Due dates, Book Recommendations, and the Micro and Macro World of Healthcare

Well, the big day (due date) has come and gone without any big news, as you may have figured out. Yesterday I went in for a doctor's appointment, and the nurse got excited and told me I was contracting regularly and probably about to have a baby, so I got excited, too, for about 20 minutes...until I remembered that I've been feeling those little annoying tightenings for probably 3 weeks now - CLEARLY, not a sign of labor in my case. Darn!

However, while the wait seems pretty long, at least the weather has been fairly cooperative...nothing like sunshine and a good book to lift the spirits. Granted, for those of you beneath the Mason-Dixon, 60's is probably a paltry example of a lovely spring day, but after such a cold winter, I LOVE it. As for the good book part...may I recommend James W. Huston to anyone interested in government conspiracy/military adventure type books? He seems to start with some little known line from the constitution and develop a "what if we interpreted this clause like THIS?" kind of scenario. Pretty interesting and not as convoluted as say, a Tom Clancy storyline.

Should I run out of house/errand/reading things to do, I find I can always count on the insurance company to occupy an afternoon. As I've mentioned in previous posts, there are two institutions in life that I'm fairly sure God designed just to test me, to see if I have mastered patience and self-control. These are the government(specifically the Downers Grove parking-ticket issuing body) and insurance.

In one of the great mysteries of life, my insurance company (United Health Care, let the record show!) has decided that the two major hospitals nearby are out of network, but the two country hospitals that don't even have labor and delivery wards that are located 40 minutes out in the country...those they like. Since you CAN'T deliver there, I obviously won't, but the process of communication with UHC about this has unfailingly been an unending set of phone transfers between the exceptions department - who says I don't need an exception to go to a nearby hospital, so they won't issue one, and the benefits department - who is all geared up to charge me out-of-network rates unless I have an exception. TOO WIERD, right?? I finally, FINALLY got my exception (VICTORY!!) and then found out that they had set it for one day - my due date - and since that passed, they closed it out. It is moments like these that confirm to me we are not an evolving species and that motivate me to demand better funding for education to promote a basic level of reasoning skills.

In other news, I spent the wee hours the morning this morning perusing the internet for information about this health care bill. I prefer to get my information from briefs published by advocacy groups rather than from mainstream media- you know where the advocacy group is coming from, and they do a better job of elucidating on the areas they care about, pros and cons. Surprisingly, NO issue briefs appeared in the morning's search results, leaving me to read just basic overviews provided by news stations. The most specific, succint summary I found is here, and the most detailed summary of the tax provisions that I found is located here. If you find better resources, please attach them to this post so others can read them!

I would love to read critiques of the bill that are more specific than "death squads" "rationing" "expensive" and really explain what parts various groups think are faulty, but I didn't find anything by anyone who seemed to actually know what they were talking about. I'm hopeful that useable materials will appear in coming days. I'm not yet willing to go digging through all 2,000 pages myself.

From what I can tell thus far, the death squads/rationing concern stems from a provision that provides monetary incentive to doctors to provide end of life couseling to seniors on Medicare and anyone with a terminal illness. Also, there is concern that swelling the ranks of the insured without creating incentives for people to become doctors will limit general access to medical care. And, no one can sue the government, apparently, leading to concerns that the government has final say about health care decisions. Anyone know of more specifics on this critique?

Also, the bill apparently mandates that states spend money on setting up health-care exchanges, and after 2016, states will bear at least some of the costs for the increased Medicaid population (because the bill expands eligibility to cover more people). I'm confused on this one; I thought any mandate had to be accompanied by funding? Anyway, some governors are opposing the bill on the grounds that their state can't afford the financial burden it places on them.

Expensive, as far as I can tell, is all a matter of perspective. The federal government states it is saving money, the states are up in arms about having to spend money, and undeniably the wealthier among us will foot the bill for the coming changes to the system. The question doesn't really seem to be IF the bill is expensive, it's just which group you want to see pay for all this...

More in coming days as I find it, assuming I'm not busy utilizing my healthcare in the labor and delivery ward. Again, feel free to attach information to this post. Opinions are fine, but actual information is preferred. Thanks!