Look, let’s be clear on this: from the moment the Antichirst was born Crowley was fucked. Even if he managed to avert Armageddon, the forces of Hell and Satan himself was still going to come after him and destroy him for it. So, of course, he had an escape plan. He HAD to have an escape plan.
From the moment Crowley delivered the Antichirst Crowley’s plan was:
1. Do absolutely everything I can think of, including enlisting Aziraphale’s help, to prevent Armageddon.
2. When I’ve done absolutely everything I can do and the forces of Hell come to destroy me then I will escape of Alpha Centauri, and hope that it was enough. Oh, and I’ll try really hard to convince Aziraphale to come with me.
Crowley doesn’t even mention Alpha Centauri to Aziraphale until it seems to Crowley that they are all out of ideas. Further, just mentioning an escape plan is NOT the same thing as literally running then and there. Crowley does not attempt to put his escape plan into place at all until the forces of Hell are at his doorstep.
It is not selfish for Crowley to have some sense of self-preservation. It is not selfish to have a back up emergency escape plan for if doing everything you can think of is still not enough. It is not selfish to run from the literal forces of Hell attempting to destroy you personally because you tried to save the world.
It was Crowley’s idea to try to avert Armageddon. The moment he knew about the Antichrist he was straight onto trying to prevent it without any hesitation. Crowley is the one who convinced Aziraphale. And he did it all knowing that if Armageddon didn’t go according to plan he personally would be blamed. He’s fucked either way. So, of course, he was at least partially motivated by love of the world and preventing suffering and all of that. The real reasons spill out when he’s drunk: dolphins. Dolphins, that’s my point.
Can we please stop condemning him for making an escape plan? Can we stop thinking that having an escape plan means that Crowley ‘you can’t kill kids’ never had unselfish reasons to save the world? Can we please stop condemning him for wanting to live?
And please, if you are sacrificing your whole life for the greater good, stop. Do your best AND make escape plan. It is okay to want to live your life.
Last year hurricane Matthew scorched the Gulf Of Mexico hitting the whole Caribbean region, parts of South-Central America, and Southern US states. Today we have hurricane Irma and Jose executing a two-punch set which will make more deaths and destruction.
We can’t continue the denial of climate change and pretend this is something out of our hands. It was predicted decades ago but dumb politicians get to keep their seats in Washington, and this is costing countless lives as well as a final bill in the order of the billions footed by US tax payers adding insult to the injury.
As of September 10 two violent hurricanes have hit the Caribbean and the US
It’s time to exit the denial in which far too many got cozy; local governments have to stop letting this disasters happen and should rethink their approach on home building in those areas who suffer the most from violent weather, from the tornado alley to the states impacted by hurricanes.
How are we going to safeguards the lives of millions of people who live in dangerous weather areas?- We stop pretending plywood and drywall are enough to shield lives with homes poorly designed and too fragile to withstand any type weather phenomena out of the norm.
The three little pigs survived because upon trial and error they develop a house that would resist the wolf’s breath.
The reconstruction process after natural calamities has become a hefty business for material providers, developers, working crews, transportation, and so on; there’s a chain of events that allows enterprises to continue to make money out of these disasters rebuilding homes.
Governments and voters have to get serious and demand a change in building practices, they have to demand future homes will be able to resist strong winds and provide a minimum amount of structure integrity to safeguard families inside their places.
Many countries around the world have been using hollow bricks to pull up all sorts of structures knowing that according to specific standards they would have resisted strong winds. It surely is a better option than constantly rebuild the same houses displacing thousands of people from their dwellings.
Nations affected by natural disasters like earthquakes have geared up to seek the latest technological achievement to save lives and their economy. Japan for instance is known for facing more than one type of calamity, yet the country knew that protecting people was a priority, so they developed engineering and architecture practices to design homes and buildings that would resist earthquakes.
Until the US government continues to set their order of business in the wrong orders many more lives will be lost, breaking down local economies until the whole landscape will be so bruised we won’t be able to turn back.
