I signed up for the catastrophic medical insurance offered by NYSUT, not expecting a catastrophe, but you never know. I never thought the insurance itself would be catastrophic, but I should've thought things through. After all, I used NYSUT auto insurance for many years, and it wasn't until I bought a car in 2014 that I learned I was paying almost double what Allstate charges.

I asked the company, Mercer Consumer, for payroll deduction so I wouldn't have to send them checks all the time. If I recall correctly, there was some kind of discount associated with that. A few weeks ago, I got a note that I needed to send a payment or my account would be canceled. I figured that was nonsense since I asked for payroll deduction, so I tossed the letter.

The other day, however, I got an email from UFT saying the first payment must be by check. That surprised me since the packet stated no such thing. I'd have written a check immediately if only I still had the bill. The email instructed me to call Mercer, which I did,

I was encouraged to hear, in their recording, they had a devoted line to the NYSUT insurance. Their message said if you signed up for payroll deduction to ignore the bill. I decided to wait on the line to make sure, but the message said it would be 39 minutes to speak to a human. I declined. They probably told me my call was important to them, but I always figure if my calls are important to you, you'll, you know, answer them.

A friend in the office told me they had deducted from his check, and I went and found they had not deducted from mine. This grieved me deeply. I therefore called UFT Welfare Fund. I sat on hold while I waited to speak to an operator. I told the operator I wanted to speak to someone about it, and she put me on hold again. I entered my social security number and got placed on hold yet again.

I spoke to a woman at the Welfare Fund who told me I should call Mercer. I asked her why, then, I had gotten an email from Geof Sorkin, UFT Welfare Fund Executive Director. Naturally, she put me on hold again to check this out. When she came back, she told me that I would have to call Mercer. T

Unfortunately, I have this job and stuff, and my ability to sit 39 minutes and wait for Mercer is sorely limited. Sometimes I have to, you know, teach classes, and for some reason my principal frowns on leaving my speaker phone on so I can complete personal calls during class time. Also, at meetings, people seem to find that disrespectful.

I looked up Mercer online and found an email address:

 [email protected]

I described my issue and left my NYSUT ID, which I have on a card in my wallet. If you're having the same problem, give them a holler. An autobot wrote back, saying I'd have a response in two days. Well, it beats staying on hold for 39 minutes.

On the other hand, I have a week off coming up. I suppose I could devote one day to sitting around and waiting for Mercer to respond to my call. Too bad they didn't just deduct it from my check. After all, I sent them a signed authorization.

You know, this is the only non-third-world country I know of where you need catastrophic medical insurance. It's also the only such country I know of where there is such a thing as Fox News and millions who watch it. That's probably how the Koch Brothers and their pals are able to disenfranchise so many voters that we now have Donald Trump as President.

I'll keep working to get the insurance I'm willing to pay for. Hopefully, we'll all keep working to render it obsolete.

It's almost inconceivable that an ostensible public servant could introduce a health plan in which people were asked to choose between phones and health. And yet that's exactly what Congressman Jason Chaffetz of Utah managed to portray a few days ago. You see, to Chaffetz the issue isn't why people can't afford a $10,000 visit to their friendly local ER. The issue is that they're greedy, and that they'd rather have an iPhone than be alive.

Of course that's absolutely absurd, as is the GOP plan to replace Obamacare. The notion, obviously, is to pass on costs to those who can least afford them. Subsidizing insurance by age rather than need means that someone as wealthy as Bill Gates could be eligible for huge benefits while a single mom in Brooklyn will be more or less on her own. I'm sure that makes sense somehow, to someone, but who it is I have no idea. Of course Chaffetz himself has a government health care plan, and if it's good enough for him, why not offer it to all Americans? 

And how on earth can cutting Medicaid support help America? Medicaid is beneficial for states, and ultimately saves money. Clearly the priority of the GOP is not a healthy America, but rather a more wealthy insurance company. And don't forget the uber-rich, who will get a huge tax cut benefit even as our poorer friends and neighbors get cut.

I honestly don't know how Chaffetz or Ryan can get up in the morning and face themselves in a mirror. Were I the motivating factor for a plan like this, I'd take the first opportunity to leap from a tall building. Nonetheless, these guys suffer no such scruples.

If you feel like buying an iPhone, you can get one brand new for as little as $399. I'm not sure what drugs Chaffetz is taking, but I've yet to hear of the health plan you can buy for $400, even if you're the healthiest 22-year-old on God's green earth. In fact, I think you'd be fortunate if you could find a halfway decent plan for $800 a month. As a matter of fact, I have very good health insurance as a NY City employee, and there've been months when I paid $800 in co-pays. With $30 doctor visits and lab fees, $50 visits to Urgent Care, $150 to ER and $200 to hospital admission, those dollars can really mount up.

