Election Day

Getting ready to go vote. I must make a choice among a field of candidates for Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General. Then I have to approve or disapprove a proposal that would allow Henrico County to impose a 4% “meals tax” on all prepared food, the proceeds of which would be earmarked for schools.

Terry McAuliffe vs. Ken Cuccinelli offers up the classic matchup between a big government carpet-bagging liberal and a dreary right wing scold. For three months now Mr. McAuliffe has been warning me about Mr. Cuccinelli’s plans to outlaw abortions, and deny women their birth control pills. Seriously, that’s it. That’s all I know about Cuccinelli. He apparently has it in for women. For the past two months and three weeks, all I heard about Mr. McAuliffe was about how much he was planning to raise my taxes, $1746. Only over the past week have I heard that a vote for McAuliffe would be equivalent to a tacit approval of Obamacare. At this point, I would be willing to pay both of these guys $1746 to shut up already! I suppose I should point out that there is also a Libertarian candidate on the ballot as well, some guy with a bi-racial family who wears sear sucker suits and goes around pointing at McAuliffe and Cuccinelli saying, "I'm not them!"

Then there’s the most worthless office ever created, Lt. Governor, the guy who sits around for four years waiting for the governor to die, while piling up cash for his own run for governor. This year I must choose between some guy named E.W. Jackson and the Democrat candidate who wouldn’t shake his hand after their last debate. The fact that I can’t recall his name says something either about his candidacy or my poor citizenship. A quick Google search informs me that he is one Ralph S. Northam. That’s too bad, since the name “Ralph” doesn’t have much of a resume in modern politics. All I know about Mr. Jackson is that every politically active member of my church is in love with the guy, plastering my Facebook wall with testimonials to their undying devotion to this Harvard educated, fire-breathing social conservative, who lists as qualifications the volatile combination of preacher and lawyer. I haven’t seen a single add for either candidate.

The Attorney General race has been a mud-slinging tour-de-force, with Mark Obenshain and Mark Herring accusing each other of being notorious, pathologically lying bastards. So, there’s that.

The meals tax thing has been recently pitched by its proponents as “for the children." Whenever any political cause is presented to me on these terms I instinctively throw up a little in my mouth. Generally, it’s never truly about the children. It’s usually about manipulating you into paying higher taxes so the teacher’s union can finally have that convention in Hawaii next year. Any political movement pimped as being for the children is almost always really about the people who make money off the children. Sorry. No deal.

So, there you have it, Election Day in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

My Weekend in the Mountains

What does $485 buy these days? Not as much as it did twenty years ago, for sure, but that’s not to say it is a worthless sum. I spent $485 this past weekend on an idea that lodged itself in my brain when I woke up Friday morning, and wouldn’t let go. The idea was, “Get out of Richmond.”

I started poking around on the internet, searching for some out of the way place in the mountains where Pam and I could escape for a couple of days. Since the leaves had begun to burst with color practically overnight, I figured that I had little chance finding a decent place that wasn’t already booked. I got lucky. Apparently, there is an actual town near Lexington called Vesuvius. With volcanic enthusiasm, I discovered a quaint and extremely isolated destination at 2800 feet of altitude called the Sugar Tree Inn. One of its cabins, the St. Mary, was available for one night and one night only. I clicked the “book it now” button, then texted Pam, hoping against hope that she hadn’t scheduled us to attend some wedding planning seminar or something. A more intelligent approach might have been to check with her first, before plowing ahead with such a spontaneous plan, but that’s not how I roll.

So, Saturday morning, we got up, packed an overnight bag, had a bagel breakfast at Einstein’s, then hit the road for the two hour trip to a corner of Virginia where neither of us had ever been. It was a gloriously beautiful fall day, almost perfect with its bright blue sky and cool 60 degree breezes. By the time we hit Charlottesville, we were both starting to relax. Usually when Pam and I go somewhere like this we spend most of our time talking about our kids, but on this day we had launched into a full throated discussion of the myriad twists and turns of Breaking Bad. It was as if we had forgotten that we were married!

Most of the trip was on familiar roads, interstates 64 and 81. When we departed 81, everything changed. For me, there is something wonderful and exciting about driving down a road never before travelled. I suppose I get this from my Mother, that famous lover of those far away places with strange sounding names. Vesuvius, Virginia qualifies. It’s kind of like finding a town just outside of Paris named Bubbaville.

The further we drove the narrower and more precarious the roads became. Then we began a steady climb, further and further away from anything that looked at all familiar. Oddly, every home, every barn we passed along the way was meticulously maintained, each yard, neatly trimmed and free of junk. Each blind curve we went around revealed some new breathtaking vista, and with each new curve, Pam began to become more and more agitated. “What’s happening to the road? It’s too narrow! Where are the guardrails??”

