MY ACHING BACK, (Frazer Chronicles)
Got back from "one" of my doctors a few weeks ago, worrying about a possible surgery on my lower back, not about the cost, "my wife has insurance," but about the consequences. Would I be laid up for a long period of time, would I be able to return to an active life, would I be able to care for my wife and dog, you know, the usual litany of concerns after major surgery, for a guy over.....50 might have.
I have had a bad back off and on my entire adult life, from my teen years on. Over the past several months the pain has gotten progressively worse, forcing me to seek medical assistants. I can't figure out how, or why anybody would go to a doctor unless he absolutely had to. I don't hate the experience, the receptionists are cute and the doctors nurses and assistants are all fine looking, friendly and do a great job, not a nurse Ratchet among them.
I thought that I had an idea as to the nature of my back problems, what causes it and what I could do to alleviate the problem, little did I know how wrong I was. I set in front of a computer about 8 hours a day and figured my sedentary life style was a major cause of the pain, wrong. Exercising would help, it usually does for a multitude of aches and pains, but not in my instance.
Seems that I had a calcium build-up in my pelvic girdle, a thoroughly disgusting reference to a man's lower back. I prefer to call my "pelvic girdle" a lower back problem, "caused by an old football injury," brought on by advancing years. Now, doesn't that sound better then "pelvic girdle."
My doctor, Brock Robinson, a very competent MD put me on a regiment of cold and then hot compresses, which did little good. I returned in less then two weeks, "I don't get along with pain very well, I'm a wimp." At that appointment, Doctor Robinson decided to inject my pained area and see if that worked.
Included in the procedure was the office visit, $125.50, (15) minutes, Fluoroscopic Guidance for Central Venous Access Device Placement, (x-ray) $$430.75, Injection Sacroiliac joint, $620.75 and Injection, Triamcinolone Acetonide, (Kenalog,), $32.00, a total of $1209.00 for the entire procedure. My wife's insurance company, of which Doctor Robinson is an affiliate member, paid a total of $725.40, a little over half the requested amount.
According to the AMA price list for such a procedure was, on average around $1200.00, so my "medical staff," "I like that," charges for services rendered was about spot on. The entire procedure, including the office visit took under an hour to complete, good work if you can get it.
The reason for this Monday morning blog and the "idle quarterbacking" is elementary, how could a procedure that actually was a rather simple outpatient job, cost more then a thousand dollars? I don't understand. I mean politicians on the right side and those people with conservative opinions, seem to feel that raising health care prices lead directly to those people that are taking advantage of health care and the insurance companies that end up paying the bills.
Guess what, I have met very few people that are willing to visit a doctor because they like their physicians, miss them, or want to line their pockets with insurance money. People by and large make doctor visits because they need attention with some physical problems. Rates are set, by location and payment is expected at the time of service. Whether the procedure is a success or not does not play into the scenario of payment, it's just pay.
If you are one of the lucky ones, the doctors office will submit the bill to your insurance company for payment. With ever procedure that either my wife or I have, we get a billing statement detailing what was done, the cost and then the adjusted costs that the insurance company will pay. Without exception, the initial bill that we get states that the claim has been denied, giving the insurance company additional time to evaluate the claim.
We get at least three statements regarding the one medical procedure and finally they, "the insurance company" decides to pay the doctor. The system in place can be manipulated with relative ease, it relies on doctor honesty, with the patient as a back-up. Abuse of overpayment's, stated procedures that never happened and "padding" costs happen all the time, and go into the billions of dollars.
The worse part of the equation, at least in my instance, the injection didn't work, so now I'm in physical therapy twice a week, kinda like "sweating to the oldies." It's like I pre-paid for a roof job that leaked in the first rainstorm, oh well.....man the buckets.
OBAMACARE.....A GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER? (Frazer Chronicles)
Now we can all sit back and watch the political race that is beginning to heat up as the Republican party parades out their top candidates for the 2012 election. Sadly it's the same tired group that has marched in the past and there singing the same silly songs to their base. Tax cuts, no new taxes, government to big, strength in national defense, abortion control, rid the country of entitlements and put everybody to work.
I'm sure I've left a few out, but don't worry, I'm sure that some of my loyal readers will correct me as they often times do. I'm not a Democrat, a Republican, a centrist and for dam sure not a Teabagger, I swing both ways....."that doesn't sound quite right," what I mean to say is "I see value in both party ideas and wish that the parties could come together more often.
Whether health care is in the constitution or not, "of course it's not" every man, women and child in the United States has a right to access health insurance, and that right need not financially break any of them. It is as basic a right as the right to bear arms, or Americans freedom of speech and right of assembly.
On the one hand we boost of being the greatest country on the face of the earth, the leader in a democratic system of government and a leading protector of human rights. Are military might is second to none and we spread foreign aid, monetarily, all over the world, are engaged in two wars in foreign countries, yet can't successfully medically care for the least of us, give me a break.
