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ANDREW'S
RANTS ARCHIVE #7 THE ANDREW' RANTS ARCHIVE OF PAST COLUMNS ANDREW'S RANTS ARCHIVE #1 ANDREW'S RANTS ARCHIVE #2 ANDREW'S RANTS ARCHIVE #3 ANDREW'S RANTS ARCHIVE #4 ANDREW'S RANTS ARCHIVE #5 ANDREW'S RANTS ARCHIVE #6 ANDREW'S RANTS ARCHIVE #8 CURRENT ANDREW'S RANTS |
JANUARY
5th, 2009 |
THE
MEDICAL INDUSTRY SCAM Now as many of you know my very own mother is a doctor so this little rant is not some uninformed tirade about the medical industry by someone who is completely ignorant of how it works. I recently received a bill from an ophthalmologist for a procedure performed in his office. The bill was for $775.00 of which my insurance paid $281.10 and I paid my deductible of $70.27 the remaining balance of $423.63 was written off by the doctor’s office. Now here is the problem. I had a skin tag on my eyelid it was a small flap of skin about the size of a pencil lead and about 1/16 of an inch long about the size of a small wart. I would have removed it myself but I thought it might cause scar tissue and cause my eyelid to funk up so I went to a doctor. He came into the room I explained that I wanted it removed he took a pair of small scissors and clipped it off. Pressed a cotton swab to it and then used a little soldering iron to lightly touch it and cauterize the spot. Total time from when he walked into the room 6½ minutes. Yes, I timed it. Then I was back out the door and signing paperwork. If I had known that was all it was going to be I would have done it myself. No pain shot or bandages or fancy freezing solutions just snip dab and there you go. Their expense was the cotton swab and an autoclave round for the scissors. When I saw the bill I freaked out and called their billing department to argue the charges. They told me in no uncertain terms that this was a fair and usual charge. At nearly 100 dollars a minute I find this hard to believe. I was not able to get them to modify the bill and my insurance company upon hearing my story didn’t seem too concerned either. This unconcern and lack of business acumen is why my insurance premiums are so damn high. I personally would not go back to the Johnson City Eye Clinic ever again just because of their business practices. A redeeming quality of the entire thing was that the doctor was nice. Even though he practices there he has no control over the billing on every item that goes through the place. They were willing to bite the write off of $423.63 just to get what they did get. It just goes to show you that the bill was overly inflated with padded prices so they could sucker as much as they could from the insurance and the patient. Another incident happened at Sycamore Shoals Medical Center last New Year’s Eve. I woke up with a horrible pain in my mid section. I honestly thought I was dying it was so severe. Upon reaching the hospital, they drew blood and x- rayed me and came back with the conclusion that I was passing kidney stones. The whole ordeal was soon over and I hope I never have to go through it again. When I got my bill several weeks later I was concerned about the cost. I requested a detailed billing and when it arrived I received quite a shock. There were two pregnancy tests on the bill in addition to everything else. I called the billing office and was informed that this was standard procedure before an x- ray. Now, for a female, I can understand. You don’t want to zap a growing fetus in the womb without a really good reason. But as most of you are aware, I am a man, one hundred percent ugly, hairy, deep-voiced, mustached, and sometimes bearded man. Sure, I’m fat and got a big belly but I hope that most people can tell that I’m not a lady. The billing department would not budge and I refused to pay the portion of the bill equal to the two pregnancy tests. Weeks later I received a statement from my insurance where they had paid their part of the bill. I was outraged! I called and argued with them and was met with the most nonplussed, I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude that could ever be imagined. I went to the hospitals’ billing department in person and argued my case with the man- hating lesbian in charge and she refused to remove the two tests from my account. I offered to prove to her in a pique of rage that I was a man by showing her I had the right plumbing but she threatened to have me thrown out. I went to the hospital administrator’s office and spoke to a secretary there who assured me that my concerns would be passed on the administrator. That was 3 weeks ago and I have not heard a word but I have received a late notice from the billing department of the Sycamore Shoals Hospital threatening collections action if