And If You Don’t Know, Now You Know

Here’s what the White House has to say about health reform. Here’s info targeted to med students and healthcare providers.

Also, for extra-credit reading, check this out.

What do you think about the public option and health care reform in general?

<<a note for visitors – when people visit my actual house, I usually ask them to take off their shoes. It’s a quirk I picked up in Japan; it helps me keep my floors cleaner longer and really, it’s just how I like things done in my personal space. I don’t mind if people don’t take off their shoes in their own house because that’s really their choice, but in my domain,  shoes are left at the door – that’s how things go. If you’ve happened upon this blog, which is kinda like my virtual house, thanks for stopping by! With that said, I’m going to ask that if you’d like to comment on this particular post, please limit your comments to the parameters set by the question I asked.  I’m not the government and I’ve expressed neither support for nor aversion to the bill in its current incarnation. I’m just presenting a piece of information that I found interesting (to further the マイホーム analogy, think of it as a coffee table piece) and posing some questions about it. If you think the public option is ridiculous crap and can back up that opinion with other pieces of information (links, articles, inside info, etc.), feel free to share it. I’d love to know more about both sides of the argument. But no random rants, please. If your comment suggests you just stumbled in to track dirt all over my floor and not actually have an informed conversation about the public option or healthcare reform, I’m not going to approve it. よろしく!>>

<<p.s. grammar is a plus – English teachers (even former ESL ones) always notice.>>

Vista, Dial-up and Other Frustrating Things

I don’t know how I tricked myself into thinking that 2 weeks was enough time to get everything together. I should have known that the universe would find a way to thwart my efforts to be productive.

My dad recently bought a new computer for the house. It’s a Dell Inspiron desktop running Vista. Vista is the Devil. The computer is not even a month old and Vista has been giving me trouble since I started using it. When I saw that Apple commercial spoofing Vista’s tendency to ask you to allow it to do every little thing, I thought it was an exaggeration. It is actually the truth. I kinda feel bad about trashing Vista like this but honestly, I’d rather run XP any day.

To make matters worse, Daddy’s still got us using dial-up to access the internet (he’s a no-frills kind of guy, one might say). Nothing is more agonizing and pitiful than having Gmail tell you that it can’t open your mailbox because your connection is too slow. “Would you like to open the HTML version instead?” it asked me. I suppose even Daddy realized how pathetic that was because he tasked me with researching broadband providers in our area and preparing data on which was the best, most affordable package. This is how things work at my house, folks.

The biggest hindrance to my efficiency in preparing has been the trials I’ve had to endure to complete my visa application. I’d liken it to the twelve labours but after today, I think Hercules got off easy. After procuring a Letter of Good Conduct from the Somerville Police Department (to prove that I’m not a crazy ex-con or something), I thought I’d be able to put the application in the mail on Monday but of course, things weren’t that simple. First of all, I wasn’t able to have the six required medical forms completed because I couldn’t schedule a doctor’s appointment while I was in Boston. When I tried to schedule one with my general practitioner in Queens, I learned that my doctor was no longer practicing (which explained my inability to reach anyone who actually worked in his office for over a week. The answering service finally took pity on me). I scrambled to make an appointment with a new doctor and was able to get one on Monday afternoon but when I went to the office to check in, I discovered that my health insurance provider was listing my coverage as inactive because they’d entered the wrong date of birth! At this point, I was desperate enough to pay out of pocket for the appointment ($165!!) but after an hour of calling the insurance company, their data center and the doctor, I was finally given the okay by the billing station and thus proceeded to wait an hour to meet my new doctor.

Dr. New was pretty nice, if a touch impersonal, but he perked up when I mentioned that I too was about to join the brotherhood of healthcare providers. I showed him my ream of medical forms and gave a sheepish smile, saying that I’d probably be able to avoid this sort of ridiculous paperwork in my future speciality (because babies don’t go to school). Dr. New assured me that it was no trouble at all to fill out the forms, but that I’d have to go to the lab for all the blood work and vaccinations. “Oh, okay,” I said. “Where’s the lab?”

“Right at the other side of the office. But they’re closed for the day.”

!!!!!!!