Listen to the Rain

http://sweetraptorjesus2.ytmnd.com/

That song has been stuck in my head for days, so I now inflict it on you.

My insurance company continues to confound my attempts to see them as villainous bastards. A week ago, I got a letter from Tri-City Radiologists, telling me that I owed them about $500 for the CAT scan I got (which the hospital had already billed me for), with the rationale that they had sent the bill to the insurance and gotten no response. I was all set to call and yell at my insurance company for not paying for something when they had already approved it (since they covered my hospital bill), but instead I was told that they paid the bill the day after it was sent to my house. Well then.

Heroes rocks. NBC does not. Hey NBC--if your other shows didn't suck so much, you wouldn't have to make sure Heroes was running during sweeps!

Why are you complaining about the number of claims I'm submitting if you have not, in fact, paid any of those claims? Don't you think that saying "we aren't giving you any money, haven't given you any during the entire year, and in fact, we're taking more from you" is likely to lead to people switching to a different policy? Or are you banking on the fact that, as most consumers realize and most politicians don't (or do and then lie about it), that no, health coverage is NOT something that the free market works with because there's no way to make a reasonable price comparison when half the doctors/hospitals won't tell you their prices until after you receive service and there's no way to make a cost/benefit analysis when you're bleeding internally and need to be airlifted immediately.

Also, I sincerely hope that tomorrow on the way to work, you get into a severe accident and end up with lingering health problems that your own insurance will not cover. After years of stringing you along, it will drop you from the program and you will have to remortgage your house and sell your extra assets to pay for your care. In the end, I hope that your creditors repossess all that you own and that you die, slowly and painful, from the lingering effects of the disease while your loved ones are left with no money, no hope and no future.

Sincerely,
Dorchadas

So, I went to pay for gas today (since I had maybe a gallon left in the tank), and discovered that, once again, gas is $3 a gallon. And this is in April. I'm willing to bet that it'll be $3.25-$3.50 by the summer, and that's assuming a hurricane doesn't push it up to $4.50 or higher.

These prices actually don't bother me too much--maybe they'll convince the 50% who voted for Bush in 2004 how stupid a mistake they made--but the problem is, people won't realize that it's a good opportunity to push alternate energy research. They'll just scream for lower gas prices now and vote out anyone who doesn't deliver. Not that, strictly speaking, I can blame them. I have plenty of free space in my budget to soak the price increases. Most people don't.

Worry, worry...