I just got a job with really good insurance. Check off the bucket list and a huge relief. It’s my dream job. Working with bikes as the head mechanic/assistant manager. Very awesome and I love my coworkers. Only good thing in my life right now.
Our health should not be part of a free market exchange. Saving money is not equivalent to saving lives.
While you can decide to keep your house a bit cooler to lower your electric bill, you can’t have a little less chemo to save a few thousand dollars. There’s no “hey, maybe just forget the insulin so you can save for a few months of retirement money, skimp on the blood thinners or dialysis and get some pocket change for the movies.”
Healthcare is a non-negotiable part of life. So why do we rely on a system which ebbs and flows based on the number of healthy people who choose to sign up and create a market based on humans as commodities; the federal laws (looking at you, abortion ban HR-7) that cause insurance companies to choose their own financial safety over the people who need medical safety?
Don’t let this government turn us and those less fortunate than those I know reading my inordinately long post into market objects for financial gain. Call, dissent.
As always, continue to support the ACA by calling your reps or Sen. Paul Ryan–(202) 225-3031
Oppose HR7 (which bans all federal funding for abortion services, targeting the underprivileged on Medicaid as well as effectively eliminating ability to get coverage for abortion even if paying your own funds through any ACA/gov program) by calling your reps.
Just an FYI for those in the US with insurance issues
this sounds oddly plausible
a good doctor will pester the insurance company on your behalf. a couple times in my Back Pain Odyssey my insurance noped out on a procedure, and my doctor called them up and was like “no, really” and they gave in.
so if your insurance is in the habit of going “you don’t actually need TWO months of physical therapy, just walk it off,” tell the doctor who ordered it, and they may very well volunteer to, or agree to, call up the insurance people and go “simon says pay for the fucking therapy.”
For all my peeps out there fighting the good fight against Big Pharma Bureaucratic Bullshit.
Florida Blue: Dispelling Health Insurance’s Biggest Myths
Florida Blue: Dispelling Health Insurance’s Biggest Myths
For starters, it’s probably more affordable than you think! Health insurance is complicated. Not many people will disagree with that. And since it’s the time of year when individuals and families can enroll in a health insurance plan for 2022, it’s a perfect time to correct a few common myths about health insurance so you can make an informed decision about buying a health plan for you and your…
So I can get insurance to approve a prior auth for zanaflex which a patient probably really doesn’t need but I can’t get them to approve Advair which the patient had been on for 5 years and is probably the only thing keeping them out of the hospital.
Alright, it’s been too long since I had a huge post (maybe 20 hours) so I thought I’d lay one out again. I’d like to talk about Health Care, and why I’m voting for Obama because of it.
Let me start by surprising everyone who hasn’t talked to me with the following:
I hate Obamacare - I think it violates our rights by forcing us to buy a product from private companies, and probably should be repealed.
“But why are you voting for Obama then Rob? Surely Romney’s repeated calls to end Obamacare appeal to you!” - GOP Supporter
Lets start by looking at our health care system before the Affordable Care Act went into effect.
First - Every person could go to an ER, and that ER would be forced to give them basic life saving care, even if they didn’t have insurance. People still died of cancer and all sorts of nastiness, but hospitals were generally not allowed to turn people away.
Second - Not everyone had health insurance. Some people had preexisting conditions and were denied coverage. Some were unemployed and couldn’t afford it. Some were students older than 24. Some had jobs that didn’t provide it. However, those people still sometimes went to the hospital.
Third - Sometimes health insurance wouldn’t cover a procedure that a doctor recommended. Health insurance companies dictate medicine, not medical doctors.
Anyone with a job most likely has seen their health care costs rising slowly since they’ve ever worked ever. A little raise in their premiums there, an increased deductible there. A new service not covered.
Why you ask? Was this profiteering by insurance companies? Sure, maybe. Profiteering by doctors and hospitals? Maybe. Largely though, the problem was that you received treatment first and were billed second. If your insurance wouldn’t pay and you were stuck with the bill? You could simply declare bankruptcy or just not pay. Of course the hospital still incurred the cost of your surgery. You used medical supplies, Doctor’s time. Anesthesia and band aids. Electricity. All that stuff still had to get paid for.