Despite that, I know how lucky I am. What I really don't understand is how anyone could vote for a lying sack of crap like Jason Chaffetz. I mean, I suppose he must have qualities other than his outright contempt for poor people, but what on earth can they be to remotely compensate for that? The man is a loathsome reptile.

It's disgusting that he insults poor people, as though they're greedy. This guy has a great medical plan, makes almost 200K a year, has a whole lot of his expenses paid by we, the people, and wants to begrudge poor people the small comfort of a phone. I don't understand for the life of me why people vote for these morally bankrupt windbags. I read a whole book called What's the Matter With Kansas and I still haven't got the slightest idea.

But the real sinners are the ones who write the propaganda to keep slugs like this one in office. I hope there's a special ring in hell for those people, because their job entails making life hellish for real working Americans here on earth.

We live in a funny place, but not many of us can afford to laugh. I may have had a disparaging word for the steep rise in co-pays we've faced this year, but relatively, they're not nearly as bad as they could be. I have to now think twice before spending 50 bucks at an urgent care, but usually when you or a family member need a place like that, 50 bucks is the last thing on your mind. The real issues are the fact that Mulgrew never presented this to us when selling the contract, and we have no idea how many more add-on costs will pop up these next few years.

We're the only wealthy nation that doesn't guarantee health care for its citizens. As if that isn't bad enough, the new GOP leadership is getting ready to roll back the few improvements Obamacare achieved. I've read a lot of complaints about it. There are high deductibles, for example, and high premiums. Nonetheless, there may be fewer bankruptcies over catastrophic medical emergency, and fewer homes being sold to pay crippling hospital bills. I learned that this was a thing decades ago, and it's remarkable that we've allowed it to continue.

When I was in college at SUNY New Paltz, I played weekends in a band. Most of our work was in Queens. I would hitchhike or take buses and trains on weekends, go to work, and come back. One of my band members was in Queens too. We would stay at his house sometimes. His mom had some issue, and lost first her leg and then her life as a result.

My friend's dad had to sell his house to pay doctor bills. He moved into the basement of the home of one of his sons. One Christmas he took a gun and blew his brains out. That was the first time I started to think our health system, to say the very least, was not all that good. In fact, it began to look unconscionable at that point, and time hasn't done much of anything to change my mind. While Obamacare was far from ideal, it was the first and only improvement on a system designed to enrich insurance companies rather than help working Americans.

The first time I got health insurance myself was when I became a teacher. I think at that time you had to wait six months before you took out insurance. Either that or no one told me I was eligible. In any case, I was at John F. Kennedy High School, and I asked my chapter leader what insurance I should get. He didn't want to tell me, saying he couldn't be responsible and this and that. I pressed him, though, and he told me to get GHI with CBP. I did, and I still have it.

Before I got this chapter leader job, I spent a lot of time playing music when I wasn't at school. To ensure I would never make any money at all doing this, I chose to play bluegrass fiddle. Another really cool thing about doing this is that almost no one in this area even wants to hear it, so I'd travel a lot to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. One Sunday I had a job playing in a historic theater in Pennsylvania. We were opening for the late James King and his band.

The folks who hired us sent us out to lunch down the block from the theater. I remember that I sat with his banjo player. He was the only person in his band who appeared to be in good physical shape. I'd brought my family, and I remember that the banjo player and I both ordered Reuben sandwiches.

Later in the week I got a call. The banjo player experienced chest pains on Monday. Knowing that a visit to the ER would've run him thousands of dollars, a number of dollars that not a whole lot of bluegrass musicians have, he decided to tough it out. The next day he died.

How could this happen? If he lived in Canada, in Europe, in any other wealthy country in the world he'd almost certainly be around today. But he isn't. Back when I was heavily into this bluegrass thing, I'd often hear news about a benefit somewhere for some professional musician or other. These were not weekend warriors like me, but rather folks who were out on the road doing this all the time. How could our country not support artists? In fact, how could we not support everyone?

Obamacare made some improvements. No one gets excluded for existing medical conditions. Kids were covered under parent plans until 26. It did away with plans that didn't meet a minimum standard. It helped some people who needed financial assistance. But it still relied on private insurance companies focused on profit rather than people. And the GOP refused to work toward improving it, focusing rather on killing it and moving us back toward the nothing we had earlier.

Now they pull all the levers of power and their plan appears to be to kill it and tell us all to sink or swim. While anyone with the option will choose the latter, not all will be able to afford it. As if that weren't enough, they want to roll back Social Security and Medicare. Me, I can't believe anyone would vote for these people. I can't believe they persuade anyone with a job they have their interests at heart. But Fox News is a thing, people watch it, and they believe what they say. Some people don't need no stinking facts and won't be swayed by them either.