Vesuvius ended up being a tiny hamlet containing a post office and an antique store dissected by a set of railroad tracks. According to my GPS, the Sugar Tree Inn was 5 miles straight up an extremely narrow road ahead of me where a sign greeted all those entering with this unsettling warning, “GPS navigation not recommended.” The rest of the drive was nothing short of awesome…for me, for Pam, not so much. 5 miles and several near death experiences later, we arrived at the Sugar Tree Inn sign and pulled off the State road onto the Inn driveway, a mile long, white knuckled thrill ride full of switch backs and hairpin turns. It was the kind of road you drive down while wondering if anyone making this drive had ever returned, and wondering what in the name of all that is holy you’re going to do if you meet someone coming the other way??

Finally, at the top of the last blind hill we arrived at the lodge. We climbed the staircase out front and turned around, marveling at the treacherous climb we had just survived. The view back down the valley was nothing short of stunning. How exactly we were going to coax our exhausted and traumatized car down this mountain would be left for another time. The Inn owners couldn’t have been nicer, as they reassured us that the driveway is actually ten feet wide. “We’ve measured it! Oh, and don’t worry, in the eleven years we’ve been here, we’ve only met another car coming the other way 3 times!” No explanation of what ever became of the unlucky three was offered.

Saturday afternoon was spent making the 1.7 mile hike up to nearby Crabtree Falls. Spectacular views and clean fresh air made for a wonderful climb. On the way back we discovered an incredible general store in the tiny town of Montebello. Pam would end up getting an unexpected jump on her Christmas shopping snatching up the mountain cabin motif regalia.

By the time dinner was served in the main lodge, we were both starving but unsure what to expect from such a remote kitchen manned by people who had only run into three other incoming cars over the past eleven years! Once again, we learned for the hundredth time not to judge a book by its cover. Pam’s beef short ribs were delicious and my braised pork tenderloin medallions yielded to my fork like a mound of rice, tender and juicy beyond description.

Our cabin was beautiful and new, hanging precariously out into the forest, a deep gorge just outside our back deck. Inside was a king size bed, two of the most comfortable chairs I have ever sat in, a gas fireplace and a TV that only worked with DVDs and VHS tapes, which were free in the lodge. It would have been asking a lot for a place this remote to have cable and internet. I felt fortunate to have electricity! We snuggled together after dinner and did something we hadn’t done in at least fifteen years… we slid a VHS tape in the oversized slot on the front of our 18 inch TV set and watched a jumpy, scratchy version of Bull Durham.

Sunday morning’s breakfast was sensational. We settled up our bill around eleven and then survived the free fall descent down the mountain to the relative safety of Vesuvius. By the time I filled the car with gas after a walking tour of VMI and Washington & Lee, the entire weekend’s bill came in at $485.

What a deal!

A Plea For Help

Dear Reader,

I need your help. It has come to my attention that I may be the beneficiary of a mistake by my health insurance company. This mistake will result in me maybe being able to keep my current health insurance, which Shakespeare might describe as a “consummation devoutly to be wished.” The problem lies in the fact that my insurance company insists that my current plan is “grandfathered”, even though I can think of three things that have occurred since March 23, 2010 that should have “un-grandfathered” it. What to do?

My wife suggested that I call my insurance company, describe these three events to them hypothetically (without giving them my name), and ask them if my hypothetical policy is still grandfathered. This seems like a reasonable approach. Except, I don’t want to run the risk of blowing up this incredibly sweet deal I have stumbled upon! “Let sleeping dogs lie” is the way my mother used to describe situations like this.

On the other hand, my last two blogs about the follies of Obamacare have been widely read. In them I took several perhaps gratuitous shots at the Affordable Care Act. Maybe there’s some welfare state loving, progressive, yes-we-can true believer at the NSA snooping around this blog who would love nothing more than to place a “head’s up” call to Anthem suggesting that they pay extra attention to one Douglas Dunnevant’s case file.

So, dear reader, if you have been reading this blog for very long, you have at least some idea of what kind of person I am. I would appreciate any suggestions you might have as to how I should proceed. What’s the right thing to do here? Blow the whistle on the illegitimate grandfathering of my policy, and take my Obamacare medicine, or accept this magnificent bureaucratic windfall and wiggle off the hook?

I suppose if I escape Obamacare, the higher premiums I would have paid won’t be available to provide the subsidy for someone else’s insurance. Does that make me a bad person? On the other hand the 600 and some odd dollars I will be saving every month can be spent buying steaks, bread and Yankee candles, which will benefit the butcher, the baker and the candle stick maker. Yes, this is a fine mess I find myself in. This is the mother of all conundrums.

Please respond either in the comment section below, or on Facebook. I eagerly await your wise and discerning suggestions.