Obama care, the Presidents health plan, is going to cost us money, of that there is no doubt, only an idiot would argue that point, "guess we have some idiots in Washington." I'm not going to sit here and try and tell you that "I" have the answers, I don't. But I do have some observations that make sense, sense because they are correct observations.
Those that do not agree with my basic observations are, well.....completely over the edge and are either stupid, or ignorant to the facts. They are as follows:
A. Mandating that everybody have medical insurance is not unique, how many states have mandatory auto insurance, how many states have seat-belt laws and was there ever a mandatory military draft in the United States?
B. Free choice of insurance carrier, give me a break, what difference does it make who covers your medical health care, as long as it works.
C. Governmental takeover conjures up the European approach in which the government "owns" the hospitals and the doctors are public employees. However the law the Congress passed relies basically on the free market, it is true that government does regulate health insurers, but exactly which of my loyal readers feels that some sort of regulation isn't necessary, "see my aching back blog above."
D. Employers will continue to provide health insurance to the majority of Americans through private companies and that cost will continue to be built into the prices that they charge for their product.
E. More people will get health coverage, the law sets up exchanges were private companies will compete to provide insurance for those that do not have coverage.
F. Government will not seize control of hospitals, nationalize doctors and the law does not include the Public option.
G. The law gives tax credits to those people who have difficulty affording insurance, so that they can purchase insurance from competing insurance providers, relying on the free market.
Critics cite significant increases in government regulations which requires adults to have health insurance and as Sarah Palin talked about "death panels" America has been pushed to understand the ramifications of the Obama plan. There will be a tax increase connected with Obamacare, it's impossible not to have increased costs, so what, other costs will be eliminated.
Whatever program is finally put into use, it has to cover "all" Americans, to do anything else would be un-American.
NICKOLAUS HARD WORKING, YA RIGHT, (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
Kathy Nickolaus, the women at the center of the state Supreme Court election controversy and the focus of an ongoing state elections investigation and a recount that will ultimately cost the taxpayers of Wisconsin a million bucks has done by far the smartest move of her professional career, she has remained silent.
She has let some of her constituents do the talking and out of that talk has emerged a rather strange pattern of a women either unwilling or unable to take either help or constructive criticism. As one public official put it, "Nickolaus came from a staff position at the state Capitol, where partisan politics and loyalty to the party caucus fomented team welfare. In public office, constituents are the boss.
According to some onlookers, Nickolaus never got past having to answer to any authority other then herself. She put up walls to protect herself and then put up walls to protect those walls. Her "go it alone" isolation attitude is responsible for her current mess. With the rest of the state finished with their recount, tedious ballot recount is still underway at the Waukesha County government building.
In the high-income, Republican-dominated Waukesha county, where officials tout its financial and service superiority, Kathy Nicholaus' blunder with the election count has given the county a black eye under the glare of the national spotlight.
There have been other errors during Nickolaus' tenure as County clerk, although none as big as her April gaffe involving the state Supreme court race when her tabulation of ballots gave a Democrat, JoAnne Kloppenburg the win by 204 votes over incumbent, David Prosser. Although she discovered not counting more then 14,000 votes, she delayed for more then a day reporting the miss-count.
Other mistakes during her watch, 2005 Assembly seat race, someone in her office double-counted votes, also in 2005 in a special election for county executive, sample ballots she submitted to area newspapers as legal notices showed the ballot marked for one of the candidates.
In 2006 her office briefly showed the wrong candidate winning an assembly seat after one municipality reversed columns. In 2007 the unofficial outcome of a very close school board race reported by the county clerk was later reversed because a few deciding votes cast on a touch-screen machine weren't included in the initial total.
The Waukesha county clerk is not a trivial position, it pays $67,787 a year carries all the benefits and medical insurance associated with almost any administrative job. In addition the Nicholaus' own and operate a fishing and bait shop, and the county clerk fills in on Saturday nights as a bar tender near her home in Genesee.
I said it before and I'll say it again, "Kathy Nickolaus needs to go." She has a track record of miss-steps in other elections and the topper would seem to be the past April election miss-count, omission, mistake, bone headed practices , or whatever you might want to call it. I guess some state taxpayers would call it "unnecessary expense" by a clearly inept administrator. We here at Chronicle headquarters can only lament, "don't let your bait shop go and ask for more hours at your tavern job."
The worse part of the equation, at least in my instance, the injection didn't work, so now I'm in physical therapy twice a week, kinda like "sweating to the oldies." It's like I pre-paid for a roof job that leaked in the first rainstorm, oh well.....man the buckets.
OBAMACARE.....A GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER? (Frazer Chronicles)
Now we can all sit back and watch the political race that is beginning to heat up as the Republican party parades out their top candidates for the 2012 election. Sadly it's the same tired group that has marched in the past and there singing the same silly songs to their base. Tax cuts, no new taxes, government to big, strength in national defense, abortion control, rid the country of entitlements and put everybody to work.