What we really need is single-payer, which seems to work better than our system everywhere it's used.  Most Americans agree. So how can we allow Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, and all their flying monkeys actively work against our interests?

More importantly, what can we do now to advance the agenda we actually prefer?

Even those of us with relatively good insurance can be stunned by medical bills. My daughter had an interesting experience last summer. She was feeling achy one evening and I took her to an urgent care. Fifty bucks. The urgent care said they had to rule out meningitis and sent us to the ER. One hundred and fifty bucks.

At the ER, blood tests were negative. They went and did a spinal tap. This caused my daughter extreme pain and we returned to the ER, from which they admitted her. Three hundred bucks. Oddly, the only thing that was wrong with her, five hundred dollars later (not to mention what the insurance paid, which was way more), was that she suffered side effects from the treatment.

So I was a little surprised to get a bill from the hospital for $848.17. That took our adventure to over one thousand dollars out of pocket, all for checking out my kid, who had a virus. And yes, I understand they had to check, and it's certainly better being safe than sorry. So what was the problem?

Evidently, you are supposed to call Blue Cross when you are admitted to the hospital. They give you a 48-hour window to do this, which I guess is enough time to make a call. I gotta say, though, I've had this insurance for over thirty years and I've never made any such call, not for me, and not for anyone in my family. Well, Blue Cross has had enough of me and my shenanigans. I discovered this after waiting twenty-five minutes to speak to someone at the hospital billing department, which played the most awful piano music I've ever heard, over and over, along with messages about how important my call was to them. Of course, if it were really important, you'd think they'd answer it.

The woman told me that Blue Cross had penalized me for failing to call. Man, $548.17 for not thinking of the insurance company while my daughter was in pain. I am clearly a horrible human being. To their credit, Empire answered quickly. When I told them I had no idea I had to call them, the guy said, "It's right there on your card." But I wasn't looking at the card because I was too busy rushing my kid to the ER. He waived the charge.

I called back the hospital and listened to that awful piano tape for another 30 minutes or so. I paid my bill, and the woman gave me a ten percent discount for paying promptly. So it was not so bad.

I wonder, though, what about people with more dire issues? Are they expected to waken from their comas and let Blue Cross know they're gonna be in Intensive Care for a while? Should they crawl out of traction to get their fingers around that receiver? Should they wake from feverish delusions, fish their wallets out of the plastic bags in which they put their belongings, read the little numbers and then dial?

I found myself telling people more than once, "Well, we didn't go to the hospital just for fun." I wonder if that's what they think. What on earth is this phone call designed to do? Are the folks from Blue Cross gonna check whether you're just taking it easy and hanging around in a thin robe so you can freeze to death in some icy hospital? Are they gonna tell people on the spot that their telephone experts have determined that the doctors at the hospital are wrong and you should just go home?

Or is it absolutely vital to have yet one more layer of redundant bureaucracy in our already convoluted and incomprehensible health care system?

I had an interesting week. My daughter had a terrible headache, so I rushed her to an Urgent Care facility near our home. They thought she might have meningitis, so I took her to the ER. Thankfully, she didn't have meningitis and it was just a virus, but they had to rule it out.

The cost was $50 for visiting the urgent care plus $200 for the ER visit, for a total of $250. That's $185 more than this would've cost me last year. Now at 8:30 on a Friday night when the local urgent care closed at 9, I suppose I could've driven her to the Advantage Care facility in Valley Stream, 15 minutes farther away, and saved 50 bucks. I would've had to get on the laptop and check their hours and address. Then it would've been only $135 out of pocket. (I guess I'm just not smart enough to think like that when I see my daughter in pain.)

I can't imagine my story is that unique. Now this, of course, was a by-product of the most recent contract agreement, the one negotiated by Michael Mulgrew and his crack team of UFT Unity loyalty oath signers. Now I guess the $250 is just a drop in the bucket compared to the $40,000 I already lent the city but have to wait until 2020 to get (with no interest). Like everyone, I look forward to getting back a whopping zero percent of that back during the next school year. Thanks again, UFT Unity.

But surely the $250 is just one part of how much I'll pay this year as part of the 2014 contract that was not revealed to us as Mulgrew sold it to us via appeals to fear, like how retro was not a God-given right.  In any case, UFT Unity is on Twitter boasting about their latest victory:

Teacher's Choice:
We won a 27.5% overall increase in Teacher's Choice funding!

Remember to save your receipts! https://t.co/ABg8FCbkxF

— UFT Unity (@UFTUnity) August 2, 2016

That's pretty interesting. Now last year, Teacher's Choice was at $122. Though they haven't actually provided the precise figure, I'm guessing 27% more is another 30 bucks a year. Now I have to give them credit--that makes up for a small fraction of what their brilliant negotiations cost me last Friday night. In fact we have no idea what further givebacks are in store for us as a result of Mulgrew's yet incomplete negotition.