the bill is not paid in full. Monday, I am going to the Court House and filing a small claims case against them. I will ask that the bill be dismissed and depending on how hard it is for me to find a parking place at the Court House, I might ask for compensation for missed hours of work in trying to resolve this as well as compensation for damage to my credit history if they have reported it. If I get much grief, I might ask for about a bazillion dollars in mental anguish for causing me to doubt my gender and giving me an identity crisis! On the flip side, I have to look at it from the hospitals’ point of view. The hospitals are out to make a buck just like any other business but unlike other businesses they have to serve everyone regardless of their ability to pay for services rendered. In other words, if John Doe deadbeat goes to Wendy’s and wants a burger he doesn’t get one unless he can pay. This also goes the same at the local Ford dealership or any other business. But he can get a cold, go to the emergency room and they cannot legally turn him away. The result is he gets seen for ‘free’. Sure, they will bill him but he won’t pay and quite frankly there is nothing they can do about it. So their solution is to really stick it to the paying customers to make up the loss. As a result the insurance rates go up, up, up and the cost of medical care escalates beyond control. I don’t think government regulation is the answer though. Sure Canada is supposed to be a prime example of government-managed health care that’s why all the flop headed Canucks come here and pay cash to have their important time sensitive procedures done. They can’t wait 5 years on a list to have a gall bladder taken out or a heart transplant. No the government screws up any sort of business it touches. I don’t know what the answer is but from now on I will refuse to pay any bill that is to high or wrong and before anyone in my family has a non emergency procedure performed it will be agreed upon before what the price is after I have researched the cost and accounted for a reasonable profit margin. For example in Brookes (My Wife) last surgery on her ears where they restored her hearing they charged us 750 on the detailed billing for a disposable set of surgical gloves that the doctor wore during the operation. Using their own stock invoice number I matched it up to the same item in Baxter pharmaceuticals supply catalog from my moms office. A case of 100 of these gowns is 22.00 dollars. They are a plastic backed paper gown meant to be used once and then thrown away. Lets be generous and include another 20 dollars for shipping and ignore the fact that the hospital most likely gets a bulk price which is much less than what a small private practice like my mother has to pay for the same item. That places the cost of each gown at 2.38 if we add in an unreasonably high profit margin say 1000 percent it brings the cost of one gown to 23.80 which covers the cost of the entire order of gowns. How on earth then could they justify 750.00 for this item? I went through the itemized bill spending most of my Christmas vacation cross-referencing prices from various manufacturers. And came up with a revised bill that allowed for a 300 percent profit margin. Their original bill of 47,000 dollars for an afternoon outpatient surgery was adjusted by me down to 11,600 which I thought was still extravagant. I refused to submit the bill to my insurance because those idiots would pay the thing and then raise my rates. After 3 weeks of arguing in which I refused to budge a single cent they capitulated and agreed upon the new billing. Mind you this was not for the physicians bill it was for the hospital only. The physician charged 975.00 for the entire surgery which I found to be quite acceptable and paid without a complaint. I think the fact that I had their suppliers cost and was allowing for a 300% profit margin and it was still 80% less than what they were charging me made them feel like the thieves they were in trying to slide that bill across. What I wonder is how many people actually question these non summarized bills and just bite the bullet and pay what is asked? I mean who in their right mind pays 12 dollars for an aspirin. You wouldn’t go to the pharmacy and pay 1200 dollars for a 100-count bottle of aspirin why then should you let the hospital charge you that price. Remember my saying “YOU ARE THE CONSUMER NOT A VICTOM” Question the prices and practices of those bills and get them to agree upon before hand the price for certain procedures if possible. Do not give them your insurance info until after the price is settled upon. Otherwise they will just bill the living hell out of those fools and they will gladly pay it. You can show them you have proof of insurance but that you are not paying until some things are agreed upon first. I mean you don’t go grocery shopping and guess what the price of a can of beans is or go to buy a car and have to wait until after you drive off before you are hit with the bill. Demand satisfaction. If more people will fight back then perhaps the medical industry will do something to correct itself. |
