Another Health Insurance Market Failure

I remember during the conversations during Obamacare's construction, one of the more obscure issues was how insurance companies don't have clients for that long, so insurance companies do a poor job of encouraging long-term health (I couldn't find the statistic, but I believe the average person has the same company for somewhere in the area of three or four years).

This seemed to be a reasonable criticism of America's state of health affairs, and I could argue it in the abstract. After all, approaches that achieve long-term health benefits are investments that save money in healthcare coverage down the road, but if the insurance company isn't likely to reap the benefits, why should it make the investment? This is obviously a market failure, because the market could operate more efficiently, but providers (justifiably) are acting in their self-interest (in this sense, public health is arguably a tragedy of the commons our system has manufactured). However, I never had an explanation of how this works in practice.

I've now encountered my example, and it's frustrating experiencing how it works. I recently completed the final physical therapy session my insurance company will allow me to partake in, although my ankle has never fully healed. There's a decent chance that with another month of work I'll be much better off, but my policy doesn't allow for it. The hell of it is, spending some extra money now should pay off in the long-term, as the current state of my ankle leaves me in line for arthritis and other issues down the road.

No one refutes this. My physical therapist is the expert saying it will happen, on a logical level I agree with him based on my limited understanding of how joints work, and the insurance company likely understands. But I'm unlikely, statistically, to be with Blue Cross of New York in 20 years when my ankle becomes a real problem, so there's no rational reason to invest in therapy now. It will be someone else's responsibility at that point. Even if future surgery is way more costly than extra PT sessions this year, someone else will foot the bill.

I get the contra - if my insurance company allowed me unlimited visits, my physical therapist would be inclined to continue scheduling sessions even after they were no long necessary in order to make more money. Some providers would resist this temptation, some would be bad actors, and some would schedule unnecessary visits merely for the sake of erring on the side of caution. So even in a  system that pays for preventative care, there would still be concerns. Answers may be difficult to definitively determine, but our system is undeniably prejudiced against long-term economic decision-making.

Typing For the Sake of It

It's a noon on Sunday and there's some downtime for me I'm not sure what to do with. Most of my waking hours this past month have been spent preparing budget analyses in my office, arguing over language minutia in the capitol, or shuffling between the two. I've also been eating a lot, because that's what happens when you sit around at work for hours on end. However, with downtime that I feel should be spent doing something, I find myself at a lazy loggerhead. Clean my office? Meh. Catch up on some reading? Maybe next month. Address something else needing a productive eye? I'd really rather not. Yet after a decent time devoted to Netflix, I feel that maybe I can compromise with myself and write. Because that's productive. I think.

I've never been one to assemble an outline before sentences flow - I remember in middle school were were always required to turn in an outline, rough draft, and final version of papers. My outline was often completed after I'd already written what I wanted. I'm too disorganized to plan. Too ADD too.

I started dating someone. It's been an experience I'm still trying to figure out. Have you ever dated someone clearly out of your league? Yet she acts as though it's not the case. I'll sort this out someday.

Things I Learned My First Winter of Home Ownership in Upstate New York

1. You cannot afford to both heat an old, oil-heated house and eat. You'll probably go hungry to save your pipes from freezing. Using your dog for heat at night isn't as weird as it sounds.
2. You define the width of your driveway on the first shoveling of the year. The snow will not melt; it simply turns into ice. For every fresh snow, another two inches will be added to your retaining wall of ice bookmarking your driveway. At the point you realize it's becoming difficult to turn into your driveway, it's already game over. That 4-5 feet high frozen entryway that now flanks your driveway isn't shrinking until April.
3. Remember when you'd only have to walk five blocks to work and mocked your coworkers whose commutes turned into white-knuckled drives of an hour or more? Karma.
4. If a kid offers to shovel your snow, don't let them. Just give them $5. It's not worth the frustration of paying to have a child just push a shovel around for awhile without actually achieving anything.
5. Every night your fireplace isn't in use is a wasted night.
6. Sometimes the pipes freeze anyway. Broken pipes are best fixed with liquor. Don't bother calling a plumber. Just drink. The problem eventually goes away on its own.

I Can't Right Good. Need School Help.

The further removed I become from college, the more inane I realize my experiences as a legal (albeit young) adult were. About eight years ago I failed Washburn's writing exam, which was an awful member of this collection of experiences.