Regardless, it's a net loss. This silver lining is that with that thirty bucks, or whatever it turns out to be, I can invest in Ticonderoga, the acknowledged Cadillac of pencils. These pencils derive their name from Ticonderoga New York, where they were once made. That's back before someone discovered it was cheaper to outsource labor than pay American workers. But I digress.

The important thing to remember is UFT Unity is hard at work getting you 30 bucks a year, maybe. If you and your entire family see medical specialists less than twice a year, never go to a convenient and now ubiquitous Urgent Care facility, and never visit an ER, this could represent a jump in income sufficient to net yourself some sweet Ticonderoga pencils, possibly in bulk at Costco.

So thank you, UFT Unity, for looking out for us. You can imagine how grateful we must be. For those of us who've already been shelling out the big bucks for Ticonderoga, well, maybe we can go splurge and go see a movie or something, as long as we don't go crazy and buy popcorn. And no matter how many hundreds or thousands of dollars we lose as a result of your health care negotiations, no matter how many more losses we incur as a result of their not yet having been completed, we will have that (maybe) thirty bucks to console us.

Lately I've been getting attacked pretty frequently on Facebook by a few people who insist I vote for Hillary Clinton. When they get really upset, they start telling me how stupid I am. I'm unfamiliar with high school civics. I don't understand how things work. What about 1972? Didn't we lose in 1972? Sanders is Ralph Nader. He's a spoiler.

When you tell them that Sanders has pledged to support the Democratic nominee, they are not happy. It doesn't matter. Sometimes they accuse me of supporting the Republicans. If I don't vote for Hillary, I'm supporting Donald Trump. How do I feel about that?

They don't seem to understand the meaning of democracy. If, in fact, I want to vote for Donald Trump, I can. I don't, but still I have reasons not to vote for Hillary. For one thing, I voted for Barack Obama the first time he ran. I was pretty horrified as he enacted the worst education policies I've ever seen. I regretted my vote, and when he ran for re-election chose Jill Stein from the Green Party. So when Hillary said she would close schools that weren't above average, I decided that was enough for me.

But she followed this up by saying we would never, ever get single payer. Evidently those of us who think America should have universal health coverage are wild-eyed dreamers. Now I've been sick, and even with excellent health insurance I recall wading through complicated, virtually incomprehensible bills, and spending hours calling my medical insurance company, and my hospital insurance company, and actually visiting the hospital to try and clear things up. This was a process that took months.

But that's nothing.

Sometimes I play fiddle in bluegrass bands. It's kind of my hobby. One Saturday night, I was playing in a Pennsylvania theater, in a band that opened for someone who was fairly well known in our circles. It was a pretty nice gig. We had a dressing room, and the theater sent us to a nearby restaurant for lunch and dinner.

I remember I ate with the banjo player from the main band. He ordered a Reuben sandwich, and so did I. I don't remember much of what we talked about. I do remember, though, that he was the only member of the other band who looked under 300 pounds. That's why I was pretty surprised to hear that he dropped dead the following Tuesday.

Evidently he'd been having chest pains and didn't want to go to the ER. After all, an ER visit can cost 3,000 bucks, and that's after the negotiated discounts your insurance company has. This banjo player had none of those discounts, and in case you didn't know, banjo playing is not generally a well-paying job. I'm not even sure if he was the regular banjo player. But banjo players, regular or not, like all Americans, deserve better than this.

.@HillaryClinton If you really believe this, it's time for you to support #FightFor15/hr min wage and #SinglePayer health care. #Talkischeap

— Danielle Muscato (@daniellemuscato) February 17, 2016

My friend's father had to sell his house to pay his wife's medical bills. He moved into the basement of his son's house, where one Christmas Eve he blew his brains out with a gun.

America needs universal health, not excuses from self-serving politicians who care about nothing but winning the election. And for those of you who want to lecture me about the Supreme Court, if Hillary needs my  vote in NY State so desperately it's that pivotal, she is toast anyway.

You vote for who you like. I'm voting for Bernie in the primary, and I'm not voting for a reformy politician who wants to fire me, or any of my brother and sister teachers.

The United States Supreme Court made two important decisions yesterday. First, they decided that employers need not fund health care decisions that conflict with their religious views.

So if you want your health care to entail birth control but your employer doesn't believe in it, too bad for you. Some religions have other reservations about medicine. Let's say your employer doesn't believe in antibiotics or blood transfusions. Maybe he doesn't believe in surgery or routine medical checks. That would really be tough, wouldn't it?

I wouldn't be surprised if the CEO of Exxon Mobil were forming a new religion right now. Think of how economical it would be for a business required to insure the health of people whose boss didn't actually believe in health (for strictly religious reasons, of course).