JUNE
23rd, 2008 |
SKIPPING
ROCKS A week ago I took my kid Ethan to the shooting range for a few hours to knock over pop cans and practice gun safety. When we got home I realized he was sun burned. Now keep in mind we were there for perhaps two hours and were under the same conditions. Ethan has in years past tanned as brown as a nut while I being a red head will burn at the drop of a hat. I’m the proverbial Twinkie when it comes to sunlight. We hadn’t stayed out long enough to even get me slightly red while he looked like a cooked lobster. That’s when I realized he was spending way too much time behind that fool x-box playing Halo 3. I decided to start getting him outdoors more. We tried fishing and that was a bust. I’m the world’s worst fisherman and couldn’t teach anyone else how to fish to save my life. So we tried a nature walk at the local historic park complete with a recreation log fort and a winding trail along the riverbank. I noticed all the smooth stones on the bank and thought here is something we can do. I tried to show him how to skip rocks across the water. Making a competitive game of it would help him understand a small aspect of sportsmanship along with developing hand eye coordination. At the end of an grueling hour of not loosing my temper Ethan had mastered the art of flinging the rock directly at the water and exclaiming how this was gay and he wanted to go home and play on line with his little knotty brained friends. Once again perhaps I’m getting too old but when I was 18 I was outdoors with guns and riding around the county with my best friend George in his pickup or my nova, looking for excitement in a very dull town. Sure we played our share of video games I was a Galaga champ but we also went hiking in the woods, went cruising, blew things up, and lusted after girls among many other things our mothers would have rather we not done. All healthy activities for young boys who were bored. But no, not my kid and evidentially most of the other little numb skulls out there today. If it isn’t on the computer flat screen they are not interested. Today’s youth is so wound up in technology they are loosing contact with others of their own age. For instance text messaging, for gods sake just pick up the phone and talk to someone. I really don’t understand a form of communication that is slow and cumbersome and requires learning a whole new form of language that fails to impart emotion, and tonal inflections. They communicate by e-mail, online, in blogs, chartrooms and forums but they never meet one another. If it keeps up like this we might be looking at our last generation because the little turds will never actually meet in real life and I will never have any grandchildren. I finally gave up at the riverbank and called it quits. My plan to acclimate the child to the real world rather than the virtual world failed. I guess he will become a pail computer zombie with a large set of thumbs to work the x-box controls. By the way I got 21 skips, pretty darn good don’t you think? |
JULY
28th, 2008 |
MUSH
MOUTH REVISITED Following up on the popularity of the 'Mush Mouth' article I got to thinking about other things that people do with the English language that really irritates me. One of the big issues I have is the mispronunciation of common words. I’m not talking about some obscure ingredient in a food preservative like methylchloroisothiazolinone, but more commonly used words like 'Mexican' which is pronounced here as 'Messican'. Following is a list of these words that come readily to mind, perhaps you can think of a few more. Tater = Potato Hollar = Hollor Chimbley = Chimney Ideal = Idea Incidentally my favorite pet peeve is this one. As in "Hey, I have got a great ideal on how to get rich" It makes me want to slap someone silly Yallow = Hello TB or Telebision = TV or Television Mullion = Million Mater = Tomato Ears = Years Bassily = Basically Tor = Tire Etchtible Gordon = Vegetable Garden Bobby Q = Bar-B-Q Arr Codishnin = Air Conditioning Mode = Commode Electorial = Electoral Mote = Remote Squarsh = Squash Ketch = Catch Ressirant = Restaurant MMMBI = Bye, as in good bye on the phone they build up to it with a long MMMM Bout Dat = How about that MoooBe = Movie Dribe = Drive Oh, I could go on and on, but think about it. What are some of the phrases or words that irritate you the most? Log on here and Vent in the RRS Forum Thread [CLICK HERE] |
