New Furniture, Crashes, and Health Care Costs

Well, the good news is that Anthem BCBS has reversed its decision to charge the patient for anesthesia if the surgeon took too long with the procedure, at least in Connecticut.  They put out some lame statement to the press that it was misinformation, and they only wanted to do what was best for patient care in accordance with standards.  To which I would have to reply, bull shit.

The weather continues to be eerily nice.  I just reread last December's posts, and it was not a great month for being outside.  This is better, although it's not good for the spring flowers.  Rainfall in December determines how good the spring bloom will be.  

We finally broke down and bought two chests of drawers at Bob's Discount Furniture, a nation wide chain of crappy furniture sold for what I consider to be too much money.  They're MDF and are currently off gassing.  If you've ever been in a new RV, you know that smell.  We're opening windows and running fans during the day.  It was an interesting buying experience.  First we were told that the least expensive piece on the floor was the only one left, no more available, and here, go look at the ones that cost more.  Then out of the blue, no! there are more, but they won't be available until December 21.  Ok, we'll take them.  They were delivered yesterday.  They hold up the clothing; they are by no means heirloom quality furniture, but that's ok.  I've ordered a faux cow hide covered slipper chair to go in the corner, so we can throw clothes on it.  Every bedroom needs a chair for clothes that aren't clean, but aren't dirty yet.

This was a weird accident, even by Tucson standards.  People here drive stupid, too fast, too close, too dangerous.  We make every effort to be off the roads by 3:30 which is when traffic picks up.  This happened on a stretch of road where there is a median, so it's not clear how they managed a head on collision. Traffic was detoured out into the desert onto a dirt strip.  The white car is totaled.  The black pick up truck had front end damage, and all air bags deployed.

Bad picture through the driver's window in to the sun.  Look at the front wheel, the front suspension has failed due to impact.  Both cars sustained front end damage, how did they do this when separated from on coming traffic.

This is a tree in our front yard which is dropping its miniscule leaves on the driveway.  I strongly suspect it will be the cause of us acquiring a leaf blower.

There was a hike the other day and we saw this.  The balance is pretty amazing.  I did not touch it so see if it's glued like that.

With the shooting of the CEO of United Health Care in the news, health care costs have once again come into the publics' consciousness.  UHC has a 32% rejection of claims rate.  Here is a chart.

Here is another chart.  OECD is an acronym for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.  It helps explain why healthcare in the US costs so much.

And then there is this.

This is something Congress could do something about, instead of allowing Musk and Ramaswamy to threaten VA benefits, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP programs.  They could also go after PBMs that are raising the drug prices for consumers.  But no, obeisance to the orange menace and the billionaire class is foremost in their minds.

Other than this, I have not too much to write about.