But this court believes deeply in individual freedom. That's why it took up the case of some health care workers, who were apparently so offended by a raise of over 50% they went to federal court. They don't believe in union. How awful. I wonder why they didn't return their raise in protest. But as long as people believe in more work for less pay, they have the right to insist on it.

The court decided this decision was valid because the health workers were only "partial" public employees. Maybe it's because the public just pays their salary but doesn't actually fully participate in their services. Look for them to determine teachers are only partial public employees because they only teach some kids rather than all of them.

This is essentially the same court that gave us GW Bush in 2000, deeming it too dangerous to count votes. As long as it's 5-4 on the wrong side, they won't come out in favor of working people any time soon.

Of course I'm not a Supreme Court Justice, and I don't understand all the intricacies of rationalizing anti-woman and anti-union nonsense. I'm just a lowly teacher.

But I'm very proud to be one nonetheless.

In 2008, I voted for Barack Obama as the last best hope to alter the destructive and decadent path piloted by George W. Bush and his band of thugs and liars. Obama promised change, and heralded a new day in America. He's not only failed to deliver, but, amazingly, seems to be following in the footsteps of his predecessor. Bail out the bigs, and forget about everyone else.

I've long marveled at our miserable health care system. Almost 3o years ago, a friend's father had to sell his home to pay for his deceased wife's medical bill. He moved into his son's basement, where he blew his brains out one Christmas Eve. Years later, I watched Bill Clinton fail to pass a plan because he refused to compromise. Obama, given that, bent back so far it was tough to remember what he, as a candidate, promised. I distinctly recall his proposing to marginally roll back the party the super-rich have been enjoying here since the 80s.

However, when he got the job, he pushed that promise back. Perish forbid the rich should have higher taxes. When he finally got around to health care, he liked the Senate proposal to place a 40% tax on health care plans over 24K a year, a short-sighted measure given the astronomical rises in health costs that occur as a matter of course. Among the many reasons I didn't vote for John McCain was his proposed tax on health insurance. I thought it was an unfair burden on the disappearing middle class--and never imagined the man for whom I voted would endorse such an idea.

Also, it appears a public option, for those who can't afford or prefer not to enrich predatory insurance companies, is dead in the water. A popular blogger I respect told me that without the public option, she'll have to soldier on without health insurance. That's unconscionable, and certainly not what we voted for.

As if that weren't enough, President Obama's appointee for Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, pushed an education program that looked like nothing more than a continuation of the disastrous Bush policies. Never mind the taxes NY State gives the government. If we want Federal aid for our schools, we'll have to compete in the "Race to the Top"--a pro-charter, anti-union, poorly thought out and ultimately counter-productive exercise in closing neighborhood schools and enriching private interests. Forget about what teachers think is right--Bill Gates has other ideas, and a lot more money than all of us.

The "Race to the Top," of course, is based on the programs Arne Duncan carried out in Chicago public schools, the ones that weren't good enough for Obama Barack's kids. The programs Duncan ran appear not to have been remotely as effective as Obama originally claimed. This is reminiscent of nothing more than the wholly fabricated "Texas Miracle" that GW Bush and his original Education Secretary, Rod Paige, began with. This phony program was the model for "No Child Left Behind," yet another brilliant national initiative.

Meanwhile, we're still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite our vote to get the hell out.

I've never voted against a Democrat in my life, but I don't envision voting for Barack Obama again, at least not while I can still write in Mickey Mouse. Nor will I vote for NY Governor David Paterson (though I doubt he'll survive a primary). I've come to the point, well after some of my fellow bloggers, where I no longer think either political party serves the interests of my family, my community, or my profession. Democrats will no longer get my vote as a matter of course.

And I have to tell you, their failure to deliver is most certainly why they lost Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts. In fact, I think if McCain had won, there's no way he'd have managed to pass a plan like Race to the Top, and there's no way we'd be looking at New York State insisting on closure of dozens of neighborhood schools. I don't know if the country would be better off, but the education system certainly would.

Democrats are going to take a bath next year. If they can't count on the likes of me, they are truly screwed. I don't see the Rush Limbaugh crowd warming to Obama anytime soon. There are a lot of people like me, and Democrats ignore us not only at their peril, but at that of the future of the United States of America.

Prove me wrong, Mr. President. If you care about the middle class, or even if you just want a second term, I suggest you get started right away.

I wish I were an editorial page writer for a city tabloid. I wouldn't have to reflect, or consider all the issues. I could simply think, "Union bad, status quo good," and proceed without giving any time to reality, which is admittedly troubling. The Daily News editorial yesterday pretty much says it all, vilifying union and glorifying charters. In the interests of being "fair and balanced," it points us to an anti-union, pro-charter op-ed.