Lets say you make minimum wage working at Walmart, 30 hours a week. You may have a child. You make too much to be on medicaid, but still can’t afford insurance. Then, you get a large kidney stone, require surgery, and get stuck with a $40,000 bill for surgery. Or you get shot in the face watching batman and incur a 2 million dollar hospital bill. What if you are unable to pay?
The hospitals - some public and some private - do the only thing they can do, which is passing those costs onto the paying customers. And the only ‘paying’ customers were people with insurance. Thus, the bill for any given procedure is largely automatically inflated, because it’s costs if paid must go towards costs of procedures that aren’t paid. That’s one of the reasons Americans spend almost 3x more on healthcare than countries that don’t have our 'system’.
The poorest Americans, the oldest Americans, were covered under Medicare and Medicaid. But there’s a group of people - lower middle class, upper lower class - that may slip through the cracks.
**Ok, so what did Obama care do for us?**
First, it made more people pay into the health care industry. The more people who are paying into the system, the more the health insurance industry can spread those costs across everyone. That means less people who are going to the hospital without health insurance.
Second, it capped the profits of the health insurance industry. It is forcing the insurance industry to pay for medical procedures with your insurance premiums, not advertising.
Third, it forces insurance companies to allow people with preexisting conditions onto health care plans.
This alleviates a lot of problems that our health care industry was facing. However, socialism is a government owned industry. Since the government isn’t owning anything, this definitely isn’t socialist.
So why is this not a point in the cards for Romney? Because Obamacare is demonstrably better than pre-Obamacare. And Romney’s only plan is to repeal Obamacare. He needs to have SOME plan to replace Obamacare - because going back to the way it was is untenable.
“So what are our options besides Obamacare? ” - GOP Supporter
Great question friend! There’s three things we can do (At least, that I can think of. Feel free to update me with your own).
Alleviate the problem by forcing people to pay for health care before they receive it. That way, costs will come down because everyone who gets health care will be insured. Hospitals will know that they can charge the actual costs of the procedures because they’ve already been paid. Everyone will be forced to buy insurance, because without it they’ll simply die. (This is assuming we could convince hospitals not to treat people for free anyways) This is the system of health care that places like Somolia, Uganda, Ethiopia, and other heavily impoverished nations with terrible quality of life have. If you have money, you live long, if you don’t, you die young. In my opinion, this is completely fucking unacceptable for the United States.
Socialized Medicine. *gasp*. This makes sure every single person pays into the system what they can, through taxes. And since every person is paying, every person can get health care. *THIS* is what we need, since every other country that is using it has a vastly better health care system. But that’s a different story. Read about the different types of socialized health care here.
Continue with the pre-Obamacare status quo. I’m not an economist and I don’t have any formal training in health care administration, so this is entirely conjecture: Prices will continue to rise which will force more people out of the insurance pool. This will cause health care prices to go up faster. Employer prices will continue to rise, either forcing an increase in the costs of goods, or forcing down salaries to compensate. It’s an all around fuck fest.
Quick Aside: I’ve been told that if we completely deregulate the health care industry and let the free market fairy sprinkle its magic all these problems will go away. Frankly this argument is full of shit. First, the problem of everyone being covered but not everyone paying still exists without another insurance mandate. Second - the free market decided that people with pre-existing conditions wouldn't be covered because it’s not profitable to cover them. That’s a whole group of people who don’t get health care - which in my opinion is equally untenable.
Of course, this is a simplistic view of the situation, and ignores a lot of important facts: Regular checkups and a relationship with the same physician is extremely beneficial for the health of the population, treating patients in a doctors office is cheaper than in the ER, access to vaccinations and health care earlier will result in healthier children, etc. Honestly I’m very lazy and want to go to bed, so I made this as simple as possible.
