premiums and deductibles. Or suffer and die. They’ve stacked the odds against us Normals, or Dirt People, taken care of themselves, the Cloud People, and patted themselves on the back for taking care of the Less Than Dirt People gratis by stealing from the rest of us.
Need to either get it up to whatever percentage so that wife can use the system, too
That magic number is 100%. Unless you have an actual physical injury from combat that is permanent such as a missing appendage, the only way to get to 100% is PTSD. Apparently PTSD is doable from anyone that participated in combat.
To get the PTSD you have to suffer from nightmares almost weekly, be afraid of loud noises such that a loud bang will put you in a cold sweat, afraid of large crowds, unable to watch war movies, absolutely spooked at being touched while you are asleep. Come on OFD, I know you can do it.
“That magic number is 100%.”
IIRC, that magic number has changed to either 80% or 60%; I’ll double-check on it.
“… from nightmares almost weekly, be afraid of loud noises such that a loud bang will put you in a cold sweat, afraid of large crowds, unable to watch war movies, absolutely spooked at being touched while you are asleep.”
Check, check, check; although I CAN watch war movies; they seem to provide a sort of catharsis and I sometimes learn new chit. All this stuff has been documented by the VA up here since 2008/2009 and through two long-time individual therapists and my regular participation in several veterans’ groups. Our current group psychologist/moderator says that I’m OK and on track for the process so far. We shall see.
Incidentally, I woke up screaming a few nights ago when wife inadvertently startled me and hope I didn’t also wake up the whole neighborhood, what with our windows open to catch the summer breeze (cue up Seals & Crofts). Loud bangs, if unexpected, make my haht jump and go into overdrive, and I absolutely hate and avoid large crowds. Plus, don’t touch me when I’m asleep and don’t sneak up behind me. As I have explained to the various VA people, all of this military chit was EXACERBATED by the years of street cop jobs afterward, too. Bear in mind this is all over 40 years after the events, and we see WWII and Korean War vets exhibiting the same symptoms that many more years after their events.
As the old 1960s hippie bromide goes, war is not healthy for children and other living things. It’s one thing to have it thrust upon us when we’re invaded and attacked here; quite another to roam abroad searching for alleged monsters to destroy.
“… from nightmares almost weekly, be afraid of loud noises such that a loud bang will put you in a cold sweat, afraid of large crowds, unable to watch war movies, absolutely spooked at being touched while you are asleep.”
There are plenty of people with those symptoms who were never in the service.
I have mentioned before that I need to have background sound at all times. While serving in the Submarine Service I became acutely aware of any deviation from “normal” sounds and vibrations. I can recall many times when I was sound asleep in my rack, waking with a start, jumping into my poopy suit, slipping into my boondockers, and racing back to the engine room (usually running into other shipmates doing the same). Sometimes it was nothing, but all too often it was a problem and our immediate presence was vital to preventing a worse problem.
The auto mechanic I use marvels at my powers of observation and hearing. I often hear and feel things going on mechanically that he can only hear with a mechanics stethoscope.
Even though my normal range hearing is deteriorating, my “extra sensory” hearing and feeling is as good as ever. A blessing and a curse and eating at my nerves more each day.
No I didn’t have bullets and bombs to worry about, but try living in sealed steel tube relying on 100+ people and complex machinery to ensure your surfaces = dives. Sweats and jitters, I got ’em. However, I wish every day I could return to that life because that “stress” made me feel alive and productive.
“There are plenty of people with those symptoms who were never in the service.”
And if it’s disrupting their normal functioning lives and families, then they ought to get help for it, which is what I’ve been doing for nearly ten years now. The difference being that I was being shot at and was shooting back, for Uncle, who says it was for liberty and freedom and defending the country. I guess it all worked, ’cause now we’re friends and buddies with Vietnam, Germany and Japan.