Medical waste

Business owners are worried that Obama's potential healthcare plan will cost them too much money. And, if the medical business stays as is, I can see their point. All those different health care companies requiring different paperwork and I wonder if the overhead is going to be the real killer.

A few weeks ago I severely sprained my ankle (couldn't walk far etc) so I went to my primary care doctor. He looked at my foot for a few minutes and gave me referrals for an xray and orthopedic doctor. I spent more time with the woman at the desk as she wrote up the referrals then I did with the doctor.

First, she had to get the book of participating doctors for my health care plan out of a large pile of books. Then, she had to find a local doctor. Then she had to find the right forms to write out the referrals (that only took a few seconds). Then she had to fill them out.

When I went to the radiologist for the x-ray (walk in) and the orthopedic doctor (couldn't get an appointment for 10 days), their staff had to retype in all the information to their computers. The orthopedic doctor gave me a referral for physical therapy, so the staff for the PT had to refill in all my paperwork.

Ultimately all 4 offices will submit 4 individual claims (though the PT might be for each visit) which will be reviewed at 4 separate times and be paid on 4 separate times. Eventually all 4 of the offices I visited will send the checks to whoever does their billing so the accounts are all squared. Whew. I'm tired.

With the exception of PT, I spent perhaps 20 minutes with two doctors and one x-ray technician. All the paperwork took much longer than that. Something is not right there.

I'm mad as heck and I'm probably going to take it some more

Well the debates are over and I still feel that no matter who wins the election my 40 year old self better plan on working until the day I die as there will be no social security, no Medicare, no pension, no 401k etc (at least as we know them). Sending the children to college so they can hopefully get good enough jobs to support us in our old age? As if. All I see are mountains of debt, getting larger by the second, that will have to be paid down and no real plan to do so; just promises of more tax cuts and more spending. Aughhhh!!!!! And I thought NJ politics pandered!

Good grief people. We have been spending like there was no tomorrow for many moons and now that tomorrow is here it seems like we are using the opportunity to go on one final drunken spending spree. I wouldn't be so upset if all the recent deficit spending had been used for investing in our schools, transportation or energy infrastructures, but that has not been the case. Instead we went out and created thousands of jobs in Asia and the middle East as we ran out to buy fuel for large SUVs to haul home our 52 inch flat screen TVs.

Ok, fine. That was free choice. But what really gets my goat is that the politicians are still promising us we can continue living like that, a life of leisure followed by a long, healthy, luxurious retirement, despite mounting evidence to the contrary for most of us if only they can cut more taxes and increase spending on anything but investing in our country's future. The sooner we realize that we are being sold a bill of goods and we have some real hard choices to make, the better.

Sorry folks, the social security retirement age is going to have to be raised. The average person in their late 60s in the 1930s probably only had a few years to live when they started collecting their social security, today anyone dying in their 60s is considered to have died young. I am already realizing that I better plan to stay healthy, something that really came home this week as my mobility was quite limited (fortunately I can telecommute).

We're also going to have to do something about health care. One of the claims people make to say why socialized medicine is horrible is the long wait to see a doctor. Well, I severely sprained my ankle last weekend, and the earliest I can see the orthopedic doctor will be almost 2 weeks later, by which time my ankle will have healed or I will have really messed up my foot. And I get to pay a nice chunk of change, on top of the Medicare & social security taxes which I'll never see again, from my paycheck for this privilege. Whoopee. And about our infrastructure: we can short change our schools, roads, trains and ports all we want to save a few pennies, but our competitors are not and they will continue to take advantage of a country living off its past legacy.

Instead of tackling these tough problems we have instead been focusing on abortion, what associates did 40 years ago, whether cavemen had dinosaurs as pets and other irrelevant issues in these tough times. Those arguments are for a rich, fat, lazy nation at peace. Well we're fat and lazy but we are no longer rich or at peace. Low taxes are nice, but the goods and services we as a society want costs money, as is evidenced by a now over $10T debt. If we're not going to cut services, we can't keep cutting revenue like there is no tomorrow, especially when tomorrow will soon be yesterday.

Of course we the people are to blame. We listen and accept all this garbage and never concentrate on the real issues. The real issues are boring. Cutting the budget can be done, but that takes courage and will cost some pain. It is also dull. It is more entertaining to discuss whether Osama bin Barack blew up a weather station when he was 8 or whether Caribou Barbie really believes her ancestors had pet dinosaurs as she ponders international security matters from her suburban house. We can say we're mad as heck, and demand a government that will do what is best for the country, but we're probably going to take more of what we've been taking because that is much less work anyway.