But it remains you *shouldn’t* vote for Romney while he advocates path 3 for our country. Obama really screwed the GOP hard by enacting Obamacare. By *compromising* and implementing the only possible solution that the right could come up with (a federal insurance mandate), he stole their only solution for health care. Once repealed, the only option the right has is to Re-implement Obamacare,
If you are a GOP supporter? Demand from your party a plan of action. Because without Obamacare, the health care industry is largely up shits creek. Moral arguments aside, it isn’t fiscally responsible to vote for Romney because of his lack of medical plan. As always I’m open to questions.
Why am I littering your dash with mind-numbing insurance crap?
Because the world of health insurance is complicated, and you can still lose everything if you have coverage and fail to navigate it correctly.
Even if your eyes glaze over instantly at the subject, I suggest you bookmark this as a future reference, because you either have your own insurance now, or you will someday soon, and there isn’t anybody who doesn’t need this knowledge. (Yes, I know there’s a double negative in that sentence. This is a financial post, not a grammar post.)
If you think this is valuable info, I ask you to please share it. You could help somebody save money/sanity.
My cred:
I write health plan docs for a living. I’m an Obamacare expert. I help clients with plan design, so I know the tricks. I implement federal mandates from HHS, IRS, DOL, and state agencies in order to keep my clients legally compliant. I know how to avoid penalties and coverage gaps. I know the tricks of plan design that are implemented to save employers money. I know which laws apply to which types of plans. I know how many ways participants can get severely burned if they don’t know how this works.
1. Your network is everything.
Never visit any type of practitioner without first checking if they are in your network. This is gospel. Many plans have separate INN and OON deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums that do not accumulate together. Some plans have an unlimited OON out-of-pocket limit, so you can still go completely bankrupt if you go OON.
Most plans have network provisions that will cover some OON providers at the INN level: emergency services until you’re stabilized (this is a federal mandate for non-grandfathered plans), No Choice of Provider provision if ancillary services are performed OON (e.g., if an INN physician sends your labs to an OON facility), and various out-of-area provisions. If you don’t know, call the customer service number and ask.
Physicians join & leave networks all the time. Even if your doc isn’t listed in the most recent Provider Directory, it never hurts to ask.
Many plans also have wrap networks that will negotiate with OON providers and facilities, so if all else fails, ask if your plan utilizes one of these to negotiate on your behalf.
2. Understand when your deductible accumulates & resets.
Your deductible is the amount of $ you pay for all services & prescriptions (except mandated preventive care on non-grandfathered plans) before your insurance pays a dime. This is in addition to the $ you pay for your premium. If you’re on an HDHP (high deductible health plan) or CDHP (consumer-driven health plan), your premiums will be very low, but your deductible will be very high. I’m on an HDHP, and my individual deductible is $2,600. Steep.
Deductibles usually reset every January 1, but some plans run off-year. Know your dates. If you’re on an HDHP, use the hell out of the HSA (health savings account) if available.
3. Preventive care is free!! Woohoo!!
The Affordable Care Act mandates certain preventive services be covered with no cost-share.
These lists are updated frequently, and new services are added every few months. My $500 Mirena IUD is now covered 100%, and the deductible is waived. The HPV vaccine is now covered for everybody between age 19-26. Depressing screening is covered. Tobacco cessation, immunizations, STI screening & counseling….all covered.
4. Preventive care isn’t free under every plan! Booo!!!
If your plan is grandfathered, they will likely opt to cover preventive services at the general benefit percent. The deductible will also apply. They are still allowed to exclude any preventive services they want.
Your plan document will (should) state whether your plan is grandfathered or not. If the doc is silent, call the carrier’s customer service line and ask.
5. Assume every EOB/bill you receive has at least 1 error, ESPECIALLY on hospital visits.
For the most part, claims processors have ZERO medical background. They’re paid just above minimum wage and are paid based on how many claims they process per hour. So you can guess how often errors happen.
I just had a preventive OBGYN claim come back as not covered, even though it should have been covered at 100%. If I didn’t know about the PPACA mandate, I would’ve just paid $219 out of my own pocket for an office visit that is supposed to be free.
You are paying enough/too much already for your premiums and deductibles. Make damn sure your claims are being processed and paid correctly. Raise hell if not, and get familiar with the appeals process.