JUNE
9th, 2008 |
TODAY'S
MUSIC Every time I turn around my kid has his stupid I-Pod strapped to his fool head. I took a look at his music and listened to some of it. What was I listening to? Sure every generation has music that the previous generation hates. It’s a form of rebellion and I can understand and appreciate that. There was a time when listening Bo Diddley and Jerry lee Lewis was thought to send kids to hell. Heck if you go back far enough that crazy Mozart was the equivalent of Oozier in his day. But as I listened to my kid’s music I realize I couldn’t understand any of the words and the music was a disjointed sound like a train wreck. I skipped around to several different artist and songs and it was an airplane crash with mutilated geese or a concrete truck impacting an orphanage. At least our music and that of preceding generations had a tune you could follow and words you could understand unless you were listening to Bob Dylan who no one could understand no matter how hard they tried. I tried to be open minded and asked Ethan what are they saying in this song. He honestly couldn’t tell me. We had a long discussion on why he liked it and it turns out its because its what is out there on the air and its what all his friends listen to, it didn’t matter if he liked it or not. I had him listen to some ZZ Top from the Eliminator album and he informed me that this was old and sad music. I played several different things for him from Frank Sinatra to Buffett to Black Sabbath, and he sneered at all of it preferring to listen to the unintelligible linguistics of his own generation’s music. Perhaps I’m getting old but at least growing up our generation appeared to be open minded enough to listen to the music from other eras and evaluate it with an open mind. I remember the first time I heard Samuel Barbers Adagio for Strings in C minor and thought it was the saddest and one of the most beautiful pieces I had ever heard. How about Mel Torme singing Fly Me To The Moon, Jimmy Buffet with One Particular Harbor, or Led Zeppelin with the classic Stairway to Heaven. I could ramble on and on like this, but needless to say we never came to an accord. I guess good music is only to be found on the oldies channel on the radio dial. The other stuff just plain scares me. |
MAY
26th, 2008 |
MUSH
MOUTH I grew up in Hazard Kentucky as did most of you reading this rant and I have never had much trouble understanding the speech and various dialects of different regions in this country until I moved to upper east Tennessee. I have lived in Arkansas, Louisiana, Arizona, Kentucky, and briefly in California. But never have I had such a communication problem as I now have in Johnson City, TN. I am serious I have visited nearly every state in the union and have been to 11 different countries, I even lived in Indonesia for a while but the inability of the natives of this area to speak intelligibly is amazing. What I'm referring to is what I call the 'Mush Mouth'. And now my kid has it. Half the time I have no idea what the hell he is saying. For instance I will say Ethan are you hungry and the response is “ imdunnofo iwannambrgr “. What the hell does that mean? When I answer the phone at work I say “Thank you for calling the Sleepzone this is Thomas can I help you” Short to the point and it tells the caller where they have reached, who they are talking to and that I am there to assist them in clear concise English enunciated as best as that old bat Mrs. Bassie could train into me in the 7th and 8th grade. But if I call Lowes for instance I get some slack ass that is so tired of answering the phone for the millionth time that they just slur the words out in an unintelligible garble. “ thnkfrclnglwscnihlpu” What the crap is this, a disease of the brain, and mouth. Have they no gumption to care if they sound like a Neanderthal or not. I ride my kid about it constantly and won’t even respond to him unless I can understand him. My wife says that I need to relax and try to realize that people here are a little more lax in their diction. I think if they got anymore lax they would regress to a primordial state and use pseudo feet to ambulate rather than walk. Speak up America so I can understand you, don’t fall victim to the mush mouth. Remember people judge you on how you sound no matter if its fair or not. If you sound like a moron then they will treat you like a moron. |
MAY
5th, 2008 |
NATIONAL