I'm sure I've left a few out, but don't worry, I'm sure that some of my loyal readers will correct me as they often times do. I'm not a Democrat, a Republican, a centrist and for dam sure not a Teabagger, I swing both ways....."that doesn't sound quite right," what I mean to say is "I see value in both party ideas and wish that the parties could come together more often.
Whether health care is in the constitution or not, "of course it's not" every man, women and child in the United States has a right to access health insurance, and that right need not financially break any of them. It is as basic a right as the right to bear arms, or Americans freedom of speech and right of assembly.
On the one hand we boost of being the greatest country on the face of the earth, the leader in a democratic system of government and a leading protector of human rights. Are military might is second to none and we spread foreign aid, monetarily, all over the world, are engaged in two wars in foreign countries, yet can't successfully medically care for the least of us, give me a break.
Obama care, the Presidents health plan, is going to cost us money, of that there is no doubt, only an idiot would argue that point, "guess we have some idiots in Washington." I'm not going to sit here and try and tell you that "I" have the answers, I don't. But I do have some observations that make sense, sense because they are correct observations.
Those that do not agree with my basic observations are, well.....completely over the edge and are either stupid, or ignorant to the facts. They are as follows:
A. Mandating that everybody have medical insurance is not unique, how many states have mandatory auto insurance, how many states have seat-belt laws and was there ever a mandatory military draft in the United States?
B. Free choice of insurance carrier, give me a break, what difference does it make who covers your medical health care, as long as it works.
C. Governmental takeover conjures up the European approach in which the government "owns" the hospitals and the doctors are public employees. However the law the Congress passed relies basically on the free market, it is true that government does regulate health insurers, but exactly which of my loyal readers feels that some sort of regulation isn't necessary, "see my aching back blog above."
D. Employers will continue to provide health insurance to the majority of Americans through private companies and that cost will continue to be built into the prices that they charge for their product.
E. More people will get health coverage, the law sets up exchanges were private companies will compete to provide insurance for those that do not have coverage.
F. Government will not seize control of hospitals, nationalize doctors and the law does not include the Public option.
G. The law gives tax credits to those people who have difficulty affording insurance, so that they can purchase insurance from competing insurance providers, relying on the free market.
Critics cite significant increases in government regulations which requires adults to have health insurance and as Sarah Palin talked about "death panels" America has been pushed to understand the ramifications of the Obama plan. There will be a tax increase connected with Obamacare, it's impossible not to have increased costs, so what, other costs will be eliminated.
Whatever program is finally put into use, it has to cover "all" Americans, to do anything else would be un-American.
NICKOLAUS HARD WORKING, YA RIGHT, (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
Kathy Nickolaus, the women at the center of the state Supreme Court election controversy and the focus of an ongoing state elections investigation and a recount that will ultimately cost the taxpayers of Wisconsin a million bucks has done by far the smartest move of her professional career, she has remained silent.
She has let some of her constituents do the talking and out of that talk has emerged a rather strange pattern of a women either unwilling or unable to take either help or constructive criticism. As one public official put it, "Nickolaus came from a staff position at the state Capitol, where partisan politics and loyalty to the party caucus fomented team welfare. In public office, constituents are the boss.
According to some onlookers, Nickolaus never got past having to answer to any authority other then herself. She put up walls to protect herself and then put up walls to protect those walls. Her "go it alone" isolation attitude is responsible for her current mess. With the rest of the state finished with their recount, tedious ballot recount is still underway at the Waukesha County government building.
In the high-income, Republican-dominated Waukesha county, where officials tout its financial and service superiority, Kathy Nicholaus' blunder with the election count has given the county a black eye under the glare of the national spotlight.
There have been other errors during Nickolaus' tenure as County clerk, although none as big as her April gaffe involving the state Supreme court race when her tabulation of ballots gave a Democrat, JoAnne Kloppenburg the win by 204 votes over incumbent, David Prosser. Although she discovered not counting more then 14,000 votes, she delayed for more then a day reporting the miss-count.
Other mistakes during her watch, 2005 Assembly seat race, someone in her office double-counted votes, also in 2005 in a special election for county executive, sample ballots she submitted to area newspapers as legal notices showed the ballot marked for one of the candidates.
In 2006 her office briefly showed the wrong candidate winning an assembly seat after one municipality reversed columns. In 2007 the unofficial outcome of a very close school board race reported by the county clerk was later reversed because a few deciding votes cast on a touch-screen machine weren't included in the initial total.
The Waukesha county clerk is not a trivial position, it pays $67,787 a year carries all the benefits and medical insurance associated with almost any administrative job. In addition the Nicholaus' own and operate a fishing and bait shop, and the county clerk fills in on Saturday nights as a bar tender near her home in Genesee.
I said it before and I'll say it again, "Kathy Nickolaus needs to go." She has a track record of miss-steps in other elections and the topper would seem to be the past April election miss-count, omission, mistake, bone headed practices , or whatever you might want to call it. I guess some state taxpayers would call it "unnecessary expense" by a clearly inept administrator. We here at Chronicle headquarters can only lament, "don't let your bait shop go and ask for more hours at your tavern job."
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