6. Check your Medical Plan Exclusions before you go for any service.
Can’t stress this one enough.
7. Some plans offer surprisingly generous benefits such as 3-D mammography, genetic/genomic testing, acupuncture, and bariatric surgery.
Look at your Schedule of Benefits, but also check your Covered Charges for details on coverage and limitations.
There are federal mandates like the WHCRA, which requires all plans to cover the cost of breast reconstruction after mastectomy. Your plan document should have a section that lists federal notices.
The Mental Health Parity & Addiction Equity Act also requires plans to cover mental health & substance abuse services & facilities at the same level as the medical services & facilities. For example, a plan that covers a skilled nursing facility (medical) must also cover a residential treatment facility (MH). This is a bigger deal than it probably sounds like.
8. Check pre-certification requirements.
This is a cost containment strategy, and a lot of people aren’t even aware that covered charges are often denied/penalized if you don’t obtain pre-cert before the service. Again, check your plan document or call customer service. The most common services requiring pre-cert are: all hospitalizations (excluding routine labor/delivery), surgical procedures, transplants, clinical trials, outpatient rehab therapies, chemo & radiation, speciality drugs, home health care, durable medical equipment, prosthetics, and advanced imaging (MRI/MRA, CT scan, nuclear imaging, etc).
Any penalties you pay for failure to pre-cert won’t apply to your out-of-pocket maximum, so they really super suck. Some plans outright deny all claims for services that aren’t pre-certed.
9. You shouldn’t go broke.
Under PPACA, your in-network out-of-pocket maximum is limited. This means that you will never spend more than that amount in any year for covered services received from an in-network provider. The key here is the network, which I have to mention again since it is so critical.
Watch your EOBs carefully and monitor your accumulators (deductible and out-of-pocket limit). You can’t rely on the claims processors to get it right. I know it sucks and isn’t fair, but it’s the reality, and it’s your money on the line. There isn’t a claims processor or appeals lawyer in the world who will care more about your money than you do, so it really is up to you to be aware.
Godspeed, friends, and good health to you.
THIS NEEDS MORE NOTES
As much as this advice needs to be spread, it makes me so fucking furious that we live in a country where it needs to be spread.
And PSA #1 works adequately (I am not going to say well, because I think in/out of network is some of the worst of the bullshit of US health insurance) for most uncomplicated physical health needs.
Mental health? Not so much.
And if you get charged for failure to pre-cert, that’s the doc’s fault and you shouldn’t be responsible for the charges.
Also if you do get misbilled, don’t pay it - call to complain first, then ask if the doctor can submit anything to help
I once spent a year and half fighting an mri bill that they incorrectly labeled as frivolous until a doctor got involved
Also: keep calling. Get it in writing if you can. I just had a medically-necessary pre-cert-required drug not counted against my annual deductible (and our work shoved us all on high deductible plans which is SUPER GREAT for a family with 3 disabled people in it) because despite my calling multiple times and being assured it was taken care of, my pre-cert wasn’t done. Then I was told I could just pay for it out of pocket, and they would go back and count the drug against my deductible after the fact.
HA HA HA HA LIARS.
Also in my area the hospital is in-network but the ER doctors are out of network.
Workplace human error is a component of most businesses. Whilst some of these mistakes may be harmless, others could be costly both to your finances and to your reputation.
Because humans aren’t like machines, there’s no easy to fix to workplace human error. However there are things you can do to reduce it and make it less harmful.
Here are just a few tricks to help you reduce workplace human…
Employee benefits can make you stand out from other employers. If you want to attract and retain the right people, there are five employee benefits you should be offering.
Something that adds value to any employment position is employee benefits. When an employee signs up for a job with you, they expect to receive compensation in addition to their salary.
Suppose you have an unhinged neighbor who wants to burn down your house. You’d probably spend much of your time making sure that that doesn’t happen. Drafting plans for a megamansion you hope to build where your house once stood probably wouldn’t be a priority. But that seems to be the approach of some Democratic aspirants for the presidency, who spent big chunks of their recent debates arguing about details of costly “Medicare for All” plans that have no chance of becoming law. Our view.