I'm reminded of the few times I tried to watch Fox News. Once, when we were headed to Iraq, they balanced the viewpoint of a Republican Senator with that of ex-Republican Senator Fred Thompson. Another time, when Hillary Clinton was running against Rick Lazio, they balanced the viewpoint of a Republican Congressman who supported Lazio with that of Floyd Flake, a Democratic Congressman who supported Lazio.

Though our fair and balanced President, Barack Obama, didn't bother to suggest this when he was running, he now wants to drop the cap on charters. Charters can sometimes do better than public schools. Why they don't always do so is a mystery to me. After all, charter students have 100% proactive parents, and proactive parents are the no. 1 factor in student success. And when you drain the children of proactive parents from public schools, you demean them by just that much.

Another thing the News wants is for teachers to be judged on the test scores of their students. The fact that they'd be higher if we weren't moving our best prospects into charters does not even merit a mention. As usual, everything is the fault of unionized employees, and no one who controls the schools bears any responsibility whatsoever.

I could write this stuff myself. I'm amazed, though, that such superficial, unexamined, and unpersuasive stuff is so pervasive. The sad thing, for many Americans, is there's little or no exposure to the other side. You get an op-ed here and there, but nothing resembling the relentless drum beat that every newspaper editorial board, including the so-called liberal New York Times, feeds America on a fairly regular basis.

New York is a macrocosm for the rest of the country, where few know that President Obama never said he'd insist on lifting the charter cap. Not only that, but our new President has reneged on his promise to marginally diminish the party the uber-rich have been enjoying since the 80s, and has instead decided to fund his wimpy health plan on the backs of middle-class and unionized employees.

A very smart blogger with whom I'm friendly tells me that the lack of a public option will mean she will soldier on without health insurance, despite the 40% tax the President will be levying on programs that provide decent coverage. It's sad that you don't see that in the papers. But politicians like Bloomberg and Obama wouldn't be able to function in an environment where everyone actually knew what was going on.

It's going to be tough to wake up the public, but we can't stop trying.

You know, a lot of people come up to me on the street and say, "Hey, NYC Educator, what's it like to be a real man?" I tell them it's hard work. For example, fter a long day of being a real man, I'm really tired.

Sometimes people ask me how they can show others what real men they are. I tell them the most important thing is to impress women. For example, before going out on a date with a woman, you might try driving into a brick wall a hundred miles an hour, then brushing yourself off and getting out of the car as though nothing happened. She won't soon forget a guy like you. Alternatively, why not take her to a nice restaurant, pour lighter fluid in your lap, and set yourself on fire? Then continue chatting nonchalantly, as though nothing of consequence is occurring. This will be a date to remember.

The GOP wants us all to be real men. That's why they keep blocking every piece of health care legislation that comes down the pike. Better tens of thousands should have no insurance, and join all the real men. Because real men don't care about stuff like that. They just jump into any situation head first, and if they fall on a block of cement, so be it.

And make no mistake, Republicans opposed Medicare using the same idiotic "socialism" attacks they're using to maintain the status quo today. A few years ago they wanted to privatize socail security, which in hindsight would've been an unmitigated disaster. Now they want to apply the privatization magic to schools. GW sponsored a windfall for corporations, for banks, for pointless wars, but we can't involve government in health care. First, we can't afford it. Second, government can't do anything right (which is why no one our age knows how to read and write). On the other hand, they now say private companies could not compete with a public option.

So--maybe deep inside those real Republican men beat hearts of chickens. I hope they have insurance. I've seen people die for lack of it, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

See the battling Glenn Becks over at Miss Cellania's place.

I'm in London, Ontario visiting family. Yesterday, my two-year-old nephew had an ear infection. I had to take him and his mom for help. In this terrible Canadian medical system, his doctor is closed on Saturday, so we tried to take him to a clinic located in a nearby drugstore. It being five o'clock, the clinic had closed, so we had to take him to an emergency room at the nearest hospital.

The scary Canadian receptionist sent us immediately to triage, where a nurse took his temperature. She told the boy she was checking to see if there were any monkeys in his ear. Can you imagine frightening a young boy like that? After this ordeal, we sat down for a full five minutes before being called into the pediatric examination area.

After that, we had to wait forty minutes before a medical student gave the kid an examination. The examination took another 15 minutes or so, and then he had to get an OK from a doctor, who showed up 15 minutes later. Not only that, but we had to wait another few minutes before we got the prescription, bringing our wait time in the ER to almost 90 minutes.

Now compare that to the American hospital where I took my mom a few weeks ago. We got in, signed up, and within 3 hours made it to triage. Let me state unequivocally that no one suggested she had monkeys in her ear. After they sent us our for another four hours in the waiting area, I recognized her doctor, who used to be my doctor too (When he became a "boutique" doctor and started charging 1500 bucks a year, I found another doctor, but my mom stayed on).