FINANCES We got problems folks and everyone screams its George Bush's fault. Now lets get serious do you really believe that one man and his policies no matter how inept and misguided could be responsible for the situation we find ourselves in nationally? I mean really it’s a lot of peoples faults including ours. We all charge up credit cards, have our houses mortgaged and our cars are no sooner paid for than we go finance another. The oil companies are sticking it to the American public while saying they are not price gouging and yet this past year reported all time heights in their profit structures. It’s the old pirate philosophy of “Take what you can and give nothing back” Now we see that the federal government is giving huge banks and financial firms billions of dollars to stay solvent. Just giving it to them. If I screw up and don’t have enough money to pay my bills will the government or those same banks give me enough to cover my debts? I don’t think its that cold in Hell yet do you? I actually read in an article if all the money given to the financial sector in this past month alone was given to the public instead it would average out to about 30,000 per person. Now which do you think would stimulate the economy more. Giving the public that money which would be spent paying bills and stimulating growth or giving it to the failing banks to cover their bad lending choices. If I had 30K I could pay about half of what I owe on my house. That in turn would help those very same financial institutions. But this way we don’t get that money the bank does and we still owe them for the full mortgage. Its like they are getting paid twice. And all we get is a 600.00 per person check to sort of whet our appetite. Also the value of the dollar keeps falling and you know why? Its cause it now looks like monopoly money. I just saw the new 5-dollar bills in the Barney purple and florid colors. It used to be money was green on one side and black and white on the other. It had a dignity and looked refined with pictures of old dead white guys on the front. Now no one takes the stuff seriously cause it looks like it was printed at Parker Brothers or Hasbro. Bad financial choices as a nation and funny looking money that’s just plain to stupid looking to spend in any other country. We are headed towards a huge recession mark my words. Stock up on peanut butter and jam. |
FEBRUARY
18th, 2008 |
CURRENT
DATA COMPUTED Well it’s been a while since my last post and there is a reason why. I was challenged by a reader to objectively look at global warming and seriously study both sides of the argument. I started looking into it and the more I studied the more controversy there was. After nearly a year and a half I have accumulated nearly 300 gigabytes of data including reports for and against global warming. The myriad theories of every possible nature and from well respected scientist to idiot Hollywood actors and stupid politicians. Just because you play a doctor on TV doesn’t mean you are one. Anyway I was going to write a long dissertation on my findings but as I wrote it citing sources and studies it became bigger and bigger. As it passed 30 pages I realized this was going to be bigger than my dissertation in Graduate school and this forum was not the place for such a lengthy article. So I will condense my findings down to a single paragraph and anyone who wishes to discuss it with me in a rational manner may call and do so at length. I don’t want knee-jerk reactionary groundless arguments I want to hear some actual facts to support your point of view. OK so here it is. Yes the earth is warming. It is not caused by man. Its nature. The sun contributes more than anything else to this cause. Global warming and cooling cycles are normal. For example the three ice ages one of which we are still on the tail end of. Man does have an impact on the environment in a localized nature but not enough to affect a global scale. We just don’t make that big of a difference. So yes were warming, deal with it, there’s nothing we can do. If its any consolation in about 17,000 years it will all be under ice again and I am sure people at that time will guilt themselves into believing that their teleporters and Bertol Ray devices are causing the current changes. Just remember people that this fantastic planet we live on is not a static environment. It changes daily whether we are here are not. Its had massive temperature changes and as few as a single continent on more than one occasion in addition to ice ages and massive volcanic obliterations and total global eradications of all life on 3 documented occasions of which the dinosaurs were not one or even close. We even had polar shifts where the North Pole used to be at the equator on 2 separate instances. Provable by magnetic north in the rock strata. It’s the weather guys and there’s not a thing you can do about it. |