A couple levels of context should be leveled here. First, Washburn University was an open admissions school - get your high school diploma and you get in. Or your GED. Whichever. Aside from community college (which no one attends out here on the East Coast), I'm not sure if my friends really grasp the idea of not having to 'get into' college. You just graduate from high school and you go. This is why jokes about seniors not being able to get into college perplex me.*

Don't think for two seconds I'm talking down on the students that attend Washburn. Some, yes - the campus is rolling (har har!) with nontrads at a level unknown to most college campuses. However, our mock trial team took 3rd nationally my freshman year. And there are no divisions in this activity - we weren't competing against comparable institutions. First place was Virginia and second was Harvard. We kicked the shit out of schools that have average ACT scores of 28-30. Georgia Tech and Yale. And  those bastards from Washington-St. Louis. There's no chip on my shoulder, just highlighting that despite its low floor Washburn still enjoyed a high ceiling. We had kids would (literally) nail 179 on the LSAT, but were too modest to choose a private school at the age of 17.

I've digressed masterfully here, which may be one of my principal problems. Circling back to the writing exam, this is a written test given to all students to determine whether they must take English 201. 201 is a remedial course that must be completed before taking the junior English course, which must be completed by all students. A bit under 10 percent of the student body must take EN201. These are the kids that can't right good. Each essay is individually graded on a scale of 1-5, and the recipients of ones must take EN201. Easy enough - don't get a one.

I got a one.

The average ACT score at Washburn is 21 (equivalent to a score of 980-1010 on the SAT), and the bottom decile hovers around 17-18 (820-890). There's nothing wrong with falling in that range - someone has to squish into that end of the bell curve - but I'm a damn elitist. The notion of falling here kills pieces of me. Large, kill the dinosaurs asteroid-sized pieces. I wrote papers for money my freshman year, and provided partial refunds for non-As. I killed the the GRE writing exam. My work has been featured on Yahoo! and Sports Illustrated (ok, maybe I do have a chip on my shoulder). Point is, I shouldn't have fallen into the one category. And worst of all, there's no way to protest your score - you simply get shepherded onto the dolt track and live the rest of your life in embarrassment. I did not know a single friend who took English 201.

And neither did I. Washburn requires a freshman and junior English course, at minimum, and a sophomore English course to boot for the dumb-dumbs. Yet I only sat in on one English class during four years there. Not a semester course, mind you, but one, single, 75-minute class. Never went back. Still got my BA (I'd share more, but you know how I hate divulging trade secrets). Every system can be hacked if you're determined enough.

*Fearful of appearing to lie by omission, there are admittedly prescribed actions an incoming student must take if they don't meet some sort of minimum ACT/GPA criterion. The degree process will take longer due to the necessity of remedial coursework by approximately a semester, but this does not preclude enrollment in and of itself. GED still gets you in.

Running Again

I just registered to run the Boston Marathon. I won't try to run it seriously - I obviously couldn't be competitive even if I wanted to - but I should try to get in good enough shape that it's easy to finish. As such, it's September 13, and I just went for my first run jog this month.

Some people don't understand what I did there, but to me (and a lot of other runners), it's the biggest impediment to starting running again. I'm not an Olympic athlete, but I can run fast. I like that feeling. There's no joy in going for a jog. A lot of marathoners are just exercise addicts that found a socially acceptable outlet for their psychosis. I have too much antipathy to develop an addiction. People like me like the feeling of flying. I assume it's like driving a motorcycle fast. You can also take one around the park at 20 mph, but there's a lot less thrill in that. Right now my body's not capable of doing much more than crawl around the park. I want to push every cylinder to its limit down the Taconic.

To make a distinct point, I've started a new paragraph. And that's the fact I hate jogging. It's just not fun. I'm gonna have to jog for the next few weeks before I'm ready to start running again. But I'll get there. Or I won't. Whatever - too much antipathy for alacrity.

Editor's Note: Never ran the marathon.

Letting Detroit Burn

Just finished Detroit: An American Autopsy. About the quickest I've ever flown through a book (I'm not the best of readers). Charlie LeDuff the author isn't Steinbeck, but I appreciate how he follows a similar intent - kind of a, it's the system's fault so no one person had control to stop it, but everyone has the responsibility to be responsible. Steinbeck would be down with that.

My last girlfriend opened me up to some solid perspective. There was an intriguing oblivity to be exposed to she brought to the relationship. Ideas like how Robert Moses was good for America, and for blatantly selfish reasons. The discrepancies were bloated - Moses essentially wanted to wall black people into the cities and make it really easy for whites to drive to the cities without actually living among them. Detroit was nothing more than niggers shooting niggers. American society can burn as long as the rich can stay rich. But at the same token, being poor was immoral and if you had a shit position in life you probably deserved it. I'm sure there's a nexus of selfishness, indifference, and ignorance that leads people to believe in the existing power structures while also not understanding why people don't just better their socioeconomic class. It's why I think more conservatives should be forced to take behavioral economics courses.