I told the doctor how long we'd been waiting, he gave some choice words to someone, and within one hour, we got in. Within another hour she saw a doctor. So while my nephew had to wait a full 90 minutes, my mom saw a doctor within a mere 9 hours. The second number, if I'm not mistaken, is a 90% reduction over the first.

More importantly, my mom was in the hospital for a week, but under our American system, she's fine now. My nephew though, under the socialist system, still has that ear infection.

Sarah Wildman did everything right. She went and got health insurance before she got pregnant, as our preposterous system labels pregnancy as a "preexisting condition" and doesn't cover it. But then, after paying all the numerous copays, she found her insurance policy didn't cover labor, delivery or a hospital stay, despite her rider for maternity coverage. How stupid of her to expect maternity coverage to pay for those added extras.

Now you're probably asking yourself, "Why couldn't she just have her baby at work or something?" At a high school I used to work in, a paraprofessional had a baby in the cafeteria one day. Now there was a woman who didn't believe in any of those wasteful frivolities. But actually, as she had government health care, like me, and like prominent public health care foe Rudy Giuliani (who was treated for cancer while he carried GHI), she was whisked to a hospital by ambulance and ended up getting the same care as Ms. Wildman, paying only whatever the GHI deducatable was at that time.

There's a happy ending for Ms. Wildman. When she told her insurance company she was writing an article about them, they suddenly decided to cover 90% of her expenses. But for many Americans, that's not the case. One way private insurance companies make their money is by denying coverage to people who fail to protest. That's just one reason why we should all oppose the privatization, or "for-profit" status of Emblem Health, which administers GHI and HIP, even if its IPO enriches the coffers of our unions.

It's the business of "for-profit" organizations to maximize profits, not to help you. And the results for working Americans are catastrophic:

...a new report from the American Journal of Medicine found that in 2007, 62 percent of declared bankruptcies were by people with staggering medical bills—even though 80 percent of them actually had health insurance.

Every industrialized country in the world but us avoids this one way or another. If President Obama manages to solve this problem, despite his preposterous and unfounded positions on education, it will have been worth voting for him. If not, well, we may as well have left GW to continue flushing our future down the toilet.

When I see the abject nonsense put forth by Republicans objecting to affordable health care, I wonder where it comes from. On the one hand, they say government is too inept to run health care. On the other, they say a government plan will be unfair and none of the private companies will be able to compete with it.

Now these are the same companies who routinely refuse to insure Americans who are or have been sick--the same companies that dump people for the offense of getting sick. Personally, I say screw these companies. I'll stick with GHI, the government-initiated non-profit that helped Saint Rudy, vociferous opponent of government-run insurance, when he had cancer.

So where do they come up with those talking points? Probably just the way they do on this video, which is really worth your time:




Video stolen from Millard Fillmore's Bathtub

The Times reports today that Americans strongly support it, as do I. It's incredible that it faces an uphill battle because industry lobbyists label it as unfair competition. It's particularly ironic because critics of such programs regularly contend that government-run health care won't work well, or provide adequate coverage. If that's the case, why not let the open market, which they so revere, work its magic?

The answer, of course, is that health care lobbyists value corporate profits far more than public health. That's bad for Americans, and it would be refreshing if part-time UFT President Randi Weingarten stood up against the conversion of Emblem Health (which insures most NYC employees) to "for-profit" status. Instead, Ms. Weingarten frets over what percentage of the IPO her patronage machine would get, and bamboozles us with talk of programs as ineffectual as the one NY Teacher labeled a "class size victory."

I happen to be among those satisfied with my health care, but I know how lucky I am. I've seen disastrous results for people under or uninsured, and next month I'm attending a wedding largely motivated by the fact that one partner needs better benefits. That shouldn't have to happen here, and catastrophic medical emergency ought not to be the number one cause of bankruptcy. That isn't the case in any other industrialized country, and there's no reason we should put up with it.

Everyone should be covered in the United States. If Barack Obama succeeds in getting this through, it will compensate in some measure for his abysmal and painfully uninformed approach to public education, which he never deemed good enough for his kids.

So spoke the doctor in W.C. Fields' classic The Bank Dick. Well, it's certainly a doctor's business to work with sick people, and the more there are, the better business is. Perhaps it's pure capitalism.

So I suppose it should come as no surprise when health insurers invest 4.5 billion in tobacco stocks. It's kind of a hedge, I suppose. It's expensive taking care of people with all those pernicious cancers caused by smoking, so why not at least make a profit while those folks are killing themselves? It's a win-win.

Except, of course, for the Americans dying from the very same practices that line the pockets of their insurers. I don't know whether we'll ever kill cancer. But we could certainly kill the parasitical companies that overcharge us and leave millions uninsured, even as they profit from our suffering.