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I want to keep the person and entity they work for anonymous at the moment to avoid any legal/personal problems to them, but this story is horribly frustrating, specially if you’re dealing with chronic pain and how some doctors treat us.
The person we are talking about is REAL and got injured at work while lifting something heavy, which the person has done before, and here is what the “physician”( which the person in charge is a Physician Assistant (PA) and not an MD) where the patient is being treated at and people in that facility have done:
-The PA noticed the patient having SEVERE shoulder and chest pain, which she attributed to the patient having Pneumonia. The issue with this was that the patient was taken to the ER right after her injury by her company, her test weren’t consistent with pneumonia, and the PA disregard that and still left it in that paper work and did not provide with treatment or further blood test.
-The PA then said what the patient had was a shoulder injury that was acute, she did not provide more information and still left Pneumonia as a diagnosis. She did not want to provide with pain medication and sent patient to the ER.
-The PA sent a replacement doctor to work on the patient and the new doctor told her that her diagnosis of Pneumonia and acute injury in the shoulder was wrong, that the problem was a cervical injury, which once again she still left things as they were and ordered an MRI of the shoulder blade, and did not want to explore the possibility of a cervical injury.
-The patient went to her regular primary physician and asked for his opinion, he also agreed it was a cervical injury, which could happen after repetitive movement, he advice an MRI of the cervical area, which was not going to be approved and would be expensive.
-The patient got a shot, and was NOT informed of the purposed of it, the possible side effects, or what else to expect. The patient got a reaction to the shot, in which I got involved and went to talk on their behalf. I was upset at the fact that they were she COULD get a flare up due to the shot and they did not mention it, they sent the patient back to work. She retracted and said she did not ordered it and later gave her a window of a week of no work to recover from the flare up, this physician was nice compare to her usual one.
-The PA would get so mad at what happened and blamed the patient, then sent the patient to work and told her if the injury was not in the shoulder, like she wants it to be, she would not continue to see her.
-The PA told the patient not to return to her until MRI of her shoulder was done to get results.
-The PA noted that the patient asked for Tramadol, after being given some by another physician, and that the patient was rude and angry because they would not be given Tramadol, which was a lie. I was with the patient when the patient reported that Tramadol got her sick and not to be given anymore. So the PA lied..
-The receptionist laughed at patient.
-The PA canceled patient’s appointment without calling before hand.
-The PA mentioned how she was over-reacting about her pain and not to go see her face for nothing else.
-The PA called the person’s work manager to let them know that they could go back to work, without telling the patient, and telling the patient to not go to work until MRI results.
-Patient has MRI was was told they did the wrong one, luckily it was a cervical one that they did for mistake, the patient did show a cervical injury, but they twisted the story and said that the cervical injury was not related to the work injury and was not that much pain. A cervical injury could be caused by the movement she made at work, therefore what the doctor said was wrong, and patient went to a specialist to ask.
This is just the short version, for one I do not get how they label patients as liars, how they want them to “deal” with pain in useless physical therapies or tell patients to “forget” their pain.
I for one want to help this person and I am looking for all the options, but to me this is a legal matter now, but wanted to really help in letting them know that their pain matters, it isn’t fake, not just because you can’t see it from the outside.
“Protecting your privacy can be a difficult task in today’s world of information technology. With surveillance cameras on every corner and a recording device on every smartphone, there’s a good chance your image has been captured somewhere without you even knowing it. Safeguarding your mug in the future is set to become even more difficult with advancements in facial recognition technologies and wearable computers like Google Glass.
So what can you do to ensure your identity remains intact? In Western countries the answer would be simple: put on a pair of sunglasses. In Japan, however, sunglasses are a much less common sight, and many consider them to be worn only by those trying a little too hard to look cool, and in more extreme cases associate them with the yakuza lifestyle. Researchers at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo have addressed this issue by designing a non-threatening pair of white shades to protect both your identity and your public image, dubbing them the “Privacy Visor”…”