She used to jokingly refer to Red Lobster as Black Lobster, because only black people would be poor enough to want to eat there. This was regularly thrown in my face with the knowledge my parents wouldn't have been able to afford eating there when I was little. I turned into a bad person during that time; I think I'm getting better.

To Hell With The Jury Selection Process

So, jury duty today. It was just the selection process and I was found wanting, so now I don't have to spend the rest of the week determining whether or not someone REDACTION!!! and their frame of mind in the process. Primary takeaway: the jury selection process is the most awful thing ever. Well, maybe not ever, but I certainly didn't appreciate it.

Before I attack anyone else, this was my facebook status yesterday - just to get it out there that my lead up to the whole proceedings were just as flippant as the next person, and probably more so; particularly in the face of the George Zimmerman verdict just being released and the emotional racial wounds that whole thing generated.

True to form, sitting on the first floor of the courthouse at 8:30 this morning I was joking with the people around me about bad excuses to get out of serving, which is normal. Nobody wants jury duty (unless you're unemployed. Apparently then you're entitled to $40/day). And when I got to the selection process and saw that the defendant was black, the first thought in my mind when asked what I do was to reply I handle public protection budgets for the Senate Majority (while having the advantage of being mostly true, it also implicitly identifies me as a law-and-order Republican that, justifiably or not, carries enough connotation to scare off a public defender). 

End of the day, I didn't. I was part of the second group of potential jurors interviewed, and the attorneys pretty much gave away the case and the defense during the selection process with the first group, so I knew that when asked to how judge when someone's being truthful, replying "someone's reputation and the consistency of a story" would automatically cross me off both the prosecutor's and defense attorney's list - any other discussion re: my family in law enforcement and any family being in trouble with the law was unnecessary to get released (I probably should have admitted to my knowledge of the McDonald's on Pearl as well).

So nobody's perfect, I didn't really do anything to get out of jury duty that was inappropriate, and for the most part everyone treated the process responsibly while recognizing that, despite their desire to not be there, it was their civic duty to not be an ass about the process. And I just wasted five rambling paragraphs justifying whatever, but now it's time to bash the experience.

I think it's ok, and even expected, to joke about not wanting to be there. Be honest - you don't want to be there. But I was sitting about ten feet from the defendant while a judge and two lawyers joked with the jury and trivialized the proceedings. All the while, a guy whose future is about to be decided sits right there listening to people joke about knowing a certain employer and how duty might interfere with their kids' day camp.

I get why it happens. The lawyer that fails to connect with the jury loses, because people base decisions not on facts but how something makes them feel (see: Anthony Weiner's mayoral run, etc, etc.). You have an obligation to your client to joke throughout the very serious and consequential proceedings in order to give them the best chance of winning. Likewise, the judge has every right to make the courtroom feel safe so that people are the most open about their thoughts and experiences. That's how you best select a jury. So I don't fault the players; just the game. And it seems like the best remedy is to not have the defendant in the room at the time (for the record, in 1984 the Supreme Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a public trial also extends to pretrial hearings. It's definitely part of the process and the defendant should be there. There have aso been a couple interesting and cases this century affirming the public's right to view pretrial hearings if you're interested in that sort of thing.)

So the dude needed to be there. But at the same time, his future was joked and bandied about for about six hours today. A necessary part of the process, sure. Still offensive enough to make my stomach churn. And for the record, although several quips were made, once I sat down in seat #4 I struggled to find my sense of humor while those sitting next to me laughed at how funny kids stealing from the cookie jar are.

Intro To Stats

Statistics is about association. Causation? Correlation? How likely is one v. the other? Since adopting a puppy last week, two correlations are locked in a vicious battle. From my standpoint: the dog just peed. I'll give a stern verbal and then immediately take him outside. He'll soon realize that he shouldn't be pissing on the carpet, and should be taking that business outdoors. From his standpoint: I love going outside, and every time I piss on Dave's carpet, I get to go out. Peeing on the carpet leads to positive outcomes. I should do this often.

Facebook's Value

is currently $19.41.  Maybe it would be worth more if it was good for more than just two things: attention-seeking (which is why all my blog posts get posted on my Facebook), and stalking. It's also good for shorting (back to talking stock prices), but that's only because investors are apparently as deft as we knew they were. Within the attention-seeking value of Facebook we identify two subgroups: complaining (e.g., feel bad for me, this thing happened and I wasn't willing to confront the perpetrator because I was scared and/or it wasn't societally acceptable so I'm foisting it upon you instead, etc.) and braggadociousness (e.g., my use of 'braggadociousness' is pretty fucking awesome). In this note I do both, because, as has been established via myriad mediums, I'm pretty awesome.

