Another short entry

 

There was a presentation on my company's 2022 health care plan today. And I'm not sure if I should sign up for the company plan in next week's open enrollment, or whether I should continue paying my own way for health care.  Going with the company plan may save me $450/month in insurance payments, but might cost me in two ways: (1) Locking me into a job I don't like until Medicare kicks in, and (2) Costing me more in drug prices and medical co-payments. I won't go into details here, but I am leaning towards going with the company plan.  Unfortunately, I don't have much time to make a decision.

My firm was gobbled up by a larger firm at the beginning of the year. The smaller firm did not offer a health care plan I considered worth the money - I decided to continue purchasing my health insurance on the Obamacare exchange in New York.  The larger firm had more negotiating power, and got a better deal for its employees.  So this got me thinking about a simple question:

Why should the quality and amount of healthcare provided to a person be dependent on the employer that s/he works for?

This is something that bothers me, as the system we have here in the USA seems to be designed to have sub-optimal outcomes.  So several more questions come to mind:

Why should an employer be involved in negotiating health insurance coverage?

Why can't an employer subsidize an employee's health care in a way similar to non-taxed reimbursements for employee education at a local college?

Why shouldn't the final consumer of the health insurance product (the employee) be the one exposed to deciding which company's insurance product to buy, when "Apples to Apples"  comparisons can be made on the Obamacare exchanges?

Why can't ALL Obamacare exchange products provide nationwide coverage?

The answer to most of these questions are either political or historical.  We would be better served if corporations would get out of the business of buying healthcare for their employees, and if government would ensure that healthcare firms only sold policies that met minimum requirements.  We were on the way to doing this until Trump screwed things up by allowing "short term" plans to be sold instead of Obamacare exchange policies.  This allowed insurers to provide insurance that wasn't worth much, but gave buyers the illusion of getting value.  Yet, Obamacare has provided a path to a long term solution.

Since it's late at night and I can't do this topic justice, I will elaborate on it in more detail at a later date.

 

The calm before the storm

 

Winter is known for interesting weather.  One day, the weather could be in the 50's, and later that same week, we could have a blizzard.  This is one of those weeks.

Earlier this week, the weather was in the 50's, and it was a nice day to go out wearing a lightweight coat and a sweater underneath.  Today, the weather was in the high 30's, and people were at the supermarkets stocking up in preparation for the coming blizzard.  

This morning, I got up early, so that I could return a book to the local library, and then decided to take a long ride just to get some free air for one of my tires. (I have a slow leak in one tire, and wanted to make sure that I didn't need to inflate it in bad weather.)  While out, I noticed how busy the supermarkets were, and was glad that I stocked up on things a few days ago. I was also glad that I postponed a zoom meeting with my ex boss until tomorrow - neither of us would be going out, and it made sense to use forced downtime for our virtual get together than a day which I expected might be busy preparing for the coming snow.

By the time I got home, I was very tired.  But I had no time to take a good nap.  Instead, I had to get proof that I had health insurance lined up for 2021, and no extra time to take care of this.  New York's Obamacare exchange was closing up shop earlier than last year, so I had only the 6 week window to have paperwork in hand saying that I had purchased a plan for the coming year.  After a phone call and logging into the exchange site, I had that paperwork in hand, and had what I needed to fight "city hall" if needed.

Next, it was a co-op board meeting.  Things ran better than expected, and the meeting was quicker than usual.  However, I had to bug out early - I had a Tuesday night meeting of my Texas Zoom Meetup group to attend.  (I'll have to talk with the president of the co-op in the morning about me bailing out.)  Around 8:30, I made it to the meetup group, and only one of the group was left online.  We chatted for 30 minutes, and then I was free for the evening.

Hopefully, tomorrow's weather won't be as bad as expected. At least, I have my snow shovel upstairs just to be safe....