Sincerely,

Doug

Sticker Shock

Yesterday’s post about my personal introduction to Obamacare lacked only one thing. Since I have been unable to penetrate the gauntlet of fire breathing dragons that protect Healthcare.gov, I have only been able to fret over what the cost might be. I said yesterday that my “trick knee” was telling me that I was about to be paying a lot more for my health insurance. Now, the truth can be revealed. Always trust your trick knee.

A friend of mine and colleague, Blair, happens to be a broker with Anthem, and as such has what amounts to a back stage pass to the troubled web site.(How come it’s always the beautiful blondes that wind up with back stage passes?) Anyhow, she was kind enough to print out all of my Obamacare options for me. Eight pages long, and 22 different options thick, I was greeted with a dizzying array of precious metal choices, bronze, silver and gold. I can only assume that the platinum and titanium levels are restricted to politicians and their families.

Ok, my present coverage with Anthem carries with it a $3500 deductable and a $5000 family out of pocket per year, which means that I have to rack up over 5 grand in medical expenses every year before my policy will pay anything. For this catastrophic coverage I pay $610 per month. So, the first thing I did when presented with my eight page printout was to find which plan was the closest to what I already have. It turned out to be something called the “Anthem HealthKeepers Preferred Direct Access HMO GOLD plan. Only, this plan carries a $7000 family out of pocket. Wait, I thought that one of the objectives of Obamacare was to give people better, more comprehensive protection. But, the richest plan offered to me will require me to pay MORE out of pocket, not less. Hmmm. Now for the fun part. What will my premium be for this inferior policy? Instead of $610 per month, it will be my new privilege to fork over $1384.15 per month, a 127% increase. The good news, I’ll have “wellness care.”

No reason to panic, I thought. After all, that was the Cadillac gold plan. Suppose I buy the bare bones bronze plan? Turns out that going back to the Bronze Age would force me to accept a $12,700 yearly out of pocket expense, and my premium would still be higher than I currently pay, $770.77 per month compared to $610.

So, it would seem that under Obamacare I will have to accept much higher out of pocket expenses and ridiculously higher premiums, a twofer!

When I consider the fact that this bill was conceived and designed by politicians, I am reminded of that old line about the camel and the racehorse. “A camel is a racehorse designed by a committee of politicians.”

Obamacare Hits Home

Back in March of 2008, I had to make a decision about my health insurance. The coverage I had back then was getting very expensive. My insurance company offered me some less expensive options. In order to lower my premiums, I would have to be willing to accept much higher deductibles and copayments. As I began doing the math, it occurred to me that the money I was saving on premiums could be set aside in a Health Savings Account, and by the end of the year would add up to more than the amount of the higher out of pocket expenses I might incur. In fact, if my family had a good health year, and didn’t use it much, I might even turn a profit on the deal.

I’ve been doing this for the past five years now, and I must confess, haven’t turned much of a profit, but I’ve been happy with the results nonetheless. My premiums have gone up since I started with the Health Savings Account, but modestly. Overall, I have been happy with this arrangement. It was my choice. For me, in my financial situation, it is a perfect system. I buy health insurance to protect me and my family not from the cost of doctor’s visits, checkups, and prescription drugs. I buy health insurance to protect us from the possibility of a $250,000 heart operation, in other words, catastrophic coverage. If I can comfortably write a check for it, I don’t need to insure it.

Well now. Along comes the Affordable Care Act, and I discover that my current plan isn’t good enough for me. Someone in Washington has decided to save me from the consequences of my foolish decision to self-insure the small stuff. Not only are my deductibles and copayments much too high, my current plan doesn’t cover oral and vision care, not to mention the all important “wellness services,” whatever the hell they are. What was I thinking?

Yes, but no problem since my plan is “grandfathered,” right? I bought it prior to March of 2010, so my plan is grandfathered…only not really. When Nancy Pelosi told us that we needed to pass Obamacare first so we could find out what was in it, she wasn’t kidding. On page 34560 of the regulations(I am NOT kidding about that page number, you can look it up), we discover that if your deductable goes up by more than $5, then your plan can no longer be grandfathered. Hmmm, let’s see now, two years ago my insurance company raised my deductable by $500 dollars. I’m screwed.

But Doug, but Doug, your new plan will have much better coverage with lower deductibles and lower out of pocket costs, and you will have oral and vision care and the highly coveted “wellness services”. Yes. But how much will this new coverage cost me? Ah, there’s the rub. I’ve been trying to find the answer to that question through Healthcare.guv for weeks now with no luck, but my trick knee tells me that I’m in for a sizable premium increase. That’s usually what happens when you purchase more of something. But what if I don’t WANT more? Suppose I’m perfectly happy with my current plan? My President assured me on a thousand occasions that if I liked my plan, I could keep my plan. Actually, his exact words were:

“That means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”

What he meant to say was, “if WE like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan.”