The ant , grasshopper and the mortgage

I really hope I am misunderstanding Senator McCain's $300B home ownership mortgage plan. This plan is similar to something Senator Obama proposed a few weeks ago, so it sounds like this is what we're getting. If I understand it correctly, the government is going to borrow more money to give to the banks to make up the difference for those who have mortgages worth more than their homes current value. I have no problem making sure a person whose home is worth $330k, while they have a 350k mortgages can refinance to a 30 year mortgage so they can ride out the storm and stay in their homes. I do have a problem with writing off the balances entirely as someone, probably the taxpayer, will have to make up the difference when, under the McCain plan the government picks up those bad mortgages. The government should do what it can to let people stay in their homes but they should otherwise let the market collapse naturally.

I bought the house I could afford back in 2000 and stayed. I refinanced when rates went down (it was 8% for 30 years in '00), choosing a 20 year mortgage in lieu of a 15 year mortgage because the monthly payments would have been a bit of a stretch for our budget then. Silly me, financing what I could afford. I should have gone crazy and bought the bigger nicer house and maxed out my credit cards furnishing it.

Under McCain’s plan, I would’ve been better off selling 2 years ago and buying some McMansion I couldn’t afford so I can get bailed out by taxpayers today as I could just have written off the amount the newer house went down and let the taxpayers pick up the difference. My payments would be the same, thanks to the large down payment we would've had from selling at the top of the market and I’d have a much nicer house, while my older house decreased even more in value, possibly lower than even 8 years ago. Oh wait, I'm still in the older house! This is my reward for doing the right thing and playing by the conservative fiscal rules. Play by the rules like the ant and then subsidize the grasshopper when winter comes.

Too bad for those owners. They bet on continuing over priced houses and lost. While I don’t want to see them lose their homes, I don’t agree that they should now get a taxpayer subsidy to pay a lower mortgage. Again, I don't want to see them lose their homes, especially the many who got caught in the over-priced, inflated market by bad timing,. Adjust their monthly payments so they can afford to stay, but with the caveat we the taxpayers get part of their sales price when they finally sell. I already pay my mortgage. I don't want to pay the mortgage of someone who gambled and lost, yet came out ahead.

Is this how freedom dies?

Not unexpectedly, the gloves have come off in the Presidential campaign as Senator McCain continues to fall in the polls. Attacks on Senator Obama have gotten nastier, but that is part of politics. What I find worrisome is the attack on the press. The McCain camp seems intent on killing the messengers.

I speak of a recent rally in Florida where Governor Palin pretty much turned a mob against reporters covering a rally by blaming Katie Couric's "tough" questions for her less than stellar interview, and not her own incompetence. Next thing you know, the mob has turned on the press waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse.

What is wrong with these people? Don't they understand freedom of the press is one of the elements of our liberty? Government officials inspiring a mob to turn on reporters in the US? This is beyond getting ugly, this is the GOP turning against the freedom of the press. This is how freedom dies.

Has the NY Jew jumped the lox?

I just read an article about how success has ruined the NY Jew, accusing us of jumping the shark aswe assimilated into America and let Jewish NYC become a Jewish city run by non-Jews Meh. We didn't jump the shark, we moved to NJ, Westchester, LI and Boca. I can find plenty of old style kosher delis where I live now, a Jewish NJ suburb of reform, conservative and orthodox Jews. Same for bagels. BTW, the best bagels in the city are not made by H&H -- if you know where to look, you can find better. Yes, we're your Americanized grandchildren, yet we still go to temple, still associate and marry Jews (though many assimilate and marry non-Jews), still follow the traditions, which have warped over the years etc.

My grandparents generation, the first one born in America, forged their own path by not using a matchmaker and moving from the Lower East Side to Brooklyn. My parents generation moved to Queens, LI, NJ, Westchester and Staten Island. My generation is leaving the NYC area. My parents stopped going to the lower East Side to see their grandparents over a half century ago. My grandma, grandpa and all the Brooklyn aunts and uncles of their generation are long gone, so there is not much tying us there. That my generation has gone back to areas we, meaning my parents and grandparents, came from speak not so much as a return home, but because those areas became hip again in the 90s and 00s. I root for the Mets not so much because they are the underdog, but because I lived in Queens in the 1970s when Mets tickets were easy to get, as the team stunk. As opposed to the Yankees, the Mets were more fun for children in those days, with events like banner day and the ability to get to the railing to get autographs, unlike Yankee Stadium where I never even sat in the field level until they hit rock bottom in the late 80s. I might've remained a Jets fan too, but I never forgave them for abandoning Shea, but that's another story.

It was fun while it lasted, but the 5 boroughs are not home anymore. As our parents generation fades into the sunset, many of the cousins of my generation are leaving the NYC area. Some live as Jews, others do not, just as previous generations did or did not. Of course, thanks to the antisemitism that is still in existence in many parts of the country, those who wish to remain Jewish, go to areas where there are Jews, which explains in part why I have many friends and family in concentrated areas around the US. The Diaspora continues in the US, but as long as parents choose to raise their children as Jews, which has to come from within the heart, we will still flock to Jewish areas.