So I ran the Turning Stone half marathon this morning, and it really reinforced how big of assholes runners are. After the race I watched the finals of a four day billiards tournament, got some chow, and just wandered around watching old people transfer their children's inheritance to some Indian Nation one 50¢ lever pull at a time. By this point I'd changed, sporting a nondescript t-shirt, shorts, and sandals. Yet I kept seeing people walking around with their numbers still safety pinned to their shirts and wearing the medal around their necks (every finisher gets a medal - it's like an elementary school track meet). Good job, you finished, congratulations. But seriously, you look like an asshole wearing that ribbon around your neck. Besides, it's heavy and the ribbon has sharp threads poking out. It can't be comfortable. You're uncomfortable to boot? That makes you an asshole and an idiot. I'm not impressed.

The reason I'm not impressed is because I beat you (get ready for the complaining-to-braggadociousness transition). How do I know I beat you? Because real runners win real hardware.

Now give me some likes.

Cops

I've watched a lot - and I mean a lot - of Cops in my day. Recent episode has one of my favorite clips ever:

Full Cast of WTM Obstacles

I've been uploading descriptions of the World's Toughest Mudder piecemeal over the past couple weeks, and finally completed the endeavor. On December 17-18 I competed in this event in Englishtown, NJ. The 24 endurance race featured numerous obstacles and constant exposure to mud and water which rapidly whittled down the competition given the winter weather conditions. Most competitors dropped after the first 10-mile lap, and only 1% of the elite who qualified for the race actually completed it (for further perspective: of 50,000 to compete in a One Tough Mudder event this year, only 11 qualified for and completed the culminating event, the Toughest Mudder). Behold, my crude and embellished attempt to capture the obstacles encountered throughout the course.

World's Toughest Mudder Events

One Tough Mudder, Obstacles 21-30

Continuing the saga, I present obstacles 21-30 of the World's Toughest Mudder. Only ten more to go after this. If you're interested in prior postings of the first twenty, they can be found here and here.

Enjoy (or something): World's Toughest Mudder Events 21-30

One Tough Mudder, Obstacles 11-20

The second quarter of the World's Toughest Mudder. Obstacles 1-10 here.

World's Toughest Mudder Events 11-20

One Tough Mudder, Obstacles 1-10

Last weekend I went down to New Jersey to compete in the World's Toughest Mudder, a 24-hour obstacle course that broke me after 5 1/2 hours. A more thorough description may be coming later, but for now I provide the first 10 of the 40 obstacles encountered every lap of the course (the race objective was the run the most laps in the allotted 24 hours).

World's Toughest Mudder Events 1-10

I Hate Texting

Which is why I'm constantly accused of being awful of answering texts - that's kind of the point. I don't feel like texting you, ergo, you won't be receiving a response. Anyway, the following exchange happened last night:

Mom: At lauras benefit. We have a website design, t shirt, coconut pie, billfold, and movie tickets.

Mom: Is xlarge good for you.

Me: Large or medium.

Mom: You getting and xlarge. Wash it in hot water.


Texting: where poor spelling and grammar meet snark. Also, my parents now have an agreement to have a website developed for them. I'm not sure if they know what that means, but I imagine a return to web 2.0.

The Old Dog Has Tricks - He'll Sure Hunt!

Bill Snyder looks to be proving his worth again. K-State has scored 2 touchdowns to Miami's lone field goal early in the second quarter. He's made Klein the centerpiece of the offense, running the boy around the ends and having him pass all over the field; he's 7 of 9 for 100 yards. Snyder suggested that K-State had only opened 25% of his playbook to-date, and apparently he wasn't lying.

Last year we saw Snyder pulling similar antics at Texas, starting Klein after throwing QB Carson Coffman started all year prior. Klein only completed 4 passes, but we fondly remember the beating the Wildcats put on the Longhorns in 2010 due to Collin's amazing running day. I didn't hate Ron Prince, but Snyder is proving why we named the stadium after him.

In Canada for PopMontreal. Leaving the hotel for bangin' music party. Hopefully we can extrapolate this score for about a 48-12 win. Fingers crossed?