So, a voluntary arrangement I entered into as a free citizen of my country is about to be nullified by people in Washington who think they know better what kind of health insurance I should have than I do. These are the same people responsible for a $650 million dollar website that doesn’t work, a 17 trillion dollar national debt, a National Security Administration that monitors my phone calls, and an IRS that targets the government’s political enemies.

What could possibly go wrong?

Texting With My Son

Just because my son lives in Princeton, New Jersey doesn’t mean that we don’t get to watch the World Series together, thanks to Steve Jobs and his handy smart phone. For the past couple of nights, I have been firmly ensconced in my movie room, snacks at the ready, watching the games on my 52 inch HDTV. I watch them by myself since neither Pam nor Kaitlin are huge baseball fans, and I think maybe I scare them a little this time of year what with my loud, unpredictable outbursts.

So, there I was last night, watching the game and having a running text dialogue with my Son. I will now share some of the highlights. First off, a critique of Harry Connick Jr.’s National Anthem performance:

Me: Harry nailed the anthem accapella.

Patrick: For once, an anthem that isn’t a riffing contest!

Then he proceeds to chastise me for my take on the NSA spying scandal from my earlier blog called “Spy vs. Spy”.

Patrick: I’m not sure “self interest” justifies spying on 70 million private phone conversations.

Lovable kid, my son. Idealistically naïve, but lovable.

Then the game gets into the 8^th inning and Red Sox manager John Ferrell decides to bring in closer Koji Uehara with two outs and the Sox up by two runs.

Me: Don’t like this move. Lester hasn’t thrown that many pitches!!

Patrick: UEHARA=SAYONARA?

Me: He better be.

Patrick: Let’s cross our fingersara.

Me: hahahahah

Patrick: “hahahahara”

Me: Hope this isn’t a kamakazi mission.

 Uehara proceeds to strike out the first batter he faces on three pitches.

Me: Wow

Patrick: Koji pitch any better??

It’s a very proud moment as a father when your son gets the better of you in a pun slinging contest.

Then it’s time to rag on the commercials.

Patrick: So tired of this iPhone commercial.

Me: Good Lord! I’m tired of the Taco Bell PS2 one too.

Patrick: Yeah. Still doesn’t make me want to eat Taco Bell. In all likelihood I would buy it to see if I won, then when I didn’t, give the food to someone else.

Me: Oh, and the Budweiser one with the fireworks at the end?

Patrick: I kinda like the Budweiser “Do you know who brewed your beer?” one. Although that quip about them being the “biggest local brewery” made me want to vomit in my mouth.

So, thank Steve Jobs for creating something that allows me to enjoy watching baseball with my boy from 290 miles away.

By the way, Uehara WAS sayonara.

Spy vs Spy

The salons of Europe are atwitter with indignation at allegations of American spying. Thanks to Mr. Snowden’s revelations, it would appear that our NSA has been quite busy intercepting millions of phone calls on that continent, most troubling to European sensibilities, even those from Prime Minister Merkel’s cell phone. This is apparently a bridge too far for the Euros. Howls of protest are being heard from Brussels to Berlin, from France to Finland. Merkel dialed up Obama herself, (presumably on a secure satellite phone), to scold him in no uncertain terms that “friends do not spy on one another.”

Excuse me. I will continue to write this blog after I take a few minutes to roll on the floor laughing.

“Friends do not spy on one another?” What universe has Frau Merkel been living in for the past sixty years? Friends spy on each other every minute of every day and have been doing so for 4,000 years of recorded history. We spied on the Brits during World War II, and the Brits spied on us. It’s called “self interest”. All of this feigned outrage coming from Europe isn’t over the shocking news that the NSA has managed to hack their calls. The outrage comes from the embarrassment attending such a one sided revelation. If Mr. Snowden had access to all of Germany’s intelligence comings and goings, it would be the United States who would be feigning outrage.

Listen, every American ambassador understands when he first walks into his new embassy home, whether it’s in Berlin, Paris, or Moscow, that job number one is to  remove every listening device he can find, knowing full well that the possibility of a private conversation is virtually impossible, same thing in Washington. Why? Well, human nature being what it is, we have a hard time trusting each other. Individuals as well as nations are constantly looking out for their own self interests in ways large and small, and while we may have tons in common strategically and culturally with Great Britain, they would sell us down the river in a New York minute if the opportunity presented itself. The instinct for self preservation is powerful and has no scruples.

I’m no fan of the NSA when it comes to its increasing domestic snooping what with the no scruples thing, but when I hear that they managed to tap Merkel’s cell phone, I gotta say…impressed. It’s called doing your job.