Personally, I wouldn't shed a tear for them.

That's about the size of it for hundreds of thousands of twenty-somethings here in New York. If you have no health insurance, fall off a motorcycle and rip your arm off, you go home and sew it back on. It's not the best of all possible worlds, but if you don't have health insurance, you know a visit to the hospital will be five thousand bucks on a good day.

So you stumble around and hope one of your buddies has a jar of whatever drug you need, because Lord knows you can't afford it.

As things stand now, I believe you can claim your kids on your insurance until they turn 18, or 21 if they're enrolled in college. How many 21-year-old kids score jobs with full health insurance? To my way of thinking, anything less than 100% is unacceptable. Of course, you can't get there immediately.

Governor David Paterson, though, has finally come up with a good idea, and it's about time. He wants to allow us to keep our kids covered until they're 29. That would help about 10% of the uninsured twenty-somethings, and you have to admit it's better than nothing. Not much better, but at least it's something. The Times says two dozen other states already do this, and it's nice to see we're getting with the program.

Now if we can only convince part-time UFT President Randi Weingarten that privatization of Emblem Health is an abysmal idea, we'll really have gotten somewhere. It's unfortunate that Ms. Weingarten, despite the market's recent performance, still worries about how much the IPO will benefit her patronage mill, while few doubt privatization will result in city workers paying more and receiving less from their most popular plans, GHI and HIP.

Do you doubt it? When they merged, there was talk of improving benefits for subscribers. But GHI subscribers still don't have the option of HIP-style care with no co-pay, and HIP subscribers haven't got the wide variety of doctors available to those with GHI.

Tell your state legislators you support Governor Paterson's plan, and would like to see it enacted ASAP.

Someone I met yesterday told me an interesting story. She and her husband have three kids, and they make less than three thousand dollars a month. One of the very few benefits of living on an income like that, apparently, is Medicaid. This is particularly helpful to them because they have a young daughter with leukemia. The treatment is brutal and it seems once they get through with one thing, they move onto another.

And somehow, even though Governor Paterson's cuts haven't been approved yet, Medicaid is paying less. I know a dentist who told me they've cut payments to the point where she can't even pay her supplier. And the woman with the sick child just got a bill for three thousand dollars her family doesn't have. Worse, it appears more may be coming.

A comment yesterday suggested the New York State plan that covers sick kids only works until the kids get really sick, and once that happens they're on their own. Just about every other industrialized country in the world covers its people. We, on the other hand, spend all our money fighting pointless wars and bailing out banks.

Here in the US, we have laws to protect credit card companies from losses when people go bankrupt. But we have none to protect people from losing all they own due to catastrophic medical emergency.

The guy in the picture might as well be running this country. I hope our new leader does better by us.

Fred Barnes is horrified at the prospect of Obama winning along with a Dem-dominated Congress. First of all, card-check might pass, resulting in a rise in unionized workers for the first time since Reagan became President.

Even worse, those who benefit from unionization might actually have to pay dues to those who represent them, even if they don't feel like it. I've always been amazed at those who push that "right to work" nonsense. I don't support the war in Iraq, I don't support the agenda of GW and pals, yet I have to pay taxes anyway. When taxes become optional, then I'll discuss "right to work."

As if that's not enough, the prospect of a totally right-wing Supreme Court is seriously in jeopardy. Who will vote to not count votes?

The worst part of all, though, is this:

What about Obama's health care plan? He's described it as step or two away from a single payer, government-run health system like Canada's. While expensive, its chances of passage would be quite good.

Wouldn't it be awful if all Americans had health coverage? How on earth would people go bankrupt due to catastrophic medical emergency (which can't happen in most industrialized countries)? Isn't it enough that our taxes are just as high as those in countries where health insurance is a right? We should be honored to know that our taxes pay for endless, pointless wars and bailouts of good ol' banks that spent our money like drunken sailors.

Is that really the worst case scenario, Mr. Barnes? Perhaps we'll even move back to that awful Clinton economy. Perish forbid. Clearly you and your Fox Network pals know what's good for us.

That's what Maverick Johny asked Obama last night. How much is the fine? What if businesses don't provide health insurance? Will they be fined? Hardball reported small businesses would be exempt. Should big businesses get away with not insuring their employees? Who is Maverick Johny looking out for?

Barack Obama replied that he wanted all children to have health insurance. Apparently he's going to insist on it. He said it was not expensive, and that SCHIP, which Maverick Johny voted against, could help (and when Obama's President, he won't veto it, like Maverick John's bud, GW).

But Maverick Johny boldly pressed on with his question about the fine. After all, why should parents have to pay fines, simply because they don't view their children's health or physical well-being as priorities?

For once, I agreed with MJ. They shouldn't have to pay fines.

They should be in prison. Or someplace worse.