Big News

As of Monday I've officially relocated to Center Square, which is within walking distance of both work and 75% of the bars in the city. It's the 2nd and 3rd floors of an apartment (to be shared with a couple work mates) with a pretty nice kitchen and all the storage room you could ever ask for. I mean you could hide dead hookers galore in all the closet space we've been provided. But bigger than this news was today's unveiling of the logo for next year's All-Star Game:



I hate the fact I've yet to see the renovated Kauffman Stadium (albeit the changes don't sound too impressive), but apparently some good has come out of it. I hate that, as Royal fans, we're always relegated to looking to the future instead of enjoying the present, but 2012 looks to be shaping up as an excellent year for KC.

Use Honey for Catching Flies Only

I've been battling the mice in my house awhile now, content with throwing some more rat poison into the ceiling every time I hear the bastards scamper across the panels as I'm laying in bed. But last week I was awoken from my session-constrained sleep to hear one running around, and was so outraged I began violently pounding the wall (presumably to scare it from the house, but unsuccessfully so).

Monday morning I arose early enough to hit the supermarket for food and the hardware store for mousetraps before heading into work. Arriving home that night, I failed to find my jar of peanut butter (a safe assumption is Erol took it when moving out). Unsure of my next move, I was like, 'well, honey is sweet - I bet they'd like that.' So I set two traps with large dollops of honey and went to bed.

Tuesday morning I arose to find my trapping efforts were for naught, as both had been left undisturbed. Although disappointed, I decided to leave the traps there and see if I could get one during the day. I arrive home last night/this morning to find the traps still empty, consoled myself that it was worth the try, and went to bed. Before leaving for work this morning I check the traps one more time, hoping they'ed finally fallen for the sweet nectar, and sonuvabitch if there weren't ants crawling all over the floor. So now I've failed to adequately address the mouse problem, and have created an ant problem. Not only did I fail, I failed twice. I'm sure there's a lesson somewhere in there, but my penchant for obstinance means someone else will have to apply it.

A Start

I arise early today, the morning air still cold as the sun barely peeks through my window. I throw on my racing shoes, the same shoes I went to break in over two years ago. The same shoes that witnessed my broken leg and escape from the Arb that night; their very first outting. I wouldn’t normally don them, but I’ve a mission this morning. An old hoodie slips over my head and I’m out the door, grabbing a handful of raisins for fuel on the way.

There’s a certain calm these streets know as the dawn's glow shines light into dark corners before the hustle and bustle of everyday life resumes. I make my way first down Kent Street, then merging onto West and through the mixed immigrant neighborhood I was almost held up in one night back in April. Blackalicious jams on my iPod, segueing from Passion to Supreme People. These are the morning’s anthems, and they embody everything the morning is about.

I take a right on Lake, passing by Washington Park and the curbs crammed with cars by students unable to find more suitable parking. A mile and a half in, a left on Myrtle, kicking up another gear to stride out any final kinks to get my blood flowing. I snake into a hidden driveway and cut through the hospital grounds with the familiarity of a patient that’s visited this place one too many times. I steal a reticent glance up at the Cardiology Department windows on the second floor, and then refocus on the task at hand.

Cutting between the Albany Law and Pharmacy Schools, an old track comes into view. Its lane lines are barely visible and enough rubber has worn away to reveal large patches of concrete every 50 meters, but that doesn’t change this oval’s function as the battleground of weekend warriors.

Some stretching and a short rest later, I line up to test my body. Trepidation serves as a governor during a slow first lap, and I pick up the pace at the quarter-mile mark. Rounding lap two, I quicken my pace a little more, though by no means impress the one or two students heading out to work. This leaves plenty in the tank for lap four, and I kick it in with 200 meters to go. Yet with 100 meters left, my kick leaves, and I’m reminded that I haven’t done this in a long time. I finish a minute, maybe 1:10, slower than the end goal - but we’ve got five more months to sort that out. Jogging back home, I pen a short letter in my head:

Dear Boston:

I know past plans didn't work out, but this time is different. I promise. Be seeing you next April.

Sincerely,
Dave

'Googling's' Still a Funny Word

I was googling myself over lunchbreak today (an activity engaged in about once/week. Yeah, I'm that narcissistic). I found two things of note. The first you don't care about: UM published the energy sustainability report I helped write last year:

Energy Phase I

What's also sweetness is this little diddy:
Apparently Washburn published a picture of the Model UN gang back in 2006 with the caption Members of the Washburn University Model UN Team Jump for Joy in Tiananmen Square. Because nothing screams 'WE SHOULD CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES AT THIS EXACT SPOT!' like Tiananmen Square. And no, white boy can't jump. My air is merely a camera illusion.